The HiFi Thread

ndcent · May 13, 2009

Technics 1200's FTW!

ducatidoc · May 13, 2009

ndcent said:

Technics 1200's FTW!
Click to expand...

Looks like you're ready for some scratchin'

misery goat · May 13, 2009

kirkmoon said:

Do people actually sit down in a quiet room for the sole purpose of listening to music any more?

Quite a while back I got caught up in the spell of high end audio. Wanted to have the best system I could afford. Bought some B&W 501 Matrix speakers, a big fat Mark Levinson solid state amp, some high end sources, hose sized speaker cables...the works.

I have to say that even though I ended up spending a lot of money on some beautiful equipment that did, indeed, sound, nice, I came away from the experience with the impression that the high end audio industry was little more than a bunch of snake oil salesmen. So much bullshit it made my head hurt.

There is no doubt that spending money, up to a point, delivers clear and easily recognizable improvements in sound quality. But after hitting that point (and it doesn't take huge amounts of money or ultra high end components to get there) everything else gets lost in the netherworlds of subjective haziness.

A few things to consider:

1) The human being is a major component in the audio chain. Human hearing is more variable (from person to person and from moment to moment) than almost any other aspect of the audio chain. Sound inputs are subject to lots of filtering and processing by the various components of the human hearing apparatus and by the human brain. You can listen to the exact same sound in the exact same space at different times and have different listening experiences.

2) The listening space plays a huge role in the nature of the sound arriving at the ears. Most people don't want to devote a space exclusively for listening, so almost all listening spaces are compromised in some sense or other. Ambient sound is difficult to control. Room acoustics are almost always compromised in some way or another.

3) Source materials are almost always compromised in some way shape or form. You aren't getting raw data. It is always filtered by the sound engineers and the equipment that they use. They have different taste than you do. Their hearing isn't the same as yours. Much of the classic material was recorded so long ago that the quality of the recording is painful to listen to on a high resolution system.

4) As far as I am aware, virtually no one just sits down in a quiet room and listens to music as their primary activity any more. Most people use music as an accessory to other activities. In this context, great sound is pretty much irrelevant.

I gave up on high end stuff a long time ago. I appreciate a nice sounding system, but I wouldn't spend any money to build one. I'm glad some people get pleasure from watching their tubes glow in the dark or from the knowledge that their audio cables cost more than some people's cars. But not for me.

I've sunk as low as accepting mp3's for most of my listening needs. Pathetic as it may be, they do the trick 98% of the time.
Click to expand...

I agree with much of what you say and I participated in some of the madness over the years. Somewhere along the way it became an exercise of big box collecting. Then i discovered Naim Audio and i was able to focus on the music again. I go much longer periods of time now without messing with my system. Hell, i just bought an integrated amp for my main system, something i would've never consider 10 years ago. And this is the first component i've purchased in 3 or 4 years.

i dedicated our front room to our listening area. it has bay windows with a mountain view. one of my favorite things to do is pop a bottle of wine, chill with my wife, and listen to one of our fav recordings while getting some couch time.

Btw, Naim is scaring me with this.

HDX Hard Disk player

Naim Audio said:

The HDX reads audio data from CDs, stores it on a hard disk, catalogues the artist, album and track titles and, at the touch of a screen, replays it with utterly uncompromised sound quality. The HDX’s ease of use defines elegant simplicity and it even offers the option of operating as a high-end CD player by directly playing a disc loaded in its drawer.
Click to expand...

the word on the street is the sound quality is on par with a CDX which is a formidable reference cd player. having my 2k+ cds in an easily accessible format AND audiophile quality is a huge step. they've certainly piqued my interest.

yooperbikemike · May 13, 2009

Misery Goat said:

the word on the street is the sound quality is on par with a CDX which is a formidable reference cd player. having my 2k+ cds in an easily accessible format AND audiophile quality is a huge step. they've certainly piqued my interest.
Click to expand...

$9k and it only holds 600 CDs?

Gordy · May 13, 2009

kirkmoon said:

.....Ambient sound is difficult to control. Room acoustics are almost always compromised in some way or another....
Click to expand...

See barking dog thread.

dancy · May 13, 2009

Room acoustics my ass. Dr. Bose figured out how to fix that when the 901 series came out in the 60s

misery goat · May 13, 2009

yooperbikemike said:

$9k and it only holds 600 CDs?

Click to expand...

good catch, that's definitely a problem.

i don't usually get the mk1 anyway. still, this is their first stab at it and if you know anything about the company's history it's a major departure from their paradigm.

SourKraut · May 13, 2009

yooperbikemike said:

$9k and it only holds 600 CDs?

Click to expand...

When the price comes down and the memory increases they will sell. This product is exactly what I am waiting for.

yooperbikemike · May 13, 2009

I know that this is the Hi-$-Fi thread but can someone recommend a reasonably priced method of playing MP3 or similar audio files on a home audio system?

dancy · May 13, 2009

yooperbikemike said:

I know that this is the Hi-$-Fi thread but can someone recommend a reasonably priced method of playing MP3 or similar audio files on a home audio system?
Click to expand...

I use my mp3 player and one of these

About $10.00 at Radio Shack

misery goat · May 13, 2009

yooperbikemike said:

I know that this is the Hi-$-Fi thread but can someone recommend a reasonably priced method of playing MP3 or similar audio files on a home audio system?
Click to expand...

i have i-pod docs at all my stereos in the house. you want to avoid using the ear plug jack as the signal is substandard for line level play back.

using the mini plug on a doc gives you a decent source for line level. most amps/receivers have an axillary in line level input. it's pretty easy to do.

misery goat · May 13, 2009

SourKraut said:

When the price comes down and the memory increases they will sell. This product is exactly what I am waiting for.
Click to expand...

it think BobFV1 just purchased something similar that is priced more reasonable.

i won't consider forking out this kind of coin until they have at least 10-15K song capacity.

jazzmans · May 13, 2009

for less then 500$ you can make a music server of your own, install linux, and use any one of a million different media players. hell,, vlc even has a ipod app so you can use your iphone to controll it.
use Grip to rip your cd's (be sure to uncheck delete wav's after encoding) and you'l have perfect copies, and mp3's to put on your ipod.
I've got 26 thousand WAV songs on my media server.

jaz

BobFV1 · May 13, 2009

Misery Goat said:

it think BobFV1 just purchased something similar that is priced more reasonable.

i won't consider forking out this kind of coin until they have at least 10-15K song capacity.
Click to expand...

Yup - so far I am really enjoying my Olive Opus 4 - still early days but the sound quality with my Genelec TriPak is excellent, and I have room for about 3K FLAC-ripped CD's

http://www.olive.us/products/opus4_overview.html#

AzB · May 13, 2009

Here's my tube love. Built two of these for my Altec VOTT horns. The horns are so efficient with the active crossovers that they can play 107db @ 1w. Tubes and horns... yum.

The woofers are horn loaded and powered by a 600w per channel Altec amp.

The room is treated, and the remaining anomalies are handled with parametric EQ while the signal is still digital. Set up with a RTA and clibrated mic. The active crossovers have thier own D/A convertors, so the signal is all digital through the preamp, through the crossovers, and then the exact frequencies for each driver are sent out to the amp. The amp does not have to process anything but what the particular driver needs to play. Makes for a very efficient and clear sounding setup.

There's no black magic, no fuzzy science. I don't have magic stones, stupidly expensive cables, or little blocks to lift my cables up off the floor. Just clear, measurable, scientific, fact. Tweaked a little for personal taste, of course.

Az

Anorak · May 13, 2009

I'm looking at this matched with a set of speakers I found in a 1978 Ford Fairmont at the junkyard.

SourKraut · May 14, 2009

BobFV1 said:

Yup - so far I am really enjoying my Olive Opus 4 - still early days but the sound quality with my Genelec TriPak is excellent, and I have room for about 3K FLAC-ripped CD's

http://www.olive.us/products/opus4_overview.html#
Click to expand...

Wow.

Now we're getting somewhere and the price is attainable.....

I really don't want to deal with another computer and they'll load your CDs for pretty reasonable $$. Very interesting.

fritzcoinc · May 14, 2009

Speaking of tubes. This is a modified Fisher 400 playing to a set of Altec Santanas. Table is a Denon with B&O 20CL cart. Not loud but incredably clear at low vol.:

misery goat · May 14, 2009

there's a lot of good retro solid state stuff out there that can be had cheap.

i picked a NAD 3020 up on ebay a while back for $100.

i'm using it in the garage with an ipod through aux and some old polk speakers from college. it sounds better than anything you'll get at BB imo.

fritzcoinc · May 14, 2009

I'll second that.
I got this B&O 9000 with the Penta II speakers for $700. The amp. is in each the speakers at 150W. Sound is great and clear at " really loud". Thats the receiver on the bottom shelf. Its so thin its almost invisable. Has remote. Second shelf holds a B&O 3404 turn table. Again the looks of this B&O stuff is way cool. I get a lot of my stuff from this guy http://www.soundsgoodtomehouston.com/refoam.htm check it out.

Log in or Join

The HiFi Thread

ndcent Banned

ducatidoc Destiny's Other Child

misery goat Positating the negative Super Moderator

yooperbikemike high, wide and handsome

Gordy SUPPORTER

dancy Undescended Testicle

misery goat Positating the negative Super Moderator

SourKraut Long timer Supporter

yooperbikemike high, wide and handsome

dancy Undescended Testicle

misery goat Positating the negative Super Moderator

misery goat Positating the negative Super Moderator

jazzmans this ams dildos

BobFV1 Long timer

AzB Fattest thin man

Anorak Woolf Barnato Supporter

SourKraut Long timer Supporter

fritzcoinc Enjoying my last V8 Supporter

misery goat Positating the negative Super Moderator

fritzcoinc Enjoying my last V8 Supporter

Log in or Join

Useful Searches

The HiFi Thread

ndcent Banned

ducatidoc Destiny's Other Child

misery goat Positating the negative Super Moderator

yooperbikemike high, wide and handsome

Gordy SUPPORTER

dancy Undescended Testicle

misery goat Positating the negative Super Moderator

SourKraut Long timer Supporter

yooperbikemike high, wide and handsome

dancy Undescended Testicle

misery goat Positating the negative Super Moderator

misery goat Positating the negative Super Moderator

jazzmans this ams dildos

BobFV1 Long timer

AzB Fattest thin man

Anorak Woolf Barnato Supporter

SourKraut Long timer Supporter

fritzcoinc Enjoying my last V8 Supporter

misery goat Positating the negative Super Moderator

fritzcoinc Enjoying my last V8 Supporter