All-in-One units for retiring audiophile & music lovers in 2025, say what?
A good audio buddy friend closing in on his later parts of the golden years contacted me over the holidays. He started talking rather excitedly about these new all-in-one units. [Please disregard if this is nothing new for you and/or not of any real interest]. This story and ask below might not resonate with some. Hopefully others who can relate might reply, understanding a lot of what this is really about. A winding down audiophile friend, looking for simplicity of listening to music is what I can share up front.
I found my audiophile friend's [all of the sudden] inquiry interesting, me asking what he's looking at buying - say what?, and starting to ask him "does it sound good, look good, is it light weight or heavy, could you see it replacing everything as your new center piece in your big room, and all the other stuff gone - really?", "Say more". He started to share more. Please read on if any of this is resonating, Thanks.
We start talking and reminiscing about our early Go-To receivers from the mid 1970s. The big all-in-one boxes. Wider cases, big transformers, powerful, weighty, great FM tuners, tone controls, Big Stereo Sound. How it was back then - simple to listen to FM, big roller dial, plug in your turntable, tape decks, and enjoy the music for days. No other worries, let it play. Remember doing that? I bet many members here on Audiogon lived all of that too, and none of us will ever forget it. I won't.
I also bring this up because It dawned on me, I started asking myself wow - is this really occurring all over again in some new and exciting way. Like a giddy kid I start researching with him seeing more - woah, what? I did realize some of this [sort of an era renewal] was already occurring past few years, still not quite aware myself of what's out there, or coming back, maybe puzzled a bit and curious.
Seeing more videos, familiar reviewers, all touching on this topic past 1-2 yrs. Then you see some of the same new units popping up with all of the reviewers, hmmm.
So my fairly extreme multi [tube/amp/component] audio buddy [past 60 years] starts showing me these new generation [mostly] solid state units he's been looking at, seemingly ready to hang up ALL of the separate components. Says he simply wants "one box" now to "do it all", "getting rid of all this other stuff", to just "play music" and "be done". These were his exact words recently. Some may relate here. It kinda hit me. Something to be said for simplicity and just listening to music. Yes.
Next Generation -
Looking closely at these new units with my friend - seeing somewhat old-familiar design approaches, renewed, by real engineers. Ahhh, hey, there we see big transformers, a stout amplifier section, nice capacitors, thick copper wiring, big screws on power caps, robust binding posts, nice built in DAC, built-in streamer with tons of access, yep - tone controls, loudness control, low noise, meters, lighting - hmmm what's going on here. I soon realized I too need to pay attention and look around more closely - to see what he's really looking at and why. It starts to make a lot of sense, it's coming into a focus, just like the '70s era receivers were.
Fast forward a few weeks - Buddy just ordered his new all-in-one unit, maybe downsizing speakers. He's dropping back down to a new/familiar 70s style midsize speaker as well. He was initially anxious, a little nervous maybe, wondering - and decided to just go forward and "not look back" he says. Some of you may already be well down this path, or even doing this in 2nd, 3rd systems now. The whole thing is sort of a throwback [in some ways] to me, sort of what it use to be like 50yrs ago. Or feels that way to me. They say great ideas recycle back to themselves. Maybe so. Observing closer now.
Wow, wouldn't it be really cool if it could be all done really well, in one-box, once again? No more separates component listening - just hit the power button one time, turn up the volume, and let it play in the big room, listen, walk around, no worries - just let it play for days on end. I bet many here totally get why I posted this. It's for an audio friend.
ASK:
Please share your story. It would be so cool for him to read any of your stories. I know he would be interested and appreciate your wind-back consolidation journey too - if you have one like his to share in some way. Particularly those who've made great strides towards major consolidation and still enjoying the music. Dear buddy is starting the journey now to separate himself from his vast array of separates, lots of stuff, selling everything else soon, and going back to "one box" for simple music in the big room. I'm supporting him along the way on this particularly journey.
Thanks a million in advance for your replies - care to share your familiar story at all?
Deserves pics for all to see. Kinda like having a vintage JBL Paragon cut in half on either side of you. Speaker-Headphones sort of. Another neat idea, that’s pretty cool. Love seeing new-old-renewed type of designs people thinking inside and outside of the standard box form factor
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Hey decooney...this is a story around the topic. I submitted it as a topic which was seemingly rejected...oh well, here goes:
Raising consciousness around modern DIGITAL PLAYBACK
As a passionate audio geezer with a limited budget, my SOTA Sapphire, Fidelity Research FR64 arm and Grado was my "end of the line" for analog back in the 1990's. I could not pursue both sources at the higher end, financially. I sold the vinyl stuff and never looked back. An Arcam Alpha 9 CD player with dCS ring dac technology fell in my lap, a Z-Man tube buffer, and on I went.
Later came a used NAD M2, full retail $6K...a cutting edge integrated, which included a DAC, somewhat refined Class D plus the ability to select ohm output levels to a lovely pair of Salk monitors. (Enjoy your retirement, Jim...and thanks) THEN, a friend sent me a Music Reference RM-10 MKII EL84 based tube amp followed by a pair of Revolution BE loudspeakers (beryllium tweeters) for my small, dedicated studio. This partnership turned out to be the room / loudspeaker matching at its finest!
With wise counsel from my San Jose Tech, Mike, I selected an outboard pro dac, the Focusrite Clarrett and began streaming lossless files. This served well for several years. During this time, I established a close friendship with a nearby friend who was extremely active in audio, maintaining three systems. The experience was like living near a start-up brick & mortar hi-fi store in the 1980's. He rotated really cool stuff the likes of Von Schweikert, VPI, Tannoy, Pass, McIntosh, Devialet, Audio Matiere (Equilibre & Paraphrase,) King stats, legendary AR9s, Dynaudio Heritage, Music Reference RM200, KEFs and many, many more.
Excuse the rather long backstory as I found it necessary to establish a little cred. The topic, of course, is digital to analog conversion. Before my Focusrite Pro dac, I had an AURALiC dac player on loan. The experience helped convince me NOT to devote a lot of my audio budget towards digital to audio conversion. The upgrade path was costly and the returns seemed relatively minor, compared to analog.
My friend landed upon a Lampizator DAC and he fell in love with its flavor. Twice my friend upgraded the Lampi to one approaching $18K. Is it good? You BET! Was I ever sad to come home to my humble dac? Not once. Okay, so, Mike in San Jose does deep dives on cutting edge digital progression. I asked him, if ever something came up at a reasonable cost that was substantially better than my dac, to let me know.
A couple of months ago I came across this YouTube link:
The Best Tweak EVER In The Whole Audio Industry
...having followed Danny of GR-Research for some time, I'd developed some trust in his listening skills. I began to research chip dacs and op amps, then discussed the possibility of making a move with Mike, my digital mentor. I further learned, from another long time Tech friend, that these chip dacs have equaled and sometimes bettered some of the high priced stuff. -- that the dac chip themselves, their noise levels and specifications now make the differences moot, -- THEN one can select op amps for personal flavorings.
For decades now, high end audio has been described as "a reach for that last bit of performance," the last (costly) 10 or 5 percent. Well, both of my Tech friends presently agree that the latest differences in dacs might be reduced to a percentage within ONE percent! Give that thought a moment to digest. With all the modern attention given to large power supplies, inner and outer isolation, "bling" or those costly streaming boxes (now done silently and inexpensively from a computer) at such costly prices? Could such levels of performance indeed be possible at amazingly low cost?
Here is an excerpt from a recent AudiogoN discussion "fast dac topic" response: "@audiocanada What DAC do you have now? I predict I'll get flamed for this answer, but perhaps consider one of the Topping D90 Variants for $799." Why worry about being "flamed?" Might it be the concept that something SO far down the food chain can actually compete, so often dismissed in our hobby? BTW, I fully support anyone with the means to buy upwards, as exotic as they like. I've benefited from trickle down technology for decades! However, our beloved hobby does suffer from the concept that fantastic sound is unattainable within a small budget. This is quite simply...no longer true for those without DIY skills.
My choice was in buying a Geshelli Labs JN2 socketed DAC outfitted with the AK4499 dac chip and Sparkos 2590 rca op amps, yes, the ones that Danny of GR gushed over. Delivered, the cost came to $556. So, how does it sound? Once again, pull up Danny's review. I'm not copping out, he describes the sound better than I can. My Pro Focusrite DAC still comes into play, splitting and sending the deep bass off to my terrific RythmiK L12 Servo Subwoofer from 80Hz down. This allows the full 35W per channel from the tube amp to drive from 80Hz upwards to the Revolution Be monitors, greatly increasing the dynamics overall.
Entry level audio has become exciting. My 16 months with the BACCH Labs Plug-In crosstalk cancellation has been a joy. Two months into the new chip dac approaches the best sound experienced at my friends house, bettering it in some ways. Our access to music is the most exciting time in history for us music lovers. All at reasonable costs.
Happy Holidays All! More Peace Pinthrift (bold print for old eyes)
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All in one units? I guess it’d be really challenging to learn about all these magical boxes can do. I remember buying a Nice sounding receiver from marantz and I found the thing incredibly complicated and challenging to deal with with respect all the settings. Connectivity issues with the HDMI cords abounded. The manual was extremely long and the interfaces were challenging because everything has to be connected to Wi-Fi and the web and accessible via an app. So while this magical box may end up doing just about everything under the sun it’s worth exploring the interface and the convenience of using it before you get excited about purchasing it. I don’t understand why this effort simplifies the situation. Isn’t there a chance you could have things going wrong with the device and then part of it works some part of it doesn’t and then it becomes very annoying and you basically wanna jump out the window but because you live in a ranch with no second story you’re confined to a one floor House so jumping out the window doesn’t really accomplish anything. All this because you want to get an all in one solution |
