Audio Lessons Learned - post your best advice for the newer members!
A few contentious opinions 1. Short cables are better than long cables 2. Solid core OHNO is better than litz 3. First clean up the power 4.Make sure everything has good grounding 5. Then fight RFI/EMI wherever possible 6. Put speakers on springs 7.use good footers/ support on all components 8.fine tune speaker and seat positioning 9. proper room damping on standing waves makes a big difference 10, listen listen listen |
good thread to revive, for the benefit of newcomers here i would add my 2 cents for using a-gon for advice or recommendations, especially ones relating to buying new things, spending $$$ never accept any single post (or posts on a given subject) by any member/username here as correct or as ’gospel’... always research the username to a good degree (click it, see the details, see the system posted, see the buy/sell record and feedback, and very importantly, read many of the other posts written by that person over time) we are anonymous here, so one needs to get a sense of who the person giving advice is... before accepting it on face value - folks here can and do have many hidden (and not so hidden) biases, or worse yet, may have commercial motives -- so by ’helping you’ they are actually helping themselves more... |
I’d like to think that he did consider the subject of rooms and placement in detail. He just didn’t like what cabinets tend to do to the sound of the drivers.First i greatly appreciate your toughtful post.... My point is in spite of their limitations what Aczel forgot, is the room precise tuning by controls, with many acoustic devices,( my grid of 18 Helmholtz pipes and tubes among others) not only passive material treatment... The sound we listen to dont necessarily come ONLY from boucing on passive walls, the room could be activated and help greatly by improving the box speakers... In fact my box speakers in MY room sound better than magnepan in a bad room.... This is my point by experience.... Then calling all boxes monkey coffins is only revealing a lack of understanding about acoustic controls and where the sound come from.... In a simplistic conception of acoustic the sound come from reflection, absorbtion, or from diffusive surface from the walls, ceilings etc... This is ONLY half of the story.... A room is a pressurized potential engine that can be activated by many pressuring engine devices like Helmholtz botlles, tubes and pipes... Then what we listen to is no more ONLY the results of waves boucing back from the walls but also a results of this different adjusted pressure devices created by Helmholtz for particular speakers needs and for the particular ears of the listener ... Then the alleged " monkey boxes" dont lost their limitation, but dont sound either boomy or lacking trans parency... For sure they are mot magnepan but they can beat it in some acoustically prepared room designed for them, when the magnepan are in a bad room... My point is Aczel go too swiftly to a condemnation of box speakers... ALL speakers ask for a particular acoustical settings and have all their limitations.... Box speakers are very useful in a small room when we ask also for some level of bass.... I don’t think it’s fair to suggest that loudspeaker cabinets do not present certain sonic issues.I NEVER said that box speakers dont have limitations of their own, i only said that calling them monkeys boxes coffin is saying too much negative... For example the rectangular boxes had an internal resonance problem, and it is possible using dyssimetric compressive force and a load with 2 sets of springs under the speakers, and one set under the load on top of the speaker to control the destructive power of the resonance .... It is a result of my listening experiments...And some transparency come to the ears only from that.... add to it a better controlled noise floor of the electrical grid and more transparency comes... At the end add an helmholtz tubes and pipes grid adjusted for these particular speakers in this specific room, another level of transparency comes with it.... Calling them "monkey coffin" is not a solution, nor dreaming also about a totally other kind of perfectly controlled and powered speakers with filters etc....Horns or magnepans are better without being perfect, but a good controls on their working mechanical, electrical and acoustical dimensions we could make them acceptable .... No more monkey coffin.... Acoustic controls of the room is more powerful anyway than the design of any specific speakers...This is my experience.... My deepest regards.... |
@mahgister, I think Peter Aczel’s point was that all box speakers always have some tendency to sound like boxes. Here is his full quote: "Loudspeakers are a different story. No two of them sound exactly alike, nor will they ever. All, or at least nearly all, of the conflicting claims have some validity. The trouble is that most designers have an obsessive agenda about one particular design requirement, which they then inflate above all others, marginalizing the latter. Very few designers focus on the forest rather than the trees. The best designer is inevitably the one who has no agenda, meaning that he does not care which engineering approach works best as long as it really does. And the design process does not stop with the anechoic optimization of the speaker. Imagine a theoretically perfect loudspeaker that has an anechoic response like a point source, producing exactly the same spherical wave front at equal levels at all frequencies. If a pair of such speakers were brought into a normally reverberant room with four walls, a floor, and a ceiling, they wouldn’t sound good! They would only be a good start, requiring further engineering. It’s complicated. Loudspeakers are the only sector of audio where significant improvements are still possible and can be expected. I suspect that (1) further refinements of radiation pattern will result in the largest sonic benefits and (2) powered loudspeakers with electronic crossovers will end up being preferred to passive-crossover designs. In any case, one thing I am fairly sure of: No breakthrough in sound quality will be heard from “monkey coffins” (1970s trade lingo), i.e. rectangular boxes with forward-firing drivers. I’ll go even further: Even if the box is not rectangular but some incredibly fancy shape, even if it’s huge, even if it costs more than a luxury car, if it’s sealed or vented and the drivers are all in front, it’s a monkey coffin and will sound like a monkey coffin—boxy and, to varying degrees, not quite open and transparent." ---- I’d like to think that he did consider the subject of rooms and placement in detail. He just didn’t like what cabinets tend to do to the sound of the drivers. To my ears ported speakers sound easier on the ear than sealed box ones do. On the other hand many dislike the effect that the port (hole in the cabinet) usually does to the bass timing. As ever with loudspeakers you have to chose the compromises that you are most able to accept. Peter Aczel with a lifetime of experience behind him finally settled on boxless designs like the Linkwitz Orion and the LX521 both which placed the midrange driver on a backless panel, much like what Stewart Tyler had also done with one of his ProAc designs. Aczel also liked omnidirectional designs like the Bang & Olufsen BeoLab 5. Here’s his preface to a 2005 review: "I have a dream. I dream of the Ultimate Loudspeaker. It can only exist in my dream because in the real world no manufacturer would have the overarching vision and multifaceted expertise to incorporate each and every one of its ideal features in a single design. No way; it could never happen. It would of course have to be a powered loudspeaker because perfect matching of the amplifier channels to the drivers is possible that way and because separate, free-standing power amplifiers are hopelessly twentieth-century. It would have to be a 4-way loudspeaker because 3-way design always stretches the capabilities of the drivers to the limit. It would have high-order digital filters in the electronic crossover because they are linear-phase and just plain superior. The four power amplifiers would be extremely powerful yet small enough to be tucked unobtrusively inside the speaker enclosure, thanks to the most sophisticated switch-mode design. The various functions and protection modes of the speaker would be controlled by a powerful internal computer and DSP processor, which would also permit a single digital S/PDIF connection from a stereo signal source to produce music from the all-in-one amplifier/speaker system. One of the capabilities of the DSP would be to tune the bass response of the speaker to its specific location in the listening room. (I can dream, can’t I?) Also, the midrange and treble response of the speaker would be much wider in dispersion than the usual 60° or 90°, extending essentially to 180°, so that the location of the listener would become totally unimportant. (Asking for the moon? What are dreams for?) Am I still dreaming? What are those two strange-looking monoliths in my listening room? Could they be loudspeakers? Introducing the Bang & Olufsen BeoLab 5, the speaker that makes my dream come true in every detail, bar none. I can hardly believe it. Amazing. Speakers will never be the same again." ----- If you have been able to overcome the long recognised limitations of cabinet loudspeakers then good for you. Perhaps you can help the rest of us attain some of your success via embedding, but I don’t think it’s fair to suggest that loudspeaker cabinets do not present certain sonic issues. https://www.biline.ca/audio_critic/audio_critic_web3.htm |
Many amps have a HUM issue when "ungrounded" source components, i.e. those with a two pin plug or Wal-Wart power supply, are connected - my Bryston has this issue, my NAIM had it too My Bluesound Node 2i, which has a 2 pin plug causes hum if it is the only component connected - However, my Simmaudio Moon phono stage IS properly grounded - So when the phono stage is connected in the system - the hum goes away So WHY does connecting the phono stage eliminate hum? - because the Node 2i is now being grounded via the neutral side of the system at the amp by the phono stage So try this ... - using a piece of wire - touch one end to the neutral collar of any open RCA socket on a pre-amp or integrated amp - touch the other end to a mains ground point The hum should STOP - if it stops - build a grounding lead by attaching one end to the neutral side of an RCA (or XLR) plug - attach the other end of the wire to the ground pin ONLY on a mains plug - plug it into any mains outlet - plug the RCA into any available RCA socket on the pre-amp or integrated amp Unfortunately some components that have a two pin plug, sometimes referred to as "fully isolated" can develop a tiny voltage on the neutral side of the circuit, which is often a 50/60 Hz hum. - Grounding the neutral side ONLY of the entire system will remedy this issue - If this DOES NOT stop the hum - you have a more serious issue Regards - Steve |
| Post removed |
I’ll go even further: Even if the box is not rectangular but some incredibly fancy shape, even if it’s huge, even if it costs more than a luxury car, if it’s sealed or vented and the drivers are all in front, it’s a monkey coffin and will sound like a monkey coffin—boxy and, to varying degrees, not quite open and transparent.I dont want to offend but Aczel never lived in a good acoustical treated and mainly controlled SMALL room ... My box coffin did not sound like in his description... 2 years ago, yes they sounded like box speakers compared to magnepan.... They sound today more like magnepan than "monkey box".... Get me right they are NOT magnepan by any means, but i will never describe the sound closed and lacking transparency... These words confirm my suspicion that almost no one in these audio forums had ever experienced the complete transformation of the same system from a small bad room to a small good one....If you are not coming by yourself from a bad one to a good one, how do you know? Box speakers are KING only in a SMALL acoustically controlled room...Read that slowly.... Box speakers are not what he think they are, "monkey coffins".... Why? I dont understand for sure the reason why this "specialist" never experienced a good small room with box speakers ? His prejudice come from here.... I prefer the sound of my box speakers in my actual small room now to the sound of one of my magnepan’s friends in his bad room....There is a difference: his speakers are more open yet than mine, they had more transparency yes, but my sound is not closed and dont lacked transparency and is more natural and musical.... In my room they are more musical because they are rightfully embedded...In my 2 positions of listening nearfield and more regular position.... Then Aczel is right in principle, magnepan are more open and transparent in a BIG room in particular, but he is wrong when is disqualify box speakers by his misunderstanding of SMALL room acoustic... He is not the only one, these confusions are the rule throuh most audio forums.... Box speakers are KING only in a SMALL acoustically controlled room... There they may shine.... the confusion of Aczel comes from his lack in distinguishing approprietely the deep differences, huge one, between controlled and treated room and the room which are not, and especially the great difference between SMALL room and BIG one, uncontrolled or not.... I never trust audio reviewers anymore this is the reason why.... Distinctions like objectivist/subjectivist, scientist/audiophiles, analog/digital, box speakers/ magnepan or any other type, and many more other distinctions, when pushed to their opposite limits in a competition are childish and gross and created misplaced prejudices.... Audio for me is the business of learning how to trust my own ears in listening experiments experience... Nothing else for me...It is not science but more an art.... Listening music must be learned, listening to sounds must be learned also.... The "bat" ears metaphor reflect stupidity more than anything else....My ears are normal old one, but very educated....Not in a "bat" sense, in a personal history that is reflected in my audio system and room and music choices.... |
1) If you don’t already own or have access to at LEAST 500 LPs, put off going down the turntable path and invest in your digital side. You will likely get to where you want to be sooner and less expensively. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had records and turntables all my life and I love playing records and I have a pretty good vinyl set up, but that’s the point, I’ve had records and turntables all my life and I’ve got 1500 LPs in the other room and I don’t consider that a lot. At this point, digital playback is pretty darn good and getting better and vinyl payback is a fiddly time consuming beast. (A fiddly and time consuming beast that can be a heck of a lot of fun and very rewarding. But, you really have to have the appetite for it.) 2) If you live in Southern California make a point to hear some music at Disney Hall, (God willing we will be back in there before the end of the year), and pay attention to what it sounds like because that is what you want your stereo to sound like. Thanks everyone for chiming in. It’s fun to see all of this information in one place. John |
There is some spectacular advice here! I'll add my bit, just an expansion of other's sage advice. COMMIT to tweaking your speaker position! DON'T let other things get in the way. If your couch placement is more important than great sound, STOP! Don't waste the $ on better gear if you won't commit. Buy bitcoin instead. COMMIT, or quit. You will be much happier and wealthier! A $1k system will blow away a $100k system poorly set up. Now, if you will commit, the sky's the limit! Magic can happen in your home. Really. |
After 3-4 years in this hobby, the #1 thing I learned: -If you don't get the speaker placement right, you won't hear the differences in any upgrades. And one more thing: replacing the speaker posts from the original Klipsch Cornwalls made more difference than any other change/upgrade to my systems (except for speaker placement). Who would have thought $2 speaker posts? Not me! |
thank you for the overwhelming number of positive and thoughtful comments on this thread . A refreshing day to catch up on this weeks rants and raves . a few good laughs as well. @audio2design : Ignore the advice of audiophiles who took almost 50 years to make the right decisions. Really? and a Big Thanks to @wspohn #5 5 - don't be in a rush - this usually takes decades, not days. > as I am maybe a few months short in chasing the 50 year mark. Still hanging on to a couple of my first albums - Who's Next and Sticky Fingers. I also just bought the book by Robert Harley just now . Never too late to learn more and also to be reminded what I did learn. |
Thanks, Joe55ag for the thread, Cannot recommend this more highly for a newbie or anyone wanting to learn more about initiating a good sounding system, with a focus on vinyl: https://www.amazon.com/Good-Sound-Uncomplicated-Choosing-Equipment/dp/0688064248 Don't worry about it being dated as physics don't change. Missing are a focus on speaker/room relationships and the importance of room tuning (if possible.) Digital audio and vast music access can be had very reasonably today. Budget NCore Class D amplification, a carefully chosen under $1k DAC in tandem with streaming high resolution music (given rudimentary computer skills) to say a Magnepan LRS loudspeaker and good budget cables, is a full glimpse into the high end world for well under $2,500, US. In time, adding a fast subwoofer or two, and you have a high fidelity system that can challenge expensive systems. Stadium rock preferences would require a few different choices in loudspeakers, but are possible on a similar budget. At these entry prices, you don't have to worry about major mistakes or discovering over time you have changing preferences. I view our beloved hobby as a process...preferring to upgrade a bit at a time, refreshing my entire music catalog each time out. Yes, we oldsters may have made mistakes without the benefit of the web, but corrections in navigation ALWAYS remain exciting even for grizzled music lovers. More Peace ..and, as my buddy says, "..think positive, test negative." Pinthrift |
McIntosh is truly great, for many people. You can save a fortune on speakers, because accuracy is not the object. I like accuracy, but still admit the greatest sound system ever built was powered by McIntosh. The Grateful Dead's Wall of Sound greatly minimized intermodulation distortion by using separate channels for everything, including each string of Phil Lesh's five string bass: Separate amps and speakers. just think about a poor woofer that is workng it's butt off to reproduce solid and accurate bass notes, but is being throttled back, not only by other bass notes' trying to move the speaker in different frequencies and volumes, but especially by the intermittent 60 cycle thump of a bass drum. Still, when it came time to put my system together, McIntosh was never a consdereration, nor was the beautifully sounding, totally lush Sequerra tuner. Not all of us like a=total accuracy. I do, but I do cheat by using separate amps and preamps for my subs and mains, with a double pole double throw crossover cutout switch to add harmonics when I want lush, and especially when I want a bland, especially bassless, and otherwise bland or outright bad recordings to sound good enough to bring back memories of my misspent youth. BTW, I really do not like the Dead's music, but that system was phenomenal, and it was designed by the not yet known to be truly great John Curl.. |
My humble advice would be to find gear that pleases you musically, emotionally, and financially and then stay with these manufacturers throughout your audiophile career, if possible. Upgrade to later iterations only after a convincing audition. With this in mind, you can now read audio magazines for pleasure, not critically chasing different brands.....which often confuses and makes listening to your system less involving. The last 15 years I’ve been with VAC, KEF, and EMM Labs, and much more satisfied than the prior 20 years of endless searching and the buy/sell merry-go-round. All the best! |
Never buy speakers that sound bright in your room. It’s much easier to brighten a dull top end than tame a bright one. Also remember most audiophile forums are full of Americans with big houses, dedicated listening rooms and a very nice budget. Those of us who listen in a small living room seem to be a minority. |
This forum has generated so much advice, I thought I'd try to get back to basics and how to get started. 1. Before considering buying anything, get familiar with the sound of live music and the instruments that create it. If your goal is to recreate these experiences in your home, this knowledge is paramount.2. Select some recordings with passages that exemplify the sound that thrills you. These will be your absolutes when going to sample equipment. You want gear that gets these passages right. 3. I suggest selecting speakers first. Read, read, read, read. You will learn which reviewers are adept at describing the attributes accurately. The reviewer's longevity is a good sign. Learn the lingo - transparency, coherence, imaging, soundstage width and depth, bass roll-off, frequency balance, etc, etc. It took me TWO YEARS of reading and going to shops and listening to MY recordings to select my first speakers - the Dahlquist DQ-10a's. They brought me so much pleasure over the years. 4. Once you get that far, you'll have learned how to learn, and choosing the rest of your gear will be easier. If you need more advice after that, check in with us again. |
Buy good gear first... It is simple to do with some studying and even without listening possibilities... After that Dont upgrade ANYTHING, but try to embed it mechanically, electrically and acoustically... My system cost peanuts and sound better than very, very, costly one... Dont trust reviewers, not because they are dishonest but because they must sells... Dont trust engineer save for specific problem to solve... They will be very helpful for a specific problem...not for teaching you how to trust your ears... Trust you EARS....And create a set of listening experiments with specific tasks concerning each of the 3 embeddings... I succeed with that completely in 2 years and no expanse of money.... Except peanuts... Have fun.... Audio is not about gear or consumerism, it is about how to learn to listen music and sound.... Remember that nevermind the sources, or the amplifiers, speakers/room/ears are ONLY ONE, they create ONE phenomenon, not three.... Is it not simple? Acoustic is the main dimensions or working embeddings of ANY system.... |
Work within your budget. Choose a speaker to suit the room , then an amp to suit the speaker. Don’t spend too little on the source unit. Get the power right from the distribution board . Choose decent cabling. Try room treatment last and spend as little as possible on this. Most important is speaker positioning. This will take time and dedication. Never underestimate burning in process for any component. |
This was a REALLY GOOD idea for a thread. Big nods to: don't focus solely on specs, the ancillary benefits of highly efficient speakers, listening to various equipment, recording quality etc. Lots of great advice for young audiophiles. In between the advice I heard a lot of "in my 50 Years of listening". My advice: BUY USED. The fact that many of us have been doing this for 40, 50 or 60 years means we are getting old and possibly deaf and there are very few youngsters listening with their phones who will likely replace us. I would also warn: that used $4000 Amp might not fetch $1000 in three years when there are even fewer of us left. Buying used also makes it easier to listen to different equipment in your environment and experiment. Fewer and fewer high end audio stores exist and even if you get to one you will not find as many options as on Audiogon. You also won't be listening in your room with your equipment for a meaningful amount of time. Keep in mind shipping big Magnepans or heavy amps will drive up cost and will limit potential buyers in the future when you try to sell it. Being an audiophile is a HOBBY not a retirement investment. To me it's more fun to try three different, quality used components over a number of years than to sink the money into a single one and be unhappy. There is lots of great, high quality gear out there that was built to last and is very serviceable. While it might not be a great time to sell high end equipment, it's a great time to buy used.
|
...after 40+ years of 'chasing fi'.... Please yourself, and the mind between the ears you own. Enjoy reading of others' systems and approaches; keep in mind 'they' may have a level of 'discretionary funds' you lack. Ignore 70ish%, as it at the end of the day, Opinion based on what they have. The balance will be more useful and applicable to your 'quest'. The space you place self and stuff in has an enormous effect on your system. Dealing with that may strike some as heresy, be it by treatment (or lack of) or the use of devices that either make 'sense' to your ears or is within your budget. Think of it as an ongoing 'experiment'. Remember: Nothing you do is 'wrong'. It may not work 'correctly', but half of the 'fun' (as in most human relationships) is in 'The Chase'. There is an addiction factor in 'The Chase'. Be aware, know when to 'cold turkey' yourself. Your cars' transmission IS more important than a new cartridge for the TT. Do keep in mind and at the center of your personal 'Chase': It's The Music, not the means. If most of what you hear sounds fine... STOP. Tread carefully afterwards with regards to 'enhancements', lest ye lose what ye hath attained. |
Make equipment changes, cable changes, room treatment changes, etc one at a time and allow yourself time between them to fully experience what they may or may not have wrought. All changes are not necessarily good ones, which is why other poster's advice on return policies is key. And rather than reject other's observations out of hand, try things like checking whether or not you can hear directionality in cables and fuses, whether changing speaker positions finds a better spot, or even if burning in new equipment makes a difference you can hear. These cost nothing but time, and who knows, might be the biggest bang for the buck you ever heard. |
Hope this isn’t a repeat already...but never judge a piece or even a cable for, say 48 hours after install, as many system environments can give either false positives or false negatives within that time. So always take “I just plugged it in and it’s an astounding difference” with a huge grain of salt... In my environment, I have what seems like an electrical phenomenon where every time I unplug and move a PC or an IC the noisefloor drops, details and clarity go up and it’s just wonderful...fast forward 36 to 48 hours and all is back to my systems ‘normal’.. I just talked to a dealer about this and he sees a similar thing. But depending on your environment, it could be a positive OR a negative affect... Just wait a bit time until reporting. |
Know that the most important component of any system is your ears - take care of them now. When they begin to go you can't get them back, at least not fully; hearing aids can help, but they are certainly no substitute for the real thing. Practice routine professional maintenance just like the rest of your body, no different than your eyes, teeth, etc. If you are married, and/or have a family, make sure they are on board with your hobby. If not, you are better off with a dedicated room you can escape to in order to enjoy your system. Trying to placate a disinterested wife or prying kids off your speakers takes all the joy out of listening. When choosing between two pieces of gear and your preference is one that costs 'a bit more', buy it. Sooner or later there's a good chance you'll regret not doing so. You'll be stuck with the lesser piece then sell it to get what you truly prefer. Money lost. |
An excellent thread with much valuable advice on offer. Audio can be a bewildering and complicated interest to get into and it's very tempting to seek external advice. Could save time and money in getting you where you want to go. However, audio is also a business and there are many vested financial interests proffering advice which may be entirely misleading, if not unnecessarily financially ruinous for little or no sonic gain. Another good place to start might be Peter Aczel's infamous article. Below is a truncated version but you can still read it in its entirety here. Even after many years I can't find anything in to disagree with. I'd strongly recommend any newcomer to put aside any reservations and read it through several times before embarking upon an audio journey that will probably last a lifetime. https://www.biline.ca/audio_critic/audio_critic_web1.htm#acl ---- What I have learned after six decades in audio (call it my journalistic legacy): Audio is a mature technology. The implementation keeps improving to this day, but conceptually there is very little, perhaps nothing, really new. I have been through all phases of implementation—shellac records via crystal pickups, LPs via magnetic and moving-coil pickups, CDs, SACDs, Blu-rays, downloads, full-range and two/three/four-way mono/stereo/ multichannel speakers, dynamics, electrostatics, ribbons (shall I go on?)—and heard incremental improvements most of the time, but at no point did the heavens open up and the seraphim blow their trumpets. That I could experience only in the concert hall and not very often at that. Wide-eyed reviewers who are over and over again thunderstruck by the sound of the latest magic cable or circuit tweak are delusional. The principal determinants of sound quality in a recording produced in the last 60 years or so are the recording venue and the microphones, not the downstream technology. The size and acoustics of the hall, the number and placement of the microphones, the quality and level setting of the microphones will have a much greater influence on the perceived quality of the recording than how the signal was captured—whether on analog tape, digital tape, hard drive, or even direct-to-disk cutter; whether through vacuum-tube or solid-state electronics; whether with 44.1-kHz/16-bit or much higher resolution. The proof of this can be found in some of the classic recordings from the 1950s and 1960s that sound better, more real, more musical, than today’s average super-HD jobs. Lewis Layton, Richard Mohr, Wilma Cozart, Bob Fine, John Culshaw, where are you now that we need you? The principal determinants of sound quality in your listening room, given the limitations of a particular recording, are the loudspeakers—not the electronics, not the cables, not anything else. This is so fundamental that I still can’t understand why it hasn’t filtered down to the lowest levels of the audio community. Cables—that’s one subject I can’t discuss calmly. Even after all these years, I still fly into a rage when I read “$900 per foot” or “$5200 the pair.” That’s an obscenity, a despicable extortion exploiting the inability of moneyed audiophiles to deal with the laws of physics. The transmission of electrical signals through a wire is governed by resistance, inductance, and capacitance (R, L, and C). That’s all, folks! What about the miles of AC wiring from the power station to your house and inside your walls? Only the six-foot length of the thousand-dollar power cord counts? The lack of common sense in the high-end audio market drives me to despair. Loudspeakers are a different story. No two of them sound exactly alike, nor will they ever. All, or at least nearly all, of the conflicting claims have some validity. Imagine a theoretically perfect loudspeaker that has an anechoic response like a point source, producing exactly the same spherical wave front at equal levels at all frequencies. If a pair of such speakers were brought into a normally reverberant room with four walls, a floor, and a ceiling, they wouldn’t sound good! They would only be a good start, requiring further engineering. It’s complicated. Loudspeakers are the only sector of audio where significant improvements are still possible and can be expected. I suspect that (1) further refinements of radiation pattern will result in the largest sonic benefits and (2) powered loudspeakers with electronic crossovers will end up being preferred to passive-crossover designs. In any case, one thing I am fairly sure of: No breakthrough in sound quality will be heard from “monkey coffins” (1970s trade lingo), i.e. rectangular boxes with forward-firing drivers. I’ll go even further: Even if the box is not rectangular but some incredibly fancy shape, even if it’s huge, even if it costs more than a luxury car, if it’s sealed or vented and the drivers are all in front, it’s a monkey coffin and will sound like a monkey coffin—boxy and, to varying degrees, not quite open and transparent. Amplifiers have been quite excellent for more than a few decades, offering few opportunities for engineering breakthroughs. There are significant differences in topology, measured specifications, physical design, and cosmetics, not to mention price, but the sound of all properly designed units is basically the same. The point is that, unless the amplifier has serious design errors or is totally mismatched to a particular speaker, the sound you will hear is the sound of the speaker, not the amplifier. As for the future, I think it belongs to highly refined class D amplifiers, such as Bang & Olufsen’s ICEpower modules and Bruno Putzeys’s modular Hypex designs, compact and efficient enough to be incorporated in powered loudspeakers. The gullibility of audiophiles is what astonishes me the most, even after all these years. How is it possible, how did it ever happen, that they trust fairy-tale purveyors and mystic gurus more than reliable sources of scientific information? It wasn’t always so. Between the birth of “high fidelity,” circa 1947, and the early 1970s, what the engineers said was accepted by that generation of hi-fi enthusiasts as the truth. Then, as the ’70s decade grew older, the self-appointed experts without any scientific credentials started to crawl out of the woodwork. For a while they did not overpower the educated technologists but by the early ’80s they did, with the subjective “golden-ear” audio magazines as their chief line of communication. I remember pleading with some of the most brilliant academic and industrial brains in audio to fight against all the nonsense, to speak up loudly and brutally before the untutored drivel gets out of control, but they just laughed, dismissing the “flat-earthers” and “cultists” with a wave of the hand. Now look at them! Talk to the know-it-all young salesman in the high-end audio salon, read the catalogs of Audio Advisor, Music Direct, or any other high-end merchant, read any of the golden-ear audio magazines, check out the subjective audio websites—and weep. The witch doctors have taken over. Even so, all is not lost. You can still read Floyd Toole and Siegfried Linkwitz on loudspeakers, Douglas Self and Bob Cordell on amplifiers, David Rich (hometheaterhifi.com) on miscellaneous audio subjects, and a few others in that very sparsely populated club. (I am not including The Audio Critic, now that it has become almost silent.) Once you have breathed that atmosphere, you will have a pretty good idea what advice to ignore. When I go to Verizon Hall in the Kimmel Center in Philadephia and sit in my favorite seat to listen to the Philadelphia Orchestra, I realize that 137 years after the original Edison phonograph audio technology still hasn’t quite caught up with unamplified live music in a good acoustic venue. To be sure, my state-of-the-art stereo system renders a startlingly faithful imitation of a grand piano, a string quartet, or a jazz trio, but a symphony orchestra or a large chorus? Close but no cigar. My greatest disappointment after six decades as an audio journalist is about today’s teenagers and twentysomethings. Most of them have never had a musical experience! I mean of any kind, not just good music. Whether they are listening to trash or Bach, they have no idea what the music sounds like in real life. The iPods, iPads, iPhones, and earbuds they use are of such low audio quality that what they hear bears no relationship to live music. And if they think that going to an arena “concert” to hop around in one square foot of space with their arms raised is a live-music experience, they are sadly deluded. It’s the most egregiously canned music of all. Please, kids, listen to unamplified live music just once! —Peter Aczel |
In the late 1960s, when I was 14, I built a Dyna70, a Dyna PAS and then added a pair of Lafayette speakers, a Garard table and a Stanton cartridge. My system evolved over the next 30 years, see theaudioatticvinylsundays.com while being committed to a tube analog sound, and has stayed more or less the same for 20 years (there was a destination), except for adding a semi-anechoic room 3 years ago. The idea being: decide on an approach, then stick with it. |
1. Take all reviews with a grain of salt. Too many times I've read praising reviews of some items and when I tried them I didn't see what all the fuss is about. 2. Invest in solid cables. Not necessarily super high dollar ones, but not the single dollar ones either. 3. Trust YOUR ears. After all, it's YOUR system in YOUR house. A few of my friends have amazing systems, but I like mine the best. I'm not saying mine IS the best, but I like it best because it sounds the way I wanted it to sound. 4. Try to buy used. There are a lot of great items out there that can be purchased at 20%-50% off than what they cost when new. Get more bang for your buck. 5. When upgrading, especially expensive parts of the system, always ask yourself - is it improving the sound by 2% or 20%? Is $X,XXX worth a 2% improvement? It all depends on your budget. Many times I've tried components that just didn't cut it. That's just my 2 cents. Great idea for a post! |
1 - if you don't know what music sounds like in person, before you start on your system, attend some live music performances - as many as necessary to embed the idea of what it sounds like. 2 - accept that it is almost impossible to exactly replicate the in-person experience of a concert in your home 3 - assess every step you take with your system as you develop it and decide whether that last change moved you closer or further from the real thing so you can edge your way up to a best case situation given your spacial and monetary limitations. 4 - arrange for blind testing - have a friend switch things as necessary. If you can't hear any difference due to a change in the system, you just wasted your money (a dealer that allows in home auditioning reduces financial exposure) 5 - don't be in a rush - this usually takes decades, not days. |
I have been an audiophile since the mid 80's. Trust your ears. I took a piece home for audition once and I just didn't like the sound (cd transport and DAC). When I returned the components and told the salesman I didn't like them he told me I didn't understand what high end sound was supposed to sound like. I told him maybe so but I don't like that sound. I never went back. Use reviews to make a short list. Over time you will find reviewers who share your sonic preferences. Try not to obsess about Class A, B, C, etc. If the system doesn't sound good to you it doesn't sound good no matter what anyone else tells you. |
For me, cables have provided the greatest challenges, but over a 6 year period here are the things I have learned that have made significant improvements in my DIY cables and as a consequence - improved sound quality to levels I could not have believed when I started all this DIY stuff WIRE QUALITY - improves dynamics clarity and imaging
INSULATION - acts like the dielectric in a capacitor and as such will cause distortion. Each insulation type has a different Dialectric Constant (Dk). The higher the value the more noise is created in the cable
CABLE GEOMETRY - is the most significant method of reducing noise generated within cables.
CONNECTORS - I use silver plated copper connectors on every cable
How can you ensure all of these are in place on your cables? Build your own - see this link "The HELIX IMAGE" - With a little help from my friends | My Audio Alchemy (image99.net)
- UNLESS your amp is one of the newer and very expensive reference style Symmetrical Balanced Designs - These amps are a bit like a Balanced power supply - one speaker output binding post carries the signal - the other Binding post is the same signal but 180 degrees out of phase For this type of amp both wires must be identical to achieve the best sound For commercially available products = I consider Nordst and Inakustik to be among the very best available - no snake oil - just great science AND - trust YOUR ears - not someone else’s :-) Regards - Steve |
1- Don’t sweat debates over definitions of “audiophile “ or “music lover”. Just listen to the music. 2- Know what sounds good to you, because everyone hears differently. And expect it to change over the years because your hearing will change. 3- Stick to your budget. There are ALWAYS more expensive items to buy. But you have other things to spend money on also. 4- Wife/Spouse/ Partner Acceptability Factor (WAF/SAF/PAF) is more important than you think. Any limiting criteria may actually encourage you to research stuff you wouldn’t normally consider. My wife working from home has opened up the wide world of headphones. 5- Find a few reviewers that match your tastes. I like Steve Guttenberg (similar music tastes) and John Darko (reviews streamers and headphones really well), but your preferences may vary. |
