tomic, good point and where to start with 'sage' (🤞) advice to one returning from 'walkabout'....so to speak soundlessly....;)
Intended listening space...although with 'Zep, flexing sheetrock is always an option..*L*
Budget...Yes, 'Lambo's are beautiful....have you ever looked up the cost of just the tires? I didn't think so....
TT+streams....Both ends of the flat earth, which....*sigh* ...let's pass on that 'off' ramp...Streams=digital, TT='hard core' analog....
IMHO....or not so much...;)....Both can be addressed without resorting to split personalities in ones' choices or psychosis.... |
Far too often, audiophiles are chasing "better sound" for the sake of "better sound." Better - meaning more accurate. Sounds to me like you need a system for subjective listening. You know, the "experience" of enjoying music rather than hearing and judging it.
Terrific perception. It is disturbing when perfection over all else becomes an obsession. If I just add one more device then perhaps... |
"I'm not a psychologist....but I can look like one...."
Daydream 'believer' would like to put toes into the pond without the SOTAgators removing ankles.....
How loud is 'loud' with L.Zep, anyway? *shrug*
'Driven out of the room?'
Not really the point... |
@tomic601 - I want to go fishin' too! |
I'd try to buy used from an authorized dealer with a warranty if you are equipment shopping. |
@reubent thinking next summer audio one day, salmon the next, or this Winter in CA Yellowtail and audio…. will keep you in loop Tom |
@daydream816 I'm about 2 hours away from you (a couple of miles right off of 75) and I love Led Zeppelin too. If you ever head north to camp or whatever you're welcome to stop by and listen and talk equipment.Message me by clicking on my user name if you'd like.
I agree with the others to stay away from "ultra revealing". Powerful, smooth, detailed but sweet would be the description to get my attention for my short list of amps.
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fishing/audio. I'm in. Can we go for a bike ride too? |
Mag itself infers '50>1K watts' for 3.7i's.....that's a huge spread.
Start with 100 per channel...can always throttle down, but have some punch at hand. Feeding desires for power is too easy, audio or politic...;)
A, A/B, or D?
A = somewhat esoteric, happy with TT sources, subject to lengthy discussion.
A/B+ = MOR, 'generic', still the default in many ways. $'s vary with bells & whistles onboard....HT is the bulk of the mass market.
D = Subject to the same 'discussions' of A amps, but available to suit any budget with any wattage one could sanely consider, at the limits of current specs on distortion, qualities, erc. Mho, better with digital sources....
Since you're moving from the Maggies' 'backing into' the equipment....between 'sources' and 'driven'....it's a unique place to be. *S*
The best of both worlds will still be a compromise.... |
A good recording, is a good one;a bad, a bad one. On good stuff:you hear everything also the differency of recording ,and label. You can hear it to , on the cd’s of Dire Straits: only the 2th last albums are good, ( the first 3 albums are a disaster). But there also other points: On venyl , the recordings are (much) better: directly from the “mother-tape”. On cd, and streaming , they remastered, once, twice,… filtering : and after , you go listen to a “deadh” ,flat , recording. This is the biggest problem : try to listen to the best recordings of the group :most of all they are a little bit expansive than usual. On streaming :you don’t have much choice: Here in Europe, Qobuz is the best, followed bij TIDAL,Spotify …try It out: you can’t make a horse out of a donkey. Good luck and enjoy your music ! |
@asvjerry - I had a Diablo 6.0. It was the last of the old school Lambos after Audi bought the company and benefitted from much better QC with the old school elements. The rears were 335 as I remember, and the suspension simply wasn't designed to take the weight. Double shocks with sensors in the rear. Factory price was 2k per. The car is an autostrada cruiser. It is not meant for the twisties. That said, it was a huge amount of exotic car for the money at the time, and I had a bunch of the "little red cars" from the other end of Modena too.
The early ones can be yummy- the Miura of course, and the first iteration of the Countach with the periscope rear view. I did an event with somebody that had a 400-- it was really a cool car, in mint green, with factory tinted green windows and dark green leather to match. An ugly duckling compared to the supercars, but very cool nonetheless.
Carry on. |
...but you Can give the donkey 'stimulants'....but said donkey can still go stationary, as they are wont to do....
lukaske has a point....'venals' (can't resist...sorry...*G*) are more 'subtle' in many ways, whereas digital (Qb, Tidal, Spot...et al) is all digital until it isn't at the speakers...
One could have a TT direct to the pre-amp; I go direct to amp with a digital EQ betwixt'd for levels, room eq., tone to taste....
Digital/streaming comes off a dedicated 'puter, and basically the same route as the TT's...
The pre- + amp(s), or an integrated will be the hardest call to make on this....and the room is still an unknown X factor. |
whart, I recall the Diablo....beautiful car from wherever it may have been from...;) *S*
"Look....but don't touch."
I assume drooling on it is a non-starter as well?
*Baleful stare, while the 'muscle' off-stage rubs their knuckles...*
K', bye...(broken ribs don't show...)
The red pony's attractions in that era...varied...you can have a svelte car or near F1....
Always a Lotus fan from afar.....;)
Spoilt since...*G*
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@tomic601 Chicago is only 4 hours away. Inthink that is a sound idea.. i know audio shows were mentioned earlier. I will look a few up and see if there are any near me. I am heading to Atlanta in November. |
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Yes! Go haunt dealers....take a thumb drive with the familiar in it.
Chicago, Atlanta, new source....it’s all the same street....
Make them play more by your rules than theirs....respectfully, of course. ;)
Have Fun, as it ought to be.
👍, J
The only rush is your desires. ;) |
A bad recording is a bad recording i had the maggies 3.6 with the cello duet etc etc for me it keep still bad. For me is the big guestion why they throw all this crap recordings at the market? When the cd is recordered they listen also on the end is there nobody who say’s we cannot sell this product. And fire the sound engineer because. Why there are so very good recordings and more bad recordings? With the current technology it must be happend anymore. And the people who are writing they van make from a bad recording with there equipment a good recording dream on. A friend of mine had the .20 with 4 cello performance the suit etc etc 300k the whole equipment and bad was bad.
Sorry for mine writing i am from the Netherlands. |
gerrie....ROI (Return On Investment)....
Easier to lipstick a pig...
...the pig doesn't care beyond the application of the color...
...the product will just be attractive enough to create sufficient Return.
Buyer, of course and always, has to be en garde'....;) |
well IF you have a Cello Palette, at a I hate it firesale price, i know of a line of buyers…. |
*L* The only palette I have is in a graphics program....
"They call it Mello Cello (...quite rightsly...)..." ;)
I'm more involved in 'proper placement' than ultimate sonic perfection...which is subject to a whole lotta' personal perfs....
I'm trying to put the vocalist into your lap...
...now, whether the said vocalist is or isn't of the same 'variety' as you is...
...isn't of any concern of mine. *L* |
There are needledrops of the 1st vinyl pressings of the first 5 Led Zeppelin albums available on the internet as downloadable files if you poke around, or as actual redbook cds from several purveyors of "import" products from Japan. Both sound light years better than any of the official cds, remastered or not. There is an openness, crunch and presence from them that simply doesn't exist on subsequent releases.
Same holds true for Adele's last album and Metallica's Death Magnetic - there are well balanced versions that you can find online that beat the "official" versions hands down. |
Led zeppelin is my favorite rock band of all times. I was in high school when the bulk of their albums came out. Me and 4 other friends did what we thought was the first ever air guitar gig in front of a large crowd. We had professional band speakers that filled a high school gym and in front of 3 different high schools we performedan air guitar of Led Zeppelins "How Many More Times". Drums, vocals, guitars, the works. We practiced for weeks before putting on the show at our high school assembly. By the end of the song, the crowd was clapping along with the song. It was crazy...... So I know where you are coming from.
Fast forward to 2019. Sold by K-horn knock offs and decided to get serious. All new equipment. Pre amp, power amp, dirac correction, streamer all wired into a lovely set of Legacy Audio Focus XD's. Those alone are around 16k. I have a fabulous system and with that comes critical listening and a system that has no mercy for lousy recordings. Unfortunately, Led Zeppelin falls into that category. I never listen to any of it on this system. Sounds awful and I wound never embarrass myself by waltzing into a high end shop and ask to listen to Led Zeppelin..... and yes, it is heartbreaking as the performances are forever stuck in lousy recording pergatory. What a loss. To bad Jimmy page didn't have enough sense to have demanded a recording engineer that knew what the hell he was doing. So, you are not missing something. When you get your new speakers, put on "Dancing Days" then after that, put on "Creep" by Radio Head or Def Leppard "Back in Black" and you will immediately understand why the greatest rock band of all times f'ing blew it! |
@Mikekollar- Among all the copies of LZ 1 I have, including the 45 rpm Classic, the second Japanese press is my go to, is not terribly expensive (haven't checked lately) and if you can find a Japanese dealer that has a DHL Express account, a copy could be in your hands in a week. Just my take after having listened to quite a few copies of the first album. |
Ones' background in that era, halcyon or no....colors our current perception of what we now hear....;)
"....I took a whole lotta drugs...*eeeuuuuu*...
I felt a whole lotta bugs...*eeeuu*'..."
*drum echoland...* (more cymbal, pleze....)
We -had- to have been There.....we were....
...it just doesn't sound the same, now....:(
There was a lot of LP's issued then that now.....*dry fart*
...well, that about sez it.... |
...all the subtlety of an 10# sledge on a full soda can....
Now is much improved...and more subject to scrutiny.... |
Up, off, 'n oy vay.....
A pleasant weekend to all, J |
"They call it Mello Cello (...quite rightsly...)..." ;) Funny. |
native dsd they sell the best recordings and not only dsd!! Than you can hear how important is a good sound engineer.
Phill Collins the most bad recordings ever produced. |
I don’t have the experience on a lot of different systems or components to recommend what might pair up well with your Maggie’s but I will comment on Led Zeppelin. I have very early pressings of Led Zep I and II and when I want to hear something really loud they are many times in the stack of records that I line up. I have a combination of PS Audio, Clearaudio and Vandersteen in my system and have never thought those Led Zep pressings were anything less than fantastic. Maybe my system is the right combination for those records but on songs like Whole Lotta Love, The Lemon Song, and I Can’t Quit You Babe it sounds like John Bonham is in the house! |
If you liked the Dyneaudio you might want to consider Dali as well. I just received a pair of Opticon 8 and though I haven't had the time since to spend time on positioning I am very happy! |
Is 14x20 a big enough room for Maggies?
You could try hybrid integrated, some use tube pre with Class D.
PS i stream Led Zep 24 bit and it's not as bad as some make it sound. Some versions have questionable instrument placement but guitar and voice are OK sounding, especially acoustic. Sorry Jimmy. |
when you have enjoyed this hobby and music for a long time, I think you come to understand that different source materials are poor/average/good/great, just like the music itself....no system is going to make a poor recording sound great, no more than a great system is going to make lousy music sound great. We all have our favorite music and our favorite recordings, and hopefully we have those really special ones that check both favorite columns....I know I am guilty for buying a few LPs over the years that I read rave reviews of , listened to them once, and never again. On the other hand, some of my absolute favorites I dont see others mention....but isnt this all part of the fun? |
I think a small part of this is from audiophiles who get wowed by overly bright speakers (i.e. detailed). Current Dali being a great exemplar of this. Bright recording + bright speakers = misery. Then of course there was the era of really bad digital drums at the start of the CD era.
Another part is fear of tone controls. Trying to establish some sort of cultural purity by never turning to them when you need to.
Honestly recordings over the ages have varied a great deal in their target market and expected audio systems to play them on.
My best advice is get a middle of the road speaker system not too bright not too much bass. Use tone controls. Get good room treatment that has a good mix of diffusion absorption and bass traps. You'll find yourself listening a lot more and when you need to tweak it, so be it.
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Daydream, I'm a big Maggie fan and love the 3.6/3.7s. But I'm not sure if that would be the right speaker for you. You'll have to pull them out 6 feet into the room and they will need lots of power, I'm thinking 250wpc minimum. You'll also want to add a subwoofer for some added weight. I can't recommend a speaker for you, I know what I like, but in your case and your desire to listen to older stuff, I'm thinking something efficient and a nice tube amp. Good luck with your shopping. |
When I was a budding audiophile in the '70s I bought a pair of Stax SR5 electrostatic headphones to upgrade from my Sennheiser HD414s. Great records of the day, like "Catch Bull", or "Workingman's" sounded awesome, but what really got me was how amazing they made my collection of Chess "Real Folk Blues" mono blues records sound. These are NOT HiFi by any stretch. Howling Wolf was right in my head, as vivid as can be. The electrostat's lack of distortion freed the music to express itself. That's when I learned that a system that sounds awful with lesser recordings really isn't that great.
Maggie 3.7is are excellent...just focus on an electronic combo that has tube musicality and high current amplification...best accomplished with a tube preamp and a SS amp (even class D can work). |
I have a vivid memory from my newbie days bringing a Zep LP to a speaker demo and wondering aloud why the pair I was interested in had no bass. The store owner answered “because this recording has no deep bass” which surprised and shocked me. Then he put on a different recoding that actually had well recorded deep bass and I realized he was right. |
I think these two songs are one of the best to demo a system. They are also very high quality recordings.
1. Nasty by Vincent Ingala
2. Little Person by Michael Wollny |
And that last comment by dodgealum1 is exactly right. In my earlier comment about comparing Radio head and def leppard recordings to led zep, I should have mentioned this: compare those recordings to "when the levee breaks". You know that the opening drum beat on this song should have kicked base ass. but it doesn’t. You know the deep base is there but no matter what you do, there is no way to pull it out as its just not on the recording. Even worse, when the harmonica and guitars kick in, the drum beat falls off even more. terrible, awfull, criminal recording engineering. Again, the greatest rock band of all time absolutely blew it on their recordings forever. what a colossal loss. |
@mikekollar, "Back in Black", a great Rock tune, is AC/DC....
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There is an awful lot going on here that people are missing. Allow me to enlighten you.
Recording: this is the master tape. People are saying a recording sounds this or that when all they know is how their copy of a record sounds on whatever they heard it on. This is the point of the Mike Lavigne story. That tape was right off the master. That Led Zep recording is a monster. Anyone saying otherwise should be clear what they are talking about.
Bass: Led Zep does indeed have some low bass. It is just that back in the day the focus was recording the music. The music wasn't low frequency driven. The recording techniques were however perfectly capable of capturing what really low bass there was. So it is there, but the way they recorded it is not the way you remember from hearing it blasted over and over again on crap stereo.
Tone controls: These are antithetical to high end audio. See above. It is tone controls more than anything else that created this false belief in how recordings sound. Tone controls don't work the way people think. They don't correct frequency response or make up for hearing. Every singer, every musical instrument has it's own characteristic fundamental tone. This fundamental tone is accompanied by a whole spectrum of upper harmonics called timbre. Tone controls wreak havoc on this relationship, destroying realism and the uniqueness of each instrument in the process. Tone controls are an abomination.
Tone controls are however great for people with no real aspirations to achieve high fidelity sound quality.
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I never was able to do much with tone controls. Although when I was a youngster I had a graphic equalizer and then a parametric equalizer I will now admit at 61 years old I had no idea what I was doing with them lol. I understood what you were saying with the master tape story. Thank you again Miller. |
This thread has gone on long enough, but I'm nevertheless inclined to make a couple of comments.
First: the notion that good recordings sound great, bad recordings bad, on a fine system. These undefined terms ("great," "bad," etc.) are a problem. A fine system is exciting almost regardless of the content it's reproducing. There's a presence to the presentation, a depth to the bass, a sparkle to the highs, that's a visceral thrill regardless of what's being played. But, that said, a fine system of course reveals the limitations of poor recordings. It doesn't necessarily make them sound "bad"; on the contrary, it often makes them sound better than they deserve to sound, IMO. But: it brings out subtleties and detail and soundstage specificity in good recordings that a lesser system just can't reproduce at all.
The lesson: the quality of the original recording is probably the second most important element in audiophiliac satisfaction (the audio system itself being first). There are many great recordings, especially in the "classical" realm in digital formats (including SACD). Recordings that not only reproduce the timbre of instruments as they actually sound, but that manage to create an illusion of spatial precision that can far exceed that of a live performance. Those recordings, played on superlative systems, is what this "hobby" is all about.
Led Zeppelin? Yeah, even relatively poorly remastered versions are viscerally exciting played loud on a good system (hell, admit it: they're exciting played loud in one's car). That's not to deny that there are better and worse versions; I own a clean copy of the Robert Ludwig pressing of LZII, and it is something. But, hey; they're all Led Zeppelin, and as such, they have their limitations AS MUSIC. There are many, many things to be appreciated in music that a Zep fan has no idea of. Sorry, but the exquisite chamber music moments in Haydn symphonies, or in the inner movements of Mozart symphonies, or, or, or...no Zeppelin track can compare to.
Now, as to Millercarbon's rant against tone controls. No room is perfect. No mastering is exactly like a different one of the same performance (there are even differences between CD and SACD masterings of the same original tape). Tone controls are no panacea, and passing a signal through a potentiometer does, of course, degrade it to some small extent. But tone controls, used judiciously and with skill, can partially compensate for problematic room acoustics, for a speaker's tendency to be overly bright, for a recording's intrinsic flaws, and for many other problems. Why would one not want to have that sort of control over the general acoustic profile of recorded music? Even if you don't know what you're doing, tone controls can be a plus; you can partially tailor the music to your tastes, even if those tastes are contrary to what the recording engineer or original performer wanted. |
Protection copy of what master ? in the case of early Zep most likely the mastering for cutting a lacquer with the goal of being able to play on the average turntable of the day and maybe on a Delco AM/FM car radio of the day, low low bar for bass reproduction indeed. Anybody remember a Delco tweeter in the 70’s ? ah hem…. no.
Not really practical to build much of a music collection w legit or bootleg copies of protection tapes, i have two half track machines, ask me how i know.
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…and part of my patronage to a particular artist and recording studio is near yearly sponsorship of the LP version of the album they put out. As a consequence, I am quite familiar w the high rez file, the half track 15 ips master and what comes off the LP ( from a super experienced LA based mastering engineer )…. they are night and day different…
fun |
To get the best recorded Led Zeppelin sound, get the Celebration Day Blu-ray that includes 2 cds of the same performance. You have not heard Led Zeppelin sound like this! |
I agree with Stuartk619. I have combined a circa 1995 Bryston 3B amp with a rare New York Audio Minuet in A hybrid tube preamp. The reason I did this is to get the best of both worlds. The Bryston of that time-period is an awesome power amp, but can be a little "bright". The New York Audio Minuet in A tamed down the brightness without any apparent degradation in musicality. The Minuet in A is a legend...it is still considered a top-shelf preamp after all these years, But they are hard to find as most owners do not want to part with them. But you probably find one in great condition for $800 or so. I am a real fan of hybrid tube preamps combined with high-end solid state amps. A match made in heaven. But there seems to be lot more hybrid tube preamps on the market now so you have other choices, But for me, I'm sticking with Minuet in A. |
Thank you everyone for the huge amount of comments. This was my first real reach out and everyone has been so helpful.i learned a ton! I am once again going to filter through the comments. So appreciate each one of you! |
How was your trip to Paragon ? |
Sooo today I heard Sonus Faber that were similarly priced to the Magnepan 3.7i. Also heard Focal Kanta 2. These were around 10 k , I enjoyed my visit there. They have Macintosh stuff which is the first time I have seen or heard this. They also have audio research which I heard with the Maggies ( among other brands). I thought the Focal sound great. i wonder how they would do in my Med sized room. I found another place about an hour away that carried Goldenear speakers and listened to the triton ref. I really enjoyed this sound. All different sounding and I like certain aspects of each one. Yes, most of these speakers I heard today are much more dynamics, I knew they would from the comments and some research.They are very helpful at paragon. In a couple weeks I will be taking a Friday-Sat trip to Chicago. I also have the number for the Atlanta store to visit when I gong here in Nov. had a fun day! Do I have it figured out … NOOOO lol. |
@tomic601 i do love the sound of the maggies however today was the first time I thought the boxes were disappearing a bit even though every one was a box speaker. |
