Hello. Have decided that the kids are out of the house and I can dedicate some space and money to my long ignored hobby. What is different now is there are so few audio stores. I firmly believe in listening to products so thus I start this great new chapter of my life. The first 2 stores I went to the people were very patient with me and I listened to a ton of combinations. They asked me did I want to hear anything else and I said yes, ummm,.. how about Led Zeppelin? I received the same response from both stores which was “all Led Zeppelin recordings are horrible” except for this one version of Led Zeppelin 2…blah blah. So I said what happens if I am at home and i have a desire to play Led Zeppelin or another perceived poor recording? They did not have an answer for me nor did they play Led Zeppelin lol . I ended up ordering a pair of Magnepan 3.7i’s from a different store. 13 weeks until I get them, ouch. I am going to guess that people do listen to poor recordings on great systems because you just want to hear a particular album, right? Or am I missing something? Just looking for a bit of insight. Yes, I know they want it to sound the best so I will buy it but is that the only motivation. Or maybe they hate Led Zeppelin, lol.
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....
...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.
@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.
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 !
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....
@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.
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...
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....
When I was 16 yrs old I heard a pair of Magnepans and had etched in my mind a feeling of crystal clear detail with sound stage. Led Zep II on vinyl made a profound impact on me.
After years (50+) of working (saving) and enjoying various systems. I went out and attempted to recreate the feeling from my youth. I purchased the 1.7s, a NAD M2 and a used Scoutmaster by VPI with a cartridge that cost more than my early systems. As a result I have had thousand of hours of listening pleasure. I dislike: all the LZ remasters repressings The original vinyl still does it for me.
Now I take Tidal and run into my Sony A8F out a fiber optic cable into the NAD M2 and out to the 1.7s and PSB subwoofers. To me this is heaven. Stunningly beautiful video and kickass tunes. When I am not fishing I am glued to Sony flagship OLED and NAD masterpiece. Sure there is better. But I am more than happy with my little system.
Putting Paragon in the mix and well given that you need (3) inputs, you might want to consider a high power Integrated, looks like Paragon carries Mac and Audio Research. ARC isnt the best fit in your budget, speaker choice , local dealer. With the right Mac you might get a built in DAC. man does paragon ask a ton of coin for used ARC preamps….
You imo need audiophile inputs from the Michigan and surrounding states input.
IF it were me, hold pat on maggie order but visit Chicago, and a few other places….
@tomic601 i will be using a turntable and streaming. I do have an older NAD cd player and many CDs but I really dont listen to them much and do not believe that will change.
@asvjerry lol I know every word you said is true. I was nervous about posting but am glad I did as I am finding so much info in the responses. I do first and foremost love music, i do however appreciate the sound that can be had with a nice system. I believe that you guys understand this. I get on genre jags lol. I am looking forward to discovering new music. I am always open.
@tomic601 I actually have an appointment there tomorrow. They did not have Maggies so I was going to visit them after I heard some maggies. I even live in Ann Arbor so they are very convenient :) i did order the Maggies however, the store said just let them know if I change my mind because of the long wait period. I did like some dynaudio speakers I heard at another Ann Arbor store. I will look into your other gear suggestions. Thank you for taking the time to put your thoughts down. How much of my budget should be a dac. I was looking at the Lumin products.
...nothing from 'The Past' will sound quite the same on semi-SOTA or even the 'nominal' of Now.... If it haven't been 'remastered' (which can be considered as 're-eq'd' and generally 'tweaked'), it will play like 'back when' what we listened with is generally considered....junk....with exceptions.... (Fair enough, y'all?....ok....)
The sound you seek to recreate is There.....in the grooves or the pits of the CD....but it'll take doing to dig it out....;)
Swapping equipment can drain an account as fast as a divorce. Consider some simple room arrangements with easy to do acoustima'...drapes, rugs, pets.... Take as much time as you'd like to consider what and how to proceed. Maggies' tend to like power, carefully applied. Ohm ratings become a religion. 'Upstream' equipment can spark multi-page 'discussions' here. ;)
with a $10 k budget i would buy a used Aesthetix Atlas stereo amp. A true beast of an amp worthy of the Maggies. I would pair that with a used Audio Research Ref 3 preamp.Set your planers up well and you will have a formidable system….
You may notice that Led Zep collection spending more time on the shelf rather than on the turntable if you start making it a point to open up your musical horizons and start obtaining better recorded material so you can hear how great sound can be on a good system...
Just think, if you already love the music, now you’ll enjoy the music and what’s providing it to you....👍
It’s more than addictive as evident by how life consuming it is to the people who’ve taken up the hobby... Ask any audiophile.
Thank you Russ, i did realize that and actually was able to listen to some Martin Logans next to the Maggies. I will admit I do not understand the complete mechanics behind each but have a general understanding. With my now 60 year old ears I enjoyed the Magnepans a bit more. At least in that particular environment.
They are just trying to play music that sounds good on their speakers which will not be led zeppelin because led zeppelin requires a speaker that will play it all meaning all kinds of music which most audiophile approved types will not.
Wow! Thank you, thank you, thank you. You guys have given me a ton of awesome suggestions and comments. I apologize as I did not stick a budget out there. I unfortunately do not have an unlimited budget. I would like to try and keep the rest of the system under 10k. I have a turntable to use. That would be the top of my current limit. This is a tough as I would like to do it less expensive then that. There are so many comments I like to acknowledge but can catch everyone. I did look at the Pass Lab stuff and thought they were out of my price range. Now I did not look at used stuff, I am open for that but would seriously be looking at your guys guidance. I can see myself collecting and searching for nice pressing as an extension of this hobby. Tape was always my dream when I was young and I see it is still around and expensive lol. I do have a tendency to overthink and over analyze. I live in Southeast Michigan. They have just one Magnepan dealer in the area. I did drive to another store that was a few hours away that said they had maggies and only had 1.7’s set up, they neglected to tell me this was the only pair they had and then really pushed B&W’s. I am going to read through your responses again and see if I can provide more information if needed. I appreciate it each response! I am very excited to get this journey going.
I pulled up a copy of Stairway to Heaven from Qobuz, it is remastered an 24bit/96khz. Sounds very good. But then I don’t have a ear bleeding kind of system.
Someone recommended a Pass amp. I think that would be a great choice, a pass x350.x would give the Maggie’s the most punch you are going to get from them. Couple that with the best Audio Research tube preamp and you would have the punch, detail and musicality of a great system. Assuming you have good sources of course. I owned a Pass x350 for over ten years with a ARC preamp and ribbon speakers. I have auditioned Maggie’s many times set up per my request. They sounded spectacular… just can’t get early exposure to electrostatics out of our mind, can we.
Led Zeppelin or "Classic Rock" from the 60-70's and beyond-
Stay away from forums and just enjoy kick ass music-LOUD whatever you gonna use as source. You just won't get a cut and dry answer here or other forums.
Return with preference of format, maybe you can get a more focused answer.
Pretty safe to say the mighty Zeppelin is still preferred on a period EL PEE by many. CD/File sound good on a proper setup but..that's another thread subject.
As mentioned, if one has the resources for R2R, you're gonna hear Page/Plant throw down like it's 1972.
Rule 1. Nothing sounds the same at home as it does in the store. Why bother? Are you listening to enjoy music, OR, recording quality? If it is the latter you’d better be richer than most of us.
Bad recording blah, blah, sounds bad, blah, leppelin dont blah sound blah good. Dude, I play old school metal demos from the 80’s. Sodom, napalm death, nasty savage, they all pretty much are the worst sounding stuff you can listen to,....sounds like they are playing from inside a aluminum garbage can. Lots of older recordings on cd are just flat sounding, no depth, bass is flat, guitars are flat, etc etc.
play what you enjoy, and don’t worry about it, you are worrying way too much. I have lots old pressing CDs, which are a direct copy from an old LP master, or straight copy from an old 4 or 8 track recording’s. Press play and enjoy!
"Be careful here. It should read: Good recordings will sound better and poor recordings will sound a lot better than they would on a bad system".
Maybe for vinyl but not in my experience, when it comes to CD playback, nor has it been the case for either of my two audio mentors, both of whom have been in the game a long time and have systems that cost many times more than mine. The better my system's become, the less I can endure listening to poor-sounding CDs.
Perhaps we can simply agree to disagree in this case. ;o)
I don't know your budget but Parasound A21+ or Parasound JC1s are the direction you want to take. Match that with a good tube preamp. Cary, Conrad Johnson, perhaps an ARC. This will get you where you want to be.
Funny and ultimately sad story from the mid eighties ….
Super die hard Zep fan showed up at the store..wanted a system that could really rock. He left with a nice system with Hafler electronics and ADS 810 speakers. Returned it all the following week because his cherished Zeppelin didn’t sound “ right “ His reference was and remained the Kmart white plastic all in one GE sound system….
His roommate was in a band i mixed sound for…the GE system reigned supreme some four years later…
Be careful here. It should read: Good recordings will sound better and poor recordings will sound a lot better than they would on a bad system.
This is more in line with what I think a good system should do. I've had systems that make some recordings sound supernaturally good at the expense of making others sound unlistenable. They never measure well. If a system has flat, smooth, extended response with low levels of resonance and distortion it will tend to make everything sound better in my experience.
I received the same response from both stores which was “all Led Zeppelin recordings are horrible”
The 2014 remasters are...ok. The Barry Diament remasters from the 90s are pretty good but sadly Barry didn’t get to do Led Zep IV.
The rest aren’t worth talking about and let’s not even get started on the infamous Mothership compilation!
Led Zep are just another one of many artists whose best sound is still to be found on vinyl, but we can always hope that things might change one day.
If you want a chuckle check out the Dynamic Range Database and you’ll find one of the highest rated Pop recordings on there to be the 1952 Fred Astaire Story!
You can’t blame digital. It’s a great format no doubt, but one that you might feel is being criminally misused if you regard sound quality as important.
A good system let’s you hear what is in the recording. A lesser system won’t. It’s not always prettty but for me its almost always interesting to learn how all recordings are made differently and no two sound exactly the same. To take this to extremes I digitize and stream old 78s on my system and even those are a revelation though nobody would claim these are good recordings by modern standards. On some there is almost as much surface noise as music. But the music is there, it’s very old and it’s very interesting as a result.
If you want a speaker that sounds every bit as good as a Maggie, and then some, AND is super easy to drive, listen to this guy. https://youtu.be/7RxRTFx6Cd0?t=342 Bear in mind he loves Maggies.
Thanks for that video link. I enjoyed that interview. The potentials of a tweeter array to provide better dispersion control and higher sensitivity without the need for a waveguide have fascinated me for a long time. I'm glad to see Tektron successfully implementing such designs at affordable prices. If I were in the market for a set of speakers right now I'd be interested.
@daydream816- you have identified one of the challenges in this hobby- finding good copies of LPs of music that you like, rather than listening to "audiophile" recordings of music with good sonics that has no appeal to you. Some of this is generational too-- there are audiophiles that listen almost exclusively to classical music, but that is literally a dying breed (and most classical records, with some exceptions) are not considered very desirable in the market today. Leave aside running tape, which is a pretty expensive proposition for a lot of folks, not just in the hardware, but in the cost of the source material; this is a subject that @mikelavigne could probably address better than me, based on his own journey. There is a decent sized segment of the audio community that is always trading tips on the sound of different pressings, Zep included. In fact, I probably have more copies of "challenged" records than I do of good sounding records. Among those challenged records, there are differences--sometimes there are copies that sound dramatically better than others (e.g. the "RL" cut of LZII that you mentioned is one- preference is given not just to the cut, but the plant that pressed it-- Monarch being considered the most bombastic sounding). This takes you into the morass of seeking out more desirable pressings and using the RL/Monarch cut as an example, you will pay for the privilege, given inflation in the used record market. For some, this becomes a hobby unto itself. I have a pretty good main system, and listen to a lot of different music--including a lot of the heavy hard rock/post psych/so-called proto-metal (which is what LZ tends to be grouped in today): Leaf Hound’s Growers of Mushroom has long been a 4 figure record as a UK first pressing, Lucifer’s Friend-self-titled on German Philips is of the same ilk and there are probably hundreds of bands from the period with a similar sound. This opens up the possibility of exploring more, different music within the same genre--and yet another pursuit- for more obscure releases. (I would not put Leaf Hound in the obscure category only because it is a known "grail" due in part to price). Many people are savvy to the original UK Swirls of the first four Sabbath albums-- that label had some amazing (and weird) releases that command money today, but there is some cool stuff that is worth seeking out: e.g., Patto, May Blitz, and a few other bands in the "heavy" rock category, along with a pretty big roster of "deep" prog rock, e.g. Cressida, Affinity, and jazz rock, like Ian Carr, Nucleus, etc. The better your system, the more differences you will hear among various pressings. Most of the original Vertigos are good sounding. There is no easy answer to the question you pose- there are millions of records out there to be heard. Part of the journey for me has been one of exploration, not only of LPs from bands I know, but mining the vast catalogs of music that were unknown to me. For the last several years, I’ve been listening to soul jazz and so-called spiritual jazz- post-bop, small combo jazz played by deeply accomplished sidemen who, in the ’70s, turned inward and composed and released music on smaller labels that drew on the black experience in America. Some of it is now super collectible but there’s a huge amount of material to be explored. I can recommend generally the Tone Poet reissues---more offbeat older jazz albums that have been reissued with some care and are relatively cheap and for the most part still in print or easy to get. I think this becomes a long, convoluted journey of self-exploration. I now listen to music that I would have considered cacophonous not too long ago. But it interests me and it’s not just good sonics, but a sort of fascinating time capsule of early funk and jazz, mixed with spoken word. The learning curve is in some respects endless, but this is part of the pursuit for me, having less to do with finding gear, or records that sound good just to show off the system. Treat it as an adventure! Bill Hart
If you have the money go for Pass I currently run my 3.7i with a 250.8 the sound is outstanding. I picked up a gently used one and have had no problem only pleasure and enjoyment from the great combo. I saw the combo 3.7i and Pass won best of show a few years back which pointed me in that direction.
There are lots of trustworthy Maggie dealers. The one I frequent carries 20 ish brands of speakers in 8 large showrooms. Ditto for electronics. Dominant in his large local market, a true music lover with > 20 k records and blessed with good musical sense - he has access to any brand. Is he my only dealer relationship? No. Like most things, a mix of dealer, used and direct is the right answer.
The maggies require a strong well designed amplifier, suggest you get good advice on that.
Without a general budget the conversation is limitless.
It is not hard, unless you make it hard. Experts here lined up to help! Audio has improved so much in 25 years you can throw a rock and hit something better. Even the Maggies. But then we get into the making it hard part. If you buy speakers that are highly sensitive and easy to drive this is such a huge advantage you cannot believe. This opens the door to very affordable yet incredibly high quality sound like a Raven Blackhawk. If you want a speaker that sounds every bit as good as a Maggie, and then some, AND is super easy to drive, listen to this guy. https://youtu.be/7RxRTFx6Cd0?t=342 Bear in mind he loves Maggies.
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