The Death of the Home Stereo System
Tissues, torches, pitchforks, and other items will be found in the lobby.
Don't forget to peruse the T-shirts! (I've already have mine, but from a different vendor.... ;) )
...submitted for your...
This popped up on my phone this AM...
Now, since this has been an 'off 'n on' topic of late, Mikes' MHO vid pretty much encapsulates the general ennui expressed over B&M shops fading away, the high and rising cost of 'our level of quality equipment', and all the reasons and rationales for the SOTA becoming 'out of reach' for all except the most dedicated 'philes.
And Yes, a run-on sentence that isn't my usual terse twaddle.
So be it; lets' have fun with this, please.
If extinction is to be our lot, we can afford to be noisy about it. ;)
Rant 'n rave, dear friends.
27 responses Add your response
Very good video... Send to us by a master of wit...😊 As anything our freedom and possibilities and desire to design our own soundfield disapear a bit more and with the artificial of convenience to buy ready made non audiophile products our own freedom to explore new acoustic ways between the component choices and Tweaks go dead ... This is the bad news..
But there is a good news, soon A.I. will design on the spot virtual room system of the highest quality in any room for any speakers or headphone at low cost ..
It will be an happy event for sure...For music lover... As i am.. But with a downsize: How could i have learn some acoustic with listening experiments all these years if i could afford an A. i. to do it for me? Ok... Perhaps instead of painstakingfully learn basic acoustic, i would have the time to learn more about prime distributions or gardening ? There is always bad news and good news in Pandora box... A bright side and a downside... But nevermind fate and good or bad aspects about things, convenience is not and never will be S.Q. Anyway to go with my story ... As a famous bouddhist tell the tale; One day a wise man learned that his son lost a leg, and to his neighbours sad for him and crying : "this is so fatefully BAD event ! We are sad for you.." He replied "perhaps it is"... "who knows? "... The week after, a general came recruiting all young people by force for his small desesperate army... The neighbours loosing all their sons for war came and said to him : "How lucky you are!" The wise man replied: "perhaps ! " ... "Who knows" The stories goes with many other episodes... Bad succeded incredible luck but reveal more fateful bad turn... 😊 I never forgot this story so deep it was about event, fate, good and bad, and the soul....
In life we can only say "perhaps"... But sound quality and convenience perhaps wil meet together but only after my death? Who knows? The good side is in Heaven sound system are way better and the composers too...At no cost...
«There is no downside in hell or in heaven »-Groucho Marx 🤓 |
Beware! Nobody like listening to stutterers for example ... Especially me..
But Aristotle, Newton, Swedenborg the leonardo of the North, Darwin, Turing and Wittgenstein, They were all famous slow stutterers.. I think what matter is what is said... And this video is short and make sense ...
But you are right, and i understand you, i will not listen to Biden who is a stutterer too ... Anyway i think that this guy is not Aristotle nor Biden, but he only say some of his life experience in audio that make us pause a minute... And he is not a stutter, and gestures in speech is not distraction but ponctuation and illustration for me at least... But you are right nobody like to watch a Tourette speaking... But he is not Tourette perhaps of italian origin ? Or perhaps a deaf sign language specialist pausing from his day job to think about sound and audio ? Who knows?
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*G* I had an uncle that I swear suffered from Tourettes'..always cursing at everything and anything that either was in his way or was thought to be a pending roadblock of some sort....🙄 But Albert was a man of kind soul at his core, and loved my aunt Gerry (who I was named for, but since I debuted as an 'outie' (m) v. 'innie' (fm), some changes were made...). Just occurred to me that someone deaf and mute that suffered from Tourettes' might appear as being struck periodically by an unseen local tornado....😬🤷♂️ When I got Mikes' vid it just occurred to me to post it as a weekend distraction, a source for amusement and less of target for arguments and ill will. We're a fun group when given the chance to just engage in some light-hearted 'bench racing'.. What would or could the strangest collection of gear one can imagine? You've gifted yourself with an amazing system (cost no object, size considerably matching (BIG); what if you had to 'insert' it into a small, too small space? ...and Had to.... Now what? ...or any other conceivable (or not so) "...'philephobia that you could only blame your deity or fate upon.... |
@cleeds 1+ He is also talking about a different crowd. Live music will never change. Having that thrill at home is very important to a significant part of the population. Not as important as a TV to everyone else. Mid Fi has morphed into Theater Fi. But Hi Fi did not go anywhere. We are still here and our younger generations know what is possible and will follow suite. My son in law is already getting started with his system and building his own subwoofers. This is anecdotal but the increasing sales of records and turntables is not. High end Hi Fi has never been a huge market but I do not think it is going anywhere. You do not need to buy "luxury Audio" to get SOTA performance. Modern tech is bringing higher levels of performance downstream. It is never going to be cheap. If it is important enough to you, you will be able to afford it. |
My dreamed system with no cost ceiling :
Hidzs dap as a fixed battery bank for musical files low cost the size of 2 stamps... 200 $ ( i dont want computer bank because of their high noise floor level )
Choueri dac BACCH filters ( near 10,000 $ i dont remember exact cost ) ( virtual room technology dac/filters for speakers or headphones) Berning ZOTL technology tube amplifier Around 6,000 $ Headphone ( mine are the TOP AKG K340 ) 100 $ or under 200$ used..,
Even if i was way more loose on the budget i will no go for more... This Audio system will be anyway among the best in the world nevermind the price ... Improved better one are possible but it become ridiculous passed an optimal threshold... Trade-off exist... The three main components were designed by three physicists/ with 2 ( dr. Choueri and Dr. Gorike, dr. Berning is a physicist who worked for Us government if i remember) who are also acousticians ( not mere electronic engineers ) who revolutionize, Dac sound processing , and tube amplification and headphone listening ...
Luckily i already own the 2 of these low cost one product the Hidizs dap/bank and the AKG K340 headphone from 1978 considered the best hybrid ever design3ed and anyway the best headphone i ever listen to... The others are in trashbins... 😊
For sure the Hidizs dap/bank is not TOP products only a convenient good one... The three others products are among the best in the world in the S. Q./low price scale... |
He described very well his own experience ... I cannot fault him for describing his experience.. And in my acoustic journey i learned that there is not ONE SINGLE EASY SOLUTION... No ready made one save if you want to pay astronomical amout for a pro acoustic room designed by an acoustician ( 100, 000 $ the last time i checked) And anybody who felt immersiveness describe always the SAME ACOUSTIC EVENT anyway more and less good it depend of their language and acoustic abilities...Because immersiveness is a specficically very complex acoustic concept to put in place but it is an OBJECTIVELY precise concept ...technically for me it is this formula : ASW/LV ratio, the relation between the sound sources and thwe listener envelopment and position... Search acoustic articles for that... I know because i made it myself... Most audiophiles believe in ready made solution, we must buy the right costly speakers and all will be good... I dont think so and anyway i could not afford 20,000 bucks speakers... When i designed my room it takes me almost 2 years , one year each day , i was retired because i could never had been able to do it... Acoustic and psycho-acoustic done right is not easily done by RECIPE , as the one recipe ( bass trap Absorbing material or general rule to posit speakers etc ) we can read all across audio thread... There is no recipe in reality ...Because all room differ, all acoustic content of a room differ, all components differ, and all ears needs and knowing differ too... Acoustic is not about buying acoustic panels, it ia about learning how to listen to sound and soundfield ... if you read my post you will see i cannot give specific advice ,i only wrote to MOTIVATE people, anyway specific very precise advice are easy to read on the net, but the way i experimented with my room i cannot reproduce it exactly in an another room... i will be in the obligation to listen to this other room for a year and begin again the incremental long but fun tuning process ...( i will not do it again though, learning something the first time is fun but be in the obligation to doing it again, with 6 months full time listening instead of one year, it isw too long for me now to be fun to be frank) i dont have any other solution...
There is two part in acoustic of small room : The known part the necessary material passive treament of the room with a balance between diffusion, reflection and absorption, the right ratio balance for this room and his content and these component for some specific listening location ONLY...
Then the hard part if you want IMMERSIVENESS : The modification at the right place of the distribution of zone pressures in the room... The guiding of direct waves and the indirected and reflected one ( the ratio of timing is crux) from the speakers for our two ears, each one of them... because there is in a way 4 speakers in a room ... Two real one and two virtual one because our ear A will hear speaker no1 and speaker no 2 , and the ear B will hear these two speakers also but with not the same time delay then the art of acoustic for me is to help the room and the speakers to give the right ratio between the sound sources for our brain to compute by playing with these 4 speakers location and surrounding content the two real one and the two virtual one created by the brain... i used one hundred mechanically tunes Helmholtz resonators and even many other devices, ( ionizator and cheap tuned Schumann generators, and a foldable screen use as a diffruser and as a lens behind my listening position... Thats all i did if i sketch it but how can anyone can imitate that without working a year full time to do it? There is no speed easy solution only a very fun intense set of listenings experiments... Most people even with very costly component have no experience of immersiveness... You can buy speakers, you cannot buy acoustic, you must learn it by experiments... Anyway there is no other way to learn how to listen... Buying high end component and listening to them in comparison is fun BUT it is not acoustic and it is USELESS almost to recreate immersiveness.. Then do you undertstand why i appreciated his post and his good will and cannot say anything negative ? I hate to say negative thing if people had good will... My very best to you my good friend...
I will add that recreating immersiveness with headphone is very hard too if we want "out of the head" soundfield and "a speaker like" soundfield, but i was lucky with the right headphone, not many headphone are able to do the job, but anyway it takes me 6 months of listening experiments with 6 modifications in the headphone or around it... it is not and could not be a plug and play...There is no simple recipe for creating immersiveness.. Oups! My dear friend speaking about my experience i forgot to say that THERE EXIST AN EASY READY MADE SOLUTION...But it is too costly for me to afford it and i know about this solution only in the last 2 months then i forgot to say it in this post...
Search for Dr. Choueri BACCH filters articles and products... It is a plasma physicist who work acoustic as a hobby all his life.. This is the most revolutionnary product on the market, forget any other costly upgrade.. And no need to learn acoustic anymore... This is the good news...It is the only device i will buy if i could afford it ... I am happy right now read me right... But the optimal S. Q. threshold of acoustic is not the minimal threshold where i am now... The minimal S. Q. threshold is enough, most people dont even expeerience it .. But the device of Choueri give the optimal at a relatively low price...this is the solution i say do not exist in the beginning of my post because i was focussing in my experience only ... I apologize.. 😁😉😊
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I watched this happen in my own life. Four friends and I would gather to talk and listen to music almost every night in the '70's. Of course, now we have gone our separate ways, but even long before that happened, all of them put music and their modest systems on the back burner and listening for its own sake became a thing of the past. I found it sad and hard to accept for a while, but then I just adjusted to it and felt fortunate that I still had my system and love of music. |
The same thing happenned to me... The most happy event of my life was listening music with friends, never mind the acoustic or components... But i dreamed all my life to afford good sound without the money to do it... I succeeded in my modest way...
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Always been drawn to the sounds of music...*s* The parents on weekends, playing lp’s of Crosy, Martin....old ’78s’ of their polka greats, those memories brought back when hearing various ’folk’ of various countries with similar rhythms, the varied instruments adding the ’flavors’ of that land... Older bro’ playing Alpert, later bebop, M. Miller singalong groups...first on an Eico mono with a Garrard stacking tt, replaced by a Sony r2r and HK diy integrated tube amp....speakers from Lafayette in diy bass reflex cabs.... I’d sneak a sess with that later set, my intro to r2r and better... ;) A period of playing with shortwave ’ham’ radio, held a license, strung dipole antennae about, learned to ’talk’ symbolically to strangers, moved on...but learned how to strip wire and solder...👍 Inherited the Eico and the Garrard; lost the Eico for an early Kenwood....built 2 pairs of 2 ways, cone tweets both, 4" in the small cabs, 8"s in the larger. Moved out, moved again to the Bay from LA, with a 2270, Bose 901s, an AR with a Stanton cart.... Didn’t know at the time, but lived ’bout a mile away from Linkwitz....*g*wow*
Mystic daze in a while.....fell in ’love’, moved beyond the Redwood Curtain to Eureka!...fell out, and fell out further.... Young landlady Vicki (now a therapist...good move) handed me a stiff drink and advised: "You really need to get away from here....as much as you love the place, it’ll eat you alive..." A hug, a kiss, gone in a week....to Oakland... (Later back to visit and receive Grace the Wonder Cat, who was MBFeline for 17 yrs..)... ~Inter Mission~ ’Preciate y’all...;) I’ll read you as long as you tolerate me...🎶
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"Coffee is my Spirit Animal" (magnet on the side of our coffee maker....)... Very apropos....and Groucho as guide may not be as bad as some choices...😏 Mikes' <10min.is a tidy summation, mho....and we can always make claim to being the shock(ed) troops forcing the sota to 'new levels'...👍 "Some are happy to stay home, but there's always going to be those who think Mars is a legit goal...." (A bit forced of an analogy, but my 'drifts' are like that...*G*) Oh.....hi. *S* |
Understood...I tried to 'get' guitar, but my muscle memory wasn't up to it..... " "The lead character in ‘Money for Nothing’ is a guy who works in the hardware department in a television/custom kitchen/refrigerator/microwave appliance store. He’s singing the song. I wrote the song when I was actually in the store. I borrowed a bit of paper and started to write the song down in the store. I wanted to use a lot of the language that the real guy actually used when I heard him, because it was more real. It just went better with the song, it was more muscular. I actually used ‘little faggot,’ (...which got the song banned in the UK for awhile) but there are a couple of good ‘mo_my edits_uckers’ in there. I wanted to do a second version that way but I never had time. I’d still love to be able to do it. Even if just the band had it, because it would be the real version. I mean that is the way people speak. I think people still get the general idea. You can use other words that will suggest the general feel." ("...I shoulda' went back and gave him song cred, Ev 'n I got to see them live in SF @ The Old Waldorf 3/31/79, 5th row...great show... One of the guys lit a cigarette, stuck a 'fay' pose as an opening for 'Les Boys". so their gay teasing had history....starting with 'Sultans of Swing'... The 'Old Waldorf' never was 'old', and is now know as the Punch Line comedy club...and is part of a line of high rises and always has been... ;) Don't be sorry for either....I liked Groucho for his one-liners and wit, but would always pause to hear Harpo play his harp....always entertaining, and proof that silence has its' benefits....you never have to worry 'bout the taste of shoe leather. Because of my admiration of Harpo, I took in a small concert of 4 harpists back in Houston....playing jazz harp...👍😆😊....a good waste of time, and atypical for TX. Time to put the memory mechanism into park, since I'd wander off into lanes untold. |
Anyway: To try to wander back into the point of the post that started this.... Given the states of SOTA, or even the SOWhat’sAvailable (oh, so close to SoWhat...*L*), where does anyone think certain aspects of ’mid-fi’ or ’upper mid-fi’ ought to go towards, given the expense of current items in the audio chain? To expand on this, imho, or just a leap into raising a fuss or cane... A percentage of my equipment is mounted on rack rails, for my convenience; the 6 two channel distribution amp is at the bottom, x-overs (3, one sub only) above, multiple eqs at varied points, and signal(s) directivity (4 of the latter; three digital, one manually switched) means next. Oh, and a nice pre that can (or not) be applied.... 7 discrete sources available; 7 discrete pairs of drivers available, 3 of which are available to be driven as a ’triamped pair’ as a general rule... One sub....one must simplify Somewhere....*L* ...although have the means to add 4 single subs of varied dimensions and drive needs, but lack the amps to drive them properly. Could have multiple pair as well, but have already run out of space. Obviously, a handful...but an intentional one. Well, maybe, both hands... ;) I would like, as with pro audio, to turn over control to one of 2 computers currently in charge of part of ’my show’, be it a personal one... I’d like to see a blank rack case that could house multiple amps of varied configs; mono, 2 chan., perhaps a 4 chan. Various wattages as needed by application. All inputs co-ordinated by ’puter driven processor (or more, again by app.). Obviously all D amps, all running fans.... The difference would be that it would all be ’scale-able’; start (and stay if desired) small, but capable of being grown in whatever fashion or desired outcome one wishes... Quality of the individual items would hold to a standard. Kiss obsolescence goodbye, hopefully. Unless some miracles happen, which at this time, only adding another zero to the right of the decimal point... ...if you can hear that at all. Any thoughts...rants...revulsions...? Taking the cable conundrums to a different level, I remain yours unruly, J |
@asvjerry - The Punch Line is what used to be the backstage dressing room at the Old Waldorf. The performance part of the club was turned into offices of some kind. It was called the Old Waldorf because they kept the name from a previous location, which I think was around Divisadero, in a much older building; I was there once... |
@larsman , I’d heard of a previous site, but never had the pleasure... Probably from those ’60’s when I was in my teens, wondering and curious about the ’goings on’ in the Bay.... It was a sunny Saturday postnoon with all the creatures out, about, and likely from any state and in any state.... Quite Rightly a Scene, bound to be the very next phase.... And was, but not there, in that time nor that spaced. ;) |
@asvjerry - queue up Jefferson Airplane's 'Saturday Afternoon/Won't You Try' - sounds like that kind of day! 👍 |
@sokogear ...and I for one still believe you can....given some parameters which others may view as 'restraints'. The judicious application of a budget, savvy shopping, and perhaps perusal of used equipment can make for a modest dive into what can be seen as a bottomless pool..... Anyway, mho: -Set cables aside for awhile, until you've gotten The Big Ticket Items covered. If I replaced All of mine with SOTA...I'd rather buy a car. Really. ;) - Item #1 = Speakers. What does the mind between the ears like to apprehend? To keep something aside for #2 and beyond, a pair of bookshelf or stand-mounted seems to be suggested.... What space do you need to fill with 'a glorious noise' of what sort? ...and, if applicable, the SAF. If you make that personage smile as well, you've won most of the skirmish... ;) 👍 - Item #2 = Integrated amp....if you can select such that can 'stream' as well...wonderful. I don't have a streamer, use switchers for what to where and how, and tone can be through various means of eq at hand. Until relatively recently....no pre was involved...nor missed. I'll set it up as an 'option'.... I'd divide my budget into rough 'quarters'; 40~50% speakers, 50/50 integrated/streamer.... Imho. You've not mentioned any other source (tt/arm/cart, or any other) beyond the intended streamer....personally, I've 2 'puters 'integrated' into my main, and one in my office... Do I have any specific suggestions for speakers/integrateds/streamers? No. Personally,an integrated with D amplification enough to drive the speakers and a third more, a sub output at least...if anything, but beyond that... I stay out of 'you ought to go with ___'. I kinda rank it with underwear, gloves, glasses, shoes.....too close to the skin.... Mine. ;) Welcome to The Hunt.....and Good Luck.... Take a dongle with you. If they can't play it at the B&M shop....leave. |
