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When I was growing up you got speakers, amplifier tube or transistor), turntable (stylus usually came pre-installed), speaker wire/plugs, and Singles/LPs. Then in the years afterwards things got complicated. |
@duckworp I am in your camp. Ten years ago I would have agreed with @phomchic across the board.
BTW, I also really like MQA.
We attended the Eagles concert last night. Absolutely fabulous. Today I cranked my Bel Canto Black EX/YG Carmel system to concert level. My system had the edge.
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@glupson - interestingly when I was growing up in the UK in the 80s it was the opposite to the way you describe it. The hifi mags (apparently egged on by the then-almighty Linn) were suggesting it was wise to spend half on the source. I remember distinctly they suggested a system partnering a Linn Sondek LP12 (which then was one of the most expensive turntables) with a Wharfdale Diaomond speaker (at the time about the cheapest hifi speaker on the market). This advice lasted for many many years.
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Wow! You guys don’t know me and I give you fair warning I am old school. Spent a lot of years in the business of better audio. Got my first job selling audio at 15.
Stick with the basics and be careful not to have a weak link in the chain. Those great speakers only sound as good as what you feed them.
Don’t care about the recording so much as I care about making it come through as unscathed as possible. Both sides are right about the cable thing. Good connectivity and pure copper will give you the benefit of hearing the difference in the preamp upgrade you just did with the money you saved on cables. It’s always about balance and understanding the weaknesses. Don’t care about the room either. If that’s what the band would sound like in your room then you are good. My system is in my living room not some “listening room” in the basement so other than proper placement I am limited.
My advice to all is don’t shy away from those less than great recordings, listen longer, listen louder.
Preamp is likely the weak link in most higher end systems. |
Preamp is likely the weak link in most higher end systems This is why I got rid of my preamp, which is possible If you don’t need phono.. DAC -> AMP. My presmp is a straight wire with no gain. |
No preamp here, either. No power cords, no interconnects, no speaker cables, no fuses, no big honking transformers. They all degrade the sound. Hel-loo!
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“interestingly when I was growing up in the UK in the 80s it was the opposite to the way you describe it. The hifi mags (apparently egged on by the then-almighty Linn) were suggesting it was wise to spend half on the source.“ This was reasonable advice back when the source was universally vinyl. The most important parts of the audio chain are where something mechanical changes the domain. This happens at the microphone, the cartridge, and the speaker. You can tell that these are important and difficult transition points, because the devices at those nodes easily sound different from one another. Although the DAC isn’t mechanical, some would say it is as important as the phono cartridge used to be. That isn’t my opinion. I think that DACs are mature technology and above the $800 point they pretty much all sound the same, with only minor differences. |
The OP strikes me as a jealous windbag with an inflated ego who likes to assert his "superior" knowledge and experience over those who are willing to listen to his rubbish.
SB
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DACs are mature technology and above the $800 point they pretty much all sound the same TO ME
ftfy |
SB,
While I can see some of the arrogance in the OP in "dropping the truth" for this forum....I don't see how you can pull "jealousy" out of that post.
Also: what do you actually think is "rubbish" about his advice? |
duckworp,
Whether all DACs sound the same or not (and I think many that some presume sound different may not actually be distinguishable when you don't know which you are listening to)....
...I think it's certainly defensible that DAC maturity reached a point - and quite a while ago - where one doesn't have to spend a lot of money to get accurate, high fidelity sound, hence it wouldn't make sense to rank DACs high on the scale of an important place to spend your money.
A good DAC is easy to find and not very expensive. So concentrating money and time on, say, better speakers, room acoustics, proper amp matching etc are going to make more sense. |
DACs are mature technology and above the $800 point they pretty much all sound the same TO ME ftfy
Thank you, but you didn’t have to fix it for me. You only needed to refrain from editing out my disclaimer: "[**]I think that[**] DACs are mature technology and above the $800 point they pretty much all sound the same, with only minor differences." |
I’ll just take some issue here: - The electronics - preamp and amp / 4 / the amount of money wasted on $5,000 preamps and amps is amazing.
"wasted" is of course subjective and depends on the value anyone puts on something. My current pre-amp, a Conrad Johnson tube pre-amp, retailed at around $8,000 when new (long ago), but I bought it for much less used. Still...it was pretty expensive. I’ve tried all manner of pre-amps over the years, solid state, various tube, passive, and I’ve also bypassed pre-amps both using a digital pre-amp, and running a DAC with volume control (e.g. Benchmark) direct in to my amps. In general I always found I lost one thing, gained another. I own my current pre-amp because it is, to my perception, the best combination of everything I was looking for - a sense of transparency that approached bypassing a pre-amp, yet without the darkening of tone I always found when bypassing a pre-amp, combining fabulous clarity with a tube-like ease to the presentation. I value that hard-to-find combination quite highly so the price paid was far from"wasted" in my estimation. I would make a similar case for my tube amp (CJ monoblocks). YMMV of course. (And, that said, I certainly don't think you need to spend lots of money for "good" or "accurate" sound in many cases regarding amps and pre-amps). |
My preference is for a DAC/Pre and the new RME ADI-2 unit just released offers full preamp flexibilities in a single half-rack space. Also have an Emotiva XMC-1, which is brilliantly designed/based on a Linux computer, and use it for a 5-channel control box where it works fine. The converters, however, are far less accurate than the RME ones. Disagree with phomchick's assessment of DACs over $800 sounding the same. Currently have over 10 DA converters (home and studio) ranging from Oppo, to Audient, to Emotiva, to RME and find they all sound different. The amount of difference depend on how good the rest of the system is (and especially speaker quality). The newly-released RME converter has made a large improvement in my stereo system -- all reviewers and owners have noted its startling realism. Sadly, they are VERY hard to get -- RME misjudged their appeal and has not been able to catch up with production. The Preamp question is also impacted by computer capabilities. JRiver allows you to add plugins to its DSP Studio. For a number of years have used apQualizr (a German app) in conjunction with REW to tune my stereo room. It has impressive EQ capabilities but is not ergonomic. In the studio world, the standard EQ plugin is FabFilter and it is worth the price (about $180). Think we are headed in this plugin direction for all room correction and DSP functions and believe it is better handled there in order to achieve the best audio quality. |
re: cables.....in my experience, cables sound different when connected to different components....its the components' reaction with the cable that makes/breaks the effect.
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+2 Marlalarsen. The front end is critical for me.
My old Kef 107s seem to make anything sound very good, except poor recordings or masterings (I really don't know which). But it wasn't till I got my MF Dac that I actually considered for a moment, ditching my vinyl. Don't worry, I didn't. Whew... |
I began listening to records on a portable player when I was but a child.
If asked, I would say listening is the most important thing you can do when picking up electronics. While this is the most obvious instruction, people get lost is a sea of statistics and opinion.
Go to a store and hear what they can hook up for comparison. Bring your own software and check the amp/speaker pairs for a match using the best signal you can acquire. At least this is one way to begin your search
We all hear differently just as we all experience the different senses. Everyone deserves their opinion heard but they are just beliefs based on their particular experience.
Share what works for you but never believe that you have the best. That standard expired a week ago.
There is so much incredible equipment, and you do not have to spend that much. If you have money to burn then give it to someone that needs it.
I will take my $1000 interconnects with just a sprinkle of Lark's vomit please...
There is a lot of Larks vomit out there
jhv
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I agree that speakers are the place to spend most of your money. I think most people look at tweaks because they can do "something" to try and help their system, usually without spending a ridiculous amount of dough. |
dumacker, "...That standard expired a week ago." I have to remember this sentence. Not only for audio equipment, but in general. Short and bright. "If you have money to burn then give it to someone that needs it." I am sure that more or less every manufacturer of anything would apply for that donation. They/we all need it. |
duckworp,
Regarding this 50% of the budget going into speakers vs. source. I wonder how that difference in views you and I heard came to be. I do not remember where I actually learned about it, but I was almost exclusively exposed to German audio magazines (Audio, Stereoplay) so that would be my best bet. I had virtually no exposure to British magazines. It was before Internet so things were really word of mouth and maybe it got mistranslated along the way or someone liked the idea of 50% but did not agree with the budget allocation. Who would know. It reminds me that it was, at that time wherever I used to read about audio equipment, often mentioned that British approach to anything was "garbage in-garbage out" so they apparently thought that source was the most important part. That would align with 50% of the budget you heard about.
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Well I'm in deep do-do, cuz my amp & preamp cost 10K and my Infinity Ren 90's $1500. Drat the luck.-John
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@jdave. When vinyl junkies agree that DACs sound as good as vinyl, then DAC technology has matured. |
Every Audiophile has their own thing! I look at the system as a whole, including our personality. Trying to call something nonsense is....nonsense. What is nonsense to one hobbyist will be the listening savoir to the next. One thing I find fascinating is looking at my facebook friends and their diversity. The facebook audio clubs they belong to tell the story of how big of a hobby this is and it's many chapters. What I find remarkable is the number of people who have mixed the old with the new or even the number of people who have gone back to the old after spending a few years in the new, to only find the new lacking in some musical way. As far as tweaks go, HEA is tweaks. Plug & play is a tweak and the extreme tuning of a system is a tweak. Putting your faith in a component is a tweak. Moving speakers around the room is a tweak. Electronic acoustic adjusters are tweaks as well as acoustical treatments. Your listening or living room is a tweak. There is no dividing line between what is or isn't tweaky, only a dividing line in personalities, perceived knowledge and progress in our own minds and egos to explore. There is no nonsense in audio, anything goes for the individual who chooses to go. Michael Green www.michaelgreenaudio.net |
Michael Green, "What is nonsense to one hobbyist will be the listening savoir to the next." Who could disagree with this one? It is important to remember it from time to time. Of course, vice versa also applies. What is the listening savior to one hobbyist will be non-sense to the next. I will leave it to the arguers on-call to mention some examples here. "Putting your faith in a component is a tweak." Huh, you could have left this one out. It becomes way too broad of a description to even consider it debatable or, to those who do not find it as their savoir, acceptable. Maybe added one of the major tweaks of the sound to the list instead, listening volume? "...tell the story of how big of a hobby this is..." It is an interesting observation in complete opposition from mine. I am sure we all have different friends. I am talking only about real living people we know and may meet, not virtual Facebook and Internet personae. I know only one (repeat, one) person who has had any inclination to buy anything more than a Bluetooth speaker or some Bose Wave Radio variant. Everybody else seems to be content with the sound coming from their iPhone speakers. I am sure that audio hobby is not missing diversity, but I think that it is far from being a big one. Unless that "big" referred to those few interested in it thinking very passionately about it. However, those are probably questions for some other thread with similar chewed-to-exhaustion topic. |
Agreed, glupson. I don’t see what is gained by broadening the term "tweak" to encompass everything, because doing that makes the word "tweak" meaningless. My son just "tweaked" by turning his iphone music on. But I can tell you: he ain’t no audiophile.
As I said earlier, the value of what any audiophile is doing with his system will be subjective. What may be a waste of time for you may not be for me. That’s obvious stuff. But value and objectivity also shouldn’t be mixed up either, otherwise we can’t know what we can achieve in reality. It’s one thing to value what you are doing; another to ask what is happening in reality.
On tweaking, I had a lot of fun constructing an isolation base for my new turntable. It was valuable learning from others, and from my own efforts along the way. So I certainly don’t consider my turntable base nonsense or a waste of time. Though, if asked what it has actually achieved in terms of it’s effects, I can say it has measurably isolated the turntable from external vibration like footsteps very well. But I couldn’t lay claim to it’s sonic effects beyond that, if there have been any at all. But, hey, that’s ok, I’m not making any claims, and I had a good time! |
prof,
It seems that your turntable base has been a valuable tweak already. Maybe not for sound, but who really cares. It was fun for you and now you can watch it every day and enjoy knowing you did it. That may be much more worth than getting an extra Hertz somewhere in the spectrum.
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Well spoken, gloopson. Although in truth your snarkiness quotient has been slowly creeping up.
“If it doesn’t squeak it’s not music.” |
prof
On tweaking, I had a lot of fun constructing an isolation base for my new turntable. It was valuable learning from others, and from my own efforts along the way. So I certainly don’t consider my turntable base nonsense or a waste of time. Though, if asked what it has actually achieved in terms of it’s effects, I can say it has measurably isolated the turntable from external vibration like footsteps very well. But I couldn’t lay claim to it’s sonic effects beyond that, if there have been any at all. But, hey, that’s ok, I’m not making any claims, and I had a good time!
How totally bizarre! Why would anyone go through all that trouble and not hear the results? I’m afraid something’s terribly wrong somewhere. Could be what, operator error? 🙄
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Bottom line. If it is not nonsense to you and you believe in it that is what counts. No matter what anyone says or thinks it is still your opinion and your ears and money. There will be thousands of opinions but the only one that really matters is yours. Case closed. |
tattooedtrackman,
Well....that depends on what you mean by "opinion."
Sure any individual is going to be motivated by and care most about his own opinion. But it's good to remember that "having an opinion" doesn't make that opinion true. There are opinions about matters of subjectivity, but also opinions about matters of fact. And it's good to keep open minded, listen to other people's experience and views, to be ready to alter our own opinions that turn out to be unjustifed.
So, case not quite closed.
IMO. ;-) |
tattooedtrackman
Bottom line. If it is not nonsense to you and you believe in it that is what counts. No matter what anyone says or thinks it is still your opinion and your ears and money. There will be thousands of opinions but the only one that really matters is yours. Case closed.
Well, not sure I go along with your detective work there. Just because someone believes something doesn’t mean it’s not nonsense. That’s why we have debates. To convince the other guy what he believes is nonsense. That’s what makes audio forums go around and around. 🎠
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Bottom line. If it is not nonsense to you and you believe in it that is what counts. No matter what anyone says or thinks it is still your opinion and your ears and money. There will be thousands of opinions but the only one that really matters is yours. Case closed. As a principle applied to our weird audiophile hobby this can’t do much harm, other than needlessly part people from their money. But in the real world, some things are true and some things are false, and it makes a difference. |
phomchick OP
As a principle applied to our weird audiophile hobby this can’t do much harm, other than part people from their money. But in the real world, some things are true and some things are false, and it makes a difference.
exacto mundo! Only quote facts. 😀
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geoffkait, How totally bizarre! Why would anyone go through all that trouble and not hear the results? I’m afraid something’s terribly wrong somewhere. Could be what, operator error? Yawn. |
Ouch! Gloopson strikes again! |
geoffkait,
On a more useful note, do you have an opinion about oregano? Is it better to put it directly on the pizza dough, or it is better to put it on top of other ingredients?
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I only snort oregano. I was actually unaware you could put it on food.
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geoffkait,
Thank you for answer. Maybe next time.
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You welcome for answer, gloopson.
Who is your Daddy and what does he do? |
geoffkait,
My father died in 2001.
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Half of a wit’s end, anyway.
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So, I guess I’m the bad guy here, huh?
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I actually disagree that the introduction of a component that "structurally" changed the system you have is a "tweak". The Urban Dictionary defines tweaks "Tweak- to touch something up, fiddle with the finishing touches or make tiny little changes". Additions of cables or regenerators or major room adjustments are not tweaks. These are major changes to the essence of the "HiFi" setup you have. Moving a speaker a degree toe in, or a small adjustment to the stylus etc are to me tweaks. To me, major physical changes aren't tweaks. |
geoffkait,
Do not worry yourself. The title of this thread was What matters and what is nonsense. It is good to remind ourselves from time to time of real perspective. Thank you for providing us with an opportunity.
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@geoffkait So, I guess I’m the bad guy here, huh? No, not at all. I always wanted to own a bar named Witt's End.
All the best, Nonoise |
glupson
geoffkait,
Do not worry yourself. The title of this thread was What matters and what is nonsense. It is good to remind ourselves from time to time of real perspective. Thank you for providing us with an opportunity.
>>>>No, thank you, gloopson. Thank you for being my link to reality.
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Hi Amg Yep, we may be different on this one, no biggie. I have always looked at any part of a system as a tool. Not making adjustments with music has never been a part of my thinking or reality. Michael Green www.michaelgreenaudio.net |
