Is the HiFi world changing and are What Hifi and others hanging on to the old world?

Rob - what people are saying is the forum is like the magazines. There might be lots of brands on here, but they aren't allowed to speak/show themselves as they don't pay. You pay, so you have a voice and you are seen. Therefore it might be seen that your brand is better. It is how business works, but it doesn't mean it is the best product/solution.

on the flip side, if something is so good and has been around for 14 years, why isn't it bigger? Ignoring paying advertising etc. there is a marketing issue if it is that good. If something works that well, it nearly always gets out.

Out of curiosity - you mention staying entirely digital for quality (less conversion), what class are the amplifiers?
 
Understood, but the difference here and whats great about this Forum, is that you can point out the difference of your products with consumers who can put these and other alternatives to the test.

If I had A.N. Other speaker or amp brand to promote that had nothing fundamentally different or better about it, there would be no point in spending the money or time to be here because the things promoted would be found to make no difference and I would be "exposed".

The fact that RoomPerfect was patented 14 years ago and no one knows its USPs is a ridiculous and is something I regularly berate Lyngdorf about. I did it today with the CTO for example. This leaves me to bang the drum and people here to look into the technology for themselves and hopefully to get a dem and listen.

Steve Withers who writes reviews that show up on this Forum is shortly to submit his review of the Lyngdorf MP60 Processor and I hope this will be the first review of RoomPerfect by someone really familiar with the alternatives and that can point out the USP’s of RoomPerfect.

Class A, B, D etc only describes how the output transistors work. Lyngdorf amps are Class D but there is a huge difference in the quality of different Class D amps. Done badly Class D sounds awful but done correctly they add far less to the signal than analogue amps.

The digital technology that TACT/Lyngdorf developed and sold to T.I. is called Equibit.

The interesting difference with Lyngdorf TDA’s is that they handle the signal digitally all the way through i.e. they do not convert to analogue as 99% of all ‘digital’ amps do.
 
I understand what I’m saying ruffles feathers, but I don’t think I’m the one at fault.

As an industry, the hifi systems typically promoted don’t deliver accurate sound, consistency results or the best value for money. If TVs or cameras provided such low resolution and such inconsistent results, they would be blasted by the press etc.

This thread asks “Is the HiFi world changing and are What Hifi and others hanging on to the old world?”

This is the question I’m responding to because I completely agree with the premise of the title.

If you are serious about getting the best sound quality at your budget, what’s recommended by the press and most retailers won’t deliver it. If sound quality really is your main criteria then measuring and correcting it in some way should be important. This is possible to do which would make a huge improvement in the quality, consistency and value for money of the systems sold, however most retailers and the press are not interested as the gravy train they are funded by doesn’t offer this solution.

This is what I'm critical of, not any particular brand or product.
Whoosh... that was the sound of everything I said going right over your head.

But it's OK, I've just discovered how to set a user to Ignore, so I'm good now.
 
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Marvellous.

In answer to the question asked by the thread. Yes, I think the technology that allows for more accurate sound reproduction has come on leaps and bounds in the last decade and the HiFi world hasn’t kept up.
 
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I think like all such types of magazines; hifi, car, photography etc etc the content always has to attract the support of the advertiser as well as the reader. And because of that, and the sheer volume of new cheap devices, they do tend to favour the established big name, big ticket items. And they also feed the aspirational element in us, if only I had another £X I could go and get that.
But I do question the actual validity of some of their reviews. Maybe not so much HiFi as the TV side in my experience. 3-4 years ago I made the mistake of buying a TV largely on their recommendation because of the fact I needed it quickly and there was nowhere locally that could do me a demo. Good make, award winner, good price, total pile of c**p. Worst picture quality I have ever had off a TV. luckily retailer took it back in the end. OK my fault but has made me read their reviews with a high degree of cynicism and humour since. I read them out of vague interest in keeping up to date.
Oh and btw firmly in camp 3, if it sounds good to you it doesn’t matter what badge is in the front or the price you paid. But having said that my friends £15K all big name hifi system sounds absolutely stunning, way better than mine, but will I go down that route. No it’s not worth it for me
 
Hi,
It's always great to have a system you can be proud of. Over the years i"ve always tried to have the best kit I can afford, but occasionally you back the wrong horse. I didn't easily go for MiniDisc but after all the reading I could do and a fair bit of research, I bought a Sharp SD-NX10H Minidisc Recorder/Player with cd and radio and got busy transferring my vinyl collection onto MiniDisc. To go with the player I bought Acoustic Energy Aego2 speakers and I was pretty excited and very pleased. I spent many months talking to everyone about the brave new world of MiniDiscs and then they became outed when streaming cane in.
All that investment and time was overtaken by overmaster developing technology and now I have a great system which nobody wants!
The irony is that having sold all my vinyl (under pressure), vinyl seems to have made a comeback.:facepalm:
 
I used to read What Hi-Fi and Hi-Fi Choice religiously in the 90s, but I have become very jaded and cynical about the hi-fi press. They are far from objective and have a symbiotic relationship with hi-fi manufacturers. The manufacturers need the press to write rave reviews and enthuse the buying public. The press need manufacturers to be churning out new products that they can review and sell more magazines. And of course there's the ad revenue.

A few years ago I was at the Bristol Sound & Vision Show and a demo in the Russ Andrews room was a revelation to me. You may have heard of What Hi-Fi's rule about spending 10 percent of the cost on cabling. Russ Andrews decided to go to the other extreme and spent 90 percent on the cabling and accessories. He used a 20-year-old What Hi-Fi award winning sytem with around a grand's worth of cabling and accessories and pitted it against the current award winning sysem with budget (but still "respectable") cabling. They sounded as good as each other. For me, this was a sort of eureka moment. I had a modern Creek amp and Focal speakers at the time. I poured over eBay and bought some amps and speakers from the 90s that for some reason or another I had wanted to buy back in the day but never did. What I realised was that I was enjoying the music from the older system just as much as I was from the current one. Why the hell did I spend so much money over the years replacing perfectly good components every few years?

Right now, my main hi-fi system consists of a 12-year old streamer, a 16-year old Nad amp and B&W speakers that are at least 20 years old (and quite possibly older). The newest component is the Arcam rDAC and even that dates back to 2010. I no longer do "critical" listening and simply just enjoy the music.
 
That’s not pine it’s PINE Phono Integrated Nuance Enhancer. It’s an organic substrate that has had the RA Bullsh... er I mean Technological Treatment.
 
The problem here is it is really hard to sift the bull from the objective truth. I have spent my life in electronics, first as a tv engineer, then specialising in high-end projector systems, video walls and PA systems in large-scale venues such as night clubs and casinos. I started with valve-driven TV's using PY88's and PA amps using PL36 valves and have embraced all the new technology since retraining many times during my working life.

I also was a vocalist and electric violin player in a band in my mis-spent youth. We always set the stage up in the same manner in every venue, I was on the far left of the stage. As a result, I have less than perfect hearing in my right ear.

The point of all this preamble is to point out to all that a lifetime spent working with high-energy audio fields has rendered my hearing less than ideal. In my youth, the Sony Walkman had not yet been invented, so in comparison with today's youngsters my hearing would have been pretty good. The under 30's wander about with headphones and earbuds on almost all day long even at work sometimes and most youngsters under 10 years old seem permanently attached to them.
As a result the hearing of most under 30's is probably equivalent to a person of 60+ as compared to people in the 1960's of the same age.

The point is that the hearing of most individuals in modern society cannot hear the nuances of high-end audio systems if their life depended on it so it really is completely irrelevant which particular system sounds the best in their opinion. Add to this that the average buyer of £1000+ equipment is most likely to be over 50 as they are the ones with the greatest disposable income and maybe you begin to see why it is all just so much bull and arguments over the 20,000khz tinkle of cymbals is just plain nonsense as the only ones who can hear it are new-born babies.
 
When did actually ‘hearing’ HiFi ever come into this hobby? I thought it was more about ‘what is the most expensive or esoteric’ bit of kit that I can stick in my living room, then I can talk down to everybody about.
Or being a hipster and telling anyone that will listen to you that vinyl is a superior medium to digital and how you have always been a purist blah blah blah
or espousing the virtues of valve amplifiers, not because they are a talking point in your living room as you wait 10 minutes for your HiFi to warm up ‘but they are so much warmer...’ and how intellectual it makes you look
I thought it was about listening to music and enjoying it.
 
i was lucky enough to have a purpose built room constructed and later had Tag McLaren do the eq. Two of the best upgrades ever and I get to play music at any time and volume I like.
Don’t care for music in the car as it’s too compromised to be as good as my hifi and my journeys are too short.
The software is still the biggest problem though. Struggle to find any new music I like better than my old stuff and then struggle finding discs with decent transfers.
 
If you really want to learn about reproducing sound accurately this is the most useful information I know of. Most of the questions asked in this thread have already been answered and tested under scientific conditions.

Here is what their research found with regards to the reliability of different listeners, with 100% being a perfect correlation between the best sound and being able to recognise it.

SELECTED & TRAINED 93%
RETAIL SALES 35%
AUDIO REVIEWERS 20%
SALES & MARKETING 13%

 
Great Presentation Rob. What I take from it is that unless you are 'trained' you dont know how to listen to speakers. We should all be listening to Harbeths as they as close to the BBC's original BBC LS3/5a specification for a Neutral studio monitor. And room correction is junk as room acoustics are way too complex to process out all of the reflections.
 
Hi Mushi

I’m glad you liked the video. I think it’s essential viewing for anyone serious about audio reproduction in the home.

I don’t think trained listeners have better hearing than other people they just have a reference point to compare systems against that most other people don’t. Its just the same as living with a great car.

If you want to, you can easily train your hearing. Just get some good professional headphones and use them regularly for a month or two and I guarantee you’ll then find 99% of hifis wanting. I did exactly this, years ago and it changed my requirements for a good audio system.

The headphones will reproduce all the sound in your music accurately. 99% of hifis don’t do this which you’ll hear after living with the headphones. In the video Floyd Toole says that room correction cannot an unknown speaker in an unknown room and correct it to give perfect audio. This is exactly what all room correction systems except RoomPerfect do.

RoomPerfect starts by measuring the direct sound from the speakers and then measures the sound throughout the whole room. With this info it can preserve the sound of your speakers while removing room errors.

Using this technology and sub/sat speakers I can reproduce everything in a recording accurately in regular room from a system costing about £5,500. Walk around a hifi shown and most system can’t do this regardless of price.

LS3/5a’s are great at reproducing voices but they don’t play bass. If these were your reference point they would distort your reference point for good audio. Try listening to a good pop track on them and it would sound anaemic.
 
Rob, thanks for the reply. I guess was being a little flippant with my response. I studied a post grad in acoustics many years ago. One of my friends is a Consultant speaker designer and another used to be Sony’s head pressing engineer at their Vinyl then CD Fab plant in Swindon. We often have discussions around this stuff. The conclusion is that people are way too hung up on fidelity that they don’t understand. DSP, room treatments, bass traps is the new snake oil. Yes we treat our concert halls, after a lot of measuring, measurements and calculation and with some trial and error we can engineer out some problems. Domestic spaces are far far harder. Short pathlengths, a mixture of reflective surfaces. Even adding an extra person to a room can completely change its acoustic characteristics. I see so much waffle on here about acoustic treatment but not once have I seen anyone hire a 1/3 octave spectral analyser and actually do some room calculation. That is the bread and butter of architectural acoustic consultants. People on here like to play and pretend to be very knowledgeable yet have no understanding of the fundamental maths and physics. Oh my room has the characteristic x Hz hump. How do you know? Using a £40 uncalibrated SLM from Amazon? That is like me calibrating a TV using a Pantone catalogue. If people were really that interested in the science of their HiFi and how their room affects it, they would get themselves on a few Bruel and Kjaer Courses, then hire a Class 1 SLM and 1/3 octave analyser and actually measure their rooms performance and the effects of DSP or room treatments.
Alternatively people can stop listening to HiFi and start listening to music.
 
I think that the Hifi magazines or any review magazines for that matter should always be taken with a pinch of salt. Whilst the reviewers may be knowledgable, and many of the “bench” tests they carry out are simply laughable, Human nature dictates that we are all biased to what we like and dislike and What Hifi reviewers are not impervious to it. i.e., One mans score of 6, is another woman's 9.

I use the mags to see what’s new on the market then I go test, listen and “review” for myself.

For me, the HIFI world itself hasn’t changed, the technologies might, but not the Industry itself. I’ve been buying HIFI for over 35 years, the snobs still exist and as much as they are entitled to their opinions, I’m old enough and experienced enough not to be swayed by anyone or any review.
 
Wish I'd known I had to train my ears to listen to music. All those years when I thought I was enjoying the experience wasted. I have a friend who played for many years in the Ulster Orchestra and I always envied his musicianship, but not any more. He listens to music at home on a sub-£300 all in one system he bought in Curry's, the untrained fool.
 
Hey Mushi, Aaaah, right, sorry I didn’t know……..

It’s great to meet someone on a Hifi Forum who understands acoustics and just how inaccurate they make audio systems.

For 30 years I’ve focused on home cinema where there is a much greater understanding of the subject. I’m becoming involved in hifi again you’d think acoustics are irrelevant. It really is bizarre how the subject has been ignored.

I’m trying to make it as simple as possible for people to understand the problem their room is creating. A/B comparisons, mid track, with good headphones is something I think is very easy for anyone to use. Another simple way is playing a gradually falling test tone which sound as loud throughout the frequency sweep, which it very rarely will.

Are there any other methods you’d recommend?

I want to keep this as quick and simple as possible and avoid REW, fancy mics etc as most people will run for the hills.
 
Rob, understanding the complexities of acoustics and audio I have spent a long time and a lot of discussions with friends who work or have worked in the recording industry as mixing engineers, pressing engineers or speaker designers. I, like they, have come to the conclusion that no HiFi in the world will ever replicate:

What the musicians heard on their IEM's / Studio Monitors
What the Mixing Engineer Heard on his Cans / Studio Monitors
What the Mastering Engineer heard when he finished the studio Master
What the pressing engineer heard when he made the Master Pressing

Each one of the steps adds or takes away from the process and hopefully at the end of it, you have music that everyone agrees is good.

Now unless you have the same electronics and speakers / headphones as each of the engineers, it is going to sound very slightly different. So now we get to Joe Blogs with his HiFi. Joe can either enjoy the audio for what it is, on his system and get his system to sound like HE wants it to sound or he can go down the science route and try and use test tones try and get the most neutral sounding system in the world (which he will probably hate listening to) but he can claim reference levels of reproduction. And therein lies the rub. Studio Reference monitors with a +/- 3dB frequency response and a very neutral sounding system are wearing to listen to and not very exciting.

Having done many hundreds of hours of sitting with a precision SLM taking readings and trying to analyse the reason for certain acoustic characteristics of a room or system I am not inclined to try and analyse my HiFi's frequency response as I know its poor. What I do know is that it sounds nice to my (damaged and poor hearing) and I enjoy it. I like a 3dB boost on my higher frequencies to compensate for my hearing loss, I like a 3dB boost on my 100Hz down as it is more akin to concert PA sound, in fact I quite like a Vee shaped sound (as do many people - psychoacoustically its more pleasant to listen to)

So to conclude as much as I understand the Maths and Physics and how to use a Precision SLM or 1/3 Octave Spectral Analyser to actually understand what is going on; when free field analysis is preferable to near field; how to use Sones and Phones (which nobody ever talks about but are more important than dB); how to calculate the resonant frequency of a room at a given wave-length I actually choose not to. I want to enjoy the music and not the hifi and how my music makes me feel and interacts with my life. Please dont get me wrong, I love great sounding hifi, as long as it sounds like I want it to, not to how a B&K 2250 tells me how it should sound.
 
Let me throw this into the Mix - one of the most famous nightclub venues, in the world - The Cavern Club in Liverpool, acoustically is probably one of the worst venues possible for amplified music. Long hard tunnel, with a vaulted ceiling 2/3 of its volume filled with soft squishy people. Yet nobody, that I know or have ever read about has ever complained about the audio fidelity in there. Why? Because in general most people don't care, the music is more important than the fidelity. Why are Beats headphones so popular (they sound like ass to me); why was Bose Hifi (sic) so popular for so long; why are Apple / Amazon / Google et al speakers so popular. Because of 2 things:

1. They nearly all have a Vee shaped sound - which as I have said is psycho-acoustically very pleasing to listen to.
2. People are choosing to listen to music how they like it, not how a bunch of old men with Beards and Pipes tell them 'Now Sonny, if its not Vinyl on an LP12 with a British Amplifier and Roger LS5as, with 20% of you budget spent on interconnects with esoteric sounding names and speaker cable at at least £20/m its not hifi' Those days are dead and so they should be.

Music is a celebration of life and enjoyment and hifi is just a medium to play it on - I will shut up now.
 
Rob, understanding the complexities of acoustics and audio I have spent a long time and a lot of discussions with friends who work or have worked in the recording industry as mixing engineers, pressing engineers or speaker designers. I, like they, have come to the conclusion that no HiFi in the world will ever replicate:

What the musicians heard on their IEM's / Studio Monitors
What the Mixing Engineer Heard on his Cans / Studio Monitors
What the Mastering Engineer heard when he finished the studio Master
What the pressing engineer heard when he made the Master Pressing

Each one of the steps adds or takes away from the process and hopefully at the end of it, you have music that everyone agrees is good.

Now unless you have the same electronics and speakers / headphones as each of the engineers, it is going to sound very slightly different. So now we get to Joe Blogs with his HiFi. Joe can either enjoy the audio for what it is, on his system and get his system to sound like HE wants it to sound or he can go down the science route and try and use test tones try and get the most neutral sounding system in the world (which he will probably hate listening to) but he can claim reference levels of reproduction. And therein lies the rub. Studio Reference monitors with a +/- 3dB frequency response and a very neutral sounding system are wearing to listen to and not very exciting.

Having done many hundreds of hours of sitting with a precision SLM taking readings and trying to analyse the reason for certain acoustic characteristics of a room or system I am not inclined to try and analyse my HiFi's frequency response as I know its poor. What I do know is that it sounds nice to my (damaged and poor hearing) and I enjoy it. I like a 3dB boost on my higher frequencies to compensate for my hearing loss, I like a 3dB boost on my 100Hz down as it is more akin to concert PA sound, in fact I quite like a Vee shaped sound (as do many people - psychoacoustically its more pleasant to listen to)

So to conclude as much as I understand the Maths and Physics and how to use a Precision SLM or 1/3 Octave Spectral Analyser to actually understand what is going on; when free field analysis is preferable to near field; how to use Sones and Phones (which nobody ever talks about but are more important than dB); how to calculate the resonant frequency of a room at a given wave-length I actually choose not to. I want to enjoy the music and not the hifi and how my music makes me feel and interacts with my life. Please dont get me wrong, I love great sounding hifi, as long as it sounds like I want it to, not to how a B&K 2250 tells me how it should sound.
I wish I could give that post two likes, it's so good.

I get particularly annoyed by people who think frequency response is the only thing that matters (even by ones who aren't trying to sell stuff). It most definitely is not!

I've heard systems with much flatter in-room frequency responses than mine, but with poorer resolution. Maybe I can, for example, hear bass notes that might be tonally as close to perfect as possible, but I don't get the leading edge of a drumstick strike anywhere near as well I'd get on more resolving systems.

And there's sometimes very little image - instruments might sound great tonally, but I can't pinpoint where they are because they're smeared across the stage. I know that imaging is kind of artificial, as in live performance (other than, perhaps, in small acoustic situations) you really don't get it (and I still love live music). But I don't care - I love good imaging in an audio system.

Those are the kind of things that move me, while my mind quickly filters out tonal and frequency response differences - and my ears and brain themselves are nowhere near flat in their frequency responses anyway.

But you try telling that to the "All that matters is frequency response" kids of today...

...I will shut up now.
Please don't.
 
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Let me throw this into the Mix - one of the most famous nightclub venues, in the world - The Cavern Club in Liverpool, acoustically is probably one of the worst venues possible for amplified music. Long hard tunnel, with a vaulted ceiling 2/3 of its volume filled with soft squishy people. Yet nobody, that I know or have ever read about has ever complained about the audio fidelity in there. Why? Because in general most people don't care, the music is more important than the fidelity. Why are Beats headphones so popular (they sound like ass to me); why was Bose Hifi (sic) so popular for so long; why are Apple / Amazon / Google et al speakers so popular. Because of 2 things:

1. They nearly all have a Vee shaped sound - which as I have said is psycho-acoustically very pleasing to listen to.
2. People are choosing to listen to music how they like it, not how a bunch of old men with Beards and Pipes tell them 'Now Sonny, if its not Vinyl on an LP12 with a British Amplifier and Roger LS5as, with 20% of you budget spent on interconnects with esoteric sounding names and speaker cable at at least £20/m its not hifi' Those days are dead and so they should be.

Music is a celebration of life and enjoyment and hifi is just a medium to play it on - I will shut up now.
Hear, hear. Each to their own but jolly well-said. 👍
 

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