Its not you speakers its the music your listening to

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But i bet you could get all that for about half the price either ex-dem or second hand.....i'm not even sure Shahinian are around any more.
 
Active speakers are my favourite solution to underpowered amps. :D

I was listening to the first Rage Against the Machine album earlier; Andy Wallace did a great job with this creating one of the most dynamic albums available I think.

I have to be honest and say that I've never considered hifi to be about recreating live music. There is no way at all that any recording can reproduce the actual sounds of real instruments. The piano and orchestra's are obvious candidates to me for being impossible to record and recreate as it would be in a live situation.

The pursuit of high fidelity audio is about many things but to me (and many others) it's about delivering the composition coherently rather than the full live sound. Movies are a different thing though... :)
 
I was listening to the first Rage Against the Machine album earlier; Andy Wallace did a great job with this creating one of the most dynamic albums available I think.

I would certainly agree with that.
 
Point i guess i was trying to make to with my original thread is That Only speaking for my self. We have a massive music collection. When you actually sit down and try to work out quality wise. How much of it is top notch.

I actually wonder what the percentage is. Bet we would be very surprised. I mean they we all by CD's and records now of Amazon ect You can not try really before you buy its totally impracticable really.

There must be a good few of us that are judging our valuable much love 5 star equipment (cough) by our Crappy Record collection. Quality wise,

We wonder why we are not pleased with the results. As i said at the beginning of the thread when we do play that one disc as i gave the Madonna example of my own experience of this.

In my case It actually shines above the rest like a pair of knickers on a Jaguar Ariel. You sit in your chair and go 'Kin hell'. It dose not Really say much for all the money we spent on the rest of the music collection really.

And out of that music collection we are expecting top notch results. Coming on hear like we all do going My speakers need changing not very happy do you think i should bi wire. Do i need to spend thousand pound on speaker cable. gold plated bits

Funny you can take all the advise spend all the money you can, and in the end, you made your groggy records or CD's sound ten times worse. Should we be really paying more attention to the source before we if and but about our speakers. Makes one think.

Loved the guy who said about The AV amp and its real cost in the respect of the speakers that are attached to it. My work colleague spent an absolute fortune on monitor audio speakers for his £120 sale price av amp from richer sounds he bought a good while back. Never looked at it the way you explained it Before.
That guy was me.:)

I did go off at a bit of a tangent, but then you've opened a very interesting can of inter-related worms.

The best source will extract every last bit of info out of the worst recordings, without being excited into nasties by the recordings short comings. It can make average recordings sound as good as they get. Get it wrong here, and the rest of the system will never, ever get it back.

A fine example is Jennifer Warnes 'Famous Blue Raincoat'. It's clear, open and spacious but unfortunately bright in that late eighties/early nineties kind of way. A good source just keeps it all under control and lets a bright recording out, rather than the spitty, sibilant one it can be made to sound like.

You're right, plenty of mainstream 'airplay balanced' recordings are dire, but get a source that will extract 100% of these 90% recordings and as you've found, when you drop a 100% recording in the tray it really knocks your socks off.

100% recordings worth trying from down the years:

Harry Connick Jr - We are in Love. (5* this one)
Micheal Hedges - Aerial Boundaries.
Dire Straits - Love Over Gold.
Bob Dylan - Oh! Mercy.
Steve Earle - Copperhead Road.
Gary Moore - Blues Alive.
Blue Man Group - The Complex.

Russell
 
I had a few hours to kill tonight so I thought I'd reply.

I know we don't agree on hardly anything Helicon but like you I have no fear of challenging you on what I perceive to be misguided. I'm not going to turn this into a flamewar but I'm not going to let some of these broad statements without at least some balance.


I've come into this one late (nothing new there), but felt i had to reply to a few things.......

Me too! See we do have something in common.


Forget subs, it's a bloody good test of how low your speakers can go. And if you want to hear that album at it's best, get it on vinyl - that track is nothing short of awesome, the bass is phenomenal, and way deeper than you'll get on any CD.

Sorry? Redbook CD's reproduce down to 20hz so unless theres a different mastering been applied to the CD over the vinyl this starts to get into the realms of inaudible sound. Even if you assume that the <20Hz sounds make a difference, which I'll indulge you, you are also saying forget a sub. Show me any speakers that are going to give you meaningful bass under 20Hz without a sub. So where are you getting this assertion from? I'm not saying it's not a fantastic recording but your statement just doesn't stand up to close scrutiny. Oh no hang on, you can hear the <20Hz stuff from your speakers :rolleyes:


And this causes a problem for people asking advice on here. Somebody asks how good these speakers are for £500, then someone slags them off and says they're crap. Chances are that person's only heard them on an AV amp, or their mates Av amp and has never heard them perform as they should do. And then there's those who're buying £1,500/2,000 speakers and using them on £400/500 AV amps - either they shop at an unscrupulous dealer, or they're taking the advice from the wrong forum members.

Or they don't necessarily agree with your somewhat narrow approach and have looked elsewhere for other opinions and, dare I say, proof that what you're saying is anything more than placebo?

I know only too well you refuse to read, accept or even acknowledge any of the testing or scientific research thats been done on all sorts of equipment from "av amps" to high end boutique audiophile gear. You're convinced you've heard a difference and any talk of placebo or psychological colouration is ignored and vilified. Thats fine, I'll keep repeating this for the benefit of those people who are prepared to do their own research on the matter. I'm not going to claim anything either way but I'll be sure, when it's appropriate, to make people aware that there are other (and in my opinion FAR more convincing from a scientific viewpoint) opinions on the matter than yours.

There has been extensive testing done on all manner of equipment at all different levels and currently almost all the scientific evidence points to there being no human audible difference between amplifiers (caveating that with provided that theres no defects with the amp or that there is radically different technology involved - then again thats only as I've not seen testing done to prove it). There has also been testing proving how strong the placebo effect can be and how people can be convinced they've heard something that doesn't exist (exist in the scientifically provable sense of course). You're happy to ignore all that but I do urge anyone with an interest to do the research before they accept either of our opinions. People can then make up their own minds rather than blindly accepting either of our opinions.

CD's already sound bad enough as it is compared to most of their vinyl counterparts, so i agree, more care should be taken in their mixing and mastering! CD's can sound amazing, and i don't think there's any excuse for them to sound lifeless.

I agree, but this has absolutely nothing to do with the format and everything to do with the mixing and recording.

More information can be stored in the groove of a record than in a 16 bit pit, so CD's not quite there yet...... :)

We really do need SACD and DTS CD's to make a big push and get popular, as these do sound much better than CD's. The DTS CD's i've heard so far have been amazing - some scary bass on offer!

You're right about one thing, you can store more information on a record. Thats great until you take into account everything else that it has going against it like wow and flutter, rumble, dust, warping and so on. I'm not going to enter into an evangelist war with you over it. You like vinyl, good luck to you.

Again you're back with the bass comment. I'll not repeat what I said above but it still applies. I can accept the mastering between formats can be different, as the following study showed, but if you're listening on a "normal" set of speakers, CD will carry all the frequency variation you'll ever be able to distinguish with human ears.

Very recently a study was conducted comparing SACD/DVDA with CDA and the conclusion was very clear.

ripped from Wikipedia said:
An article published in the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society Vol. 55 Number 9, September 2007, entitled "Audibility of a CD-Standard ADA Loop Inserted Into High-Resolution Audio Playback" by E. Brad Meyer and David Moran reported the results of their study, which concluded that listeners could not hear the difference between a high-resolution two-channel recording and a CD-quality downsampling of the same recording except when "unpleasantly (often unbearably) loud." The article concluded that many high-resolution releases sounded better than their CD counterparts, but attributes this to mastering differences.

So, there is rightly a difference between SACD and CD encoding formats but you need to make yourself deaf in order to hear it. Nice one :rolleyes:

I tell you what heres a radical thought. I'm happy to put my neck on the line here. If anyone here lives near NW London and wants to lug their amps around to my place we'll hook them up to my pair of MA GR20's and compare with my cheap and nasty ;) 605 Onkyo AV amp. I have an SPL meter so we can set it up to the same levels and I'm happy to be proven wrong. I WANT to be proven wrong. I'm open and I'll even try and figure out how we could blind test them. I've read enough scientific based opinion to be confident there will be no difference, anyone else want to find out?

As for the OP's question, yes I wholeheartedly agree 100% that CD mastering quality is the root of the problem. Hifisponge has been making this point repeatedly to those claiming the MA speakers are bright. The measurements say not but because some recordings assume a response dip between 5000-11000 which a number of speakers have a response dip at some recordings can sound bright. In my ignorance, my MA GR's sound fantastic and I hear no hint of brightness or sibilance, and I really have listened hard to hear it. I think a lot of the problems people find are recording issues and it just goes to prove you should listen thoroughly to the speakers you're after with the material you're likely to listen to.

G
 
Great joke;

There's this Welsh bloke and a Midlander in a virtual room and they're discussing audio..........

Can I cut this short by saying I don't care which one takes the parachute?:D

FWIW, you'll tap your feet with eyes closed to my turntable, whilst you'd listen critically to my CD player.

You'll still feel frequencies even if you can't hear them. That tactile experience is a very large part of recreating reality. If you disagree, buy headphones.

I have a number of SACDs and a certain portion of them are unbelievably good. I know there's a DSD mastered v non-DSD mastered thing going on here, but I get bored, turn the lights out and listen to stuff. I'm not sure which ones were mastered at the higher bit/sampling rates, but I have noticed an entirely unscientific correlation between the ones that I liten to again and again.

Incidentally, out of the 22 SACDs that I own, 18 of them were already in my collection on both vinyl and CD. The most listened to selection, all fall into the 'previously owned' subset and I don't know which are the unpolluted DSD (re?)masters. Now I think about it, I don't care, but it does strike me they were all from the pure analogue days.

I'm a child of my time...

Russell
 
I'm not going to go into the usual long winded reply against such narrow mindedness. So i'll keep it fairly short.

Show me any speakers that are going to give you meaningful bass under 20Hz without a sub. So where are you getting this assertion from? I'm not saying it's not a fantastic recording but your statement just doesn't stand up to close scrutiny. Oh no hang on, you can hear the <20Hz stuff from your speakers :rolleyes:
Who mentioned <20Hz? Not me. The CD, which i was used to, just didn't have the bass response of the vinyl. Fullstop.

I know only too well you refuse to read, accept or even acknowledge any of the testing or scientific research thats been done on all sorts of equipment from "av amps" to high end boutique audiophile gear. You're convinced you've heard a difference and any talk of placebo or psychological colouration is ignored and vilified.
I just know what i hear and have heard.

There has been extensive testing done on all manner of equipment at all different levels and currently almost all the scientific evidence points to there being no human audible difference between amplifiers
This is just total BS.

I agree, but this has absolutely nothing to do with the format and everything to do with the mixing and recording.
I've owned some CD recordings for years. I've picked up a vinyl copy, and been amazed at the amount of information contained in it i didn't hear before. Maybe that was placebo too. On the flip side, there's some vinyl i've been used to. Bought the CD, one sounded so bad i took it back and got a refund.

You're right about one thing, you can store more information on a record. Thats great until you take into account everything else that it has going against it like wow and flutter, rumble, dust, warping and so on. I'm not going to enter into an evangelist war with you over it. You like vinyl, good luck to you.
A decent turntable doesn't suffer from audible wow and flutter. I love vinyl, many more do. It's the longest lasting audiophile format so far, and it'll outlast CD, and probably the next format.

I can accept the mastering between formats can be different, as the following study showed, but if you're listening on a "normal" set of speakers, CD will carry all the frequency variation you'll ever be able to distinguish with human ears.
Harmonics.

So, there is rightly a difference between SACD and CD encoding formats but you need to make yourself deaf in order to hear it. Nice one :rolleyes:
If you're trying to tell me that there's NO audible difference between CD and SACD, i'm going to laugh at you.

I tell you what heres a radical thought. I'm happy to put my neck on the line here. If anyone here lives near NW London and wants to lug their amps around to my place we'll hook them up to my pair of MA GR20's and compare with my cheap and nasty ;) 605 Onkyo AV amp. I have an SPL meter so we can set it up to the same levels and I'm happy to be proven wrong. I WANT to be proven wrong. I'm open and I'll even try and figure out how we could blind test them. I've read enough scientific based opinion to be confident there will be no difference, anyone else want to find out?
Once again, if you're trying to tell me that a Pioneer A109 and any Bryston pre/power driving a pair of KEF Reference 4.2 is going to sound exactly the same, i'm going to laugh at you again. Only harder.

Hifisponge has been making this point repeatedly to those claiming the MA speakers are bright. The measurements say not but because some recordings assume a response dip between 5000-11000 which a number of speakers have a response dip at some recordings can sound bright. In my ignorance, my MA GR's sound fantastic and I hear no hint of brightness or sibilance, and I really have listened hard to hear it.
I find the older GR series to be brighter than the GS series. But hey, it's all personal preference.

PS None of this is intended to be a personal jab at you GBH, i just don't understand why someone of your beliefs is hanging around an audiophile forum.
 
Great joke;

There's this Welsh bloke and a Midlander in a virtual room and they're discussing audio..........

Can I cut this short by saying I don't care which one takes the parachute?:D
:rotfl:

FWIW, you'll tap your feet with eyes closed to my turntable, whilst you'd listen critically to my CD player.
This quote says it all.....thanks Russ :)
 
Hifisponge has been making this point repeatedly to those claiming the MA speakers are bright.....
Hifisponge would do well to get out a bit more and listen to price equivalents from the likes of ATC and Dynaudio and realise what a really accurate set of transducers sound like.

I suspect the warts-and-all monitor reproduction wouldn't suit him either, because he likes the MA 'voice' and justifies it to suit his own preferences.

Russell
 
:rotfl:

This quote says it all.....thanks Russ :)
What can I say, people are forgetting this is about music.

Christmas, I'm sitting on the sun deck of a restaurant 5000ft up a French mountain 100m from the snow park (where idiot snowboarders fling themselves into mid-air) which apparently needs huge speakers because the mountains are too quiet.

The cheese-eating-surrender-monkey put on the whole of Pink Floyd's 'Wish You Were Here' parts 1-4. Sounded rubbish, but goddam I was happy. It's all about context.

Russell
 
Which just proves you are talking rubbish.
I was looking over the sea in Lanzarote at chrimbo.
Who the **** wants to go to France in the winter :confused: :D

Touche, or what ever the word is in Spanglais.

I was bought up with Vinyl and yes, it rules, big time, I've always thought that.
Digital will never match analogue, IMO :smashin:

Would I buy it now?
Two hopes, I'm not that sad.
 
Russ.Will is on to another factor here. Music is music. Does anyone remember a time when the greatest (ie: highest volume) source of music there was, was AM radio. Absolute crap from a technical perspective, but when the music played, I was transported to teenage heaven. Clyde Clifford from Little Rock Arkansas used to keep us transfixed for hours with his Clear Channel late night rock and roll broadcasts. (Though a smoke filled room and a few beers definitely help set the mood.)

Anyone remember the cheap transistor radios with 1.5" speakers that we used to listen to AM radio with? (No, of course, you don't, you weren't born yet.)

Music has the power to captivate the body, mind, and soul, even when the source is as crappy as it comes. And therein lies the problem. There is no denying that there is a HUGE psychological component to listening to music. The mind is VERY easily fooled and very easily appeased.

As I said before, that is why it is so difficult to professionally review Audio equipment. Because you are always in a struggle to overcome the psychological aspects that will cloud you mind. Continually struggling to make sure a pretty face isn't hiding a mediocre soul (that applies to both women and music).

There are many psychological reasons why I like vinyl, herein after referred to as 'albums'. There is the ritual aspect of it. Carefully removing the paper cover from the album jacket, carefully removing the album for the paper cover. Placing it carefully on the turntable. Spritzing my microfiber dust cloth lightly with specially formulated record cleaner. Carefully wiping the surface clean of all dust particles and hairs. It's almost as good as sex. Then starting the album. I have a semi-automatic turntable. It only plays one record at a time, but a touch of a button moves the tone arm onto the album, and the tone arm automatically returns when the album is finished. Less chance of accidents that way.

There is also a very pleasant tactile feel to albums. They feel good in my hands. There is also a huge nostalgic aspect; remembering (you should excuse the expression) high times.

I've been through several iterations of stereo equipment; several amps, several speakers, several turntables, a few reel-to-real tape recorders, etc.... Always striving to find the best within my budget. I've been very satisfied with my separate Pioneer Tuner and Amp, and Pioneer turntable (Stanton cartridge). They have lasted, and served me for many many years. But after those many many years, one amp channel was getting weak, so I traded up to a straight stereo Onkyo receiver which is also very satisfying.

Right now I'm listening to 'Led Zeppelin: House of the Holy' on vinyl; sweet stuff.

So, what is my point? Well crappy music production still pleases people, especially unsophisticated people; you know, the iPod crowd. They get what pleases them, but they are missing the immense treat of a crystal clear stereo with full dynamic range, a brilliantly mastered album played through clean tight amps, and through BIG clear speakers. Trust me when I say, quantity is not quality.

Things are different in the UK. There people still appreciate a good stereo. But if you go into the major electronic stores here in the USA, the REAL stereo equipment has been relegated to one small corner. The selection is atrocious. It's all A/V amps and boom boxes. I've been thinking of writing a post with links so you can all see the sorry state of music electronics here in the USA. I actually know more and better sources of equipment in the UK than I do here in the USA, and I've really looked for good sources in the USA.

In conclusion; bad sounds good to some people, and there is nothing we can do about that. Bad people who like bad sound have tons of money to spend, and so their tastes dominate the market. Still, I miss the good old days when it was all about the music.

Ahhh...good times.

Steve/bluewizard
 
Great joke;

There's this Welsh bloke and a Midlander in a virtual room and they're discussing audio..........

Can I cut this short by saying I don't care which one takes the parachute?:D

FWIW, you'll tap your feet with eyes closed to my turntable, whilst you'd listen critically to my CD player.

You'll still feel frequencies even if you can't hear them. That tactile experience is a very large part of recreating reality. If you disagree, buy headphones.

I have a number of SACDs and a certain portion of them are unbelievably good. I know there's a DSD mastered v non-DSD mastered thing going on here, but I get bored, turn the lights out and listen to stuff. I'm not sure which ones were mastered at the higher bit/sampling rates, but I have noticed an entirely unscientific correlation between the ones that I liten to again and again.

Incidentally, out of the 22 SACDs that I own, 18 of them were already in my collection on both vinyl and CD. The most listened to selection, all fall into the 'previously owned' subset and I don't know which are the unpolluted DSD (re?)masters. Now I think about it, I don't care, but it does strike me they were all from the pure analogue days.

I'm a child of my time...

Russell

Russ,

You're right what matters is the music. If it sounds good on any format thats what matters, that I also agree with (which I think, if I read your post correctly was your point - unless I've missed some subtle dig at me but it is late ;))

I agree with you that there is some evidence that you can feel (as you certainly can't hear) <20 material. My point was that for whatever reason Helicon's statement contradicted itself and briefly reading his reply still does. You know as well as I do that I'm a newbie to this, I don't profess years of industry experience but I'm no idiot either and I constantly read and educate myself with everything I can find.

My point is fundamentally that from the reading and research (and listening) I've done, the world is moving on from a number of the long held urban myths in audiophile land. Theres been too much testing to disprove many of these myth's for there not to be some truth. I'm not in any way saying it's the full truth but the evidence points very strongly in a particular direction. This has a strong parallel between the big bang > creationist argument. Theres no way to definitely prove the big bang without being there but the evidence strongly suggests God didn't create the world about 6000 years ago. That doesn't stop people being as sure as Helicon is about hifi that God waved his finger and everything just appeared.

Ultimately what I see is Helicon giving a very one sided and at times both blatantly and factually incorrect information, even from my ignorant viewpoint, and considering he likes to hide his vested interest so carefully I feel it's right that the other side of the argument should be made for balance.

As I've said before, I love listening to my MA GR20's even with MP3's, so I guess I really do get it ;)

G
 
Hifisponge would do well to get out a bit more and listen to prisce equivalents from the likes of ATC and Dynaudio and realise what a really accurate set of transducers sound like.

I suspect the warts-and-all monitor reproduction wouldn't suit him either, because he likes the MA 'voice' and justifies it to suit his own preferences.

Russell

Actually I think you sell him short, he seems to know his stuff and from previous posts seems to have owned a wide range of other speakers.

Just out of curiosity what do you class as accurate. The MA GR plots I've seen are very close to being perfectly flat in response. Is this not what everyone aims for? Educate me :)

G
 
I'm not going to go into the usual long winded reply against such narrow mindedness. So i'll keep it fairly short.

Who mentioned <20Hz? Not me. The CD, which i was used to, just didn't have the bass response of the vinyl. Fullstop.

I just know what i hear and have heard.

This is just total BS.

I've owned some CD recordings for years. I've picked up a vinyl copy, and been amazed at the amount of information contained in it i didn't hear before. Maybe that was placebo too. On the flip side, there's some vinyl i've been used to. Bought the CD, one sounded so bad i took it back and got a refund.

A decent turntable doesn't suffer from audible wow and flutter. I love vinyl, many more do. It's the longest lasting audiophile format so far, and it'll outlast CD, and probably the next format.

Harmonics.

If you're trying to tell me that there's NO audible difference between CD and SACD, i'm going to laugh at you.

Once again, if you're trying to tell me that a Pioneer A109 and any Bryston pre/power driving a pair of KEF Reference 4.2 is going to sound exactly the same, i'm going to laugh at you again. Only harder.

I find the older GR series to be brighter than the GS series. But hey, it's all personal preference.

PS None of this is intended to be a personal jab at you GBH, i just don't understand why someone of your beliefs is hanging around an audiophile forum.

I've been advised in a PM not to reply to you as you're not worth the effort, I however don't know how to give up.

What astounds me about your replies is that they're so incredibly blinkered. I am openly and honestly putting myself up to be educated. I hold a particular opinion based on my limited listening and my research and I'm asking for someone to step up, come to my place and prove me wrong. How exactly is that being narrow minded? You on the other hand refuse to read ANYTHING on the subject, refuse to accept that you could be wrong with anything at all. I'm open to evidence and facts that back up your claim only you show me nothing. Lots of fluffy audiophile sounding claims and absolutely no facts at all, not a single thing. Thats what undermines your arguments and rings my BS alarm bell very loudly indeed. If you have no sound basis of proof other than subjective opinion how can you ever be so sure you're right?

Helicon said:
If you're trying to tell me that there's NO audible difference between CD and SACD, i'm going to laugh at you.

No. You see thats exactly the point. I'm not, some very clever audio experts from the audio engineering society are. You see posts from someone like me as *me* making the claims. I'm simply taking other people research and quoting it as I have neither the means, experience or expertise to do the testing myself. These people are far more knowledgeable and experienced than me and I'm guessing you with regards to the engineering of sound. People who are looking at this from an unbias and objective viewpoint. Go back and read the quote and take VERY careful notice of what it says. Look I'll try and make it easy for you. They tested SACD and a CD which contained a downsampled copy of the SACD tracks. In testing they couldn't tell the difference between them unless it was turned up to ear damaging levels. (this is the important part) They concluded that any difference that existed on real world recordings was down to better mastering on the SACD recordings and *NOT* due to the difference in encoding formats. That means ignoring multichannel for a moment, the enhanced encoding gives you nothing you can hear.

The likelihood is that if SACD became mainstream, it would suffer the same fate of generally poor mastering, whereas at the moment they're aimed at the audiophile and so the mastering is done well. CD's need not be inferior to SACD and indeed in tests they aren't. At the moment they are regarded as superior but its not due to the format or the equipment but due to the mastering which is an agreement with the OP.

Helican said:
Once again, if you're trying to tell me that a Pioneer A109 and any Bryston pre/power driving a pair of KEF Reference 4.2 is going to sound exactly the same, i'm going to laugh at you again. Only harder.

No, I'm not. If you can be bothered to read the information thats out there created by others far more experienced and capable than me you'll see they are. Same as before, *I'm* not claiming anything other than making people aware of the research and testing other people have done. At the same volume levels, according to those tests done by other people, repeatedly, you CAN'T tell the difference.

Helicon said:
PS None of this is intended to be a personal jab at you GBH, i just don't understand why someone of your beliefs is hanging around an audiophile forum.

If this isn't meant to be a personal jab I'd suggest having a look at your "personal jibe" filter because at the moment it seems firmly in the "sarcastic dismissive" area and not the "supply good factual solid information to educate him" area.

Anyway why wouldn't I? Theres a huge amount of very good, accurate, correct and informative information here. I am learning every single day and I read as much as I get time to do to expand my knowledge. Where I can help, I do. Where I feel I can add, I do and when I feel I see someone stating facts about things without balance I'm happy to challenge. I was genuine in my post, if someone wants to pop round to my place and prove me wrong on all this I am more than happy. I'll also be the first to post here if I AM wrong and fess up. I'd even happily apologise with my tail between the legs to you. Thats not the sign of a closed mind, it's the sign of an inquisitive mind. I just don't happen to subscribe to the "old school" of thought as far as audiophiles are concerned mainly because I'm relatively new to all this so look at it without preconceptions. There is so much snake oil peddled in this industry it beggars belief at times it really does and I'm not inclined and just roll over and accept the "accepted norm" without challenge - especially in an industry proven time and time again to be populated with con artists, shysters and snake oil sellers all with the vested interest of liberating vast amounts of money from you for some elusive sound improvement that just doesn't exist.

G
 
As I suffer with Tinnitus, no matter what I spend or what equipment I listen to, I still get ringing in my ears:(:(
 
I agree with you that there is some evidence that you can feel (as you certainly can't hear) <20 material.

Are we talking HiFi or real world? There is more than some evidence that we perceive (rather than hear) frequencies outside of our hearing range. In the pipe organ world 32 ft pipes are reasonably common and you do occasionally get 64 ft pipes. This equates to 16 Hz and 8 Hz respectively, and you’re definitely aware (that if used) they’re sounding.

:)
 
The OP is suggesting recordings are an issue and define reproduction quality. No doubt true. But turning it around it's a pity that more of us cannot just enjoy music for what it is and not get so obsessed with with every nuance of reproduction of that music.

I don't like comments slagging off the Ipod generation, carrying around an LP12 based stereo system for school bus listening would generally be considered impractical. Ok there are CD based "Walkman" but so what?

Neither do I like folk telling others how daft they have been and how they should have spent their cash. If someone seeks advise pre spend, fine. That to me is where this forum adds real value.
 
There has been extensive testing done on all manner of equipment at all different levels and currently almost all the scientific evidence points to there being no human audible difference between amplifiers

wrong,wrong,wrong.


ive done blind tests and been able to tell even when the person has preteneded to use the same amp, i suggest scientists are too imune to feelings from audio and have the test equipment too far up a certain dark place.

ironically ive found the amplifier to be THEE biggest influence on the sound 'quality'
 
wrong,wrong,wrong.


ive done blind tests and been able to tell even when the person has preteneded to use the same amp, i suggest scientists are too imune to feelings from audio and have the test equipment too far up a certain dark place.

ironically ive found the amplifier to be THEE biggest influence on the sound 'quality'

Before you jump in, please do your research. Testing has been done by scientists on audiophiles, journalists, laymen, "golden ears" and audio experts. The people actually listening were not scientists they were the people who swore blind and were completely and totally convinced they could tell the difference. Go and have a read for yourself the double blind testing thats been done on all manner of items such as cables, amplifiers, cd players, audio compression formats and so on.

Thanks

G
 
Way to spoil a good thread guys. :rolleyes:

You've both got interesting viewpoints and I don't 100% agree with either of you but being quite so dogmatic about it in long-winded and back-stabbing posts just puts me off reading them.

Long winded? back stabbing? Spoiling? :(

What's to do here? If I just ignore the postings and let it go without replying then the one sided opinion gets perpetuated without balance as gospel. If I don't reply "long winded" then I'm no better than Helion in stating opinion without any evidence or backstory to back it up. Opinion without substance isn't worth anything so I try to avoid it. I deliberately also try to avoid backstabbing in my posts though my halo does slip sometimes I know.

I should perhaps let it lie and ignore it all, I'd certainly free up some time! But people are basing purchases and potentially spending many £'s following this advice and buying into the industries self serving myths and urban legends. Its hard for me to step back and let people "waste" their money - then again it's not my money they're spending.

G
 
Funny you should say about Vinyl I noticed that if you are playing Vinyl. You get called away from the room or a rummaging round the house. Vinyl from another room has a completely diffrent sound presence more fuller in body if you like. Than Compact discs for what ever reason.

For what its worth When i started this mess :) i was meandering on about how good a certain Compact disc sounded. Silly me, there to, is another classic example, That is The Jean michel Jarre AERO CD. No there is a man who has a few things to say about vinyl.
 
While we get older our physical senses start to degrade. Conversely, if we then keep "upgrading" our toys so that there is a noticeable change we get a whole rush of pleasure. It must be a condition in itself :)

This is what it felt like every time I "upgraded" from an AM to FM radio ("Stereo!"), then to a Dolby Surround system for my NICAM TV, then more and more "real" music and TVs and from VHS to DVD to HD etc. It must be a disease in fact.

I agree with Russ and others here that it's about the music. To add to that it is also, for me, about discovering more and more about the music. Everytime I hear a well known recording, be that Rages Against The Machine (Good point about the dynamics of that), Bliss, Babaa Maal, some random Latin collection, and then I notice something that I didn't before; Well, cor!

First time I listened to a CD of Clannad's Macalla with Bono doing "In A Lifetime" (basement of that CD shop at 84 Charing Cross Road, back in about 1987) I was quite blown away comparing it to the cassette copy I had had until that point. And then more recently Bliss / Sleep Will Come, I had never recalled hearing the seagulls before rebuiling my A/V room - but that was probably just me straining to hear stuff.

And there are clear differences between amps, to join in the earlier banter, as my progress from Denon 3802 -> 4306 with a Cambridge Azur 640A for another room and my ears will attest.

The main thing is to find a set of stuff to enjoy. What I object to is so called "professionals" (sales, journos, pundits) winding up people with little experience of gear to spend more on snake oil. Feel free to tell me your vinyl sounds great, and I will carry on and listen to CD/SACD/DVD-A and .flac files. OTOH Don't try to tell my less opinionated and experienced friend in the shop that they need to spend £40/m on speaker cable - at least until they can make their own judgement no coloured by all the ******** in this industry.
 
And there are clear differences between amps, to join in the earlier banter, as my progress from Denon 3802 -> 4306 with a Cambridge Azur 640A for another room and my ears will attest.

Hi Peter, interesting post. As far as I can make out though, the earlier arguments stem from differences in power amplifiers rather than preamp sections. There's no real way of comparing the models you mention without incorporating the preamp in the judgment too rather than when you get up to the fancier seperate power amplifiers.

I have to admit that some of the arguments about scientists being rubbish are just plain daft. Scientists can enjoy music as much as anyone else but I'd expect one to remain critical whilst doing a sensible experiment. I'm not a massive one for power amp differences when the units are comparable. Two genuine 200W transistor amps aren't going to sound too different. A 25W valve amp or even a 25W transistor based amp will most likely exhibit different characteristics to the more powerful amp particularly at higher volumes. At lower volumes when operating within amplifier and speaker parameters the differences would be smaller - I'd still hope to pick the valve amp from the transistor. The key thing for me is to take things in context and I think this may have been overlooked earlier in the thread. :)

Of course I've been wrong before... :suicide:
 
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