Numpty112233
Established Member
WHAT IS THE RIGHT WAY TO COOK AN EGG?
Sunny side up? Benedict? Hard Boiled? or Omelette with chillis? Of course none are wrong if executed competently as desired.
What is the best flavour of ice cream?
This one is easy. Treacle with walnuts and brandy. PM me for the recipe and die of a heart attack, overweight and with a big smile on your face. You may disagree, however, which is entirely my point.
Which hifi system / component sounds best?
Well…. to whom? The answer is personal opinion, not fact. Each manufacturer has its own “house” sound, its own flavour as it were, and some like to mix brands in a system to create their own unique recipe, their own cherry and armagnac gelato or whatever.
Living in the back of beyond as I do, it is a 160 mile round trip to my nearest hifi dealer, the second nearest a fair bit further still. So it is not an excursion I make regularly and on occasion I have been guilty of the heinous crime of buying hifi online without audition - which is a bit like unwrapping a Christmas present or spinning a new LP. I might go WOW… or humph. I have found an encyclopaedia of written equipment reviews cannot accurately convey how product x will actually sound to me in my system in my room and, more importantly, whether I will like that sound. I study reviews intently, read and reread them and then try and reread between the lines and imagine some sort of utopia like someone being told how delicious the above gelato is without previously having tasted either cherries or armagnac.
A wee spoonful or a short listen is utterly more informative and so I find it perplexing that very few written hifi reviews come with a sound file attached. Why do Ortofon, for example, not have sound files for each of their cartridges to enable an informed choice? Doing so would be easy and inexpensive, allowing the customer to compare, using their own amplifier and speakers, in the comfort of their own home prior to informed purchase.
I’m just back from a dirty weekend away where I left her shopping for frilly knickers and scented candles in the forlorn hope of romance to sneek off instead for a quick listen of the Marantz Model 30 duo in the hifi shop. I was toying with the idea of upgrading my second system. I left underwhelmed, but to be fair I just walked in off the street so didn’t get a proper audition.
My main system is the sister company equivalent Denon 2500 and the two have very different sonic characters. My Denon is paired with Monitor Audio Gold 300 speakers and the combined sound grabs me by the balls to demand full, undivided attention, making my senses tingle. Some may find this fatiguing. I don’t - with extended listening I find I am turning the volume up as the evening goes on rather than down and I am transfixed by the full on experience. It ratchets up the conveyed emotion and can be very smooth and musical, as well as powerful and dynamic, with the majority of albums. Play Miles Davis Kind of Blue and delicate detail subtlety has the hairs on my arms standing on end with its aural beauty whilst also allowing the foot tapping rhythm to flow. Play his On the Street Corner SACD, however, as one of the very few examples where this all becomes too much, and the screeches are unpleasant, even painful.
Like the 2500 the Model 30 sound can be described as clean and detailed - but that is where the similarity ends. Instead it is far more civilised, easy going and genteel. After a few minutes of listening in the shop I genuinely stopped myself from being lulled to sleep. By comparison the Denon is an aural adrenaline rush. I stress again it wasn’t a proper audition, just very first impressions. They started badly. It was connected to B&W floortanders. Many folk love B&W. I ain’t one of them. To me B&W major on detail and soundstage but have all the musical emotion - what it is all about - surgically removed. I once described swapping out my CM1s to Monitor Audios as like going from thorough VAT inspection to party in full swing. The salesman quickly swapped in some Monitor Audios and the sound was immediately familiar, despite them being Silver 200s. Brand house sound is even more apparent with speakers and it is fair to say many aren’t as impressed with Monitor Audio as I. It was soon after this I had to jolt myself awake.
I am not beginning to suggest the Denon sounds better than the Marantz, just clearly different, like comparing Thai duck red curry with chicken Korma. Given the Model 30 to listen to for a few months to train my brain to its sonic character then I am sure I would get to fully appreciate its strengths. Likewise Linn, Naim, Cyrus etc. have their own house sound, each with many loyal fans. Written reviews, however flowery the prose, cannot begin to convey house sound in a way that accurately informs whether one will like it as an audition does and so they are therefore basically little more than marketing. I stated at the start that, after (too much) group testing, treacle with walnuts and brandy was the best ice cream, especially at Christmas. You, on the other hand, may prefer vanilla.
What do you consider to be the best hifi sound, i.e. what is it you seek with upgrades, and how would you describe this sonic?
Sunny side up? Benedict? Hard Boiled? or Omelette with chillis? Of course none are wrong if executed competently as desired.
What is the best flavour of ice cream?
This one is easy. Treacle with walnuts and brandy. PM me for the recipe and die of a heart attack, overweight and with a big smile on your face. You may disagree, however, which is entirely my point.
Which hifi system / component sounds best?
Well…. to whom? The answer is personal opinion, not fact. Each manufacturer has its own “house” sound, its own flavour as it were, and some like to mix brands in a system to create their own unique recipe, their own cherry and armagnac gelato or whatever.
Living in the back of beyond as I do, it is a 160 mile round trip to my nearest hifi dealer, the second nearest a fair bit further still. So it is not an excursion I make regularly and on occasion I have been guilty of the heinous crime of buying hifi online without audition - which is a bit like unwrapping a Christmas present or spinning a new LP. I might go WOW… or humph. I have found an encyclopaedia of written equipment reviews cannot accurately convey how product x will actually sound to me in my system in my room and, more importantly, whether I will like that sound. I study reviews intently, read and reread them and then try and reread between the lines and imagine some sort of utopia like someone being told how delicious the above gelato is without previously having tasted either cherries or armagnac.
A wee spoonful or a short listen is utterly more informative and so I find it perplexing that very few written hifi reviews come with a sound file attached. Why do Ortofon, for example, not have sound files for each of their cartridges to enable an informed choice? Doing so would be easy and inexpensive, allowing the customer to compare, using their own amplifier and speakers, in the comfort of their own home prior to informed purchase.
I’m just back from a dirty weekend away where I left her shopping for frilly knickers and scented candles in the forlorn hope of romance to sneek off instead for a quick listen of the Marantz Model 30 duo in the hifi shop. I was toying with the idea of upgrading my second system. I left underwhelmed, but to be fair I just walked in off the street so didn’t get a proper audition.
My main system is the sister company equivalent Denon 2500 and the two have very different sonic characters. My Denon is paired with Monitor Audio Gold 300 speakers and the combined sound grabs me by the balls to demand full, undivided attention, making my senses tingle. Some may find this fatiguing. I don’t - with extended listening I find I am turning the volume up as the evening goes on rather than down and I am transfixed by the full on experience. It ratchets up the conveyed emotion and can be very smooth and musical, as well as powerful and dynamic, with the majority of albums. Play Miles Davis Kind of Blue and delicate detail subtlety has the hairs on my arms standing on end with its aural beauty whilst also allowing the foot tapping rhythm to flow. Play his On the Street Corner SACD, however, as one of the very few examples where this all becomes too much, and the screeches are unpleasant, even painful.
Like the 2500 the Model 30 sound can be described as clean and detailed - but that is where the similarity ends. Instead it is far more civilised, easy going and genteel. After a few minutes of listening in the shop I genuinely stopped myself from being lulled to sleep. By comparison the Denon is an aural adrenaline rush. I stress again it wasn’t a proper audition, just very first impressions. They started badly. It was connected to B&W floortanders. Many folk love B&W. I ain’t one of them. To me B&W major on detail and soundstage but have all the musical emotion - what it is all about - surgically removed. I once described swapping out my CM1s to Monitor Audios as like going from thorough VAT inspection to party in full swing. The salesman quickly swapped in some Monitor Audios and the sound was immediately familiar, despite them being Silver 200s. Brand house sound is even more apparent with speakers and it is fair to say many aren’t as impressed with Monitor Audio as I. It was soon after this I had to jolt myself awake.
I am not beginning to suggest the Denon sounds better than the Marantz, just clearly different, like comparing Thai duck red curry with chicken Korma. Given the Model 30 to listen to for a few months to train my brain to its sonic character then I am sure I would get to fully appreciate its strengths. Likewise Linn, Naim, Cyrus etc. have their own house sound, each with many loyal fans. Written reviews, however flowery the prose, cannot begin to convey house sound in a way that accurately informs whether one will like it as an audition does and so they are therefore basically little more than marketing. I stated at the start that, after (too much) group testing, treacle with walnuts and brandy was the best ice cream, especially at Christmas. You, on the other hand, may prefer vanilla.
What do you consider to be the best hifi sound, i.e. what is it you seek with upgrades, and how would you describe this sonic?