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Is HiFi getting better ? Or stagnating?

Woodface said:
I think we are in the golden age of hi-fi. You can run vintage kit or modern & easily incorporate a digital front end which allows streaming/hi-res downloads. I've been playing around with an Innuos Zen Mini, it sounds incredibly good, better or equal to any CD player. I still run vinyl which also sounds great. Nothing to moan about.
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Are you using the analogue outputs of the Zen (does it have an internal DAC)?

It has a very strange spec:
Analogue Output RCA Analogue up to 24bit/192KHz
https://innuos.com/zen_mini_mk3/

This doesn't make sense. Analogue outputs are normally specified in terms of output voltage, impedance, frequency response and noise.
 
Dowser said:
what a strange statement to make in response to a post from someone who has suffered the worst the Hi-Fi industry offers. Why so against software developers, and why disgusting in a world where software rules?
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No surly you mean digital lies rule and software can be corrupted or hacked, no thanks ON/OFF is the only useful digital function for use in the audio world for me, oh just a note I did work for ICL and went to uni at 50 and did Computer Science. But not for audio no thanks, CD is as far as I want to go.:)
 
S-Man said:
Are you using the analogue outputs of the Zen (does it have an internal DAC)?

It has a very strange spec:
Analogue Output RCA Analogue up to 24bit/192KHz
https://innuos.com/zen_mini_mk3/

This doesn't make sense. Analogue outputs are normally specified in terms of output voltage, impedance, frequency response and noise.
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See I told you digital lies :eek: no noise no phase no BW no load spec at all. mmmm fun fun

Oh I forgot lots and lots of RFI and EMC
 
S-Man said:
Are you using the analogue outputs of the Zen (does it have an internal DAC)?

It has a very strange spec:
Analogue Output RCA Analogue up to 24bit/192KHz
https://innuos.com/zen_mini_mk3/

This doesn't make sense. Analogue outputs are normally specified in terms of output voltage, impedance, frequency response and noise.
Click to expand...
It has an internal Dac but I’m not using it, currently connected to my CDA2 via its digital co-ax.
 
Back to the OT. Well yes, stagnating if you like. Or mature technology. Quite how you put this depends on whether you are glass-half-full or glass-half-empty. But the fundamentals haven;t really moved on because we are still using stereo and listening in ordinary domestic rooms. There isn't really very much you can do (materially) to improve the signal getting to the speakers (given the recording) and there's only so much you can do to stereo speakers in ordinary rooms, especially if the whole room isn't going to revolve around them. And stereo is always going to be a compromise. It's not going to change fundamentally, although I think dsp makes it all a bit easier.
With wireless speakers and atmos maybe surround sound will finally take off.
 
adamdea said:
Back to the OT. Well yes, stagnating if you like. Or mature technology. Quite how you put this depends on whether you are glass-half-full or glass-half-empty. But the fundamentals haven;t really moved on because we are still using stereo and listening in ordinary domestic rooms. There isn't really very much you can do (materially) to improve the signal getting to the speakers (given the recording) and there's only so much you can do to stereo speakers in ordinary rooms, especially if the whole room isn't going to revolve around them. And stereo is always going to be a compromise. It's not going to change fundamentally, although I think dsp makes it all a bit easier.
With wireless speakers and atmos maybe surround sound will finally take off.
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So not one digital lie a house, but full of them yuk and loads of RFI now I understand why people go digital it covers up the interference caused by the digital bits. No thanks ON/OFF is ok for me.
Moved on from Fluidics Logic to Tube then DTL then TTL then CMOS but guess what linear has always been more SBO. We do not live in the Matrix but a linear world were thing change not in jumps but small micro growths. Fast changes causes noise, creep up slower to the music do not pounce, because you will miss a piece. (not BIT) So I prefer to move one electron at a time and no Quarks.;)
 
The biggest change in 'hi-fi' in the last 30 years is that half decent sound is now available to the hoi polloy for the square root of bugger all if they'd only bother to do a minimum of research and stop buying shite from Curry's PC World. Conversely, the 'real' stuff continues to increase in cost to reflect what the market will bear..in an age of increasing wealth inequality.

In terms of absolute quality.. we are clearly hampered by rooms/speakers etc...and also, as pointed out upthread..by a failure to define 'better'.

So.. if for e.g, I want to hear what Singer X sounded like in concert at venue Y. Was I in the stalls or the circle?

OK. I was in the stalls.. but my speakers and room still impose their own signature on the sound from the stalls.

So..I need to eliminate my room and speakers from the mix.

For that... I reckon we need a paradigm shift in audio. We need some sort of direct interface with the sound receptors n the brain.. even bypassing the ears.which in most folks my age are ****ed anyway..

Just a bit of thinking aloud...:)
 
Robert said:
My feelings entirely.

I've nothing against expensive high end kit where you are buying genuine innovation and/or superb engineering where it matters.
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Yes, there is speakers like MBL where they obviously done a lot of research and have developed new manufacturing technology. It got a right to be expensive. As opposed to buy a bunch of drivers from a Danish or Norwegian manufacturer (*), knocking together a box from MDF and have it painted at an auto body shop, then charging £20000.

* Nothing wrong with those drivers.
 
herb said:
The V15III was so undynamic even when new in my ESL system it had to go. Trackability was a ridiculous 1970s conceit, most unmusical. ADC10EMk4 got me back to listening to music again. Shure techie nonsense in the real world.
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'Dynamic' comes from the music. Not from added distortion at peak levels. :) Trackability means you get whats in the groove.

Of course, some may prefer to hear something different. But the most obvious audible difference for me has been in end-of-side distortion levels for things like massed strings at high levels. Particularly after many playings. The V15 lets the sound remain as-was. Poor trackers change it to be distorted. IIRC this was also shown in microscope photos of grooves decades ago.
 
Hifi Stuff that has changed in the last 40 years:

1. The UK has become a backwater of ignorance and penny-pinching: you may be different, you will undoubtedly think you're different, but the wider buying public is united in wanting something-for-nothing, and doesn't give a damn about Quality, only cheapness and poseur-bait branding.

2. Most of the hifi industry is - directly or indirectly - Chinese now: Chinese owned, Chinese made, Chinese designed, intended primarily for Chinese markets, which are, after-all, by far the biggest and growing all the time. This is true of all luxury goods. All Things, really...

3. The UK is a dumping-ground for B-stock and bad designs: no-one in the industry will admit it - for blindingly-obvious reasons - but it was before Brexit, and now that internal market prices are spiralling due to scarcity of imports and exporters know we have less legislative protection than before, it is even more so. Karmic adjustment: we used to be the ones doing it to our export markets - back when we had export markets...

4. Top Trumps: people buy on numbers they don't understand and which don't matter - the bigger the number, the better The Thing. Tw@s!

5. Online Retail = the death of the demo - people choose a price segment they feel comfortable with, and then buy on looks - cos that's what mummy... er... sorry... wifey will Let them have...

6. Unfixable: popular forum theme - and rightly so - and no doubt mentioned already but I can't be arsed to read the whole thread; SMD is a curse upon mankind, sh*t-on-a-chip even more so. "Meh, just bin it and buy a new one, consumerist drones!"

7. Music as Social Anaesthesia: the big consumers of music are not noddy old gits like us with our 1950s sensibilities - it's people with tinny earplugs trying to cope with the horror and squalor of public transport and the zombie-apocalypse of plague infested meat-roadblocks shuffling around them... This extends somewhat into the predominance of streaming - music has become an increasingly anonymised commodity, we just don't engage with it like we did: 100% brain-off numbness seems to be the aspiration now.
What's really sad is that streaming should have given artists themselves more control and a greater share of the profits, but as usual exploitative mega-corps have gained the upper hand and are cash-raping the music industry to death. Some things never change, eh?

8. Performance: nah, just kidding! Since the demise of leaky PIO caps and drifty carbon comp resistors at the end of the 60s, the tweaks to actual performance have been minor. We all know it in our heart-of-hearts, but we are not here to be objective, we are here to share in the rosy glow of a shared belief system. Long may it continue! Not even being sarky. There's nothing wrong with placebos when they do the job.
 
I do genuinely think that great spin is more accessible than ever & even an greater choice of music is there to explore.

Remember how difficult it was to track down records, you literally could not get to hear certain music, it’s rarity increased it’s importance. I feel music is more likely to be judged on its merits now, it is more democratic.

We should celebrate this.
 
Peter McDermott said:
Genuine question: what was so bad about the PM KI Ruby?
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The Ruby was very fussy with what it plays - so some music (Cds) sounded very good, but others sound very poor. And I had good sources , like the top end Denon DCD2500,

This fussiness was actually mentioned in one of the reviews, i think it was WHF .

So it could simply be that you need to pair it with the Ruby SACD , or another marantz cd player. If you have the right system, then it is probably much more consistent.

I recently tried the new yamaha as3200, and it had similar fussiness, and was a disaster compared the previous model, the as3000.
 
davidjt said:
We are a tiny minority, of no economic interest to the industry. Sonos has probably delivered better quality sound to more people than any other outfit recently - more power to them. At the other end of the spectrum, bling is where the money is.

Which is one reason why DIY is such an attractive proposition. The accepted wisdom (before grey imports, and then Chinese cloning) used to be that retail prices tended towards (cost of materials X 10). There are many amp, pre-amp and speaker designs out there (and I don't just mean from California ;)) that can be built for far less than the equivalent retail cost, perhaps still as little as 1/10th depending on aesthetics, WAF etc., and they can be chosen to suit your particular preferences.

I used to think that dsp was guaranteed to be the future of hi-fi for everyone, as soon as mass production brought it within reach. Now I can see some of the obstacles.
So I'll carry on melting solder and enjoying sound I couldn't possibly afford otherwise.
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good point
 
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