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what really happened during the late 70s early 80s in the hifi press

Beobloke said:
Yes. In addition, it can take both 9" and 12" arms and the picture on the cover of the magazine showed it with a lovely 12" SME 3012 arm fitted.

To the 9" arm mount... :rolleyes:
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infinity-facepalm-237999.gif
 
RJohan said:
What was the one by Joe Jackson recorded in a real acoustic space? I have it on both LP and an early (not destroyed in the mastering) CD.

(Sound of leafing through the CD collection, Hmmm, What?... )

Found it! 'Body and Soul'.
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A great album and superb (digital) recording which sounds better on vinyl IIRC.... I don't have it on vinyl but used to listen to it a lot at a mates many years ago and it was always stunning. Tried it on CD a year or so ago and it was nowhere near what I remembered.
 
Arkless Electronics said:
A great album and superb (digital) recording which sounds better on vinyl IIRC.... I don't have it on vinyl but used to listen to it a lot at a mates many years ago and it was always stunning. Tried it on CD a year or so ago and it was nowhere near what I remembered.
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My first cd actually, purchased in September 1985. To my ears it has always sounded good.
 
chartz said:
No, I was referring to my piano at home. My drumset, my guitar…
I want my speakers to reproduce them as faithfully as possible.
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Mine reproduces mine exactly, since the hi-fi is what I use to play through (electric anyway):
Guitar > iRig > Macbook > Neural DSP Soldano > Kii Control > Kii Three.

Sounds mental. 80s hair metal rules etc.
 
Octavian said:
Quite the contrary, I think. Artificial recordings created in the studio represent "the art of recorded music" even more than the typical classical recording aesthetic. That is the reason why accuracy must be the ultimate goal in domestic hifi...
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Tell me... how would one know when "accuracy" has been achieved?
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
I also play piano, so I’m sure you’ll have noticed that the sound as heard by the pianist is quite different to the sound the audience hears.

Also, I clearly don’t know what sort of piano you have, and you’re extremely fortunate if you have a 9’ Steinway or Fazioli (and if you do, my jealousy is boundless!). So I come back to my point which is that your idea of accuracy is only accuracy to your imagination as to the sound of the piano on the recording.
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I thought everyone knew Yamaha are the accurate pianos, or was that Bosendorfer. I’m joking and was simply going to add that whilst many threads degenerate this one has got more interesting as it has gone along.

I always thought the magazines did what magazines do, they are there to sell magazines and in the process will whip up interest in whatever supports that whilst trying to support or appease those paying for advertising. Tony’s been on the ambrosia with this thread with his posts on that era and on speakers and choosing compromises and abilities of headphones as a reference point.

I don’t know how my Rega RS10 or ML Aerius i compare with the ESL63 as I never had the space to live with the latter but suspect my ears like a similar set of compromises. My Senn HD600 and then my AKG702 have been a regular reference point and for the past year I have been amazed how good the phone, MP3-320kbps and AKG-Y500 can be compared with alternatives of my youth.

I enjoyed a Pink Triangle, then two LP12s, then an NA Spacedeck, SME10, 10-year vacuum then an RP10. My favourite is probably the NA for the tactile experience and perception of design and engineering I stood in front of with each record change, no idea how it compares sonically with the different perception of experience with the RP10.

I do know that when I stopped reading magazines and listened to more kit I found a whole bunch of enjoyable experiences (compromises of course) that I wouldn’t have got from the magazines but perhaps because you have to experience them, no magazine can describe a gourmet meal to someone who is yet to try much of what they’re enthusing about.
 
davidismynaim said:
Growing in the 70s and early 80s, I loved HiFi from a young age, my dad had a passion, so I guess I got it from him.

Reading the press in the Uk, Garrard 401 (idle driven) was bad, Linn LP12 was the best turntable, Japanese Direct Drive was ok, but belt driven and 3 point suspension was really the only way to go.

The Japanese couldn't make speakers (apart from the Yamaha NS1000m's) and Naim amplifiers were the only amplifiers to aspire to (Meridian and Exposure were thought of as ok).

Was it a complete conspiracy? Were Linn and Naim just better at the time? or better at marketing?

I remember buying an SME series 2 imp for next to nothing second hand, as that tonearm was seen as past it.

Now Garrards 401 (and the older 301) and SME arms change hands for eye-watering money, and while Linn and Naim have a strong following, I think most accept there was other good stuff around then.

Not so sure about the speaker question, though I have owned and enjoyed a pair of NS1000m's.

Thoughts?
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I've always found hi fi (and camera) magazines quite odd, in that they make assumptions and use language which I don't recognise, particularly when music is described. The only magazine I paid any attention to in terms of hifi was Gramophone, which I subscribed to in the 1970s and 80s. Gramophone had an (annual?) summary of recommended equipment, which did seem to be based on people using it to listen to music over an extended period of time, which didn't seem to change much year by year, and which seemed to have a good mix of British, Japanese and American equipment. I haven't read a copy of Gramophone for some time now, so I don't know if they are still doing that.
 
onlyconnect said:
in-ear monitors?
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Just an even more uncomfortable pair of headphones as far as I’m concerned! The quality can be truly superb, but the presentation of music inside your head never becomes natural no matter how clean, detailed and accurate it is from a distortion/response perspective. I can never relax with headphones long-term and I’ve never found any IEMs that don’t actually hurt!

I want the music in my room, and there has to be a better way of achieving that than multiple moving coil drivers in a hollow box. We’ve basically been polishing that 100 year old turd for far too long. To my mind a ‘perfect’ loudspeaker would be a single driver point source with definable/controllable dispersion (maybe even spherical), it would have a flat frequency response wider than 20Hz-20kHz, be low mass, high efficiency and small enough to be entertained in a home audio scenario. That has to be the theoretical ideal, and it isn’t even visible on the horizon. I would cite the ESL63 as the nearest anyone has ever got to achieving it. I know there is a shift to get conventional multi-driver box speakers to behave more like a point source with digital chicanery (Kii, Devialet, B&O etc), but interesting though it is it is still turd-polishing to a large degree. We need a new driver technology, and one that doesn’t need a box!
 
Tantris said:
42 rpm would have created a more pressing need for CD, as it would have been even more difficult to fit Beethoven's ninth symphony into an LP box set. The only upside would have been to restrict further the length of prog rock silliness.
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I can't prove it, but if Ludwig had lived in the 1970's he might very well have been into prog rock. Sound the same to me, anyway ;)
 
Tony L said:
To my mind a ‘perfect’ loudspeaker would be a single driver point source with definable/controllable dispersion (maybe even spherical), it would have a flat frequency response wider than 20Hz-20kHz, be low mass, high efficiency and small enough to be entertained in a home audio scenario. That has to be the theoretical ideal, and it isn’t even visible on the horizon. I would cite the ESL63 as the nearest anyone has ever got to achieving it.
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IIRC Peter Walker did spend some time and thought on trying to devise a way to do what you describe. But in practice the closest he could get was the ESL63 to mimic it to some extent. Small speakers like LS3/5As tend to get some advantage from being physically small. But just like the ESL they can't do it all.
 
Jim Audiomisc said:
IIRC Peter Walker did spend some time and thought on trying to devise a way to do what you describe. But in practice the closest he could get was the ESL63 to mimic it to some extent. Small speakers like LS3/5As tend to get some advantage from being physically small. But just like the ESL they can't do it all.
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Yes, Peter Walker’s infamous ‘balls’! There is even a picture of a prototype knocking around somewhere so he clearly got some way beyond theory.
 
Jim Audiomisc said:
IIRC Peter Walker did spend some time and thought on trying to devise a way to do what you describe. But in practice the closest he could get was the ESL63 to mimic it to some extent. Small speakers like LS3/5As tend to get some advantage from being physically small. But just like the ESL they can't do it all.
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I wonder if 3D printing might make some designs possible now, that were previously too difficult to manufacture?
 
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