Is HiFi getting better ? Or stagnating?

[tpetsch]

I find many modern systems are a compromise needing to consider playback of both Analog & Digital sources instead of focusing on just one.

 

[Tony L]

Car audio has improved, btw, but maybe a bit OT.

Quite spectacularly IMO. Back when I was a kid you were lucky to find a mono radio cassette with a little elliptical speaker audibly resonating against the plastic dashboard or whatever. Just unlistenable.

 

[Arkless Electronics]

Components which were once generic and readily available are sometimes unobtainium these days (or take ages to track down and are then 10x the price they used to be). Sometimes the component you would like to have used is not available any more because when they were readily available it was because eg they were also used in CRT type analogue TV sets... so we sometimes have to make do with the next best part as it's all we can get.

This also applies to parts which could not be made in SMD form and/or are not suitable for modern mass production methods.

 

[suzywong]

Quite spectacularly IMO. Back when I was a kid you were lucky to find a mono radio cassette with a little elliptical speaker audibly resonating against the plastic dashboard or whatever. Just unlistenable.

yes, but we did listen……coz that’s all we had!

so from that perspective (and I think I’ve got ten years on your good self), then even car radio has improved!

 

[Rockmeister]

Interesting thread. I'm conscious of my terrible memory and also how my standards may have changed. I did think my first well sorted HiFi sounded good and by 1987 I was, I think, at FLIPPINECK. Have i ever reached FH again? Yes I think so, but I do think that it seems to be much less fun now. So many measurements and way too much information designed to make you wonder "OH? Well maybe then". But one point. It seems to me that I did have 3 sublime moments (OHMYGOD my dears...he had sublime!!!! Well tie me up in pink ribbon and call me an Osrtich).
They were all with kit that either developed using the other system components, or well obvious mechanical and electrical matches.Tony is quite right about Quad/Garrard/SME/Tannoy because all these bits were inter used by the other makers in developing their 'sound'.
Ditto, another sublimity (eyeroll) was Voyd/Koetsu/AudioNote/Snell.

Maybe this is where I'm going wrong.

 

[Mynamemynaim]

Everything Les at Avondale makes seems to get better!
That's all I'm saying

 

[djftw]

Everything Les at Avondale makes seems to get better!
That's all I'm saying

Throwing away the insides of Naim things and replacing them with Avondale bits certainly makes me wonder if Naim stagnated a long time ago!

 

[Mynamemynaim]

Throwing away the insides of Naim things and replacing them with Avondale bits certainly makes me wonder if Naim stagnated a long time ago!

I think the real issue is naim "hobbing" their products to make a range of lower performing units
There is no doubt they can make top sounding kit....but seem to want to sell lots of expensive but lesser products first

 

[Bob Edwards]

I think the real issue is naim "hobbing" their products to make a range of lower performing units
There is no doubt they can make top sounding kit....but seem to want to sell lots of expensive but lesser products first

I've written about this before, but I think the problem with Naim is its value proposition, which, in the US, is abysmal at new prices.

 

[timpy]

There are a far greater number of far better performing supporting components for circuitry now than ever before, regulators, clocks, capacitors etc. This is what is behind the low price DACs with mid or high end performance for instance. Treat them as high performance throw away items and you won't be disappointed.

For me though, hi-fi has always been about a bit more than that. That's why I held on to some of my kit for so long, the 25yo Wadia, 20yo Bel Canto etc.
There are people out there too re-working some of the best digital stuff from the past with some of this updated supporting kit for instance; for a best of both worlds solution. There was nothing wrong with the engineering back then, or the ideas, but what was available cost and performance wise to make it work is better now. Be the same with bearings in arms and TTs etc.

So technically there is no excuse for the new stuff not being better than the old performance wise, but whether that translates into better longevity is another matter and somewhat subject to the number of beancounters now involved. For the equivalent of "traditional" hi-fi; genuinely unique stuff that is built to last, you're looking at the tiny outfits only now. Very similar to the car industry for example.

 

[Del monaco]

Is that where Ribena comes from?

Particularly potent Ribena.

 

[say it as it is]

I think it's fair to say older speakers can still be superb so I do wonder have we truly moved on in that respect?
Likewise older CD players do have a certain charm.
Amps well bit of a mixed bag as I use what could be called modern in a naitXS for an integrated, old school 32.5/72 but not saying they won't have RSL, Avondale or NJ boards at some point. Avondale based power amps they classed evolution? Still to be convinced new or modern speakers outdo some older ones

 

[Gervais Cote]

Throwing away the insides of Naim things and replacing them with Avondale bits certainly makes me wonder if Naim stagnated a long time ago!

So true !

 

[Peter McDermott]

I say this with some experience, e.g. with Marantz amplifiers - the PM KI Ruby, which superseded the PM14S1 SE and PM11S3, was a disaster.

Genuine question: what was so bad about the PM KI Ruby?

 

[davidsrsb]

...Car audio has improved, btw, but maybe a bit OT.

Maybe at the top of the market. A ten year old Blue Dot system sounds a lot better on FM than most software defined radio Android players in cars now

 

[CJ14]

The trouble has and always has been. Engineers/gifted designers/music lovers, start with a bloody good idea and make it work, long hours loads of personal money and in whole build very good kit with very good quality parts.
Then a greedy money grabbing B-----D comes along and see a good idea having never had one in there whole life and by hook line and sinker the original guy/gal gets pushed out. And now greedy really kicks in, make it from cheap crap, say it is new, put the price up, pay for reviews, pay for Awards, but never add anything to the world that is original and made well.
Be warned these devils in kindness suits are out there and if your like me a trusting sole, you will be used and your product will change to the $,£ E, sign in there eyes. And you will rot in the gutter like the s--t they think you are.

 

[RJohan]

Really? The 2002 Volvo V70 SE auto I just sold for £650 had the maxed out audio options and was the best car stereo I have ever heard in any car by quite some margin. My newer V70 may be far faster, but the stereo, whilst very good, pales in comparison.

Dynaudio? That was really good, I once was at the factory and could see with my own eyes that the mid and tweeters where proper Dynaudio once, the electronics was Alpine.

Well, I meant in a longer time span, in the 1970's it was a huge happening when Blaupunkt introduced a 4*5 watts amp!

 

[chartz]

The trouble has and always has been. Engineers/gifted designers/music lovers, start with a bloody good idea and make it work, long hours loads of personal money and in whole build very good kit with very good quality parts.
Then a greedy money grabbing B-----D comes along and see a good idea having never had one in there whole life and by hook line and sinker the original guy/gal gets pushed out. And now greedy really kicks in, make it from cheap crap, say it is new, put the price up, pay for reviews, pay for Awards, but never add anything to the world that is original and made well.
Be warned these devils in kindness suits are out there and if your like me a trusting sole, you will be used and your product will change to the $,£ E, sign in there eyes. And you will rot in the gutter like the s--t they think you are.

Awful.
What makes me sick too is those IT blokes who write a few lines of software and become the richest people on the planet. Disgusting.

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

What arm do you use Jim? There are some lovely MM carts around at the upper levels these days, they just tend to be a little lower compliance (and also need a lower capacitance load) than the vintage Shures. I’m very happy with the Nagaoka MP-500 (which doesn’t seem to care about capacitance), and Audio Technica and others have some superb upper-level models too. Once you get to the micro-line, Shibata, Geiger tips, boron cantilevers etc I’d argue you were a level or two above the vintage Shures.

Have a Technics DD with arm. Works fine despite not being as low-inertia as an old SME. Yes, the MM 'Black' is OK, and what I'd probably use if my V15 was extinct. But it - and other modern carts - simply don't track as well as the V15 or give the same flat response, etc. The problem here isn't just compliance but tip mass.

The modern 'focus' tends to be directed towards tip shape. But the reality is that the forces distort the groove walls and may render that less significant unless you can get high compliance *and* low tip mass.

If you look at reviews that plot the vertical and horizontal responses you can see the effects on linear behaviour giving big peaks in the HF that differ for R-L to R+L. Give-away for the above problems and not a sign I like to see. Yet reviewers seem to mostly ignore it.

Low mass and high compliance also extend the life of the styluse tip *and* the LPs being 'as cut' as distinct from 'as reformed by playback'. 8-]

Sadly, few people these days get to use a V15 in decent condition.

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

Oh, another point (pun alert!) reviewers fail to point out is as follows:

Having high stylus compliance and low tip mass means that less vibration gets transmitted into the arm. So reduces the concern about arm resonances this sets up.