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Do you buy hifi because it looks good or sounds good?

rich46 said:
naimers are obsessed with the look of black boxes on their racks
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Naimers are obsessed with music, black, green, blue or red, matters not.
I'm yet to meet a Naim owner in person who discusses the system when demoing it, it's always about the music, which probably tells you something about the system.

Naim mythology runs deep on forum sites, most of the time by those who have never owned the stuff.
 
Ragaman said:
Naimers are obsessed with music, black, green, blue or red, matters not.
I'm yet to meet a Naim owner in person who discusses the system when demoing it, it's always about the music, which probably tells you something about the system.
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As in the system just does its job....now lets talk about what we’re actually supposed to be listening to?
 
early micheal turntables looked good . and the first rega too. can remember the first time i saw the quad 33/303 guess it was 67 in sid booth hifi shop in Mansfield . what a great visual it was . it still looks great now . just received 33 from tony in great nick too. revox b77 is a great80s design ,. i have a great condition one and always get comments about its look. and they have never hear one too.
 
suzywong said:
As in the system just does its job....now lets talk about what we’re actually supposed to be listening to?
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Precisely
I mean, who wants to look at Naim black boxes, or any other black boxes for that matter.
I read on another thread someone stating they "listened" to a mains cable, now i'm all for trying this stuff at low prices, but listen to it?
 
Jono_13 said:
lecson-AC1-AP1-photo.jpg


Major lust for this in 1980.... Radford HiFi in Windsor had this in the window for a while...
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Looks good but the pre amp is truly dreadful!!
 
Jono_13 said:
I did hear that the sliders come apart rather easily and that the switches are noisy. The matching tuner is equally beautiful, but fragile as well...

Their next project was better...

101black%5b3148%5d.jpg
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Worse than that is the electronic switching matrix used for source selection... I've worked on a fair few of these pre and power amps and the pre rolls of the treble above about 13KHz if the ones I've measured are typical. I got involved in a project to make new digital readouts for the tuner once but more pressing work meant I had to pull out of it...
 
It has to be cute for me because some kit is too 'male looking'. At the same time if it's BIG and not so attractive but it sounds amazing then that's okay with me too. I used to work in a sound studio a long time ago so I've kind of got used to big stuff.
 
I always liked the look of my old Quad gear and it also sounded very nice all together, the Tuner was excellent the power amp is a excellent, I loved the looks and functionality with of the pre amp but ultimately it does sound a bit veiled IMO

IMG_2931 by Alan Towell, on Flickr

Alan
 
Why can't you have both? I waited for years to replace my Michell Prisma deck with something that sounded better which also looked better. Avid Acutus fitted the bill. Sounds a lot better but not sure if it looks better.
 
Funny i was just wondering the same thing. I think the capacity for the human mind to post-rationalize it's decisions is mostly endless. In the 1950s the famous neuroscientist doctor Jose Delgado ran a series of experiments with direct brain stimulation - showing observers how pressing a button leading to the direct electrical stimulation of some part or other of the human brain would result in instantaneous behaviour by the test subject - who, when interviewed - always had a pat explanation of what they were doing and how the action was self motivated (e.g. "i was looking for my slipper" or "i just remembered something I'd lost" etc ...). So yes - i think people mostly buy things based on appearance and will spend large amounts of time rationalizing why they did not.
 
Jonathan said:
I think the capacity for the human mind to post-rationalize it's decisions is mostly endless. … So yes - i think people mostly buy things based on appearance and will spend large amounts of time rationalizing why they did not.
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This is certainly put forward in "guru" books on rhetoric and persuasion. People, it seems, buy on emotion (pathos) but justify what they do using fact (logos).

Fortunately there's good looking stuff that also sounds good. Unfortunately marketing people invent fake logos to help people spend money.
 
Yomanze said:
Do you buy steak based on the packaging? :p
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You know, you actually do. That's why we the manufacturers put it in nice MAP trays so it stays nice and pink. We could just as well chuck it in a bag but you wouldn't buy it. In the food industry there is a whole sub indistry around MAP packaging for extra shelf life, colour, appearance, the works. I could bore you for hours with it but you'll be happy to hear that i won't.
Packaging is absolutely crucial to most food products. Ever noticed how the Savers stuff looks like sh*t? That's because all the supermarkets have to have that range but they don't actually want you to buy it because it makes no money. So they make it look like crap, and you don't buy it.
 
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