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Has hifi REALLY improved over the last 20 yrs

Peter McDermott said:
I went from these on Tuesday:

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To these on Wednesday:

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The former are Tannoy Lancaster 12Rs, the latter are KEF R5 Meta.

Both are great, different but great.

Tannoys are having a rest at the moment.
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How are the Kefs in terms of sound? (They certainly look the part).
 
Goat said:
How are the Kefs in terms of sound? (They certainly look the part).
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They sound very good in my room. I wanted to hear the R7 version but they were not available at the dealer's so I heard the R5 instead. it was obvious to me there that the smaller version would be fine for my room size-wise.

Just been listening to Beyonce's Lemonade and James Blake's eponymous album. Bass has been pretty huge on both.

They are really well made and, for their size, very heavy so feel really solid.

High frequency-wise they are pretty spot on though some may find them a tad bright. When I heard the previous iteration they were too bright but the meta versions are much better in that department (to my ears, of course).

Best wishes, Peter
 
stuwils said:
The biggest improvement in the last 20 years have been in fuses and cables since you can fit an esoteric fuse into your C**p hifi and it will sound better than a hifi that costs tens of thousands.

Rgds
Stuart
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now now Stuart let’s not be too cynical ( I am trying to insert laughing emoji )
 
Peter McDermott said:
They sound very good in my room. I wanted to hear the R7 version but they were not available at the dealer's so I heard the R5 instead. it was obvious to me there that the smaller version would be fine for my room size-wise.

Just been listening to Beyonce's Lemonade and James Blake's eponymous album. Bass has been pretty huge on both.

They are really well made and, for their size, very heavy so feel really solid.

High frequency-wise they are pretty spot on though some may find them a tad bright. When I heard the previous iteration they were too bright but the meta versions are much better in that department (to my ears, of course).

Best wishes, Peter
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Lovely. There seem to be mixed reports about the high frequencies, with some reckoning the new Meta series are detailed, but smooth and very refined (without brightness), whereas some still hear a bit of brightness there. All relative, and personal I guess. I'm averse to brightness, but am intrigued to hear them, as Kefs do so much right.
 
Goat said:
Lovely. There seem to be mixed reports about the high frequencies, with some reckoning the new Meta series are detailed, but smooth and very refined (without brightness), whereas some still hear a bit of brightness there. All relative, and personal I guess. I'm averse to brightness, but am intrigued to hear them, as Kefs do so much right.
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The term 'bright' refers to an exaggeration in the 2kHz to 8kHz range.
Neither the old tweeter not the newer version show any such bump either on- or off-axis, and because of if being coaxial the vertical off-axis response is just as good as the horizontal one.
On top of that the decay is devoid of resonances and the tweeter break-up peaks at 40kHz.
I have recently bought a pair of used Reference 3s and I find the tweeter to be extremely 'smooth' but it is able to extract more detail than the silk-dome tweeter in my previous Stirling LS3/6 tweeters (those speakers were actually 'brighter-sounding' because of the off-axis bump at around 4kHz which interacted negatively with the side-walls).
 
I personally do not think it has, though good sound is more accessible because of technology. Streaming devices are available cheaply, and can provide great sound through good amps and speakers, or an active set-up.
I recently had a speaker demonstration with a friend of mine. We listened to a range of speakers up to the 2k mark, driven by Accuphase. It was really disappointing and he ended up buying a pair of vintage JBL speakers that absolutely walked all over those we listened to. I also recently had a 6k amp at my house on extended loan and it didn't improve on what I already have, in fact I preferred the sound of my own vintage integrateds, though I would happily have lived with the quality the new amp provided.
 
It’s difficult comparing modern with vintage on a price basis because inflation can be tricky to estimate. Those £2k loudspeakers would probably have cost a scant few hundred 20 years ago, which puts them in ‘premium budget’ or ‘first serious upgrade’ territory. But it’s tempting to assess them as ‘entry level high end’ because £2k sounds like it should be.
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
It’s difficult comparing modern with vintage on a price basis because inflation can be tricky to estimate.
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It's always really interesting to compare prices of different gear in old magazines and ads. Some of the stuff we now think of as absolute classics (Garrard 401s etc) weren't massively more expensive than stuff we now think of as being dreadful tat.

One thing that seems clear is that the market for megabucks hi-end didn't really exist then. I don't think you'd have been able to spend the equivalent of $500,000 on a record player in 1967 even if wanted to.
 
Yes, there are websites which will calculate a ‘current’ price allowing for inflation over whatever period you input. But we know that inflation doesn’t operate linearly, or uniformly across the economy. House prices have surged massively ahead of inflation, things like bread, milk and baked beans, probably lag behind the curve. As do other products where supply chain or volume efficiencies have brought about benefits. So the market is complex. I’d suggest that hifi has moved from mainstream to niche, and inflation bites harder in that sort of scenario.
 
shug4476 said:
For a very small sum of money - less than £150 - I am now able to measure (with a Umik-1 and REW software) very reliably the performance of speakers in my home listening environment.
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I don’t mean to take the thread off topic but this is the area that interest me the most as I’ve never really understood any listening room I have had and I expect it’s the next upgrade for me to treat the room effectively and the whole system improve. But I don’t know where to start, I mean I can spend on those but where I do find the best idiots guides as a newbie so that I can understand what my room and speakers are doing and make some informed choices on absorption, diffusion, curing hand claps, echoes, smearing, booming or whatever is going on that I’m probably unaware of currently. Mentally it’s my next project over the next months.
 
I think it has got much better at extracting information from analogue or digital sources over the years. I think my current system gives me more enjoyment of my music than any previous system and lets me hear more of what was recorded by the artist. These days I think most hi-fi kit is better made and has a better SQ at the price point is it situated and the biggest improvements are with entry to mid-level kit.

I have owned my 79 LP12 since 81 and it has been upgraded a few times and is now around Selekt level. It now sounds significantly better than it did, extracting more detail from LPs and more importantly to my ear in my system and room gives a very engaging and enjoyable listening experience.
 
tuga said:
The term 'bright' refers to an exaggeration in the 2kHz to 8kHz range.
Neither the old tweeter not the newer version show any such bump either on- or off-axis, and because of if being coaxial the vertical off-axis response is just as good as the horizontal one.
On top of that the decay is devoid of resonances and the tweeter break-up peaks at 40kHz.
I have recently bought a pair of used Reference 3s and I find the tweeter to be extremely 'smooth' but it is able to extract more detail than the silk-dome tweeter in my previous Stirling LS3/6 tweeters (those speakers were actually 'brighter-sounding' because of the off-axis bump at around 4kHz which interacted negatively with the side-walls).
Click to expand...

They do look amazing. In terms of tone, is there any hint of 'metallic' flavour in the midrange and treble, or lack of naturalness compared to say plastic woofers / soft tweeters?
 
Paul L said:
I don’t mean to take the thread off topic but this is the area that interest me the most as I’ve never really understood any listening room I have had and I expect it’s the next upgrade for me to treat the room effectively and the whole system improve. But I don’t know where to start, I mean I can spend on those but where I do find the best idiots guides as a newbie so that I can understand what my room and speakers are doing and make some informed choices on absorption, diffusion, curing hand claps, echoes, smearing, booming or whatever is going on that I’m probably unaware of currently. Mentally it’s my next project over the next months.
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A UMIK - less than £100 off eBay - plus REW (free software) and run the automated room sweeps from your listening position. Takes seconds. That will give you some basic idea of what is happening. The REW community forum can help you interpret.
 
Yes thanks, I had a search after I posted and realised there was more online than I found when I looked a while ago and I found the REW forum so I’ll start there.
 
Goat said:
They do look amazing. In terms of tone, is there any hint of 'metallic' flavour in the midrange and treble, or lack of naturalness compared to say plastic woofers / soft tweeters?
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I am very sensitive to 'brightness' and 'harsh' treble and so far I have no complaints in that regard.
Both Keith Richards' guitar in "Sympathy for the Devil" and Mutter's violin in the 1992 recording of Sarasate's "Zigeunerweisen" sound 'acidic', as expected, but 'natural' and 'effortless'.
As with any speaker, care needs to be taken when choosing the partnering electronics.
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
It’s difficult comparing modern with vintage on a price basis because inflation can be tricky to estimate. Those £2k loudspeakers would probably have cost a scant few hundred 20 years ago, which puts them in ‘premium budget’ or ‘first serious upgrade’ territory. But it’s tempting to assess them as ‘entry level high end’ because £2k sounds like it should be.
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Very true. I have demonstrated and listened to a very wide range of speakers though, and many of my favourite designs were made from the late 70s through to the 90s. I had a pair of 9k Revel speakers at my house and they were lovely, but simply not as good as the Kef 104.2, just as one of many examples.
 
Paul,

paulfromcamden said:
One thing that seems clear is that the market for megabucks hi-end didn't really exist then. I don't think you'd have been able to spend the equivalent of $500,000 on a record player in 1967 even if wanted to.
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It's hard to say how much of that astronomical cost reflects skilled engineering and precision manufacturing versus the cost set when marketing Veblen goods, but either way it's nuts. Speakers, amps and turntables at $500k are unattainable by any but the one percenters, whereas in the past great kit was expensive but within the reach of many if that was their passion.

The cost of good vintage audio has certainly climbed over the years, too, but my 1958 Tannoy GRFs cost me about what a pair of new Harbeth P3ESR XDs sell for today. I'm now going to say that cliché thing that people say: I know which one I'd chose.*

Joe

* Well, of course I would know which one I would chose. It's as if my brain and I are connected somehow and we know each other's thoughts.
 
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