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Has hifi REALLY improved over the last 20 yrs

In terms of musical engagement and maintaining an interest to keep listening to more music I don’t think modern Hifi has improved at all tbh. Modern digital (streaming) is certainly more convenient and sounds better than CD when that was first launched.
 
If I had to replace my system for any reason it still would be second hand Shahinian speakers powered by a decent set of Naim amplifiers. The only source would be a Naim streamer and that would be it.

I would not even think of messing about with the kerfuffle of turntables and CDPs. I got far too many LPs and CDs cluttering up the place and it would be nice to be free of the bloody things.

This way I have the combined benefit of modernity and old style sound quality.
 
narabdela said:
A sweeping statement if ever there was one.
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I bought the first Arcam CDS27 SACD network streamer in 2016 and swapped it in June for the later CDS50 so I know how awful their Musiclife app is as do the reviewers on Google Play Store who also bought any of Arcam's streaming products.
 
Right now I'm listening to Aldous Harding on SL-1210G, RigB VM540, Uphorik, Creek OBH-12, Behringer A800, KEF R7 Meta, and frankly it is as good or better than any system I've ever heard. The accuracy, the presence, the ability to relax and just take in the music in thrilling detail and effortless dynamics and drama. It's breathtaking. We live in an amazing age for music.

I believe it's possible to go backwards and lose sight of the music, but that hasn't been my recent experience. Some very affordable new gear is very very good indeed.
 
camverton said:
Had long did you use Dirac for and with what speakers and room? When you say “many” what percentage of those who have tried it does this represent?

Like everything else Dirac won’t work for everyone, every hifi, or every room. Dirac, and its alternatives, has been a real advance in hifi allowing people to use the speaker they choose in the room they have, without making it look like a recording studio. As a way of ameliorating room nodes it is way more powerful than using rugs or bookcases, although it doesn’t hurt to do both and, of course, using small speakers with little real bass output won’t need so much attention. Interestingly, Dirac isn’t just about correcting for room nodes but improving the impulse response with resulting better definition and image stability. If using full range, a lot of care has to be taken with measurement positions and FR curve. That’s not so much a rabbit hole as learning how to use a powerful tool to best effect.
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Most people it seems to me just want to enjoy the music without faffing about with such hassle, and I've read so many woes by Arcam SA30 owners on forums, not just Dirac though but the software plagues (Arcam have omitted Dirac in their flagship stereo amplifier replacement in their new Radia range and this also brought down the price). I'm a geek who has built cables, made speakers and power amps etc. and I probably know if I ran Dirac I'd spend months experimenting with it so I have to avoid such problematic obsessions which are for me a rabbit hole. For others for who it has worked well and they could then leave it and enjoy the music then great.

I bought new Fyne Audio F303 floorstanders 2 weeks ago, set the whole ststem up in a new house with a much bigger listening room and it just works so much better than the previous smaller lounge with Wharfdale Dentons (this still sounded good though) that had to be placed tight beside the wall, now enjoying a lower extension with much tighter controlled bass and drumming in particular sounds fantastic but that's probably down to a change in loudspeakers and not as much the room... before I had to send in my Arcam amplifier for repair under warranty a few days later.
 
sonddek said:
Right now I'm listening to Aldous Harding on SL-1210G, RigB VM540, Uphorik, Creek OBH-12, Behringer A800, KEF R7 Meta, and frankly it is as good or better than any system I've ever heard. The accuracy, the presence, the ability to relax and just take in the music in thrilling detail and effortless dynamics and drama. It's breathtaking. We live in an amazing age for music.

I believe it's possible to go backwards and lose sight of the music, but that hasn't been my recent experience. Some very affordable new gear is very very good indeed.
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Agree, and the same is true for non-audiophiles using 'wireless' speakers like Sonos Era 100 and many others, with the new tech probably achieving even bigger gains in sound quality, aesthetics and especially connectivity.
 
Interesting the new radia doesnt have dirac .i avoided it as would get wound up .listening now to a fairly old arcam unit and its not bad at all
 
sonddek said:
Right now I'm listening to Aldous Harding on SL-1210G, RigB VM540, Uphorik, Creek OBH-12, Behringer A800, KEF R7 Meta, and frankly it is as good or better than any system I've ever heard. The accuracy, the presence, the ability to relax and just take in the music in thrilling detail and effortless dynamics and drama. It's breathtaking. We live in an amazing age for music.

I believe it's possible to go backwards and lose sight of the music, but that hasn't been my recent experience. Some very affordable new gear is very very good indeed.
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Have the R7s permanently replaced your Linn actives, or are you just having a change?
 
Toaster said:
Have the R7s permanently replaced your Linn actives, or are you just having a change?
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KEF kindly loaned them to me for the Ascot show but after discussion with the KEF rep it seems I may not have done the necessary to run them in in time for the show. They weren't grabbing me, and that's why I borrowed
The Reference Metas at the show. Now that I've been running the R7 Metas in my bedroom for a week they are really coming on song and I'm loving them. My active 242s are in another room, and they will be back on duty shortly, but I confess I haven't plugged them in since Ascot.

The KEF R7 Metas will have to go back soon. I would love to keep them but other people are responsible for speakers in the rooms I'm in at Paris, Warsaw and Munich so I probably won't need to borrow anything until Bristol.

Bearing in mind how hard it is to get a room sounding right before a show, I really ought to settle on a convenient show system of my own. Yet more expense, but as I said above, we are very spoiled for choice these days.
 
camverton said:
Had long did you use Dirac for and with what speakers and room? When you say “many” what percentage of those who have tried it does this represent?

Like everything else Dirac won’t work for everyone, every hifi, or every room. Dirac, and its alternatives, has been a real advance in hifi allowing people to use the speaker they choose in the room they have, without making it look like a recording studio. As a way of ameliorating room nodes it is way more powerful than using rugs or bookcases, although it doesn’t hurt to do both and, of course, using small speakers with little real bass output won’t need so much attention. Interestingly, Dirac isn’t just about correcting for room nodes but improving the impulse response with resulting better definition and image stability. If using full range, a lot of care has to be taken with measurement positions and FR curve. That’s not so much a rabbit hole as learning how to use a powerful tool to best effect.
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But DIRAC still is smearing and blurring the midrange and high frequencies. I have tried it several times. The free available software APO-Equalizer has helped to solve the room mode problems without any negative effect like DIRAC.
 
Old Shatterhand said:
But DIRAC still is smearing and blurring the midrange and high frequencies. I have tried it several times. The free available software APO-Equalizer has helped to solve the room mode problems without any negative effect like DIRAC.
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I guess a lot depends on the equipment and room it is used in. More often than not, for me, Dirac reduces the blurring of the image which has been caused by the room. Any losses are usually outweighed by the benefits. Thanks for the mention of APO-equaliser; I haven’t heard of that so will have a look.
 
Home Audio Fidelity DSP filters are well worth considering. They really focused a blurred image that I wasn’t fully aware of how unfocused it actually was.

I have so many albums that I placed in the poorly mastered category that sound great now that the room isn’t mangling them.

.sjb
 
I used DIRAC in a treated room and only in the bass frequencies down from 130Hz. I have told my wife to set the filter on and off on a track with voices so I couldn't see if it was used or not but I could easily detect the burring with the filter used. With the APO-EQ I couldn't hear any difference. It reduced the bass output and kept the midrange an high frequencies as they were.
 
My own experience with using Dirac has been positive. Bass is tighter and bass instruments and musical lines are easier to hear and follow. The rest of the range sounds cleaner and better focussed. The overall sound is typically a bit less obviously lively, but this seems consistent with reducing the influence of the room and correction of the on-axis response.
 
My opinions:

- Amp technology has moved on by way of more efficient class-D stuff, but this doesn't make a mid or high-end amp from 20+ years ago sound any worse

- DACs have been transparent for decades

- Modern speaker driver technology allows for more power handling, especially in smaller units, and to allow headroom for DSP which helps to make smaller speakers sound bigger

- Copper wire is still copper wire

- Accessing music has become more convenient by way of streaming and this helps a lot of younger people get into the hobby

I have a range of equipment across my systems which dates from the late 80s to just a year or two old, and in my opinion the main attraction of new equipment is the reliability. I have noticed improvements over the years simply by being able to afford better stuff, whether or not it is new or older.
 
I have listened to a couple of systems set up at shops. Modern systems with the latest technology.

They sound rather clinical and cold.

My system is a mix of classic kit with modern digital stuff like Audiolab M-dac+ and an extremely impressive Cyrus Discmaster 8.0.

As an aside, my 50 year old Tannoy Monitor Gold 3LZ look to be incredibly well engineered:

tannoy

www.hilberink.nl

Would probably be extremely expensive to try to reproduce the Pepperpot design nowadays... 😎
 
Monitor Gold 10 said:
I have listened to a couple of systems set up at shops. Modern systems with the latest technology.

They sound rather clinical and cold.

My system is a mix of classic kit with modern digital stuff like Audiolab M-dac+ and an extremely impressive Cyrus Discmaster 8.0.

As an aside, my 50 year old Tannoy Monitor Gold 3LZ look to be incredibly well engineered:

tannoy

www.hilberink.nl

Would probably be extremely expensive to try to reproduce the Pepperpot design nowadays...
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I have same perception regarding the sound of new hifi stuff-cold and clinical 😐
 
Toaster said:
My own experience with using Dirac has been positive. Bass is tighter and bass instruments and musical lines are easier to hear and follow. The rest of the range sounds cleaner and better focussed. The overall sound is typically a bit less obviously lively, but this seems consistent with reducing the influence of the room and correction of the on-axis response.
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With Dirac the focus should be better, if it was blurred something would be very wrong. If running full range the overall sound can indeed sound less lively. One solution is to tweak the curve so that it more closely follows the measured frequency response above the area where bass modes need ameliorating. Alternatively only correct up to about 250-300 Hz. There still seems to be an improvement in the impulse response above the “corrected“ range which should reduce blurring and increase focus.
 
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