I wonder if it is true even if the source is vinyl. Cult of the turntable was one of the great audiophile swindles.
I was lied to...
- Thread starter tvheadhunter
- Start date
Mike Reed
pfm Member
I think you'll find that to be 'sauce'. It could often be the source as well if you lubricated well before listening.
Software source, whatever playback 'source' you're using, would affect s.q. regardless, so this is the only true source in the transcription chain.
tvheadhunter
pfm Member
I’m sure much of this has been covered in other threads, but this is my experience. After blowing my fifth tweeter in my B&W 802d’s, I decided that it was time to take a fresh look at this hobby/passion. I have always been seeking a sound that was more live, emotional, that you could feel as much as hear. Over the years, I invested heavily in the front end to try to achieve it, turntables, arms, cartridges, esoteric preamps, phono stages, reel to reels, CD players, DACs, etc. And especially cables. I started cutting open my expensive cables last year and realised they basically all had the same copper or silver inside. The only ones where I actually saw something a bit different were the diamond tellurium cables. Anyway, while these changes made some difference, they were incremental, very small, and some would say imperceptible differences. The one thing they did have in common was that they were beautiful.
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
If you keep blowing tweeters, I’d say your priority might be a different amplifier.
tvheadhunter
pfm Member
As mentioned before, power amps are hugely important, although that wasn’t my issue as the Plinius SA Ref was powerful enough to drive the 802’s. The problem was that they were not made to do what I wanted them to do. I kept going to listen to live music, both amplified and acoustic, and no matter what I did on the front end, I could not recreate the same sensation. While I haven’t had the best, I have had many over the years, including Naim 552 and other “high-end” brands. I have listened to many others that I didn’t own. There were differences, but what we consider sometimes to be huge really are small changes, sometimes better, sometimes worse.
tvheadhunter
pfm Member
I had some treatment in my room for awhile, but I went all in. I used around 60 Vicoustic panels, both diffusers and absorbers and in-between, to cover my walls and ceilings and built two large bass traps. It’s not sexy or exciting buying acoustic panels, but once you start to hear the difference, it almost becomes like a drug (hyperbole). I placed jagged stone on the front wall, and I now feel like my room is perfect. My room is dead. I always thought a dead room was bad, but for what I want, I can’t have unintended reflections. I could have put the must expensive system in my room before, and it would have sounded like crap. This may not be the case for everyone, but everyone’s room does absolutely need to be treated.
chartz
If it’s broke fix it!
Of course.
Copper is copper, and a small number of factories actually make the wires – certainly not the “hi-fi cable manufacturers ”.
The rest is cosmetics most of the time: fancy sleeves and connectors. Sometimes a magic box containing an inductor wired over a resistor.
But when you are a trained electrician, you soon see what it’s all about...
Definitely the last thing to consider in hi-fi.
Oh no, I did it again
paulfromcamden
Baffled
I can well believe extensive room treatment made a difference. I'd expect a £1000 spent on room treatment to result in a much larger difference than £1000 spent on an interconnect (for example).
I guess the problem is most people don't have a dedicated listening space so it's always a compromise between what would sound best and other domestic concerns. I'm not sure I'd want to cover my living room in acoustic treatments even if my partner was OK with it.
Perhaps that's why it's easier to sell people posh cables etc.
I guess the problem is most people don't have a dedicated listening space so it's always a compromise between what would sound best and other domestic concerns. I'm not sure I'd want to cover my living room in acoustic treatments even if my partner was OK with it.
Perhaps that's why it's easier to sell people posh cables etc.
Minio
Kind of Sort of Not really...
Yes, speakers are important, obviously. But if we are rating things by price then you don't have to spend a fortune to get a perfectly competent pair.
A proper pair of speakers can be found for quite a modest outlay.
And most importantly, they will respond to the quality of source and amplification far in excess of the price of a decent basic pair of speakers.
The importance of speakers matters more in the matching to the amplifier, the room and placement in the room.
A proper pair of speakers can be found for quite a modest outlay.
And most importantly, they will respond to the quality of source and amplification far in excess of the price of a decent basic pair of speakers.
The importance of speakers matters more in the matching to the amplifier, the room and placement in the room.
tvheadhunter
pfm Member
Absolutely. Or 2-3000 more on a streamer or dac. By the way, a rug and curtains are not enough, although I understand it’s not always feasible to do more. Fortunately, I do have a dedicated space.
Arkless Electronics
Trade: Amp design and repairs.
A digital source can be very cheap and yet very good. The quality is "built into the format" and has only a small link to the quality of the engineering. There can often be very little difference between a £500 and £5000 CD player and I would not hesitate to put a £500 CD player with a £5000 amplifier and £10000 speakers.
Cables are of course of no importance whatsoever. Any old thing will do just fine as interconnects so long as it is screened, I use mainly the freebie ones that come with equipment plus home made ones for longer runs. Speaker cables only have to be as short as possible and made of nice thick wire to keep resistance down. They absolutely do not have to be made from cable sold as speaker cable but in practice there are few common uses for sufficiently thick twin core cable other than as speaker cable... Stuff for in car speaker cable or for low voltage lighting could save some money.
Cables are of course of no importance whatsoever. Any old thing will do just fine as interconnects so long as it is screened, I use mainly the freebie ones that come with equipment plus home made ones for longer runs. Speaker cables only have to be as short as possible and made of nice thick wire to keep resistance down. They absolutely do not have to be made from cable sold as speaker cable but in practice there are few common uses for sufficiently thick twin core cable other than as speaker cable... Stuff for in car speaker cable or for low voltage lighting could save some money.
Mike Reed
pfm Member
Interesting, because the Black Diamond I/Cs are one of my collection (mainly older upper Chord ). This cable certainly impressed me when I installed it between (valved) CDP and (valved) pre. for the first time.
Incidentally, for one 'searching for the musical experience' and having had a fair bit of esoterica (if the 552 can be called that!), I'm surprised you haven't had a dabble with valves and ESLs, or at least haven't mentioned it.
This is what the audiophile industry would have us believe in the 70s and 80s. Fortunately the world has moved on.
tvheadhunter
pfm Member
This was definitely the case at the diamond level. Not sure why they do what they do, but it is different.
Didn’t want to list everything but before making changes I was using the Allnic L5000 with H3000V phono, which are tubes and absolutely beautiful kit.
Didn’t want to list everything but before making changes I was using the Allnic L5000 with H3000V phono, which are tubes and absolutely beautiful kit.
tvheadhunter
pfm Member
Treating the room is actually what caused me to hear the weaknesses in my set up. I found that before treating the room I could not listen for as long; the sound would start to bother me; I would even get headaches. The tweeter would irritate me way before I reached its limits. With the treated room, I could explore its limits, and after 4+ new tweeters realised there was no way to create the dynamics, physical sensations, tonal characteristics I could get from listening to live music. Maybe this was an unrealistic goal. Once again, there are differences between sources, and arms and cartridges, and preamps, and my system was resolving enough to hear them. My premise is that all those differences were incremental. I would ask my kids or my wife or my non audiophile friends if they heard a difference, and in almost all cases they didn’t, and I would find myself justifying that difference. So why spend thousands of pounds/dollars/euros on changes that really don’t make much of a difference. So, decided that next would be my speaker journey.
Arkless Electronics
Trade: Amp design and repairs.
If trying to obtain genuinely realistic live sound levels you will need a power amp of at least 300WPC with those B & W speakers and 500WPC would be better. If only using 100WPC or less then that is why you are blowing so many tweeters!
Better still you need some very large professional active monitoring speakers or pro speakers such as big JBL's with compression driver mid and HF units and 15" woofers.
tvheadhunter
pfm Member
I’ll come back to your post, Arkless, but moved away from low powered amps once I moved away from Naim. In fact power amp was my first non-naim piece of equipment many years ago.
chartz
If it’s broke fix it!
I for one use a 200 W power amp with large 95 dB speakers.
I rarely go over 10 W in my 40 square metre room.
And that is very loud.
https://cabasse.vraiforum.com/t1244-Essai-Galion-IV-en-1980.htm
Funnily enough, the same amp feeding my ‘57’s will also rarely be used over 10 W.
tvheadhunter
pfm Member
As for speakers, the first issue I had was they needed to be great for both music and movies, but I figured music was the hardest, so that was my focus. I travel(led) a lot, which gave me the chance to try a bunch of speakers. I listened to a lot of conventional, high end speakers, big and small. Talked to a lot of shop owners, and eventually they told me what I was looking for could not be achieved with a normal speaker, even trying Dutch&Dutch and Kii Three. What became clear though, this was the biggest way to impact the sound from an equipment choice. That’s when I decided to explore the pro audio world. Just having a few demos convinced me this was the right track.