Having worked in a high-end car and home audio store in the late 80's to mid 90's, I can state with a high degree of confidence that wasting money is the point of being an audiophile.
You're just trying to justify having worked in one of those slick showroom stores selling over-priced, high-status brands rather than working at an honest shop offering the best values at each price point. That's on you for choosing to work at a place like that and has nothing to do with true audiophiles who appreciate sound systems that are musically and emotionally engaging.
Unfortunately Parson's "music" is electronic noise. Years after the recording even he doesn't know exactly how the playback "should" sound. A piano, an acoustic guitar, these we all have a good approximate idea of what they should sound like.
I dont agree. For the last couple of years I'm listening to vintage high end I buy for a bargain and update, and I must say, it changed my musical preference. I used to love banging pop, but now I like ambient and drone, and classical. Interesting sounds I find enjoyable. I really dont care about vocal music anymore, so done with stupid lyrics poisonibng my mind ;-) Or is it that Im getting older?
I like your approach. As a sound engineer and musician with an acoustically treated and very neutral mastering studio, I agree with pretty much everything you said. I have been in the world of audio and music since my teen years (I'm 68 now) and I've heard hundreds of combinations of equipment in people's homes and at audio shows in Montreal, Toronto, Chicago and L.A. It was VERY rare to hear good sound at the audio exhibitions. Yes, I too have known people who have spent a small fortune on home audio ($250,000 in one unbelievable instance) and yet only a small amount was spent on acoustic treatment for the room. If you want to get the most out of whatever equipment you own, you might want to consider investing in some proper room treatment. The most balanced and natural sound I can recall hearing was in rooms and studios that had been properly treated, regardless of the price of the equipment. So if you have a budget for a new audio system I suggest you include an appropriate amount for room treatment. Would you buy a Ferrari and expect peak performance on a dirt road? So why spend thousands of dollars on audio equipment and expect good sound in a compromised room? Makes no sense to me.
@@shahrukh2489 Audio SYSTEM is the sum total of 1) components, 2) component platforms, 3) cables, 4) power conditioning, 5) tweaks, and 6) room acoustics. In a high-end system, EVERYTHING matters.
You don't have to spend a small fortune on expensive acoustic treatments. Everyday items and placement of these items you can use to decorate your room can create an amazing sounding room. Whether your creating a lively sounding room with amazing reverb perfect for capturing a performance of an artist or a dead sounding room perfect for audio playback. I'm not going to go into detail on how to accomplish this here because their are plenty of videos and books out there. You don't have to spend a large or even a small fortune to have a great sounding audiophile or music studio sound system.
@@chris55top this is a good comment too. when i was getting into treating my room, i deeply researched every possible implement. damn near everything seemed to be snake oil in the testings of many, many engineers. (even some products regularly used for the very construction of a well-treated room). what was recommended well to me was high-weight stuff, good sealants, and actual moving blankets. diffusers are great, too. but, for me on a budget, these moving blankets were cheap as hell and provided a night-to-day difference that was verifiable with my testing solutions. shelved and heavy, padded furniture worked well too. same with large-area rugs. i covered more area with greater results and for a fraction of the price. when i finally moved out, i experimented just clapping in the center of the room. it was wild to hear the echo and reverb in the room untreated.
i was in the early stages of going down the audiophile rabbit hole.. then later decided to learn an instrument and bought a violin and took lessons.. between the two i think learning to make my own music was more satisfying to me
I agree absolutely I play the drums now no amp or speakers needed just good old analogue hearing as nature intended Digital is good for tv and video games and e mails pictures etc Biologically speaking we listen in analogue and linear not digital
For me, I’ve only ever owned KEF. My Father had the C40’s, Carlton I’s (rare speakers from the first generation), and the Reference 105.4’s, all of which still work. For amplification he had a decent but basic stereo receiver from Denon (DRA-800H). All of these speakers sound so amazing at home. Now that I’ve grown older, he gave me the 105.4’s and I bought my first amp on my own (Yamaha A-S1100). We live in a brand new modern appartement with a very large living room, high ceiling and all of it just bare flat walls. I put the 105.4’s in there, all setup and ready to go. The sound was NOTHING close to what it sounded like at home. Dry, empty and basically no low frequencies. It was then that I started to understand the concept of room treatment, and why it was much more important than any other chain in the process. I went on to buy the KEF R11’s, now with proper room treatment and in the right place in the room, and oh boy the difference is insane. For me, both speaker pairs still sound amazing, with slightly different characteristics, but none that I prefer over the other. The R11’s are more detailed, and I don’t know what magic it is KEF used for the UniQ but they seem to be able to place sounds in 3D in the room, almost as if you can localize them. The References on the other hand are much more natural sounding for classical music (violin solo’s sound more realistic, for instance). It’s all preference and room response that makes the most difference. I couldn’t think spending more money on any component in the chain would give me anything worth losing sleep over.
I live in an area that dosent have a shop where I could demo an all digital signal in with the height speakers and the works. I bet when done right its pretty freaking cool!!
In the audiophile world it can never end chasing the perfect sound, it's why there's a decent second hand market to buy equipment. One thing I've noticed in this hobby, 'everything' tends to make a difference but there is diminishing returns seeking the next step up. It's best to do what's in your budget and at some point simply enjoy the music and not just the system.
Spot on! Diminishing returns & enjoying music using equipment you can afford & find pleasing This also applies to home studio recording equipment, but becomes murkier with instruments There's a minimum acceptable standard & below that people are wasting money Incremental increases beyond the minimum might be viewed as wasting money also, however personal preference, confidence & customisation all feed into the magic of making great recordings or perceiving increased enjoyment in home listening sessions More important factors like inspiration, musicianship, performance skill, expressiveness, passion, recording skills, mixing, mastering, image, novelty with familiarity & marketing all play a part in home recording, studio recording & consumer products Home hi fi has seen mostly gradual improvements yearly & major milestone improvements every decade or so Live audio production is another fascinating field where there are massive obvious differences, sub standard equipment & set ups & overkill with marginal improvements & many factors such as indoor vs outdoor, weather, mixing, performer's skill & rehearsal & stage show, venue size, crowd size I remember when vinyl & cassettes were the only consumer options & barely anyone had a 5.1 surround system in their home Some things matter more than others & yes everything adds up, beginning right at the source - the musicians & performers all the way up & out to the audience & consumers Personally I love buying 2nd hand high end equipment & great value brand new equipment, generally somewhere in the sweet spot of proven & significant improvements without paying a premium for cutting edge or marketing hype There obviously are people who will just enjoy almost any beat on any system shared with friends & a few drinks & then there will be people who cringe at enduring poor audio recordings played on poor equipment in a poor setting with other people not 100% focused on a discerning listening session There are obvious differences, subtle differences & psychological factors at play in everything humans do Music is mostly a matter of opinion, entertainment, enjoyment, connection, admiration, reflection, escapism, inspiration & feeling vibrational energy shake your soul & stir human emotions - each person experiences music differently & not everyone enjoys the same music or using the same headphones or audio formats Peace
As someone in their late fifties with tinnitus and much reduced HF response, I'm under no illusions about the fidelity (or lack of) that I'm hearing these days. But what I can tell is where a sound is coming from, so my joy now is in surround and immersive audio. I've swapped out the pleasure of ultimate fidelity for that of a spatially interesting soundstage. Sadly, this means lots more speakers and thus lots more cost, even with £80 ears. :D
waw, that's like the worm hole inside the worm hole. ATMOS almost sucks for music and every informed producer knows that. I'v heard audiophiles describing HF frequency smearing artifacts and comb-filtering as extra top-end smoothness and spaciality. When they have convinced themselves, you could sell them a piece of copper for a thousand and they will think it's a bargain. OTOH they will despise acoustic panels as relatively inefficient and expensive because "it's just fabric". It's an ego thing. When I want to enjoy new music, I buy new music not new speakers. If you have hearing problems I'd visit an audiologist and get a modern sonotone: the good ones are pretty amazing and a tad cheaper than a full atmos system.
I hate to break it to you partner but adding speakers is not the answer to better sound! 2 well made large speakers placed well in the room is all you need! And possibly a sub if the speakers cannot reproduce adequate bass tones!
@@silversurfer3636 I feel you're missing my point. With a 5.1 or Atmos mix I *personally* (and I can only speak for myself) gain the advantage of spatial separation of instruments that greatly helps with my hearing issues, which can often result in stereo versions becoming muddied. I can't speak for your own experience, but for me surround and spatial have brought back my ability to enjoy music again. And really... that's all that matters, isn't it?
Love your videos just common sense info, I have some age re lated hearing loss and some time ago I tried a home demo of the Qutest dac against my Arcam IRDac that I have been using for quite some time and I could not hear any difference what so ever so stayed with my Arcam and went with a Speaker change where I could here a definite difference.
The biggest problem today is few people have EVER heard live music. You cannot judge if you have never heard the real thing. A few m0nths ago I was in the city and a brass band was playing live. While not my kind of music I was blown away. It did not sound like recorded music at all, it was so clean and open, not compressed, the detail was just amazing. The way music is recorded is the problem, not so much the equipment.
Hi Michael ... Absolutely. Even those going to concerts these days are not hearing live music. With the advent of all the trickery ... autotune, quantization, compression, limiting, etc. ... in many cases it is impossible to play the music live without a significant loss of apparent talent. So, what you get is dancing and spectacle in front of pre-recorded music. They used to make the disk match the live... now they make the live match the disk. Good to see you posting here.
This. Started to go to classical (so non-amplified) concerts a few years back and realised the sound at home wasn't even remotely matching the sound in the concert hall (hint, it never can) - figured out my B&W 800 diamond range stuff was way too bright and I mistook it for "details". Closest to the concert hall I could get was KEF. Switched my speakers and never looked back.
...and to further agree with Michael, yes, a lot of stuff is compressed to oblivion, so you can hear it on your tiny phone speaker. Good recordings make a lot of difference. The "Hi res' audio is playing that game. it's not the 24bit/192kHz that makes it better, it's just totally different mastering. You can pull a nice 320kbit MP3 from that hires recording and it is still superior to the normal mastering. Good example of this is the original Buena Vista Social Club CD vs the hires mastering, completely different sound - again, nothing to do with the hi-res, all to do with the mastering engineer. Some should be fired really. ^^
It does depend what type of music you are listening to. For anything that has one or more dominant acoustic instruments (incl. non-distorted vocals) it absolutely is important to have real-life experience of their natural sound signatures. And it is a one-way street: In my experience, anything that sounds good for well recorded and mixed acoustic instruments and vocals will also work well for electronic music, rock & pop. But the opposite isn't alway true: anything that sounds "appealing" for electronic music, rock & pop may not sound very good at all for acoustic instrumentation and vocals.
You're absolutely spot on as regards loss of hearing and the ability to tell the difference between good and better hi fi. At 73 and with many years of experimenting with different speakers, amps, record decks etc., my hearing is now about 50% and I have great difficulty determining subtle improvement let alone more obvious sonic definitions. I can still enjoy my music listening experience and in some ways with more acceptance and appreciation than I ever did when continuously listening to the hi fi and not the music. Probably this is quite a widely shared experience.
I have one ear that is a £10,000 ear. The other ear is worth about 10 pence 😂 I recently got a set of Hifiman HE400se headphones, and when I run a hertz sweep on them, I can hear much with my right ear. 13 years in the army with no ear protectors will do that.
Thank you for the sensible video. Over 3 decades ago I bought a Hafler amplifier I still use today. Several years later I discovered the internet, and soon read a review on this amp from Audiophile Magazine, where they criticized it for being too accurate. Too accurate was apparently a bad thing. Of course this was the same magazine that touted a green felt tip pen could make a CD sound much better.
HA!! I remember that magazine article! I was astonished that anybody would actually believe it... if true why wouldn't CDs all come with green tinted rims? 😁
I also remember that--and thought it was crazy even back then. As an audio shop owner, I sold, assembled, and modified many Hafler amps and preamps. While using and trying many different brands, I'm back with a Hafler power amp.
@@johnwilcox231 The green tint via magic marker etc these people said to paint on the rim of the CD was supposed to diminish "laser scatter" seeing as how the lasers most people were familiar with were 620-630 nm wavelength which visibly is pure red, meaning that the red laser wouldn't easily pass through most anything transparent that was tinted green. Not sure of the logic behind the reasoning, since CDs don't use visible red lasers. The lab of the parent company I worked for used a lot of red and infrared lasers in their engineering department and they had green tinted windows between the lab and the hallways and outside. This was a "just in case" thing that was done to keep genuine laser scatter out of the eyesight of passersby where it might flash in someone's face (still harmless in most instances since the actual power was simply Not that much). Now, on a CD player, the laser generally used was infrared thus invisible to human eyes anyway and quite low in power and highly directional as lasers are, and unlikely to actually cause any trouble with the pickup somehow receiving refracted scatter through the plastic material of the disk which was supposedly reflecting off the rim, that might find its way back to the pickup. It was all a bunch of nonsense, and I never wrote on the edges of any CD I had with any green Sharpy pens and never had any troubles with any of them. It's akin to the old wives tale of how a car battery will "ground out its charge" if it's left sitting on the ground or a concrete floor overnight... or how Clark's 500 buck patch cables made his system sound better. Second-hand logic from someone who was self-enabled, in a position of some authority who was actually little more than "one eye among the blind being King". 🙂
I can explain the pen. It was said to stop wave scattering from the laser mechanism when you were playing CD's. The pen often came with a "cutting lathe" that was supposed to cut the outer edge of the CD to "allow the pen and ink to soak in and stop that excessive wave scatter. Techmoan did a test of one he found. They were originally 500 quid (About 530 dollars US). Sufficive to say, it didn't work for crap.
Searching and researching for days and weeks, convincing myself to spend more and more money to build a satisfying high end audio system, I stumbled across this video and it saved my life...and gave me a good laugh! Honestly, thank you so much for putting things into perspective ♡
I listened to a Fleetwood Mac album at the flagship Yamaha store in central London last year - obviously it was all Yamaha gear from the amps to the speakers and turntable - I was honestly blown away, not by the frequency response, but the transparency and separation of sounds. Some of this would have been down to the large room and position of the speakers, but honestly, I've never heard music sound so good, let alone vinyl. I could pin-point every single instrument and vocal in a way I've never experienced before.
Yes, Yamaha gear can sound very precise and transparent. But if you were to listen to a good SET amp and high-efficiency speakers along with commensurate cables and power conditioning, I think you'd be disappointed with the lack of musical and emotional engagement from the Yamaha system.
I had the same experience with Pioneer VSX 5000, multi deck CD player and Bose AM5 speakers at an audiophile store in Great Neck Long Island back in 1985. I walked in just to see what they had and the sales person took me into this rather large room where there were many different amps, speakers and other components like CD, Turn tables, Tape players etc. All of which were hooked into a Master Panel where he could switch between components. He then started playin Pink Floyd Learning to Fly switching and asked me to pick which one sounded best. When I did he than asked me to pick out which ones I was listening too. As I started choosing he kept say nope not that one until I said well which ones am I listening too? He pointed to a Pioneer VSX 5000 receiver a CD player and a pair of tiny little speakers on stands. I said no way was that sound coming out of those. He walked over and pulled the wires out of the back of the speakers and the sound stopped. I was so Blown Away I bought the whole setup. One of the factors I did not consider was the size and design of the room. That was a critical part of how the system sounded. When I got home and hooked it all up it was still amazing but lacked the tone quality it had in that show room. Obviously it was designed to give optimum sound quality for the positioning of the components in the room. I suspect there may have even been some bias as to sell specific components based on their opinion or commission they got on components. I still have those speakers but the amp blew up two years ago.
Amen to this. I’m 76 and decided that finally now that I can afford it, I would upgrade and get really great equipment. But guess what. My ears have all sorts of rattles and noise, and I can no longer tell much difference between “decently good“ and “really expensive“ gear and speakers. I’m OK with this, it’s just reality, and I’m glad I figured it out before I spent more $$ than I did.
I've heard it said that: "audio enthusiasts listen to their music, while audiophiles listen to their systems". Probably some truth in that. I suppose each of us buy our tickets to whatever destinations appeal to us. As it should be. Another older guy fortunate enough to have sufficient financial headroom for upgrades, Iike you I choose to remain with my present system. Spent a lot of time selecting the various components, and I very much enjoy the sound quality. I've also come to realize just how critical room layout and sound treatments are to audio performance (thanks RUclipsrs!), and so I've made several improvements that have worked out pretty well. And admittedly in my own case pretty much my only tangible gains would be in the "bragging rights" specs, and evidently I've outgrown that requirement (finally)...diminishing ROI's are just wasteful.
@@usaturnuranus It's an old joke ... Most people use their systems to listen to music. Audiophiles use music to listen to their systems. Unfortunately, it's also pretty much spot on.
@@Douglas_Blake_579 I'm always amazed the effort and cost people go to these days to try and get a half descent sound out of bit of plastic when a FLAC file really is almost as good as it gets and costs a few cents. However, many people cannot believe this. Afterall a turntable that costs almost, or more than a car, HAS to be better than a silly little FLAC file. The real difference is the TT Looks so good and a FLAC file, well, you cannot even touch it or see it, so it cannot be any good can it! Maybe FLAC files should include, wow and flutter, add distortion, limit the bandwidth, lower the dynamic range, add noise, clicks etc. Make it ware out every time you play it. Things move on, was the best, and only choice in the 60/70s. Now records are almost the biggest con going. If you like get music this way with all its flaws, no problem but please don't fool yourself into thinking its better, after remortgaging your house to purchase it in the first place. The main weak link in TTs is the disc itself. Very hard to find one not warped or with the center hole actually IN the center.
Yes. WE ARE wasting money! My f.... god that hobby is damn expensive. There is a lot of snake oil out there. And you should always test or even better A/B before buying. But I hate myselfe for hearing the difference between a 1k, 3k, 5k, 10k and 25k setup😢 The first 3 I allready own and switch between. The latter I heard on the highend convention. Not the most expensive by far but the best sounding to my ears. Way cheaper than some top of the line stuff. I had a pleasent talk with one of the hify dealers in my area. He mentioned that people just randomly walk in the store and order equipment for 10k-50k. Meanwhile I was asking him about repairs of my 4k headphone and he was daring me to spot the diff between his fav sub 1k and the meze empys. Fun times ll around but it burns holes into your pockets
My dad did some heating/ac work at both abbey road and Nick masons studio in the early 90’s. They both used cheap regular audio cabling from the local Tandy, and both used cheap standard interconnects.
I live in Italy. I once attended a demo of Magico speakers in the best listening room (maximally sound treated) of an audio store that sold VERY "high end" equipment (meaning VERY costly). The Magico speakers cost $80,000. The DAC was the $110,000 dCS 4 box Viavaldi. The speakers were driven by top of the line D'Agostino monoblocs fronted by a top of the line D'Agostino preamp which together came to about $100,000. I don't know what the power, speaker, interconnect cables were. Nor to I know what server was being used. But I am willing to bet that they were all very expensive. So my estimate is that this system probably cost about $350,000. Alon Wolf, the owner of Magico, had accompanied his speakers and he was the one who set them up in the listening room ( who better to optimally place them?). And... the sound coming from that system, to me, was AWFUL. This could not be attributed to the quality of the soundtracks because for an hour, Wolf play from a minute to a minute and a half of one track after another and they all sounded bad... so bad, in fact, that had I not thought it too impolite, I would have left after 10 minutes. There were approximately 30 of us seated in this room listening to this demo. I am pretty sure that I am not the only one who felt this way because at the end of the demo, Wolf asked for comments or questions and NOBODY said anything. There was just silence. I felt embarrassed for Wolf, so I asked a question... whose answer I wasn't interested in... just to alleviate the tension. Later I was happy to get back home and fire up my very modestly priced, but very pleasant, system. I had already doubted that the cost of an audio system was a guarantee of great sound. This experience cured me forever of even the tendency to wonder about it. As far as I am concerned it was proof positive that there is NO intrinsic correlation between cost and the quality of sound.
I heard Magico speakers at their dealer in Singapore some years ago. They don't sound right to my ears and I can subliminally hear the intrinsic signature of the aluminium cabinets. I think this company spends an awful lot of money on tech solutions to mitigate the acoustical problems caused by using the wrong material! Since most musical instruments are made of wood it stands to reason that the speakers used to reproduce their sound should have cabinets made of wood!
I routinely listen to 100k speakers in recording studios. The big difference to audiophiles is that we producers/engineers couldn’t care less what they cost. We put our favorite, moderately expensive, small speakers close to us in the perfect measured spots, and make our record. That same record we struggle over for months is cross-checked in our cars, a boombox, on various speakers, earphones, an actual phone; everything imaginable EXCEPT audiophile speakers. We know what we’re doing.
@@iankuah8606 That actually doesn’t make any sense. Instruments are made of wood so they can vibrate and contribute most of the actual sound. Actual wood, the worst possible material, is NEVER used for a speaker. The best speaker cabinets must not vibrate at all so are made of composite, synthetic materials. Some plastic formulations are excellent. Aluminum would be ok but very impractical. Concrete would be excellent.
This is the best audio commentary I’ve heard in many years and echoes exactly what I have been saying every time I’m asked to recommend a system setup. Perfect audio sound is an endless pursuit based largely on $ and snobbery. What you hear is only as good as your weakest element, the quality of the recording, and your overall hearing ability. Does a $50K setup sound better than a $5K setup? The answer should always be not necessarily. So the follow up question should be; are you happy with the sound output relative to the price paid? And that should always be yes. The other day I saw someone driving a $500000 electric Porsche- I mean WTF who does that?! But I’m guessing they had bags of cash and felt terrific, saving the planet in a Porsche. And that’s why audiophiles do what they do. For my 60yo ears, I’m still loving my old Rega p3, my old NAD amp, and my old Kef c30’s- none of which broke the bank. Happy listening!
His argument here is so poor. He generalized to the inability of most people to hear any kind of difference off of the single example of the ability to hear at the frequency extremes. Yet there are very audible differences between components in clarity, soundstaging, imaging, etc., etc. that have nothing to do with this single example. This is so basic.
@@a.s.2426 Absolutely correct. This video is suspect imo. And from a recording engineer no less. An RE does not have to have any electronics education. The publisher of Bound for Sound mag (no advertising, a criminal defense attorney, now deceased) wrote an article, Truth be Told concerning marketing techniques in audio. cheers
@😳 spoken like someone that has fallen so far down the audiophile rabbit hole where one must convince themselves of the discomfort of where they are trapped in order to tolerate their mentally invested predicament .
The best advice I can give to people is always by used, particularly if you're on a budget. There are amazing deals to be found and finding speakers for pennies on the dollar is the norm. You can find very nice speakers that are 10 years old and retailed for several thousand dollars on the used market for a couple hundred dollars.
I patch worked my first two theater systems, cheap, with tag sales years ago. Also bought a beautiful 80's receiver from a guy for $10.00. He had offered it to his son, but his son didn't want to have to get up and use the "manual" dials on the receiver.
@@AudioMasterclass I just picked up a beautiful pristine used Paradigm CC-390 center channel for $75. It retailed for about $800 in the early 2000s. In today's economy, it would be a $1,500 center channel. It's massive, 40 inches long, 15 inches deep, and 70 lbs. It uses four 6 and 1/2-inch woofers, two four-and-a-half-inch mid-range drivers, and a 1-inch tweeter. It's a very interesting three-way design, and it's the best sounding center channel I've ever heard. Deals like this aren't even uncommon because there are a lot of folks who simply want to offload some of their old gear that they no longer use. I'll go as far as to say some of these slightly older speakers are better than their contemporary counterparts in a lot of ways. You're paying more for less now. This thing absolutely puts my SVS Ultra to shame. Point being, buying used is one of the greatest home audio hacks there is.
Awesome points! My only criticism is the assumption that quality/engineering/fidelity increases linearly with price, but reality is there is ZERO correlation between price vs. performance. There is equipment at bargain basement prices that gives massively expensive equipment a serious run for its money. In many cases, there are examples where the bargain out-performs more expensive equipment in objective testing. I always start at the bottom and listen to the quality, and pick the best combo that sounds great to me. I've saved a fortune this way, and still have an awesome sounding system.
I found the difference between good & great equipment isn’t about the bass, mid & treble, it’s the hologram-like imaging & stability of the sound stage, even if the high end rolls off with age
I think you're onto something there. Whenever I bought a television, even before smart TVs, I would always look at color fidelity first over resolution. There's nothing like being surprised by looking at a picture which is absolutely color correct as opposed to something which is very, very close to correct.
I have an Onkyo Receiver with TR speakers with gold plated could. I just bought a Bobtot that was open box for 105. And sure the 6000 dollar set up sounds better. But the Bobtot gives it good run for the money
I like the support superstructure and the isolation given by the slight overhand. However, the joist work lends itself to dampening if not positioned correctly....
@@sPi711 Indeed. That's been an issue for years in computer graphics. Great looking games written for colour CRT looking terrible on more 'accurate' IPS or AMOLED displays. A bit of low pass filtering - in the colour display sense - is what the games were written for. No wonder they look bad when all the natural dithering and antialiasing is stripped.
There are arrogant people with a glaring inadequacy of education on the topic at hand. Then there are arrogant people who invested the time to become expert in some field, and are just fed up with bullshit. I find myself drawn to such people.
I just love the hobby and am thrilled to see it having a resurgence. Listening to music, not necessarily seeking note for note reproduction, makes me happy. The aesthetics, gear combinations, history, all of it makes it rewarding experience FOR ME. When I have friends over and we sit and listen, they love the detail my modest system can produce because they are used to listening on AirPods or soundbars - and watching their faces brings me real joy. Buy and listen to what you want and what you can afford without judgement or jealousy.
I worked for Philips as an audio test engineer for many years, there were 6 of us employed to write quality reports, none of us agreed on the best products, and the set up of the said equipment, opinions, opinions, opinions, not facts...
that was probably because the rules for what quality was regarded as quality were not clearly laid out and each of you had a different self imposed priority to pursue and consider of the best quality. With complete description and arguments, you were probably all correct and very much factual sort of speak. And if all of your analysis would be presented to the public then the better informed the public would be. ::))
I'm 58 when I was growing up most of the music I heard was on small radios and car stereos. My mother had a tube stereo with a radio and turntable with two speakers which cost back in the 60's maybe a few hundred dollars. I have never really heard anything better growing up it's just what my ears are used to. So to me a system that costs under 1,500 sounds fantastic and I can't hear any difference between a optical cable or a copper cable. So I'll waste my money on more cd's which sound better then anything I grew up hearing🎶
Totally agree. Also many pop songs are limited by the quality of the original recording. So a more expensive "better" Hi Fi will simply reveal the limitations of the source & media carrier be it Vinyl or cd. 👍
Thank you for this amazing video! You have not only just saved me from wasting a LOT of money, but you’ve also saved me a lot of time too. I have just unsubscribed from all the hifi RUclips channels that has been wasting my time after watching review after review of products, only to be more confused than I was before watching them.
I consider myself a practical audiophile. I am more impressed with gear that gets me a good spectrum of sound to work with while still being reasonably priced. Having studied sound engineering both academically and as a personal hobby, I have learned that as long as I have some sort of ability to change EQ, I can usually make most speakers sound adequate or even superb. It also depends on application. For general use such as work, public, etc., I don't need my listening devices to be perfect since I am not even likely to be focusing on music over other things. So a simple pair of Sony ear buds or Bluetooth Edifier ear buds will work fine. For home, I run almost everything through my Sony 7.1 receiver with Klipsch speakers, be it music or movies. It's about as affordable as a sound system can get. Yet I can hear so many details to tracks that I sometimes don't even register on headphones. As for recording/musical projects, I typically use Sennheiser HD 280's that I have had for over a decade. While not exactly cheap, I don't ever feel the need to get anything more expensive than that. In short, sometimes I wish that more audiophiles understood that good audio comes from your ability to calibrate your equipment, rather than from how pricey your equipment is.
I have the Sennheiser HD 457's that are about 50 years old now and still beat the crap out of any other phones I have used! They too work best using a graphic equaliser.
I am not an audiophile but i enjoy the whole ritual of putting a record on and looking at the sleeve art. Ive got an old amp from the 80s and a £300 turntable. Its enough for me.
A audiophile friend of mine used the phrase "Give a damn threshold" to describe a price threshold for audiophile equipment, it was defined as "if you can't hear the difference, don't buy the difference." Having spent my entire adult life in studio and broadcast engineering, I've always gravitated to the most accurate of references, those that were demonstrably and measurably more accurate. As a side note, I had a radio show in the 80's called Hi Tech that presented subjects like "How to Understand Specs." I also played Half Speed Mastered disks, Direct to Disk and the first Digital Recordings on air in my area. I played examples from "Bach to Rock." I even bypassed the station processing to allow my listeners on one occasion, to hear the digital sample as accurately as the FM broadcast medium would allow. I was the Chief Engineer of the station at the time and I was very careful not to overmodulate. You did not reference the importance of room acoustic treatment which is as the best speakers you can buy will not sound good in a poor acoustic environment. Any speakers in an untreated, small, square, concrete room will not present an accurate presentation of any recording. Having spent a large part of my adult professional life setting up turntables for broadcast and audiophile applications IMO all turntable, cartridge, stylus and tonearm combinations playing a vinyl source, are at best a precision approximation of the recording. Once all the wear factors are considered such as stylus and vinyl wear, not to mention the dust and static accumulation over time, anyone who prefers the "sound of vinyl" to digital recording is not an audiophile, IMO. In that case like many other older technologies that "sound better" to some, I would submit that it's a sound quality that those listeners are accustomed to. I have little doubt that some people have superior hearing and may hear differences that most cannot but should that make a difference to those that cannot? If an individual can't hear that a device is more accurate they are buying the sales hyperbole for what is usually a high price. When I was younger, I could hear 25 kHz and as a trained classical double bassist, I could determine pitch down to 25 Hz. It has rarely aversely effected my enjoyment of a good recorded performance. That being said, a truly great performance transcends whatever technology was used to capture it. I am nearly 70 and I no longer have the hearing range I had but I still have no trouble getting a decent mix and prefer to do multi-track live capture recordings. I do have a fairly extensive discography.
The trouble is that if you can't hear the difference in the showroom then you might hear the difference back home. A true AB test is only possible after purchase. Incremental changes (with the emphasis on 'mental) is how they get you. For a professional environment there is no such trap as product demonstrations can be ordered 'in place'. This is why I fear 'audiophiles' are generally private enthusiasts vulnerable to exploitation by salesmen who know vastly less than them but have the leverage of 'you have to try it in your own system'. No refunds.
Based on your vast professional experience, what speakers do you think offer value for money? Of course given hearing limittations and room accoustics, but are there certain designs you prefer (enclosed vs ported) generally? Thanks for your comment.
25khz, Wow that's great! I thought I was doing good with 19khz in my teens. Sine wave generator piezo tweeter. My dog could hear past 19k apparently. What if we are hearing harmonics of the fundamental though hmmm?
@@DANVIIL I prefer coaxial speakers for nearfield monitoring. The speakers I use are no longer made and there are still Tannoy and Fluid Audio neither of which I have current experience. I have had and used Tannoy's in the past. Kali makes some well reviewed and cost effective monitors. In whatever case I highly recommend the addition of Sonar Works SoundID software and room treatment.
I really like this approach because it respects variability - doesn't just TALK about subjectivity, but truly gives it the value it deserves. In my experience, the ABILITY to hear differences between levels of what we call audio quality are based on four things: DESIRE - the ambition to discover these differences, LEARNING - the experience of taking the time to listen, reading what others have said, PERCEPTION - the psychological changes that happen, some beyond and some within our control, and SCIENCE - the arts of acoustics, electronics, physics, etc. that truly affect what comes into our ears. It seems that many audiophiles forget that ALL THREE of these are involved. For instance, I recently attended the AXPONA audio show in Chicago. I heard some fantastic examples of audio, but I knew that being in the midst of that environment was affecting me in all 4 of those areas. i'm never entirely sure of what is changing my experience of audio, but it DOES affect it - including what I pay for my equipment. Why? I don't care. For those so-called audiophiles who focus entirely on the SCIENCE part, I notice there are very few double-blind listening tests. I'm not implying they lie, but I do think very many of the opinions are affected by the other 3 factors I listed and not fully considered because, well, those are subjective, and we can't have that amount of subjectivity now can we?
When I bought my current sitting room speakers, I listened to three sets by different manufacturers, then bought the ones that sounded best to MY ears. I still love how they sound.
I spent my first wage packet on a hi-fi system. I went to a proper hi-fi shop with a listening room and a comfy sofa. I had no idea about what was good or bad. I selected a CD to play and the team assembled a system for me. I listened. I liked it. I said, yes, that one will do. The shop assistants were a little horrified that I didn't want to listen to other systems. But I knew that I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between them and that I would waste everyone's time. That was in 1988 and I still listen to it today. I think I have £700 ears (in 1988), probably less today.
You are so absolutely correct. The end guidance for the consumer is prioritze your spend on your speakers. In that light, consider how easy they are to drive so you don't force more spend on the amplification.
I can appreciate this video, and another that I watched/listened to. I work for Krell. Yes, THAT Krell. :) I repair high-end audio amps for a living. I used to work in broadcast radio. Over the years, I've developed what I call "Engineer's Ears". Trained to notice distortion or flaws in reproduced audio. I also have a bit of a grasp on the Laws of Physics. I use a high resolution audio analyzer and oscilloscope every day at work. I can absolutely assure you that the $1000 cable makes NO MEASURABLE DIFFERENCE over the $100 cable. There WILL be a difference with a $10 cable... more noise, phase shift, high-freq rolloff, but the difference between $100 and $1000 WILL NOT be audible. Confirmation bias (I SPENT MORE FOR THIS! IT MUST BE BETTER!) combined with Placebo Effect are the two prime reasons people can say, "I swear I hear the difference!" when the difference really is too small for their ears to detect. Same with lifting cable an inch from floor, etc. Enjoy your music, don't fall for gimmicks. :)
Also, a technician... I've often noticed that when people claim to have heard a difference it's a matter of focus and attention. When they put in a new cable they will listen with very intense focus to hear the difference. They end up hearing a few micro details in their music and falsely attributing it to the cable, rather than the attention. I've done null tests, stress tests and more on all kinds of cable over the years and except for defective cables (bad solder, broken shields, etc.) I've never spotted any difference at all ... even with the $10 cables.
@@Douglas_Blake_579 well then youve just contradicted what the fellow above you has said. He said he could detect a difference in $10 cables. So we have two technicians that cant agree! hilarious
Cable connection and extreme length might make a difference but honestly copper plated aluminum is good enough for most people if you're not moving the cables a bunch or soldering them
I tried my best to hear the difference between a 50 EUR and a 500 EUR interconnect. I couldn't. So what matters to me is that the cable is made well, won't break, has gold-plated RCA plugs, so I need not worry about oxidation and that is it. My dream was to own an Accuphase integrated amp. Finally, I was able to buy one and do I hear the difference between the Accuphase and my old Denon? Hell yes, absolutely. I'm 61 and can't hear anything above 8,5k on my right and up to about 6,5k on my left ear. Do I hear the silky smooth top-end of my Amp? No, but I hear the gorgeous soundstage and the wonderful mids and the defined, satisfying bass, of which all fill my room with great music and make me happy. I also tried Chord Qutest vs. Dave. Couldn't tell which was which, so I bought the Qutest. No reason to bust the bank. I bet some people can hear these little nuances, but I'm quite sure, most only buy extremely expensive equipment because they like the technical aspect of sound reproduction, which is OK as a hobby and if you can afford it. My system fits my ears and that is good enough for me. ... Thank's for your videos, I always enjoy them !
Sometimes more expensive equipment sounds worse. But that doesn’t mean that all good equipment sounds the same as every other piece of equipment. There are also those who think that cheap wines taste the same as good wines. Perhaps those who enjoy the cheap ones are better off. I would hardly recommend one of those to be a wine critic.
You are 100% correct in saying that you where listening to a Anton Bruckner Symphony and rightfully so, the speakers are the medium of which we enjoy our favourite genre or type of music we love. Back in 2002 I believe, I treated myself to a nice pair of speakers after graduating from my Ph.D so I made sure to take my favourite classical CD's with me to a Audiophile shop in Melbourne, Australia. After listening to around 8 pairs from different manufacturers I gladly settled for a pair of Energy Connoisseur C-7 Series of which I still love and cherish till today :) I am a pianist and yes have a perfect pitch as I was told during my theory and pianos exams. Love music as it's my soul alongside my beloved dog :) This gentlemen is brilliant and his knowledge and perspective is spot on.
Great points made in this video. Re loudspeakers I am amazed that tech hasn’t really moved that far. I recently did a listening comparison between three sets of speakers I have in my home. Neat Elites, Kef 104/2s and my oldest pair Radford M180s. All sound really good. However what I was shocked with was how good the Radford sound. These are mid 1970s speakers! I can easily listen to any of the three and enjoy music immensely.
My Klipsch are 1978. I agree with you about tech hasn’t produced better speakers. The efficiency of my old speakers is better than most all the new stuff.
To the extent that they accurately reproduce the recordings, I wouldn't expect them to advance much. However, I can say that cheap speakers have drastically improved in my lifetime
An outstanding video, I was sucked into the audiophile world around 10 years ago.... I am now retired and my setup conists of 2 RCF speakers and a behringer mixer that i plug my cd player and cheap record player into.... It serves me well!
I went through a phase where I bought high end boutique nonsense. THOUSANDS in credit debt. I was chasing hyped jewelry, not the sound. It was prestige gear. I knew a fellow that was addicted to high end jewelry like gambling or alcoholism. He just had to have that $50,000 audio note SET tube amp. It was well beyond his ability to afford. He ended up going bankrupt and selling everything off. His new system ended up as a more sensible few thousand dollars and real performance, not just products designed to be heavy and shiny. No more $5,000 silver cables and interconnects. I hope my post offends and triggers audio snobs and ANONYMOUS moderator wanna be's who think they can dictate comments here.
Don't conflate financial responsibility with the value of the gear. Audio Note gets their price regardless of your friend's ability to afford it. This whole premise of audiophiles wasting their money is assuming they can't afford it. Stick to discussing the merits of the gear and leave people's financial wherewithal to own it alone, eh?
You are mostly paying for build quality , aesthetics, gimmick marketing and packaging. Not so much of sound. There’s 500 headphones that sound better than or match $2000 headphones. They only difference is the build May not hold up. You don’t just throw around any headphone, no matter how cheap the materials are .. I did some research at companies. Speakers are easier to distinguish now.
I am blessed with exceptionally good hearing - as measured by audiologists. And I’ve loved audio gear all my life since I was 18. I don’t feel I’ve ever wasted money; I’ve always taken an incremental approach and always by auditioning gear at a real hifi store. That said, I use $10 interconnect and just ordinary 12 AWG speaker cable. In my current system the vast majority of the cost is in the speakers. My experience has been that cost / quality is an exponential curve. A $1000 CD player (Emotiva in my case) gets you a lot more than a $250 player. A $4,000 player? Not so much more. Researching, then listening gets you the best package. My dealer lets me take my own gear to the store to try to match my home as closely as possible so when I was looking for speakers he let me use my own CD player and amp for the listening sessions. But it’s also not just about clinical reproduction. There are components that are technically good but musically dull, and in the end it’s about the music. So find something that excites you, that makes you want to stay up that extra hour and not go to bed. That’s where I’m at. There is a sweet spot of investment; perhaps if I was super super rich I might do marginally better. But I’ve put about $10,000 Canadian into my current system and I feel I’d need a better house to do any better.
You're right about interconnects and cables. I have a £7,000+ system and have tried all sorts of interconnect/cable combinations, and can honestly say it doesn't make much difference. Your sources, amplifier and speakers are what make the sound; how it gets from one device to another barely seems to affect it at all.
@@piotr78 Detail, instrumental separation, soundstage, lower noise floor, balanced outputs, tonality of complex instruments like piano, faster attack on drums and piano (better able to handle fast transients). And features like external optical and coax in for using external sources through the DAC in the player. Oh and significantly quieter transport with way less mechanical noise - important for me as I listen to a lot of classical music with very quiet passages. Not noticeable with rock and other genres.
Really good video. I've upgraded my rig over time and built a solid ~reference system. There has been a lot of learning along the way, and most importantly, that one's notion of reference will change with the components in your system. I agree with all your points, there is most certainly a point of diminishing return on any audio component. Maybe what matters most is that when you listen to music and relax, you can experience some magic and transcend for a while. DACs, turntables, streamers, amps and preamps, speakers and interconnects all do make a difference. Ultimately it was the speakers (802 D4) that revealed any weaknesses in my setup. Most of my gear is gently used, but current. Most importantly, I can experience some audio magic anytime I wish.
There is a certain synergy with matching equipment to having great sound. I don’t mean expensive. Certain speaker need a particular amplifier to sound uncontrastrained. A good source can always sound better on any system.
It's true. My audiophile neighbor had a set of high-end speakers from a well known brand with a not terrible but so-so amp. He upgraded to a really nice McIntosh amp a couple years later and the difference was incredible.
Love this video, matching the room with the right speakers and if possible (some) acoustic treatment (drapes, carpet and such) can lead to something that makes you forget that you're listing to a reproduction of sound. Personally I have a set up that I think matches the listening room and my taste and I have stopped looking around for better, think I reached the end of the 'ear resolution' so I enjoy the music and there is so much beauty to be found. Keep up the good work.
I truly appreciate this video. I have perfect pitch, (determined by my music professor, by playing the same song in every key by ear, after admitting I couldn’t read a single note) can’t read a note to save my life, but can play multiple instruments, and produce music. I enjoy the audiophile community, from a distance, as I always secretly held the opinion that the quality of the hearing, not so much the range of high to low frequencies, is the better judge. But people in that community, give so little credit to this, I find myself getting bored, quickly. Thanks for the video.
I have good pitch, but not perfect. I also have degraded hearing. I think that perfect pitch is a brain thing, not an hearing thing. My hearing is degraded. My ability to hear things off pitch hasn’t changed (or it seems so).
I have spent most of my adult life listening to very high end audio equipment, some would say to the detriment of my family. I remember using the money put aside for my son's birthday to pay for custom speaker cable. He was heartbroken not to get the promised bicycle but cheered up immensely when he heard the more focused midrange and strident bass. Anyway, now I find my hearing is deteriorating with age I have taken to releasing helium gas normally used for inflating baloons into the listening room. The lower density compared to oxygen creates an improvement in high frequency clarity and image, without adding any unwanted sibilance. The result has been breathtaking.
I buy the central argument here - well communicated! The elephant in my listening room is neither elephant nor loudspeakers, but the fact that (for many of us) hi-fi has to fit around normal life. Thus, my speakers are not placed in the perfect position as described in numerous hi-fi articles. There are hard and soft furnishings in the room that, presumably, reflect or absorb sound differentially depending on frequency and possibly other factors. Plonking a chair in the exact 'sweet spot' for the best sound is likely to get on the wrong side of my dearly-beloved wife... All of which mean that, for me, my hi-fi is almost certainly operating below the point at which my ears could tell a difference - but spending more money would give an increment in performance that is probably overshadowed by the terrible room acoustics and the other factors mentioned above. That extra 2% could be immediately lost if I move the waste paper bin by 6 inches, so to speak.
Exactly, I used to have Magnaplanar speakers, High end( delicate) turntable, met and married, had a baby moved house and the system didn’t suit a family ( children) now I am digital with nice speakers that fit in the room and the wife likes the look of. There is nothing stopping me looking though
So you can hear no differences between equipment because of all the factors you mention? I really failed to understand the central argument of the video.
@@JoelHernandez-tz3vk yes, you should assume that a home theatre room is not feasible here in the UK, unless one is very, very rich😢 or don't have to fit around a family life. The thing that's lacking in a lot of audiophile discussions is (it seems to me) a sense of perspective. Spend hundreds or thousands to get that extra 2% improvement in fidelity, but add in a couple of cushions, move a rug, and that 2% may have been swamped by the room changes... unless you have a dedicated listening room. When I win the lottery, it'll happen!😂
Hi. I'm a musician and although I've played loud music all my life, I still have good hearing compared to other people of my age (I'm 60, just got it tested). I completely agree with you about the turntables, bc we also have to acknowledge that there are so many variables that play a role. Not in the least: you have to have perfect vinyl records. And we all know that that is almost never the case.
@@y.k.9705 Well, that will keep things interesting ! I bought some bookshelf speakers and stands a while back, and even purchased a pair of headphones that I also didn’t need, just just to get some different flavors. Even having end game speakers with no plans on changing the environment, sometimes temporary swaps are occasionally required to keep things interesting and make sure you haven’t changed your mind lol
Vinyl is an inferior medium to start with so spending over a 500 pounds for a turn table is nonsensical regarding sound quality. Furthermore, the only thing that matters sound quality wise when it comes to turn tables is the replaceable pickup element. That actually does make an audible difference in definition quality. But this would likely not get any better over 200 pounds either. Note that my experience dates from 40 years ago, when turn tables were actually still somewhat relevant and my hearing was good.
As someone who has been involved in every stage of the process from experimenting with a lot of microphones through to producing music and mixing and mastering, as well as building speakers, I can say that everything sounds different, on the production side of things. It is the engineer’s job to use the Sonic qualities of the equipment used as part of the creative process. On playback, it’s not quite as straightforward and there’s a level of preference, and it’s hard to say what is better past a certain point, what I can say from my experience with mastering is that different speakers will bring out different qualities of a recording, and some recordings will play better on some speakers than others with their inherent qualities. However, I think there is a certain threshold where you want to be above, like, you don’t want to be listening to music in a room with a ton of reflections, that are uncontrolled, for example, although controlled reflections can be nice. I do find that speakers with soft tweeters, rather than air motion or metal tweeters often playback older music better. I have noticed that some newer music plays back better on harder tweeters since it was produced on them. For example, Celldweller and the weeknd
This is a brilliant and highly educational lecture. Your brilliant intellectual arguments have given me much reason to "pause for thought" .... and probably saved me a shed of money! Thank you!
Regardless of what I own I always include an equalizer in my setup. I have never gotten a great sound without room/speaker eq being part of the process.
Very true! It's crazy what sort of products that actually sell. Worst examples are probably 3000$ USB cables, that's just absurd given that there isn't even a theoretical difference between that and a 20$ cable. Some people clearly just want to waste money.
I am just getting into audio and recently went to a store to find out for myself what different price points give me in terms of quality. Among other things, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I preferred a pair of $99 headphones over $400 headphones. More money spent does not always equal a more enjoyable audio experience, and trying it out before buying is an absolute must.
A $400 pair headphones vs $99, does not say much at all, apples to apples the $400 should be vastly superior, unless you are buying garbage and picking poorly made products from companies not known for being in the market with experience making such products. In otherwords, anyone who is savvy in the market for a particular type of product, especially electronics at the low tier price points of $100-$400, should ALWAYS be EASILY able to find a far superior product for the $400, my guess is you do not know much of what you were looking into or compared apples to oranges...
@sgt_major8419 Your comment is irrelevant. The bloke found headphones that HE ENJOYS LISTENING TO for just $99. Would some other $400 headphones sound better to him compared to the specific $400 set he was able to listen to? Maybe. But now he currently has headphones that he enjoys, and he still has $300 in his pocket to spend on good music, other equipment, or whatever...or to put towards those better sounding $400 headphones WHEN & IF he finds them. 😉
@@bbfoto7248your both right. If he enjoys them. That’s all that matters. Also he probably doesn’t know what 400 should sound like. Compared to the 99 dollars sound. To me 400 should sound way better as well. Though I admit there are some affordable pieces that sound great.
Ribbons and tubes with deep bass capabilities are a sound that is acquired by listening to live music. I believe it's all about the texture translation of the instruments, which makes the music. Amplifiers can not have too much relatable power.
I'm married to a classical musician and I too am very familiar with the sound of live music. I've been in the Hifi hobby for 40 years and Hifi design has been in the family. I don't often click on your videos as I'm turned off by the snarky often condescending tone that they're titled with including you making a frowny face. But once in a while I will watch one as I did here. I think you did a good job of categorizing equipment where you see the least to the most difference. Most would agree with you about speakers. I have a pair of Quad ESL63 speakers and when they're working do a fantastic job over the frequency range that they cover. Lack of reliability (old panels need frequent replacement) and bass limitations have brought me to Martin Logan Hybrid speakers. Close to the Quads in the midrange and they cover the bottom that the Quads won't. I do take issue with some of your other assertions. I too am skeptical of thousand dollar cables. But I can hear the difference between 10 dollar and 100 dollar cables. To begin with you have to spend a bit more than 10 dollars to get a cable with a top notch connector which I think is just as important as the cable itself. I do think that people can hear a difference between 100 and 1,000 dollar cables. But I don't think those differences are worth the money. I'd rather spend it on something else. Amps can make a huge difference and it this case you can't separate the amp discussion from the speaker as there's a lot of interaction there. My Martin Logans didn't really come alive until I started bi-amping them and found the right combination of amp and speaker. The Rega is a good choice but as I see it there are a few more price breaks. If you spend up to about 400-500 dollars for your turntable, tonearm and cartridge you get in the door of Hifi. About 2,000 to 4,000 dollars you can get Hi End sound. For 10,000 to 20,000 dollars your touching state of the art. In the 10s or 100s of thousands of dollars your way into the realm of diminishing return. For me if you are going to spend that much money then why not run your phono cables through the wall and install your turntable in a soundproof vibration isolated booth with a remote controlled needle drop device. I never hear of anybody doing this yet I'll bet you'd really hear the difference. Anyway thanks for the video. If you get less snarky with your titles I'll tune in more but maybe you'd get fewer clicks.
Price does not carry acoustic information, and when you bring in the quality of connectors, you might as well be checking whether the wires are secured properly to the speakers. Besides the length, there are three physical factors that determine the qualities of a speaker cable. If you can point to a fourth, you're in line for a Nobel in Physics. And yes, I know you've heard it many times before, but that does not make it less true, and if you had an answer, it would have been publicly known ages ago. Let's not pretend otherwise.
The difference between cables reputed to be of high quality is quite obvious if the caliber of everything else is there. Even in a blind test context, for me. Explanations as to why might earn you a prize of some sort, yes. But we don’t require explanations only proof that there is a difference.
Sorry for what may be perceived as a silly and late comment, but I was curious why you mentioned vinyl as both the entry point and end game of hi-if, despite vinyls flaws. I think it’s a bit overkill to design a whole room just to drop a needle, when you could instead pop in a CD.
I went to tradeschool for electronics in highschool and we got a lot of broken electronics donated so we could train to fix them, one of such thing was a broken audioligist suitcase for testing hearing, we fixed and it would beep at different frequencies and you would press a button if you heard the beep and at the end it would even print out a graph of your ears frequency response on ribbon-paper. Testing our hearing quickly became a daily competition where we would compete and see who could hear better... we where 15 students competing and we probably tested our hearing hundreds of times over several months. The interesting thing was that the "champ" of the class was the only girl in the class and she could 100% reliably hear up to 23-24khz! Her hearing was extremely good and she would beat everyone else ten out of ten times... I wonder how "expensive" ears she had.. wish i had her earing!
I could hear down to 13hz last time i checked im sensitive to high pitch noises... (Sorry cant remember the number ) I have $800/pair speakers in my car... I... Need to do whole home audio now and its overwhelmingly expensive, not bexause im trying to go so extreme, but because i need propper spacial audio everywhere and cant stand less than 20hz to 20khz, but prefer soeakers that go higher, silence is horrid. Btw im AuDHD and thats part of my hearing being different. Tldr its exhaustingly expensive
@@freedblowfish3705you could hear 13 hz at high levels but even at lower levels, you’ll hear quite a lot of the 2nd order harmonic. It’s shocking how much of that 2nd and 3rd harmonic is present in subwoofers and even more in smaller woofers in speakers.
Not to be sexist, but there might be a scientific explanation. My understanding is that females are more tuned to hear higher pitch because they need to hear babies crying, while males need to pay attention to lower pitches to hear danger, like a bear growling or lion roar. Not my sexist idea, science. Personally, I think all the guys listened to music to loudly and ruined their hearing…
To be honest, being audiophile and spending money on buying pricey hifi gear are two different things, but they usually go together. As an audiophile, you can experiment sound reproduction using cheap / low-mid fi gear and listen and critic the sound quality. Soon you will yarn for a better sound, however. This usually cost more money to get a decent improvement. At certain stage, diminishing return will hit and only difference between gear A and B is probably how they look and made by different manufactures. IMO, luxury HIFI segments aren't really for audiophiles who are looking for the best sound, but look / feel the best too. And you sure pay for them.
Listening to you speak and the level of logic and common sense in truth in what you say and do it without hurting people's feelings is such a breath of fresh air thank you for sharing your highly highly valuable experience
I’ve only bought used equipment to date, and I’m still learning. I think my budget and my hearing has reached a balance I’m content to stay at for awhile. I’d have to be astonished by something within my budget’s reach to make any significant changes.
My first hi fi speakers were Magnepan mg2a speakers. How they sounded was determined heavily by the amp. With a cheap receiver, they sounded dull and lifeless. With a decent amp with an adequate power supply, they came to life and sounded great -- in a room that could accommodate them. Now I have Revel F206s. They're not as finicky about amplifiers, but I used a $600 AVR with them for a while, and upgrading to a better quality separate power amp in the $1k to $2k range still made a big difference. Surprisingly, one major area was imaging. I didn't expect that at all. But I rarely listen to my system as a hi fi system. I'm way more likely to put on a youtube concert video that's 30 years old with less than ideal quality than I am to actually get up and pop on a CD rather than just using spotify. I can hear a difference between spotify and cds on some albums, but usually it's not worth the effort to me. I generally prefer live performances over studio albums, and love having access to so many concerts on youtube, even if some of the sound quality is awful. So dealing with the small imperfections of compressed music isn't a huge issue to me most of the time.
I had those speakers and loved them years ago when I was a vinyl junkee many years ago, nowadays I have chosen my speakers based on room constraints, particularly the need to work close to a wall. Thankfully I kept all the records and have recently bought my daughter a nice Rega planar. More emphasis has to be placed on the whole experience rather than just switching something on
I believe my brother has these (among so many more) paired with some crazy Teddy Pardo setup and they sound really great ...with some anal retentive imaging. Ive gotten the same emotional responses with my system regardless of file quality and thats my endgame achieved.
I'm fairly tone deaf. I can hear the difference in notes, but that's about it. I think for people like me there is a happy medium. I find it in solid state integrated amps, decent speakers, and gear. Basically, mid-fi.
While I could have gone up the chain, given I listen at low to moderate volumes and have relatively small living space, I settled on smaller equipment. I still follow new products and get the urge, but realistically, I am very happy with my budget and imperfect system. And if I had to bug out, I could fit everything in a banana box. 2 Keces E40 integrateds, one driving Dali Opticon 1s for desktop and one for main system driving Martin Logan 15i. Two dacs used are Topping d70s and an Aune x8 with a Sparkos opt amp upgrade. Still have my larger Focals, Hegel, among others and while the performance is arguably better, the smaller systems are good enough and I enjoy them, they even look good. And I don't break my back lifting anything up.
Excellent video... as usual... and I do have a few comments to add... 1. Tube amps have VERY low damping factors (they're limited to a DF below about 10), which has a huge effect on the bass. But how much difference that makes will depend on the speaker itself. Also, many vintage speakers, and a few modern ones, are designed to be used with amplifiers with a low damping factor. (And they may lack bass if used with a modern amplifier with a high damping factor.) 2. I would add a bit to your comment about preamps sounding different. I agree that preamps have the potential to sound very different because of features like tone controls. However I would expect a "good" preamp to be very neutral if set "fully flat" or "tone controls out". (And I would consider it to be a mark of a "good" preamp that it DOES offer this option.) 3. Some small differences are only noticeable if you have the option of comparing directly by switching back and forth. I suspect that this tends to favor "analog sound" when people attempt to compare vinyl to digital recordings. It's simple to make a digital recording of a vinyl album, compare it to the original, and notice a tiny difference... However it isn't really possible to make a vinyl copy of a digital file and compare it to the original... (Unless you happen to own a vinyl pressing plant.) 4. And, yes, I've wasted LOTS of money on hi-fi gear. I currently work for Emotiva - who makes home theater and hi-fi gear... BUT, over the years, I've spent a LOT of money on various DACs - among other gear. And, yes, the differences between many of them are not all that obvious unless you compare them very carefully side-by-side. Some time ago I found myself "keeping a few tracks handy because they enabled me to hear the difference between DACs". It was quite some time before I realized that, if the difference was so small that I could only hear it with certain few tracks.... Then it probably wasn't all that important.
@@exitar1 In virtually all MODERN equipment that is the case. Most modern speakers have a very strong "motor", a relatively heavy cone, and relatively little mechanical damping in the speaker itself. A high damping factor in the amplifier works in conjunction with this to enable the amplifier to tightly control the driver - usually the woofer is the one that matters the most. And you WANT the driver to be tightly controlled by the signal coming from the amplifier. (The damping factor basically acts as "dynamic braking" to control the movement of the cone when the signal stops.) However vintage speakers, designed back when amplifiers were all vacuum tube, and had a low damping factor, were designed differently. They tended to have lighter cones, and often had a wider voice coil gap, resulting in "less tight coupling between the motor and the cone". And, since they didn't expect the amplifier to control the movement of the cone very tightly, they were designed with more built-in mechanical damping, or simply "tuned" to "sound right" without it. In short they were designed to provide as much of their own damping as they needed rather than to expect it from the amplifier. This is also true for some modern speakers specifically designed to go with tube amplifiers. The result is that, if you take a modern speaker, designed to work well with an amplifier that provides lots of damping, and connect it to a tube amp, the bass may sound "loose" or "tubby" or "sloppy". And, if you connect a good vintage speaker, designed to work well with tube gear, to a modern amp, it may sound "dry" or "bass shy". This effect mostly affects cone speakers... because they have both lots of moving mass and a powerful motor. And it will have less effect on horns because their horn design provides "loading" for the cone movement. And, of course, it affects some speakers far more than others, but it is one of the primary reasons why "some speakers sound better with tubes and others sound really bad". It's also worth putting the numbers in context. In the days of tube amps, a damping factor of 2-4 was somewhat low, a damping factor of 6-8 might have been considered normal, and designers worked to get this as high as possible, against various technical limitations that limit a tube amp, with an output transformer, pretty much to a DF below about 10. In contrast, modern solid state amplifiers can easily achieve a damping factor of 100+, and typically claim a DF of 500+... which is effectively infinite... or "as high as matters". (The reality is that over about 100 the practical difference is minimal... and the actual value becomes difficult to measure.)
I think the problem here is the idea that the effects are within certain measurable parameters. While I think you can differentiate between bad, highly distorted equipment through measurements, once you move past a baseline of distortion you are moving into the areas of how the equipment affects you which is a combination of a number of factors. My wife has significant hearing loss from childhood yet I bought her an expensive headphones because her hearing loss meant she was particular sensitive to distortion and a much better quality source meant a much better experience for her. My own hearing is varying but rather than saying well then I won’t be able to hear 20hz or 20khz anymore so why bother I prioritising equipment that works within the midband were a considerable element of the emotional in music is present. I would therefore maybe take your point on “full Range” systems I am still perfectly capable of telling a good system.
The most expensive amp I had was the Marantz PM10 and i loved it. I have owned many amps in my life including Theta, Aragon, Marantz, Bryston, Hegal, and Kinki just to name a few. Currently I have Denon PMA-A110 and it's the best amp I have ever owned for my ears. Coupled with Q Acoustics Concept 500s, they sound magical.
When I listen to audiophiles talk about the enormous amounts of money they spend on their equipment and the efforts they go to in order to get sound that they are satisfied with, it makes me very thankful that I do not have a discerning ear. It reminds me of time when I dated a girl who bragged that she could tell an expensive wine from a cheap wine, and because of this you could only drink expensive wines. I thought, "Well, that sucks. She has to spend a lot more money to enjoy a glass of wine than I do." I can enjoy music on modest, inexpensive equipment and I can enjoy cheap wine too. I've been to audio shows and I have listened to very high end systems. Yes they sound great. But the cost-to-enjoyment ratio just isn't there for me. And I'm thankful for that, because it saves me a lot of money 😊
I'm fairly young (early 20s) and can hear up to somewhere in the neighborhood of 23KHz, which means I need at least a 48KHz sample rate to reproduce all the frequencies I can hear (46 theoretically, but most DAC filters aren't 100% perfect, so you'd want a couple KHz of headroom -- same reason CD audio uses 44.1KHz instead of 40 when their goal is to reproduce up to 20KHz, which is the limit of the vast majority of adults' hearing range). It's honestly kind of inconvenient, 44.1KHz sounds mostly fine to me, but things like cymbals and the S consonant sound very slightly muffled, which can sometimes be a bit distracting.
Much of everything said here is quite accurate. For “hard core” audiophiles, you do get to a point of diminishing returns. The cost/improvement becomes so great that without it, you’ll never miss the difference.
can you spare 10000 dollars for a poor man?@erwindewit4073or just buy me a pair of audiophile headphones, ive never tried any. best and most expensive headphones i ever tried was massdrop sennheiser hd6xx.
@erwindewit4073 Paying more for less improvements is literally what diminishing returns mean, it doesn't mean that you hit a cap and can't improve anymore. So it's very easy to know since this factor kicks in already at the bottom level. With the very cheapest set up you can listen to music, compared to having nothing but silence, and no further change will ever be as dramatic as that.
@erwindewit4073 Yes, I agree, there's nothing wrong with spending money on your hobby if you have it to spare and you enjoy what you are doing. My system is more expensive than what I imagined spending when I started out so I've done that and I'm happy with it. I do however feel quite content now and I'm just happy discovering new music. Hopefully that feeling lasts a long time since the joy of chasing new things as an audiophile comes at the cost of not enjoying what you have quite as much. We all have our journeys in the hobby and in the end the main goal is to be happy. If we achieve that then we've gotten the most important value out of it.
Different components sound different. In all price categories. So many audiophiles would most certainly confuse "different" with "better". Whether having 80$ or 5000$ ears you may prefer the sound from specific components. Without even going to the part where different components sound different depending on room acoustics, placement and so on. I think getting decent and reasonably price components and doing the best you can with your room acoustics will give the most bang for the buck. The rest is just waste of money (of which audiophiles seem to have plenty)
Why are you confused? If you like something better, and you think it sounds better, then it's better. It's your gear! You can (hopefully) give some reasons why you think what you think, but you shouldn't judge other people for the choices they make. I think audio masterclass has some strong opinions, but I think he understates his lack of knowledge. If your hearing is missing some frequencies due to age, you still have ears spaced apart on your head, so timing based clues aren't likely to be compromised. Cables do make a difference to your overall experience, but you need a reasonable system to hear that. One lst thing. One persons waste of money, is another persons dream system. Please don't judge.
There are premium USB cables. The price there has nothing to do with hearing and everything to do with gullibility. The same goes for a lot of other stuff on the market.
I'm 75 and got very interested in audio equipment in my teens. I worked at audio retailers later on and as a manufacturers rep for three well known manufacturers. I learned early on that so called audiophiles never really listened to MUSIC! They listed to five or ten second seconds of a record when auditioning the the object of their current fascination. It was very disheartening. Any system that fits your budget and produces a reasonably good (to you) facsimile of MUSIC you like to actually listen to in full and enjoy is a GOOD system.
I wonder if I do fit the definition of an audiophile, I may be the weirdest audiophile of them all. I tend to make extremely deep dives into audio equipment when I need a new sound system. But once the search ends and the trigger is pulled, unless I RMA the unit, I just keep using what I bought until it kicks the bucket. As a result when I need to, I dive very deep into the audio rabbit hole. But only sporadically like every 5 years or so. I have the HiFiman HE400se for indoor usage and the Truthear Hola for outdoor usage. I feel no urge to upgrade. On the other hand, I want to set up a home theater system which is something I'd be doing for the 1st time in my life. Which seems to be the biggest rabbit hole yet. But what I find the strangest about this statement is that I never used any piece of audio equipment only for music. It's all very general purpose for me.
@@JoelHernandez-tz3vk Your statement about actually using your equipment for for "general purpose" is very much the same for me. The main pieces are a Carver MXR-130 receiver (130 watts/channel and that I like so much that last year I sent it to a company way out out in Oregon comprised of old Carver Techs and spent $700 having it totally rebuilt with new and upgraded electrolytic caps and other components) and Carver ALS-III speakers (downward facing 10" woofers only about 2in. above the floor in a ported cabinet tuned to 24 Hz ( and has awesome bass) and 48in. tall dipole radiating ribbon "tweeters" mounted above that actually handle everything above 250 HZ), all of which I have owned since 1997, so about 26 years "new"! Since they are in our living room where the TV is, I naturally turned the TV's internal speakers off and routed the line output of the TV into the Carver receiver thereby turning it into a "2.0" home theater. I would say that 90% of the time the system gets used is provide VERY good sound for watching general TV, and cable movies sound GREAT) and only here and there tossing in a CD or two if we want music, but mostly just turning the TV cable box to the Music Choice channel, selecting their "smooth jazz" channel and just letting it play an endless selection of rotating artists where I discover a lot of music I wouldn't have heard normally, and it is CD quality as well! So, that's a lot of words jut to tell you I use my system probably much like you do and totally "get it". I intend to keep this stuff 'till I leave earth! It does everything I need at a high level of quality. The only cost for 26 or so years was the money for the receiver rebuild and the electricity to run the system. I'll close by saying I have watched several of your You Tube videos Ind enjoy them a lot, and on this video in particular we think VERY much alike!-- Larry
HiFi is a an ageless and endless quest. Your videos just add to my enjoyment. I'm 69 years old, and convinced that $$$-to-ears ratio is probably a curve similar to $$$-to-years. Heck, just figuring out a graphic would be loads of fun! My ears enjoy music a lot, and I try to find tech that stays out of the way when I'm listening. Thanks for a thought-provoking and entertaining channel. PS. Thanks for memories of Quad. I owned a 33-303 for a few years and only sold them because a friend said she would offer them a good home. I visit now and then ( the friend ...amd the Quad ) they are both doing fine.
I can get my System to sound very close to how I hear a live concert. Then I added a linear power supply to my DAC and the sound stage improved . I'm very happy , that was a good purchase. Great Video !
Sir , a great video with some brutal truths. Shall I say that as a man of a certain age , I’ve been there done that and got the T shirt. Oh, yes and I have acquired a pair of hearing aids along the way. I have now settled down to audio that sounds good to me and enables me to enjoy the music.
Hi, I agree with most of your comments- except that over the past couple of years I have had 3 different amplifiers but kept the same speakers. The first, a Rega Elicit was wonderful sound but there was a slight edginess to it that I became intolerant of over time. The next was a NAD C399 streamer - a flat uninvolving sound that gave me no feelings of power despite my ramping up the volume. With the Rega I could feel bass in my body, but had no experience of that with the NAD, so it was on-sold. My current amp is the Marantz PM7000N, another streamer and while it it keeps me engaged is not ideal either, but I'm reluctant to go to the expense of trying a 4th choice. The speakers by the way are The Focal 936s. These have a neutral sound well balanced sound, so it was easily possible to identify the sounds of the amps from one another. Maybe I'm not buying amps at a high enough cost to meet you criteria of at a certain price where the amps should be exceeding my hearing capabilities, but at age 80 and using hearing aids with a 'music' setting to bring in treble that I would otherwise not be able to hear, I seem perfectly capable to hear the differences in amps. Other than that, I really enjoyed your talk and have subscribed to your channel.
@djlafg58 You may be reluctant to try it because it is "Class D", but the DIY Hypex Nilai500-based stereo amplifier from DIYclassD punches way way above its price point. It can be purchased from DIYclassD for less than $1400 in the U.S. and can be assembled in an afternoon with basic household tools, no soldering whatsoever. Just one of the advantages of this amplifier is that it is "impedance agnostic", meaning that its frequency response and phase coherency are not affected by the loudspeaker's wild swings in impedance that occur as the full spectrum of frequencies are played. Most typical passive HiFi speakers will have at least some variance in the impendance load that they present to the amplifier which is dependent on frequency. Look at the impedance vs. frequency plot for any traditional non-electrostatic loudspeaker. As most amplifiers are powering the speakers during playback of your dynamic music, this variance in impedance load will affect the instantaneous power output, frequency response, as well as cause phase shifts that are dependent on the impedance load at any given time and frequency. This type of Class D amplifier is NOT affected by and is immune to these swings in impedance. Some speakers have a larger impedance swing over their frequency range than others, but for most speakers the impedance can actually vary by a large margin. Let's say you have a loudspeaker that is nominally rated at 8-ohms. When playing certain frequency ranges, especially at the very high and very low end where we want consistently neutral and high-quality performance, the speaker's impedance may drop to below 4-ohms, and also rise to above 30+ ohms. This induces inconsistent power output that is frequency dependent as well potentially causing a Phase Shift over the speaker's frequency range which can result in an unnatural and disjointed sound, and can also degrade the imaging and soundstage performance. This is the opposite of what you want your amplifier to do when connected to your expensive speakers. ;) After I had used my DIYclassD Nilai500 stereo amplifier for several weeks and was very impressed with it, I took it over to my cousin's house and we tested it in his much higher-end system which uses SOTA Børresen Acoustics Model 03 floorstanders and very expensive Aavik amplifiers. There was no way that we could realistically do a completely Blind A/B test between these two amps with a quick switch between them, but we level-matched the SPL output between them as close as possible by using a -0dB 1kHz Sine Wave test tone and measuring the A/C output voltage directly from the speaker output binding posts on each amp. After the levels were matched, we played multiple different high quality recordings from various genres that we are both infinitely familiar with, and the Nilai500 amp held its own against the MUCH more expensive Aavik amplifier. In fact, the Bass and Lower Midbass seemed to be more present, rhythmic, and dynamic, and it "separated" the notes with more air or space slightly better on Upright Acoustic Bass. The only attribute that we could determine was consistently but only marginally better with the Aavik amp was the HEIGHT of the Soundstage, and this was just on one particular track... "Woman In Chains" by Tears For Fears which was expertly mixed by Bob Clearmountain and where Oleta Adam's female background vocal floats ~3ft Above and well Behind Roland's main vocal which is already at eye-level. The Height of Oleta's background vocal was roughly 8"-10" higher with the Aavik amp, but overall roughly the same apparent Depth and Width in the soundstage with both amplifiers. We also played "Dissidents" from the 2009 Remastered Collector's Edition of Thomas Dolby's "The Flat Earth" album. Note that USUALLY most "Remasters" are not as good as the original release, but in this case the 2009 Remaster is noticeably better IMO. The detail, speed, spectral balance, and all aspects of the imaging and soundstage were incredibly similar, except again that the "front & center" kick drum seemed just a little bit more distinct and impactful using the Hypex Nilai500 amp. Changing gears, we played Patricia Barber's "Use Me" Live track with it's excellent Upright Bass, Female Vocals, Drums/Percussion, and organ. The "space" and "ambience" of the room and lifelike reproduction of Patricia's vocals and the Upright Bass were uncanny WITH BOTH AMPS. Same experience for the Live version of " 'Round Midnight" on the Clifford Jordan Quartet's "Live At Ethell's" release on the Mappleshade Records label. The saxophone, upright bass, drums, and piano were incredbly lifelike and dynamic, and the air and space captured in the room was incredible, especially the sound of the audience and waiter staff in the background...they floated in 3D space and were precisely localizable! Either amplifier didn't do any injustices to these recordings, and it was basically "an even draw". We both would be completely happy using either amp on these speakers. Changing gears again, we played Prokofiev's Symphony No.1, Opus 25 by the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by James Gaffigan. An INCREDIBLE 24-bit recording from the Channel Classics label available on Presto Music with the Full Dynamics and a DEEP/WIDE Soundstage that puts you AT THE SYMPHONY. We also played Bruch's Violin Concerto No.1 in G major, Opus 26, Movement 3: Finale: Allegro energico (abridged) from the Hyperion Records label. It's another FANTASTIC recording with the full dynamics and rich, resonant detail of the strings and orchestra, along with excellent imaging and realism! We also played the two "Percussion Ensemble" tracks from the Stockfisch Records' "Are You Authentic - AYA - Authentic Audio Check" SACD along with the "Les mains d' Elsa" female vocal track that tests TREBLE, MIDRANGE, and DEEP BASS accuracy and purity, as well as ALL aspects of a speaker's performance. I HIGHLY recommend this Stockfisch Records "AYA" SACD or LP if you want just ONE test & demo album that will test your system to its limits. After all of our listening, we could not definitively choose a clear "winner" between these two amplifiers, at least when using these particular speakers, in this particular room. We felt that while they may have been ever so slightly different in presentation, both amplifiers brought out every positive attribute of these speakers and the respective recordings. The Nilai500 amp had absolutely NO impression of being "harsh" or "grainy", and it sounded extremly natural, smooth, but dynamic and controlled, like the best Class A and A/B amps that either of us have heard (a lot). This powerful "Class D" amplifier certainly raised my cousin's eybrows and dropped his jaw, and I was able to confirm that this amp was a "keeper" and I could buy a new BMW with the money I saved compared to the Aavik amp, LOL. 😊 This is a BARGAIN for this type of performance! If it is within your budget, at least give this one a try. You can always sell it at very little loss if you find you don't like it in your system.
I would personally separate the amp from the streaming source component. That way you can experiment with different streamers, and have a baseline with the amp outputting some other source (a well known good one). With all the things going into a streamer (or A/V amp) the actual amp section will have to be built to a lower budget. Not to mention the chances of anything breaking in these highly complex beasts and rendering the whole thing useless. But people want one-box solutions, I suppose.
Best audio upgrade...ear wax removal. I'm a headfi guy and could never understand why people thought beyerdynamic cans are considered bright. After this treatment, I could definitely hear the 8khz spike in my dt880...I now tune them with cotton wool😂...and speakers/headphones make the biggest difference
Why am I 13 minutes into a video with this man waffling when all I came to see was him validate my decision to buy a5+ audioengine speakers. It is almost 3am, I am lying in bed after a tough gym session and feel sick and this video has made me feel worse quite honestly. I will leave you a thumbs up, God bless you sir.
I have four integrated amplifiers that all sound different. My hearing cuts off at 15khz but I think there's alot more to it than that. My Vincent sv 700 is crazy hollographic, my Micromega M150 is more smooth, my primaluna evo400 is really dynamic, my ML 5805 has really tight well defined bass and open top end. I've also in recent years had a Rega aethos which was nice but lacked something in vocal reproduction for me. Also had a norma Revo 140 on home demo but just didn't jive with my speakers. Also from the get go I think it's more to do with your brain if you're the type of person that's stimulated by high end audio at all. Some of my friends are blown away and some just don't get it... I've been an audiophile for 35 years and five years ago I was lucky enough to develop Menieres disease in my right ear. Over the last five years my hearing in my right ear has changed as a result. Less ability to hear lower frequencies and higher frequencies have been exaggerated. Never the less I still hear the differences clearly... Go figure😊
I knew a guy who had a Vincent Black Shadow 1000. It had really low latency and smooth delivery. Also once had a friend who swore by the Plavalaguna Blue Diva. Frequency output was consistent across the spectrum with extremely wide range. Very impressive vocal reproduction.
Very enjoyable when properly warmed up however as with all class A it runs hot. I use it in winter and just offset the running costs against my heating bill. Same with Primaluna very toasty....😁
@@johnbritton895 Vincent should integrate a Bitcoin miner into their amps so you can. 1. Heat your house 2. Listen to nice sounds 3. Pay your electricity bill with the Bitcoin you mined. Win win win situation 🏆 What do you reckon?
There is a big chance you are hearing the op-amps in those amplifiers, an easy way to define a "house sound". Marantz is doing that with their HDAM circuitry. What they *should* sound like is nothng at all, just make the amplitude louder.
i'm a live sound engineer my number 1 rule is: speakers need to be good, mics need to be good mixer and amps wont add anything noticeable into the sound unless they're really cheap
100% spot on, my first listening experience was on a wind up record player and a 78rpm record. Everything i have owned since has been an improvement. Now at the great age of 61 and after spending a small fortune on audio equipment, vinyl, cassettes, cds and mini discs, i have found great pleasure in using music streaming services which offer hd audio and various wired and Bluetooth headphones which were comparitably inexpensive but do hit the spot to be the way forward. Thanks for keeping it real, have subbed to your channel 👍
The biggest elephant in the room, is, the ROOM🤪 Or rather, roomtreatment. Most of the time, a "lesser" system in a good room, will sound much better than a "better" system in a bad room. I have heard loads of expencive systems, at shows (most expencive one was about 1 mill $, insane, I know). But it did not sound any better than my own system (16500ish $, cinema/ musicroom). Different, sure, and it most likely has a much higher potential in a better room. My point is: The room, placment of equipment, listeningposition etc, is as important, if not more important, than the gear itself.
I can also hear the difference in sound depending on the actual color of the cables. And when it comes to turntables, to my ears, the sound quality changes depending on how expensive the table is, on which the turntable is located. All of this is true, but only on the days when I’ve not taken my meds.
@erwindewit4073 I cannot confirm or deny taking LSD with any level of certainty. However, I actively participate in a contest called “lucky meds switching night” at the retirement home where I live.
I went to an audio show recently and took the time to sit and listen to each room and setup. Point 1 - electronics and fancy cables at all price points don't sound different enough to my old ears, and then don't ask my opinion about those silly little stands that hold a speaker cable off the floor. Point 2 - rooms playing boring music with noisy dirty records on overpriced turntables didn't get much time from my ears. Point 3 - the speakers showcased do absolutely sound different. My ears enjoyed a number of products but the speakers I found too bright or harsh typically were very pricy. I actually was disappointed that money does not buy happiness. Point 4 - I went home realizing that my vintage gear was perfectly satisfying. No need to replace what works fine.
Yes, that always gets me. Silly little stands that hold your speaker cables off the floor. 🤣 And then the audiophile babble: "Since I lifted all my cables off the floor, the soundstage and definition between the instruments has improved greatly, you wouldn't believe it !" No, I honestly don't believe it ! 😂
Serious question. Assuming each setup had different electronics (common at shows) , how did you conclude all the electronics sounded similar, but the speakers didn't?
@@particularlynothing An excellent question! My conclusions about the different rooms are totally subjective and mine only, based on past experiences during my private and professional life (including a 10 year stint at a company building audio noise and distortion measurement systems). I've listened to many sets of electronics connected to one speaker set and feel that good electronics at many price points deliver satisfying sound. But different speakers connected to the same quality amplifier can sound so totally different. The speakers I didn't like at the show were "high end" (pricy) and connected to high end electronics. Quality electronics, in my opinion, do sound similar but speakers really need to be chosen by the buyer's ears.
This man makes more sense than any review of equipment. I'm just a music lover and I always thought theirs a limit to our hearing.some do hear better than others
I was on “The Bourbon Trail” in KY. At one distillery the guide told us there were so many subtleties in their product but most of us couldn’t appreciate them because we did not have refined palettes. My question was Why then should I spend the money when I could literally not taste the difference?! 😃
Great comparison. The reason why experts with "Golden palates" and "Golden ears" won't perform double blind tests to prove their claims are the same. Because everyone will see that they're full of shit
I absolutely love this video! The way you compare audio equipment to human hearing is very clever. I've been a professional concert sound engineer for 30 years and have distantly watched the audiophile scene evolve over that time. I hope that newcomers consider your very clever teachings in deciding their future purchases.
Audiophiles...hehehe 🤣 I'm so glad this channel exists, thank god there's a "voice of reason" on this subject. Most people, in my opinion, would never be able to tell the difference between a Technics SL-1200 and a multi-thousand-dollar "audiophile" contraption. But, an "ordinary" SL-1200 wouldn't LOOK impressive enough on their absurd-looking hifi rack. The placebo effect is absolutely HUGE in the "audiophile" space. A fool and their money are soon parted (by a "high end" audio dealer). Not my problem, though 🤣
I somewhat disagree, because I have found that differences can be clearly heard in a direct comparision, the A/B test. Floyd Toole researched this and found the same thing. But I would agree if you said the differences don't matter when the speaker is heard in isolation. The differences can be surprisingly large; I did a listening test of studio monitors, and each one had clear strengths and weaknesses....but the most expensive one seemed to have no weaknesses compared to the others. But I am sure that sound quality in "audiophile" speakers does not correlate to increasing prices. At a certain point the speaker becomes a work of art that may not actually work very well as a speaker.
@@fredygump5578 you're talking about speakers, right? ABSOLUTELY they sound different...and very different in different surroundings, too. I had a pair of powered studio monitors at work, which I loved...borrowed them for a night, and they sounded like crap in my apartment 😄 I was talking about turntables. I do not believe that anyone (99.99% of people) can tell the difference between a high-quality Technics direct-drive deck and a mega-thousands "audiophile" deck (using the same cartridge).
@@njm1971nyc The argument works better for speakers; atleast old speaker tech is still relevant? In the case of turntables, I can tell the difference between any turn table....and a CD player! I might even argue that today's "bad" turntable is the more accurate representation of what people previously believed was "hifi". So to me, it is an excercise in futility. I don't understand investing thousands on a tempermental device that is easily bested by a CD player that cost $10...20 years ago.
@@fredygump5578 I'm not sure I really understand your point about speakers. Speakers are the one component that sound vastly different from one make/model to another. Turntables, once you've reached a certain level of quality, shouldn't really sound much different to each other, assuming the cartridge is the same. I couldn't really care less about turntables, though - CDs are vastly superior in every way. I do still NEED to play records sometimes though, and my SL-1200/AT-440mla combo is plenty good enough. I would never buy a more expensive "audiophile" turntable, because I don't believe the miniscule potential improvement to be worth thousands of extra dollars. Records are yesterday's tech, and shouldn't really be having a renaissance, but I think audiophiles are so bored with the perfect sound of digital that they want to go back to the bad-old-days of fiddling around with decks, cables, carts, isolation platforms, record cleaning devices, etc etc etc in the never-ending and somewhat impossible task of making vinyl sound "perfect" (which it never will!).
@@njm1971nyc I meant that the principe behind speaker transducers is essentially unchanged for the last 50+ years, so it IS reasonable to compare old to new speakers...but it is NOT reasonable to comparing vinyl to digital...because vinyl loses regardless of which turntable is used! (And I originally said that speakers do make a difference, but cautioned that price and quality are not always directly correlated!)
"only as good as your hearing", is the best line I have heard in a long time. Just this week, I pulled out an old pair of Tannoy PBM 8ii out of my closet, set them up on top of my upright piano, just under my new 75" 4k television. It had been almost 15 years since I have listened to these Tannoys. Back in the 90s, this was the speaker in every live television production truck and I believe at least one of the earlier star wars films was mixed on PBM 8's. Today I mix almost solely on Genelec's or Neumann's but I never really had anything at home to really listen to. I bout the PBM8's in the late 90's, not because I needed them but because my brother was putting together a THX approved 7.2 home theater with seven Tannoy PBM 8 mark 1 and two Cerwin Vega 18" subs, and he found a pair of mark 2's at such a good price he told me I should buy them as he wanted to keep to the original mark 1's. They are studio reference speakers, not necessarily "Listen" speakers. but that is what I am use to and I love the natural, flat, with very little color, and there it was. My brother has recently upgraded to an all dante Genelec, 7.2.4 dolby certified Atmos system. 15 years later after mixing live TV shows for decades and working on the best equipment, My standards have been raised to an almost unobtainable heights. I didn't think the Tannoy's could possibly still have it, I thought there is no way an 8" passive crossover box could satisfy me. But they did. I sat in my living room for an hour, for the first time, and just truly listened to my music. The detail is still there. you can hear the layers and relish in hearing reverb trails again. I will be creating a 5.1 system featuring these PBM8ii for the Lf Rf and center. I just purchased a 12" Genelec subwoofer, and I am looking at a pair of PBM5ii for the Ls Rs rears. this system with be 50% for enjoyment and 50% for mixing audio for short films. every piece in my system was purchased USED. I love used gear because if you buy the right gear, you can sell it for what you paid for it. Thank you for reading
Thanks for the points you laid down, I do not have perfect pitch and I do not even consider myself an audiophile. As of now, I go by what I can enjoy and make most use out of and of course, taking my budget into consideration.
This video made me smile. Maybe it’s our generation, but so much of what you’re saying resonates with my own experience and thoughts. I’ve had ns10s and quad amps too. Thanks for sharing
The best loudspeakers I ever heard were at Abbey Road mastering studios, mastering a Gregorian Chant / Piano recording I made in an ancient Abbey. It made me realize that most hi-fi products are filtered for our homes, filtered to sound a certain way, and designed for our home environment to some extent. Our homes aren't acoustically treated like Abbey Road!
Most cables, amps, speakers even the mics and mixing desks that record the original sound are different. The big question is what is better? It is entirely a personal choice, also how much you want to spend, and of course the status value too.
This has got to be the most refreshing and enlightening video about Hi-Fi audio that I've heard in a long time; lots of great audio (even life) advice. I enjoyed every minute of it. Congratulations!!!
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
![If you can't hear this then you're not an audiophile [See description for link to followup video]](/img/1.gif)
Having worked in a high-end car and home audio store in the late 80's to mid 90's, I can state with a high degree of confidence that wasting money is the point of being an audiophile.
I don't care what you did in the late 80s and 90s. I can say with a high degree of confidence that you are an imbecile.
😂😂😂😂😂
Facts
You're just trying to justify having worked in one of those slick showroom stores selling over-priced, high-status brands rather than working at an honest shop offering the best values at each price point. That's on you for choosing to work at a place like that and has nothing to do with true audiophiles who appreciate sound systems that are musically and emotionally engaging.
he was just talking about his customers, not what they offered or pushed on customers
“Audiophiles don’t use their equipment to listen to your music - they use your music to listen to their equipment.”
- Alan Parsons
Brilliant!
Sometimes yes, when I am trying to improve it, but then I listen to the music. Two different things !
The logical continuation to that Parsons quote might be: "and if they can't hear the equipment, then it's a good system for listening to music."
Unfortunately Parson's "music" is electronic noise. Years after the recording even he doesn't know exactly how the playback "should" sound. A piano, an acoustic guitar, these we all have a good approximate idea of what they should sound like.
That’s a marvellous quote!
Audiophile is a journey that ends when you return to the start point after realising you really don’t need anything more
Thank you, Paul McCartney! Coming from you, I'll take it into consideration.
Yeah spitten image 😂
James Cameron I thought
I always say its cheaper and more enjoyable to search for new music to love than to look for new gear to love
You're not wrong.
I like that 🤟
More productive as well artists need support and income to keep arting , bills are not paid by themselves.
I dont agree. For the last couple of years I'm listening to vintage high end I buy for a bargain and update, and I must say, it changed my musical preference. I used to love banging pop, but now I like ambient and drone, and classical. Interesting sounds I find enjoyable. I really dont care about vocal music anymore, so done with stupid lyrics poisonibng my mind ;-) Or is it that Im getting older?
@@BertKrusGetting wiser with age!
I like your approach. As a sound engineer and musician with an acoustically treated and very neutral mastering studio, I agree with pretty much everything you said. I have been in the world of audio and music since my teen years (I'm 68 now) and I've heard hundreds of combinations of equipment in people's homes and at audio shows in Montreal, Toronto, Chicago and L.A. It was VERY rare to hear good sound at the audio exhibitions. Yes, I too have known people who have spent a small fortune on home audio ($250,000 in one unbelievable instance) and yet only a small amount was spent on acoustic treatment for the room. If you want to get the most out of whatever equipment you own, you might want to consider investing in some proper room treatment. The most balanced and natural sound I can recall hearing was in rooms and studios that had been properly treated, regardless of the price of the equipment. So if you have a budget for a new audio system I suggest you include an appropriate amount for room treatment. Would you buy a Ferrari and expect peak performance on a dirt road? So why spend thousands of dollars on audio equipment and expect good sound in a compromised room? Makes no sense to me.
Spot on brother...
@@shahrukh2489 Audio SYSTEM is the sum total of 1) components, 2) component platforms, 3) cables, 4) power conditioning, 5) tweaks, and 6) room acoustics. In a high-end system, EVERYTHING matters.
You don't have to spend a small fortune on expensive acoustic treatments. Everyday items and placement of these items you can use to decorate your room can create an amazing sounding room. Whether your creating a lively sounding room with amazing reverb perfect for capturing a performance of an artist or a dead sounding room perfect for audio playback. I'm not going to go into detail on how to accomplish this here because their are plenty of videos and books out there. You don't have to spend a large or even a small fortune to have a great sounding audiophile or music studio sound system.
very good metaphor
@@chris55top this is a good comment too. when i was getting into treating my room, i deeply researched every possible implement. damn near everything seemed to be snake oil in the testings of many, many engineers. (even some products regularly used for the very construction of a well-treated room). what was recommended well to me was high-weight stuff, good sealants, and actual moving blankets. diffusers are great, too. but, for me on a budget, these moving blankets were cheap as hell and provided a night-to-day difference that was verifiable with my testing solutions. shelved and heavy, padded furniture worked well too. same with large-area rugs. i covered more area with greater results and for a fraction of the price. when i finally moved out, i experimented just clapping in the center of the room. it was wild to hear the echo and reverb in the room untreated.
i was in the early stages of going down the audiophile rabbit hole.. then later decided to learn an instrument and bought a violin and took lessons.. between the two i think learning to make my own music was more satisfying to me
You made a good choice.
I agree absolutely I play the drums now no amp or speakers needed just good old analogue hearing as nature intended
Digital is good for tv and video games and e mails pictures etc
Biologically speaking we listen in analogue and linear not digital
Interesting comment.
I should learn to play my guitar instead of spending thousands of dollars.
I have been released from the rabbit hole.
Thank you
@@Flosseveryday Beware, guitar players can end victims just as much as audiophiles, especially electric guitars, amps, pedals etc etc.
why are you following this channel then ? :))
For me, I’ve only ever owned KEF. My Father had the C40’s, Carlton I’s (rare speakers from the first generation), and the Reference 105.4’s, all of which still work.
For amplification he had a decent but basic stereo receiver from Denon (DRA-800H). All of these speakers sound so amazing at home. Now that I’ve grown older, he gave me the 105.4’s and I bought my first amp on my own (Yamaha A-S1100).
We live in a brand new modern appartement with a very large living room, high ceiling and all of it just bare flat walls. I put the 105.4’s in there, all setup and ready to go. The sound was NOTHING close to what it sounded like at home. Dry, empty and basically no low frequencies. It was then that I started to understand the concept of room treatment, and why it was much more important than any other chain in the process.
I went on to buy the KEF R11’s, now with proper room treatment and in the right place in the room, and oh boy the difference is insane. For me, both speaker pairs still sound amazing, with slightly different characteristics, but none that I prefer over the other. The R11’s are more detailed, and I don’t know what magic it is KEF used for the UniQ but they seem to be able to place sounds in 3D in the room, almost as if you can localize them. The References on the other hand are much more natural sounding for classical music (violin solo’s sound more realistic, for instance).
It’s all preference and room response that makes the most difference. I couldn’t think spending more money on any component in the chain would give me anything worth losing sleep over.
I live in an area that dosent have a shop where I could demo an all digital signal in with the height speakers and the works. I bet when done right its pretty freaking cool!!
In the audiophile world it can never end chasing the perfect sound, it's why there's a decent second hand market to buy equipment. One thing I've noticed in this hobby, 'everything' tends to make a difference but there is diminishing returns seeking the next step up. It's best to do what's in your budget and at some point simply enjoy the music and not just the system.
Spot on! Diminishing returns & enjoying music using equipment you can afford & find pleasing
This also applies to home studio recording equipment, but becomes murkier with instruments
There's a minimum acceptable standard & below that people are wasting money
Incremental increases beyond the minimum might be viewed as wasting money also, however personal preference, confidence & customisation all feed into the magic of making great recordings or perceiving increased enjoyment in home listening sessions
More important factors like inspiration, musicianship, performance skill, expressiveness, passion, recording skills, mixing, mastering, image, novelty with familiarity & marketing all play a part in home recording, studio recording & consumer products
Home hi fi has seen mostly gradual improvements yearly & major milestone improvements every decade or so
Live audio production is another fascinating field where there are massive obvious differences, sub standard equipment & set ups & overkill with marginal improvements & many factors such as indoor vs outdoor, weather, mixing, performer's skill & rehearsal & stage show, venue size, crowd size
I remember when vinyl & cassettes were the only consumer options & barely anyone had a 5.1 surround system in their home
Some things matter more than others & yes everything adds up, beginning right at the source - the musicians & performers all the way up & out to the audience & consumers
Personally I love buying 2nd hand high end equipment & great value brand new equipment, generally somewhere in the sweet spot of proven & significant improvements without paying a premium for cutting edge or marketing hype
There obviously are people who will just enjoy almost any beat on any system shared with friends & a few drinks & then there will be people who cringe at enduring poor audio recordings played on poor equipment in a poor setting with other people not 100% focused on a discerning listening session
There are obvious differences, subtle differences & psychological factors at play in everything humans do
Music is mostly a matter of opinion, entertainment, enjoyment, connection, admiration, reflection, escapism, inspiration & feeling vibrational energy shake your soul & stir human emotions - each person experiences music differently & not everyone enjoys the same music or using the same headphones or audio formats
Peace
I totally agree 100%
As someone in their late fifties with tinnitus and much reduced HF response, I'm under no illusions about the fidelity (or lack of) that I'm hearing these days. But what I can tell is where a sound is coming from, so my joy now is in surround and immersive audio. I've swapped out the pleasure of ultimate fidelity for that of a spatially interesting soundstage. Sadly, this means lots more speakers and thus lots more cost, even with £80 ears. :D
I totally agree with this. I also have tinnitus - but I can still hear hifi / audiophile characteristics.
waw, that's like the worm hole inside the worm hole. ATMOS almost sucks for music and every informed producer knows that. I'v heard audiophiles describing HF frequency smearing artifacts and comb-filtering as extra top-end smoothness and spaciality. When they have convinced themselves, you could sell them a piece of copper for a thousand and they will think it's a bargain. OTOH they will despise acoustic panels as relatively inefficient and expensive because "it's just fabric".
It's an ego thing. When I want to enjoy new music, I buy new music not new speakers. If you have hearing problems I'd visit an audiologist and get a modern sonotone: the good ones are pretty amazing and a tad cheaper than a full atmos system.
I hate to break it to you partner but adding speakers is not the answer to better sound! 2 well made large speakers placed well in the room is all you need! And possibly a sub if the speakers cannot reproduce adequate bass tones!
@@silversurfer3636 I feel you're missing my point. With a 5.1 or Atmos mix I *personally* (and I can only speak for myself) gain the advantage of spatial separation of instruments that greatly helps with my hearing issues, which can often result in stereo versions becoming muddied. I can't speak for your own experience, but for me surround and spatial have brought back my ability to enjoy music again. And really... that's all that matters, isn't it?
Love your videos just common sense info, I have some age re lated hearing loss and some time ago I tried a home demo of the Qutest dac against my Arcam IRDac that I have been using for quite some time and I could not hear any difference what so ever so stayed with my Arcam and went with a Speaker change where I could here a definite difference.
The biggest problem today is few people have EVER heard live music. You cannot judge if you have never heard the real thing.
A few m0nths ago I was in the city and a brass band was playing live. While not my kind of music I was blown away. It did not sound like recorded music at all, it was so clean and open, not compressed, the detail was just amazing. The way music is recorded is the problem, not so much the equipment.
Hi Michael ... Absolutely.
Even those going to concerts these days are not hearing live music. With the advent of all the trickery ... autotune, quantization, compression, limiting, etc. ... in many cases it is impossible to play the music live without a significant loss of apparent talent. So, what you get is dancing and spectacle in front of pre-recorded music.
They used to make the disk match the live... now they make the live match the disk.
Good to see you posting here.
This. Started to go to classical (so non-amplified) concerts a few years back and realised the sound at home wasn't even remotely matching the sound in the concert hall (hint, it never can) - figured out my B&W 800 diamond range stuff was way too bright and I mistook it for "details". Closest to the concert hall I could get was KEF. Switched my speakers and never looked back.
...and to further agree with Michael, yes, a lot of stuff is compressed to oblivion, so you can hear it on your tiny phone speaker. Good recordings make a lot of difference. The "Hi res' audio is playing that game. it's not the 24bit/192kHz that makes it better, it's just totally different mastering. You can pull a nice 320kbit MP3 from that hires recording and it is still superior to the normal mastering. Good example of this is the original Buena Vista Social Club CD vs the hires mastering, completely different sound - again, nothing to do with the hi-res, all to do with the mastering engineer. Some should be fired really. ^^
Bullshit. Hifi dosent have to be ,and often isn’t anything at all to do with what live music sounds like.
It does depend what type of music you are listening to. For anything that has one or more dominant acoustic instruments (incl. non-distorted vocals) it absolutely is important to have real-life experience of their natural sound signatures. And it is a one-way street: In my experience, anything that sounds good for well recorded and mixed acoustic instruments and vocals will also work well for electronic music, rock & pop. But the opposite isn't alway true: anything that sounds "appealing" for electronic music, rock & pop may not sound very good at all for acoustic instrumentation and vocals.
You're absolutely spot on as regards loss of hearing and the ability to tell the difference between good and better hi fi.
At 73 and with many years of experimenting with different speakers, amps, record decks etc., my hearing is now about 50% and I have great difficulty determining subtle improvement let alone more obvious sonic definitions. I can still enjoy my music listening experience and in some ways with more acceptance and appreciation than I ever did when continuously listening to the hi fi and not the music. Probably this is quite a widely shared experience.
I have one ear that is a £10,000 ear. The other ear is worth about 10 pence 😂
I recently got a set of Hifiman HE400se headphones, and when I run a hertz sweep on them, I can hear much with my right ear.
13 years in the army with no ear protectors will do that.
@@madMARTYNmarsh1981 If you're center positioned the final frontier works best.
Sorry .... what did you say!!!!
I do think speakers are the main thing people should focus on as they have a wide range of difference in how they sound...
Glenn Fricker has entered the comments
@@dabanjo Who?
@@rabarebra Glenn Fricker
Agree 100%
@@dabanjo Before any purchase, make sure the music was recorded with a Gibson...
possibly the most sensible video Ive watched this year - it will never catch on
Thank you for the sensible video. Over 3 decades ago I bought a Hafler amplifier I still use today. Several years later I discovered the internet, and soon read a review on this amp from Audiophile Magazine, where they criticized it for being too accurate. Too accurate was apparently a bad thing. Of course this was the same magazine that touted a green felt tip pen could make a CD sound much better.
HA!! I remember that magazine article! I was astonished that anybody would actually believe it... if true why wouldn't CDs all come with green tinted rims? 😁
I also remember that--and thought it was crazy even back then. As an audio shop owner, I sold, assembled, and modified many Hafler amps and preamps. While using and trying many different brands, I'm back with a Hafler power amp.
Could you explain the pen?
@@johnwilcox231 The green tint via magic marker etc these people said to paint on the rim of the CD was supposed to diminish "laser scatter" seeing as how the lasers most people were familiar with were 620-630 nm wavelength which visibly is pure red, meaning that the red laser wouldn't easily pass through most anything transparent that was tinted green. Not sure of the logic behind the reasoning, since CDs don't use visible red lasers.
The lab of the parent company I worked for used a lot of red and infrared lasers in their engineering department and they had green tinted windows between the lab and the hallways and outside. This was a "just in case" thing that was done to keep genuine laser scatter out of the eyesight of passersby where it might flash in someone's face (still harmless in most instances since the actual power was simply Not that much). Now, on a CD player, the laser generally used was infrared thus invisible to human eyes anyway and quite low in power and highly directional as lasers are, and unlikely to actually cause any trouble with the pickup somehow receiving refracted scatter through the plastic material of the disk which was supposedly reflecting off the rim, that might find its way back to the pickup. It was all a bunch of nonsense, and I never wrote on the edges of any CD I had with any green Sharpy pens and never had any troubles with any of them. It's akin to the old wives tale of how a car battery will "ground out its charge" if it's left sitting on the ground or a concrete floor overnight... or how Clark's 500 buck patch cables made his system sound better. Second-hand logic from someone who was self-enabled, in a position of some authority who was actually little more than "one eye among the blind being King". 🙂
I can explain the pen. It was said to stop wave scattering from the laser mechanism when you were playing CD's. The pen often came with a "cutting lathe" that was supposed to cut the outer edge of the CD to "allow the pen and ink to soak in and stop that excessive wave scatter. Techmoan did a test of one he found. They were originally 500 quid (About 530 dollars US). Sufficive to say, it didn't work for crap.
Searching and researching for days and weeks, convincing myself to spend more and more money to build a satisfying high end audio system, I stumbled across this video and it saved my life...and gave me a good laugh! Honestly, thank you so much for putting things into perspective ♡
Same!
I listened to a Fleetwood Mac album at the flagship Yamaha store in central London last year - obviously it was all Yamaha gear from the amps to the speakers and turntable - I was honestly blown away, not by the frequency response, but the transparency and separation of sounds. Some of this would have been down to the large room and position of the speakers, but honestly, I've never heard music sound so good, let alone vinyl. I could pin-point every single instrument and vocal in a way I've never experienced before.
i've always really liked yamaha equipment. i think it is because they have a history as a musical instrument manufacturer.
Yes, Yamaha gear can sound very precise and transparent. But if you were to listen to a good SET amp and high-efficiency speakers along with commensurate cables and power conditioning, I think you'd be disappointed with the lack of musical and emotional engagement from the Yamaha system.
I had the same experience with Pioneer VSX 5000, multi deck CD player and Bose AM5 speakers at an audiophile store in Great Neck Long Island back in 1985. I walked in just to see what they had and the sales person took me into this rather large room where there were many different amps, speakers and other components like CD, Turn tables, Tape players etc. All of which were hooked into a Master Panel where he could switch between components. He then started playin Pink Floyd Learning to Fly switching and asked me to pick which one sounded best. When I did he than asked me to pick out which ones I was listening too. As I started choosing he kept say nope not that one until I said well which ones am I listening too? He pointed to a Pioneer VSX 5000 receiver a CD player and a pair of tiny little speakers on stands. I said no way was that sound coming out of those. He walked over and pulled the wires out of the back of the speakers and the sound stopped. I was so Blown Away I bought the whole setup. One of the factors I did not consider was the size and design of the room. That was a critical part of how the system sounded. When I got home and hooked it all up it was still amazing but lacked the tone quality it had in that show room. Obviously it was designed to give optimum sound quality for the positioning of the components in the room. I suspect there may have even been some bias as to sell specific components based on their opinion or commission they got on components. I still have those speakers but the amp blew up two years ago.
as a young engineer, yamaha was the only big company in the world that offerred and actually helped me
Don’t day this with. Chord, Naim and Linn people in the house 😂
Amen to this. I’m 76 and decided that finally now that I can afford it, I would upgrade and get really great equipment. But guess what. My ears have all sorts of rattles and noise, and I can no longer tell much difference between “decently good“ and “really expensive“ gear and speakers. I’m OK with this, it’s just reality, and I’m glad I figured it out before I spent more $$ than I did.
It might not be your ears. There really isn't much difference between ranks of gear, to begin with.
I've heard it said that: "audio enthusiasts listen to their music, while audiophiles listen to their systems". Probably some truth in that. I suppose each of us buy our tickets to whatever destinations appeal to us. As it should be.
Another older guy fortunate enough to have sufficient financial headroom for upgrades, Iike you I choose to remain with my present system. Spent a lot of time selecting the various components, and I very much enjoy the sound quality. I've also come to realize just how critical room layout and sound treatments are to audio performance (thanks RUclipsrs!), and so I've made several improvements that have worked out pretty well.
And admittedly in my own case pretty much my only tangible gains would be in the "bragging rights" specs, and evidently I've outgrown that requirement (finally)...diminishing ROI's are just wasteful.
@@usaturnuranus
It's an old joke ...
Most people use their systems to listen to music.
Audiophiles use music to listen to their systems.
Unfortunately, it's also pretty much spot on.
@@Douglas_Blake_579 I'm always amazed the effort and cost people go to these days to try and get a half descent sound out of bit of plastic when a FLAC file really is almost as good as it gets and costs a few cents. However, many people cannot believe this. Afterall a turntable that costs almost, or more than a car, HAS to be better than a silly little FLAC file. The real difference is the TT Looks so good and a FLAC file, well, you cannot even touch it or see it, so it cannot be any good can it! Maybe FLAC files should include, wow and flutter, add distortion, limit the bandwidth, lower the dynamic range, add noise, clicks etc. Make it ware out every time you play it. Things move on, was the best, and only choice in the 60/70s. Now records are almost the biggest con going. If you like get music this way with all its flaws, no problem but please don't fool yourself into thinking its better, after remortgaging your house to purchase it in the first place.
The main weak link in TTs is the disc itself. Very hard to find one not warped or with the center hole actually IN the center.
@@MichaelBeeny
Yep, things have moved on rather a lot.
But you don't need FLAC to beat vinyl ... most MP3/192 files do that very easily.
"Audiophiles, you are wasting your money!"
Audiophiles: "Of course, what is your point?"
“Tell me what I don’t know”
YOUR WASTING YOUR MONEY.. again YOUR WASTING YOUR MONEY.. again.....
@@johndyson4109 Audiophiles: "We know, we know, we know" I used to sell hi end in the 80's - saw them all - every day
Yes. WE ARE wasting money!
My f.... god that hobby is damn expensive.
There is a lot of snake oil out there. And you should always test or even better A/B before buying.
But I hate myselfe for hearing the difference between a 1k, 3k, 5k, 10k and 25k setup😢
The first 3 I allready own and switch between. The latter I heard on the highend convention.
Not the most expensive by far but the best sounding to my ears. Way cheaper than some top of the line stuff.
I had a pleasent talk with one of the hify dealers in my area. He mentioned that people just randomly walk in the store and order equipment for 10k-50k.
Meanwhile I was asking him about repairs of my 4k headphone and he was daring me to spot the diff between his fav sub 1k and the meze empys.
Fun times ll around but it burns holes into your pockets
@@johndyson4109 YOU'RE wasting your money. Again... YOU'RE wasting your money. ;-)
My dad did some heating/ac work at both abbey road and Nick masons studio in the early 90’s. They both used cheap regular audio cabling from the local Tandy, and both used cheap standard interconnects.
I live in Italy. I once attended a demo of Magico speakers in the best listening room (maximally sound treated) of an audio store that sold VERY "high end" equipment (meaning VERY costly).
The Magico speakers cost $80,000. The DAC was the $110,000 dCS 4 box Viavaldi. The speakers were driven by top of the line D'Agostino monoblocs fronted by a top of the line D'Agostino preamp which together came to about $100,000.
I don't know what the power, speaker, interconnect cables were. Nor to I know what server was being used. But I am willing to bet that they were all very expensive. So my estimate is that this system probably cost about $350,000.
Alon Wolf, the owner of Magico, had accompanied his speakers and he was the one who set them up in the listening room ( who better to optimally place them?).
And... the sound coming from that system, to me, was AWFUL.
This could not be attributed to the quality of the soundtracks because for an hour, Wolf play from a minute to a minute and a half of one track after another and they all sounded bad... so bad, in fact, that had I not thought it too impolite, I would have left after 10 minutes.
There were approximately 30 of us seated in this room listening to this demo. I am pretty sure that I am not the only one who felt this way because at the end of the demo, Wolf asked for comments or questions and NOBODY said anything. There was just silence.
I felt embarrassed for Wolf, so I asked a question... whose answer I wasn't interested in... just to alleviate the tension.
Later I was happy to get back home and fire up my very modestly priced, but very pleasant, system.
I had already doubted that the cost of an audio system was a guarantee of great sound.
This experience cured me forever of even the tendency to wonder about it.
As far as I am concerned it was proof positive that there is NO intrinsic correlation between cost and the quality of sound.
I heard Magico speakers at their dealer in Singapore some years ago. They don't sound right to my ears and I can subliminally hear the intrinsic signature of the aluminium cabinets. I think this company spends an awful lot of money on tech solutions to mitigate the acoustical problems caused by using the wrong material! Since most musical instruments are made of wood it stands to reason that the speakers used to reproduce their sound should have cabinets made of wood!
Check out Genelec , Alu case, titan membrane, metall can sound good.
I routinely listen to 100k speakers in recording studios. The big difference to audiophiles is that we producers/engineers couldn’t care less what they cost. We put our favorite, moderately expensive, small speakers close to us in the perfect measured spots, and make our record. That same record we struggle over for months is cross-checked in our cars, a boombox, on various speakers, earphones, an actual phone; everything imaginable EXCEPT audiophile speakers. We know what we’re doing.
@@iankuah8606 That actually doesn’t make any sense. Instruments are made of wood so they can vibrate and contribute most of the actual sound. Actual wood, the worst possible material, is NEVER used for a speaker. The best speaker cabinets must not vibrate at all so are made of composite, synthetic materials. Some plastic formulations are excellent. Aluminum would be ok but very impractical. Concrete would be excellent.
@@artysanmobile Maybe u could check the Bösendorfer spekers... u know, the same compagny that make the world famous grand piano
This is the best audio commentary I’ve heard in many years and echoes exactly what I have been saying every time I’m asked to recommend a system setup.
Perfect audio sound is an endless pursuit based largely on $ and snobbery.
What you hear is only as good as your weakest element, the quality of the recording, and your overall hearing ability.
Does a $50K setup sound better than a $5K setup? The answer should always be not necessarily.
So the follow up question should be; are you happy with the sound output relative to the price paid? And that should always be yes.
The other day I saw someone driving a $500000 electric Porsche- I mean WTF who does that?! But I’m guessing they had bags of cash and felt terrific, saving the planet in a Porsche.
And that’s why audiophiles do what they do. For my 60yo ears, I’m still loving my old Rega p3, my old NAD amp, and my old Kef c30’s- none of which broke the bank.
Happy listening!
And if it all goes sideways someday, you can always move your bed and refrigerator into your mastering room. Voila!
Porsche doesn’t make a 500,000 electric. Top of the line Taycan is a bit over 100k. AFAIK.
Porsche doesn’t make a 500,000 electric. Top of the line Taycan is a bit over 100k. AFAIK.
Porsche doesn’t make a 500,000 electric. Top of the line Taycan is a bit over 100k. AFAIK.
Porsche doesn’t make a 500,000 electric. Top of the line Taycan is a bit over 100k. AFAIK.
You highlight and interesting point. Only 1% CAN hear the difference but everyone wants to PRETEND they are in that 1%.
His argument here is so poor. He generalized to the inability of most people to hear any kind of difference off of the single example of the ability to hear at the frequency extremes. Yet there are very audible differences between components in clarity, soundstaging, imaging, etc., etc. that have nothing to do with this single example. This is so basic.
@@a.s.2426 Absolutely correct. This video is suspect imo. And from a recording engineer
no less. An RE does not have to have any electronics education.
The publisher of Bound for Sound mag (no advertising, a criminal defense attorney, now deceased) wrote an article, Truth be Told concerning marketing techniques in audio.
cheers
@😳 spoken like someone that has fallen so far down the audiophile rabbit hole where one must convince themselves of the discomfort of where they are trapped in order to tolerate their mentally invested predicament .
The best advice I can give to people is always by used, particularly if you're on a budget. There are amazing deals to be found and finding speakers for pennies on the dollar is the norm. You can find very nice speakers that are 10 years old and retailed for several thousand dollars on the used market for a couple hundred dollars.
You're not wrong.
I patch worked my first two theater systems, cheap, with tag sales years ago. Also bought a beautiful 80's receiver from a guy for $10.00. He had offered it to his son, but his son didn't want to have to get up and use the "manual" dials on the receiver.
@@AudioMasterclass I just picked up a beautiful pristine used Paradigm CC-390 center channel for $75. It retailed for about $800 in the early 2000s. In today's economy, it would be a $1,500 center channel. It's massive, 40 inches long, 15 inches deep, and 70 lbs. It uses four 6 and 1/2-inch woofers, two four-and-a-half-inch mid-range drivers, and a 1-inch tweeter. It's a very interesting three-way design, and it's the best sounding center channel I've ever heard. Deals like this aren't even uncommon because there are a lot of folks who simply want to offload some of their old gear that they no longer use. I'll go as far as to say some of these slightly older speakers are better than their contemporary counterparts in a lot of ways. You're paying more for less now. This thing absolutely puts my SVS Ultra to shame. Point being, buying used is one of the greatest home audio hacks there is.
Awesome points! My only criticism is the assumption that quality/engineering/fidelity increases linearly with price, but reality is there is ZERO correlation between price vs. performance. There is equipment at bargain basement prices that gives massively expensive equipment a serious run for its money. In many cases, there are examples where the bargain out-performs more expensive equipment in objective testing. I always start at the bottom and listen to the quality, and pick the best combo that sounds great to me. I've saved a fortune this way, and still have an awesome sounding system.
I found the difference between good & great equipment isn’t about the bass, mid & treble, it’s the hologram-like imaging & stability of the sound stage, even if the high end rolls off with age
I think you're onto something there. Whenever I bought a television, even before smart TVs, I would always look at color fidelity first over resolution.
There's nothing like being surprised by looking at a picture which is absolutely color correct as opposed to something which is very, very close to correct.
I have an Onkyo Receiver with TR speakers with gold plated could. I just bought a Bobtot that was open box for 105. And sure the 6000 dollar set up sounds better. But the Bobtot gives it good run for the money
I like the support superstructure and the isolation given by the slight overhand. However, the joist work lends itself to dampening if not positioned correctly....
@@JohnDoe-xv1se Only if the pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle, and the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true.
@@sPi711 Indeed. That's been an issue for years in computer graphics. Great looking games written for colour CRT looking terrible on more 'accurate' IPS or AMOLED displays. A bit of low pass filtering - in the colour display sense - is what the games were written for. No wonder they look bad when all the natural dithering and antialiasing is stripped.
This channel gets it right on so many levels, every video is a masterclass in nonchalance and subtleness of delivery, hats off
...but it is all about him!
Is this parody?
How does someone become an expert at giving compliments?
There are arrogant people with a glaring inadequacy of education on the topic at hand.
Then there are arrogant people who invested the time to become expert in some field, and are just fed up with bullshit. I find myself drawn to such people.
I just love the hobby and am thrilled to see it having a resurgence. Listening to music, not necessarily seeking note for note reproduction, makes me happy. The aesthetics, gear combinations, history, all of it makes it rewarding experience FOR ME. When I have friends over and we sit and listen, they love the detail my modest system can produce because they are used to listening on AirPods or soundbars - and watching their faces brings me real joy. Buy and listen to what you want and what you can afford without judgement or jealousy.
I worked for Philips as an audio test engineer for many years, there were 6 of us employed to write quality reports, none of us agreed on the best products, and the set up of the said equipment, opinions, opinions, opinions, not facts...
that was probably because the rules for what quality was regarded as quality were not clearly laid out and each of you had a different self imposed priority to pursue and consider of the best quality. With complete description and arguments, you were probably all correct and very much factual sort of speak. And if all of your analysis would be presented to the public then the better informed the public would be. ::))
I'm 58 when I was growing up most of the music I heard was on small radios and car stereos. My mother had a tube stereo with a radio and turntable with two speakers which cost back in the 60's maybe a few hundred dollars. I have never really heard anything better growing up it's just what my ears are used to. So to me a system that costs under 1,500 sounds fantastic and I can't hear any difference between a optical cable or a copper cable. So I'll waste my money on more cd's which sound better then anything I grew up hearing🎶
Totally agree. Also many pop songs are limited by the quality of the original recording.
So a more expensive "better" Hi Fi will simply reveal the limitations of the source & media carrier be it Vinyl or cd. 👍
Thank you for this amazing video! You have not only just saved me from wasting a LOT of money, but you’ve also saved me a lot of time too. I have just unsubscribed from all the hifi RUclips channels that has been wasting my time after watching review after review of products, only to be more confused than I was before watching them.
Unfortunate. The arguments presented here were very weak and you should just go and listen to the systems and see for yourself.
I consider myself a practical audiophile. I am more impressed with gear that gets me a good spectrum of sound to work with while still being reasonably priced. Having studied sound engineering both academically and as a personal hobby, I have learned that as long as I have some sort of ability to change EQ, I can usually make most speakers sound adequate or even superb. It also depends on application. For general use such as work, public, etc., I don't need my listening devices to be perfect since I am not even likely to be focusing on music over other things. So a simple pair of Sony ear buds or Bluetooth Edifier ear buds will work fine. For home, I run almost everything through my Sony 7.1 receiver with Klipsch speakers, be it music or movies. It's about as affordable as a sound system can get. Yet I can hear so many details to tracks that I sometimes don't even register on headphones. As for recording/musical projects, I typically use Sennheiser HD 280's that I have had for over a decade. While not exactly cheap, I don't ever feel the need to get anything more expensive than that. In short, sometimes I wish that more audiophiles understood that good audio comes from your ability to calibrate your equipment, rather than from how pricey your equipment is.
I have the Sennheiser HD 457's that are about 50 years old now and still beat the crap out of any other phones I have used! They too work best using a graphic equaliser.
I am not an audiophile but i enjoy the whole ritual of putting a record on and looking at the sleeve art. Ive got an old amp from the 80s and a £300 turntable. Its enough for me.
Thats fair.
It’s enough for 90% of people.
It was enough for me to until my left channel stopped producing sound. : (
@@jerickzane I have a 9090DB that has issues...
That's the way it should be!👏
A audiophile friend of mine used the phrase "Give a damn threshold" to describe a price threshold for audiophile equipment, it was defined as "if you can't hear the difference, don't buy the difference." Having spent my entire adult life in studio and broadcast engineering, I've always gravitated to the most accurate of references, those that were demonstrably and measurably more accurate.
As a side note, I had a radio show in the 80's called Hi Tech that presented subjects like "How to Understand Specs." I also played Half Speed Mastered disks, Direct to Disk and the first Digital Recordings on air in my area. I played examples from "Bach to Rock." I even bypassed the station processing to allow my listeners on one occasion, to hear the digital sample as accurately as the FM broadcast medium would allow. I was the Chief Engineer of the station at the time and I was very careful not to overmodulate.
You did not reference the importance of room acoustic treatment which is as the best speakers you can buy will not sound good in a poor acoustic environment. Any speakers in an untreated, small, square, concrete room will not present an accurate presentation of any recording.
Having spent a large part of my adult professional life setting up turntables for broadcast and audiophile applications IMO all turntable, cartridge, stylus and tonearm combinations playing a vinyl source, are at best a precision approximation of the recording. Once all the wear factors are considered such as stylus and vinyl wear, not to mention the dust and static accumulation over time, anyone who prefers the "sound of vinyl" to digital recording is not an audiophile, IMO. In that case like many other older technologies that "sound better" to some, I would submit that it's a sound quality that those listeners are accustomed to.
I have little doubt that some people have superior hearing and may hear differences that most cannot but should that make a difference to those that cannot? If an individual can't hear that a device is more accurate they are buying the sales hyperbole for what is usually a high price. When I was younger, I could hear 25 kHz and as a trained classical double bassist, I could determine pitch down to 25 Hz. It has rarely aversely effected my enjoyment of a good recorded performance. That being said, a truly great performance transcends whatever technology was used to capture it. I am nearly 70 and I no longer have the hearing range I had but I still have no trouble getting a decent mix and prefer to do multi-track live capture recordings. I do have a fairly extensive discography.
Excellent analysis. Thanks for sharing your experience and thoughts.
The trouble is that if you can't hear the difference in the showroom then you might hear the difference back home. A true AB test is only possible after purchase. Incremental changes (with the emphasis on 'mental) is how they get you. For a professional environment there is no such trap as product demonstrations can be ordered 'in place'. This is why I fear 'audiophiles' are generally private enthusiasts vulnerable to exploitation by salesmen who know vastly less than them but have the leverage of 'you have to try it in your own system'. No refunds.
Based on your vast professional experience, what speakers do you think offer value for money? Of course given hearing limittations and room accoustics, but are there certain designs you prefer (enclosed vs ported) generally? Thanks for your comment.
25khz, Wow that's great! I thought I was doing good with 19khz in my teens. Sine wave generator piezo tweeter. My dog could hear past 19k apparently. What if we are hearing harmonics of the fundamental though hmmm?
@@DANVIIL I prefer coaxial speakers for nearfield monitoring. The speakers I use are no longer made and there are still Tannoy and Fluid Audio neither of which I have current experience. I have had and used Tannoy's in the past. Kali makes some well reviewed and cost effective monitors. In whatever case I highly recommend the addition of Sonar Works SoundID software and room treatment.
I really like this approach because it respects variability - doesn't just TALK about subjectivity, but truly gives it the value it deserves. In my experience, the ABILITY to hear differences between levels of what we call audio quality are based on four things: DESIRE - the ambition to discover these differences, LEARNING - the experience of taking the time to listen, reading what others have said, PERCEPTION - the psychological changes that happen, some beyond and some within our control, and SCIENCE - the arts of acoustics, electronics, physics, etc. that truly affect what comes into our ears. It seems that many audiophiles forget that ALL THREE of these are involved. For instance, I recently attended the AXPONA audio show in Chicago. I heard some fantastic examples of audio, but I knew that being in the midst of that environment was affecting me in all 4 of those areas. i'm never entirely sure of what is changing my experience of audio, but it DOES affect it - including what I pay for my equipment. Why? I don't care. For those so-called audiophiles who focus entirely on the SCIENCE part, I notice there are very few double-blind listening tests. I'm not implying they lie, but I do think very many of the opinions are affected by the other 3 factors I listed and not fully considered because, well, those are subjective, and we can't have that amount of subjectivity now can we?
Amazingly true!
When I bought my current sitting room speakers, I listened to three sets by different manufacturers, then bought the ones that sounded best to MY ears. I still love how they sound.
I spent my first wage packet on a hi-fi system. I went to a proper hi-fi shop with a listening room and a comfy sofa. I had no idea about what was good or bad. I selected a CD to play and the team assembled a system for me. I listened. I liked it. I said, yes, that one will do. The shop assistants were a little horrified that I didn't want to listen to other systems. But I knew that I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between them and that I would waste everyone's time. That was in 1988 and I still listen to it today. I think I have £700 ears (in 1988), probably less today.
You are so absolutely correct. The end guidance for the consumer is prioritze your spend on your speakers. In that light, consider how easy they are to drive so you don't force more spend on the amplification.
I can appreciate this video, and another that I watched/listened to. I work for Krell. Yes, THAT Krell. :) I repair high-end audio amps for a living. I used to work in broadcast radio. Over the years, I've developed what I call "Engineer's Ears". Trained to notice distortion or flaws in reproduced audio. I also have a bit of a grasp on the Laws of Physics. I use a high resolution audio analyzer and oscilloscope every day at work. I can absolutely assure you that the $1000 cable makes NO MEASURABLE DIFFERENCE over the $100 cable. There WILL be a difference with a $10 cable... more noise, phase shift, high-freq rolloff, but the difference between $100 and $1000 WILL NOT be audible. Confirmation bias (I SPENT MORE FOR THIS! IT MUST BE BETTER!) combined with Placebo Effect are the two prime reasons people can say, "I swear I hear the difference!" when the difference really is too small for their ears to detect. Same with lifting cable an inch from floor, etc. Enjoy your music, don't fall for gimmicks. :)
Also, a technician... I've often noticed that when people claim to have heard a difference it's a matter of focus and attention. When they put in a new cable they will listen with very intense focus to hear the difference. They end up hearing a few micro details in their music and falsely attributing it to the cable, rather than the attention.
I've done null tests, stress tests and more on all kinds of cable over the years and except for defective cables (bad solder, broken shields, etc.) I've never spotted any difference at all ... even with the $10 cables.
@@Douglas_Blake_579 well then youve just contradicted what the fellow above you has said. He said he could detect a difference in $10 cables. So we have two technicians that cant agree! hilarious
@@ProfessorJohnSmith
Gee are you proud of yourself now?
I'm betting it simply wouldn't occur to you that we both said *Cables Don't Matter*
Law of diminishing returns.
Cable connection and extreme length might make a difference but honestly copper plated aluminum is good enough for most people if you're not moving the cables a bunch or soldering them
I tried my best to hear the difference between a 50 EUR and a 500 EUR interconnect. I couldn't. So what matters to me is that the cable is made well, won't break, has gold-plated RCA plugs, so I need not worry about oxidation and that is it. My dream was to own an Accuphase integrated amp. Finally, I was able to buy one and do I hear the difference between the Accuphase and my old Denon? Hell yes, absolutely. I'm 61 and can't hear anything above 8,5k on my right and up to about 6,5k on my left ear. Do I hear the silky smooth top-end of my Amp? No, but I hear the gorgeous soundstage and the wonderful mids and the defined, satisfying bass, of which all fill my room with great music and make me happy. I also tried Chord Qutest vs. Dave. Couldn't tell which was which, so I bought the Qutest. No reason to bust the bank. I bet some people can hear these little nuances, but I'm quite sure, most only buy extremely expensive equipment because they like the technical aspect of sound reproduction, which is OK as a hobby and if you can afford it. My system fits my ears and that is good enough for me. ... Thank's for your videos, I always enjoy them !
Sometimes more expensive equipment sounds worse. But that doesn’t mean that all good equipment sounds the same as every other piece of equipment. There are also those who think that cheap wines taste the same as good wines. Perhaps those who enjoy the cheap ones are better off. I would hardly recommend one of those to be a wine critic.
Cables and cable lifters are for the biggest wankers out there……..whoops I mean Audiiiiiiiioooooofiles.
You are 100% correct in saying that you where listening to a Anton Bruckner Symphony and rightfully so, the speakers are the medium of which we enjoy our favourite genre or type of music we love. Back in 2002 I believe, I treated myself to a nice pair of speakers after graduating from my Ph.D so I made sure to take my favourite classical CD's with me to a Audiophile shop in Melbourne, Australia. After listening to around 8 pairs from different manufacturers I gladly settled for a pair of Energy Connoisseur C-7 Series of which I still love and cherish till today :) I am a pianist and yes have a perfect pitch as I was told during my theory and pianos exams. Love music as it's my soul alongside my beloved dog :) This gentlemen is brilliant and his knowledge and perspective is spot on.
Great points made in this video. Re loudspeakers I am amazed that tech hasn’t really moved that far. I recently did a listening comparison between three sets of speakers I have in my home. Neat Elites, Kef 104/2s and my oldest pair Radford M180s. All sound really good. However what I was shocked with was how good the Radford sound. These are mid 1970s speakers! I can easily listen to any of the three and enjoy music immensely.
My Klipsch are 1978. I agree with you about tech hasn’t produced better speakers. The efficiency of my old speakers is better than most all the new stuff.
To the extent that they accurately reproduce the recordings, I wouldn't expect them to advance much. However, I can say that cheap speakers have drastically improved in my lifetime
An outstanding video, I was sucked into the audiophile world around 10 years ago.... I am now retired and my setup conists of 2 RCF speakers and a behringer mixer that i plug my cd player and cheap record player into.... It serves me well!
I went through a phase where I bought high end boutique nonsense. THOUSANDS in credit debt. I was chasing hyped jewelry, not the sound. It was prestige gear. I knew a fellow that was addicted to high end jewelry like gambling or alcoholism. He just had to have that $50,000 audio note SET tube amp. It was well beyond his ability to afford. He ended up going bankrupt and selling everything off. His new system ended up as a more sensible few thousand dollars and real performance, not just products designed to be heavy and shiny. No more $5,000 silver cables and interconnects. I hope my post offends and triggers audio snobs and ANONYMOUS moderator wanna be's who think they can dictate comments here.
Don't conflate financial responsibility with the value of the gear. Audio Note gets their price regardless of your friend's ability to afford it. This whole premise of audiophiles wasting their money is assuming they can't afford it. Stick to discussing the merits of the gear and leave people's financial wherewithal to own it alone, eh?
@@particularlynothing Don't conflate your existence with authority. You are not an arbiter of commentary. You are a waste of space,
You are mostly paying for build quality , aesthetics, gimmick marketing and packaging. Not so much of sound. There’s 500 headphones that sound better than or match $2000 headphones. They only difference is the build May not hold up. You don’t just throw around any headphone, no matter how cheap the materials are .. I did some research at companies. Speakers are easier to distinguish now.
@@FierceLeo. I have $600 headphoines that are better than my former $1600 headphones.
@@scottlowell493What headphones are those?
This is one of the best audio-related channels. Always makes me think. And that's a good thing.
Bruh this dude is seriously hypnotizing (in a good way) and is it just me or does he sound a bit like Paul McCartney?
I was thinking the same, even looks more like him with a passing, peripheral eye view…
The real paul didnt die, he became an audiophile 😅
He IS Paul Mccartney.
Racist
Maybe it is one of his cousins.
I am blessed with exceptionally good hearing - as measured by audiologists. And I’ve loved audio gear all my life since I was 18. I don’t feel I’ve ever wasted money; I’ve always taken an incremental approach and always by auditioning gear at a real hifi store. That said, I use $10 interconnect and just ordinary 12 AWG speaker cable. In my current system the vast majority of the cost is in the speakers. My experience has been that cost / quality is an exponential curve. A $1000 CD player (Emotiva in my case) gets you a lot more than a $250 player. A $4,000 player? Not so much more. Researching, then listening gets you the best package. My dealer lets me take my own gear to the store to try to match my home as closely as possible so when I was looking for speakers he let me use my own CD player and amp for the listening sessions. But it’s also not just about clinical reproduction. There are components that are technically good but musically dull, and in the end it’s about the music. So find something that excites you, that makes you want to stay up that extra hour and not go to bed. That’s where I’m at. There is a sweet spot of investment; perhaps if I was super super rich I might do marginally better. But I’ve put about $10,000 Canadian into my current system and I feel I’d need a better house to do any better.
You're right about interconnects and cables. I have a £7,000+ system and have tried all sorts of interconnect/cable combinations, and can honestly say it doesn't make much difference. Your sources, amplifier and speakers are what make the sound; how it gets from one device to another barely seems to affect it at all.
I'm doubting the CD player comment. What does €750 more on top of a €250 CD player get you exactly?
@@piotr78 Quite a lot. Don't take my word for it, try it.
@@piotr78 Detail, instrumental separation, soundstage, lower noise floor, balanced outputs, tonality of complex instruments like piano, faster attack on drums and piano (better able to handle fast transients). And features like external optical and coax in for using external sources through the DAC in the player.
Oh and significantly quieter transport with way less mechanical noise - important for me as I listen to a lot of classical music with very quiet passages. Not noticeable with rock and other genres.
Really good video. I've upgraded my rig over time and built a solid ~reference system. There has been a lot of learning along the way, and most importantly, that one's notion of reference will change with the components in your system. I agree with all your points, there is most certainly a point of diminishing return on any audio component. Maybe what matters most is that when you listen to music and relax, you can experience some magic and transcend for a while. DACs, turntables, streamers, amps and preamps, speakers and interconnects all do make a difference. Ultimately it was the speakers (802 D4) that revealed any weaknesses in my setup. Most of my gear is gently used, but current. Most importantly, I can experience some audio magic anytime I wish.
I agree with his notion of the speakers having the greatest input to his listening experience but is only ok with digital format, crap in crap out
There is a certain synergy with matching equipment to having great sound. I don’t mean expensive. Certain speaker need a particular amplifier to sound uncontrastrained. A good source can always sound better on any system.
It's true. My audiophile neighbor had a set of high-end speakers from a well known brand with a not terrible but so-so amp. He upgraded to a really nice McIntosh amp a couple years later and the difference was incredible.
Love this video, matching the room with the right speakers and if possible (some) acoustic treatment (drapes, carpet and such) can lead to something that makes you forget that you're listing to a reproduction of sound. Personally I have a set up that I think matches the listening room and my taste and I have stopped looking around for better, think I reached the end of the 'ear resolution' so I enjoy the music and there is so much beauty to be found. Keep up the good work.
I truly appreciate this video. I have perfect pitch, (determined by my music professor, by playing the same song in every key by ear, after admitting I couldn’t read a single note) can’t read a note to save my life, but can play multiple instruments, and produce music. I enjoy the audiophile community, from a distance, as I always secretly held the opinion that the quality of the hearing, not so much the range of high to low frequencies, is the better judge. But people in that community, give so little credit to this, I find myself getting bored, quickly. Thanks for the video.
I have good pitch, but not perfect. I also have degraded hearing. I think that perfect pitch is a brain thing, not an hearing thing. My hearing is degraded. My ability to hear things off pitch hasn’t changed (or it seems so).
I’m 78 going on 79 and I have tinnitus in my left ear, but I’m still aware of how pleasant and articulate music sounds to me.
I have spent most of my adult life listening to very high end audio equipment, some would say to the detriment of my family. I remember using the money put aside for my son's birthday to pay for custom speaker cable. He was heartbroken not to get the promised bicycle but cheered up immensely when he heard the more focused midrange and strident bass. Anyway, now I find my hearing is deteriorating with age I have taken to releasing helium gas normally used for inflating baloons into the listening room. The lower density compared to oxygen creates an improvement in high frequency clarity and image, without adding any unwanted sibilance. The result has been breathtaking.
😂😂😂
Surely you must be joking and you're going to give people ideas ...but I like it (ha)
Oh I bet your son was just delighted about the strident bass (whatever that means)
For the helium, do not give the audiophiles any unhealthy ideas.
😐😐😐😐🤦
"...breathtaking..." I'll bet it is! 🤣
I buy the central argument here - well communicated! The elephant in my listening room is neither elephant nor loudspeakers, but the fact that (for many of us) hi-fi has to fit around normal life. Thus, my speakers are not placed in the perfect position as described in numerous hi-fi articles. There are hard and soft furnishings in the room that, presumably, reflect or absorb sound differentially depending on frequency and possibly other factors. Plonking a chair in the exact 'sweet spot' for the best sound is likely to get on the wrong side of my dearly-beloved wife...
All of which mean that, for me, my hi-fi is almost certainly operating below the point at which my ears could tell a difference - but spending more money would give an increment in performance that is probably overshadowed by the terrible room acoustics and the other factors mentioned above. That extra 2% could be immediately lost if I move the waste paper bin by 6 inches, so to speak.
Exactly, I used to have Magnaplanar speakers, High end( delicate) turntable, met and married, had a baby moved house and the system didn’t suit a family ( children) now I am digital with nice speakers that fit in the room and the wife likes the look of. There is nothing stopping me looking though
@@frankcousins7655 I used to own Magnepans and, you are correct, they didn't meet the WTF (wife acceptance factor)
So you can hear no differences between equipment because of all the factors you mention? I really failed to understand the central argument of the video.
Should I assume a dedicated home theater room is just not feasible where you live?
@@JoelHernandez-tz3vk yes, you should assume that a home theatre room is not feasible here in the UK, unless one is very, very rich😢 or don't have to fit around a family life.
The thing that's lacking in a lot of audiophile discussions is (it seems to me) a sense of perspective. Spend hundreds or thousands to get that extra 2% improvement in fidelity, but add in a couple of cushions, move a rug, and that 2% may have been swamped by the room changes... unless you have a dedicated listening room. When I win the lottery, it'll happen!😂
Hi. I'm a musician and although I've played loud music all my life, I still have good hearing compared to other people of my age (I'm 60, just got it tested). I completely agree with you about the turntables, bc we also have to acknowledge that there are so many variables that play a role. Not in the least: you have to have perfect vinyl records. And we all know that that is almost never the case.
Don’t forget, you could say the same thing about CD files!! 😉👨🏻
In my case I change headphones and speakers like changing flavors.
@@y.k.9705 Well, that will keep things interesting !
I bought some bookshelf speakers and stands a while back, and even purchased a pair of headphones that I also didn’t need, just just to get some different flavors.
Even having end game speakers with no plans
on changing the environment, sometimes temporary swaps are occasionally required to keep things interesting and make sure you haven’t changed your mind lol
Vinyl is an inferior medium to start with so spending over a 500 pounds for a turn table is nonsensical regarding sound quality. Furthermore, the only thing that matters sound quality wise when it comes to turn tables is the replaceable pickup element. That actually does make an audible difference in definition quality. But this would likely not get any better over 200 pounds either.
Note that my experience dates from 40 years ago, when turn tables were actually still somewhat relevant and my hearing was good.
@@MartinMaat So you think spending a couple thousand pounds on a DAC for a bunch of inferior cd files is any better? Come on, get real 🤣🤣
As someone who has been involved in every stage of the process from experimenting with a lot of microphones through to producing music and mixing and mastering, as well as building speakers, I can say that everything sounds different, on the production side of things. It is the engineer’s job to use the Sonic qualities of the equipment used as part of the creative process. On playback, it’s not quite as straightforward and there’s a level of preference, and it’s hard to say what is better past a certain point, what I can say from my experience with mastering is that different speakers will bring out different qualities of a recording, and some recordings will play better on some speakers than others with their inherent qualities. However, I think there is a certain threshold where you want to be above, like, you don’t want to be listening to music in a room with a ton of reflections, that are uncontrolled, for example, although controlled reflections can be nice.
I do find that speakers with soft tweeters, rather than air motion or metal tweeters often playback older music better. I have noticed that some newer music plays back better on harder tweeters since it was produced on them. For example, Celldweller and the weeknd
This is a brilliant and highly educational lecture. Your brilliant intellectual arguments have given me much reason to "pause for thought" .... and probably saved me a shed of money! Thank you!
Regardless of what I own I always include an equalizer in my setup. I have never gotten a great sound without room/speaker eq being part of the process.
Amen, there is SO MUCH snake oil in audio. I've never seen anything like it in any other hobby. It's just absurd what they sell people on.
It's becoming that way with golf clubs too. Prices go up but the differences get smaller.
How very very true.
2m of speaker cable or a car?
Fishing gear.reels,bearings....
Very true! It's crazy what sort of products that actually sell. Worst examples are probably 3000$ USB cables, that's just absurd given that there isn't even a theoretical difference between that and a 20$ cable. Some people clearly just want to waste money.
I am just getting into audio and recently went to a store to find out for myself what different price points give me in terms of quality. Among other things, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I preferred a pair of $99 headphones over $400 headphones. More money spent does not always equal a more enjoyable audio experience, and trying it out before buying is an absolute must.
A $400 pair headphones vs $99, does not say much at all, apples to apples the $400 should be vastly superior, unless you are buying garbage and picking poorly made products from companies not known for being in the market with experience making such products. In otherwords, anyone who is savvy in the market for a particular type of product, especially electronics at the low tier price points of $100-$400, should ALWAYS be EASILY able to find a far superior product for the $400, my guess is you do not know much of what you were looking into or compared apples to oranges...
@sgt_major8419
Your comment is irrelevant. The bloke found headphones that HE ENJOYS LISTENING TO for just $99.
Would some other $400 headphones sound better to him compared to the specific $400 set he was able to listen to? Maybe.
But now he currently has headphones that he enjoys, and he still has $300 in his pocket to spend on good music, other equipment, or whatever...or to put towards those better sounding $400 headphones WHEN & IF he finds them. 😉
Indeed. Not always
@@bbfoto7248your both right. If he enjoys them. That’s all that matters. Also he probably doesn’t know what 400 should sound like. Compared to the 99 dollars sound. To me 400 should sound way better as well. Though I admit there are some affordable pieces that sound great.
You lucky bastard. But a 400 dollar Sennheiser wil always sound better than any other 100 dollar headphone.
Ribbons and tubes with deep bass capabilities are a sound that is acquired by listening to live music. I believe it's all about the texture translation of the instruments, which makes the music. Amplifiers can not have too much relatable power.
I'm married to a classical musician and I too am very familiar with the sound of live music. I've been in the Hifi hobby for 40 years and Hifi design has been in the family. I don't often click on your videos as I'm turned off by the snarky often condescending tone that they're titled with including you making a frowny face. But once in a while I will watch one as I did here. I think you did a good job of categorizing equipment where you see the least to the most difference. Most would agree with you about speakers. I have a pair of Quad ESL63 speakers and when they're working do a fantastic job over the frequency range that they cover. Lack of reliability (old panels need frequent replacement) and bass limitations have brought me to Martin Logan Hybrid speakers. Close to the Quads in the midrange and they cover the bottom that the Quads won't.
I do take issue with some of your other assertions. I too am skeptical of thousand dollar cables. But I can hear the difference between 10 dollar and 100 dollar cables. To begin with you have to spend a bit more than 10 dollars to get a cable with a top notch connector which I think is just as important as the cable itself. I do think that people can hear a difference between 100 and 1,000 dollar cables. But I don't think those differences are worth the money. I'd rather spend it on something else. Amps can make a huge difference and it this case you can't separate the amp discussion from the speaker as there's a lot of interaction there. My Martin Logans didn't really come alive until I started bi-amping them and found the right combination of amp and speaker. The Rega is a good choice but as I see it there are a few more price breaks. If you spend up to about 400-500 dollars for your turntable, tonearm and cartridge you get in the door of Hifi. About 2,000 to 4,000 dollars you can get Hi End sound. For 10,000 to 20,000 dollars your touching state of the art. In the 10s or 100s of thousands of dollars your way into the realm of diminishing return. For me if you are going to spend that much money then why not run your phono cables through the wall and install your turntable in a soundproof vibration isolated booth with a remote controlled needle drop device. I never hear of anybody doing this yet I'll bet you'd really hear the difference.
Anyway thanks for the video. If you get less snarky with your titles I'll tune in more but maybe you'd get fewer clicks.
Price does not carry acoustic information, and when you bring in the quality of connectors, you might as well be checking whether the wires are secured properly to the speakers. Besides the length, there are three physical factors that determine the qualities of a speaker cable. If you can point to a fourth, you're in line for a Nobel in Physics. And yes, I know you've heard it many times before, but that does not make it less true, and if you had an answer, it would have been publicly known ages ago. Let's not pretend otherwise.
The difference between cables reputed to be of high quality is quite obvious if the caliber of everything else is there. Even in a blind test context, for me. Explanations as to why might earn you a prize of some sort, yes. But we don’t require explanations only proof that there is a difference.
@@a.s.2426 you're right, all it takes is a single, reproducible scientific double blind A/B test. Where is it?
Sorry for what may be perceived as a silly and late comment, but I was curious why you mentioned vinyl as both the entry point and end game of hi-if, despite vinyls flaws. I think it’s a bit overkill to design a whole room just to drop a needle, when you could instead pop in a CD.
I went to tradeschool for electronics in highschool and we got a lot of broken electronics donated so we could train to fix them, one of such thing was a broken audioligist suitcase for testing hearing, we fixed and it would beep at different frequencies and you would press a button if you heard the beep and at the end it would even print out a graph of your ears frequency response on ribbon-paper. Testing our hearing quickly became a daily competition where we would compete and see who could hear better... we where 15 students competing and we probably tested our hearing hundreds of times over several months. The interesting thing was that the "champ" of the class was the only girl in the class and she could 100% reliably hear up to 23-24khz! Her hearing was extremely good and she would beat everyone else ten out of ten times... I wonder how "expensive" ears she had.. wish i had her earing!
Pardon?
I could hear down to 13hz last time i checked im sensitive to high pitch noises... (Sorry cant remember the number ) I have $800/pair speakers in my car... I... Need to do whole home audio now and its overwhelmingly expensive, not bexause im trying to go so extreme, but because i need propper spacial audio everywhere and cant stand less than 20hz to 20khz, but prefer soeakers that go higher, silence is horrid. Btw im AuDHD and thats part of my hearing being different. Tldr its exhaustingly expensive
@@freedblowfish3705you could hear 13 hz at high levels but even at lower levels, you’ll hear quite a lot of the 2nd order harmonic. It’s shocking how much of that 2nd and 3rd harmonic is present in subwoofers and even more in smaller woofers in speakers.
thats some real good input
thx
Not to be sexist, but there might be a scientific explanation. My understanding is that females are more tuned to hear higher pitch because they need to hear babies crying, while males need to pay attention to lower pitches to hear danger, like a bear growling or lion roar. Not my sexist idea, science.
Personally, I think all the guys listened to music to loudly and ruined their hearing…
To be honest, being audiophile and spending money on buying pricey hifi gear are two different things, but they usually go together. As an audiophile, you can experiment sound reproduction using cheap / low-mid fi gear and listen and critic the sound quality. Soon you will yarn for a better sound, however. This usually cost more money to get a decent improvement. At certain stage, diminishing return will hit and only difference between gear A and B is probably how they look and made by different manufactures. IMO, luxury HIFI segments aren't really for audiophiles who are looking for the best sound, but look / feel the best too. And you sure pay for them.
Funny that even very expensive equipment often looks ugly, with some outstanding exceptions, of course.
Listening to you speak and the level of logic and common sense in truth in what you say and do it without hurting people's feelings is such a breath of fresh air thank you for sharing your highly highly valuable experience
I’ve only bought used equipment to date, and I’m still learning. I think my budget and my hearing has reached a balance I’m content to stay at for awhile. I’d have to be astonished by something within my budget’s reach to make any significant changes.
My first hi fi speakers were Magnepan mg2a speakers. How they sounded was determined heavily by the amp. With a cheap receiver, they sounded dull and lifeless. With a decent amp with an adequate power supply, they came to life and sounded great -- in a room that could accommodate them.
Now I have Revel F206s. They're not as finicky about amplifiers, but I used a $600 AVR with them for a while, and upgrading to a better quality separate power amp in the $1k to $2k range still made a big difference. Surprisingly, one major area was imaging. I didn't expect that at all.
But I rarely listen to my system as a hi fi system. I'm way more likely to put on a youtube concert video that's 30 years old with less than ideal quality than I am to actually get up and pop on a CD rather than just using spotify. I can hear a difference between spotify and cds on some albums, but usually it's not worth the effort to me. I generally prefer live performances over studio albums, and love having access to so many concerts on youtube, even if some of the sound quality is awful. So dealing with the small imperfections of compressed music isn't a huge issue to me most of the time.
I had those speakers and loved them years ago when I was a vinyl junkee many years ago, nowadays I have chosen my speakers based on room constraints, particularly the need to work close to a wall. Thankfully I kept all the records and have recently bought my daughter a nice Rega planar. More emphasis has to be placed on the whole experience rather than just switching something on
I believe my brother has these (among so many more) paired with some crazy Teddy Pardo setup and they sound really great ...with some anal retentive imaging.
Ive gotten the same emotional responses with my system regardless of file quality and thats my endgame achieved.
I'm fairly tone deaf. I can hear the difference in notes, but that's about it. I think for people like me there is a happy medium. I find it in solid state integrated amps, decent speakers, and gear. Basically, mid-fi.
While I could have gone up the chain, given I listen at low to moderate volumes and have relatively small living space, I settled on smaller equipment. I still follow new products and get the urge, but realistically, I am very happy with my budget and imperfect system. And if I had to bug out, I could fit everything in a banana box.
2 Keces E40 integrateds, one driving Dali Opticon 1s for desktop and one for main system driving Martin Logan 15i. Two dacs used are Topping d70s and an Aune x8 with a Sparkos opt amp upgrade. Still have my larger Focals, Hegel, among others and while the performance is arguably better, the smaller systems are good enough and I enjoy them, they even look good. And I don't break my back lifting anything up.
If you can hear the difference between your wife's voice and your children's then your not tone deaf
@@crazyprayingmantis5596 No wife or kids. Told you I was tone deaf!
That was absolutely great advice! Thank you for the video, it makes it easier for me to pick what I need, not what I want.
Excellent video... as usual... and I do have a few comments to add...
1.
Tube amps have VERY low damping factors (they're limited to a DF below about 10), which has a huge effect on the bass.
But how much difference that makes will depend on the speaker itself.
Also, many vintage speakers, and a few modern ones, are designed to be used with amplifiers with a low damping factor.
(And they may lack bass if used with a modern amplifier with a high damping factor.)
2.
I would add a bit to your comment about preamps sounding different.
I agree that preamps have the potential to sound very different because of features like tone controls.
However I would expect a "good" preamp to be very neutral if set "fully flat" or "tone controls out".
(And I would consider it to be a mark of a "good" preamp that it DOES offer this option.)
3.
Some small differences are only noticeable if you have the option of comparing directly by switching back and forth.
I suspect that this tends to favor "analog sound" when people attempt to compare vinyl to digital recordings.
It's simple to make a digital recording of a vinyl album, compare it to the original, and notice a tiny difference...
However it isn't really possible to make a vinyl copy of a digital file and compare it to the original...
(Unless you happen to own a vinyl pressing plant.)
4.
And, yes, I've wasted LOTS of money on hi-fi gear.
I currently work for Emotiva - who makes home theater and hi-fi gear...
BUT, over the years, I've spent a LOT of money on various DACs - among other gear.
And, yes, the differences between many of them are not all that obvious unless you compare them very carefully side-by-side.
Some time ago I found myself "keeping a few tracks handy because they enabled me to hear the difference between DACs".
It was quite some time before I realized that, if the difference was so small that I could only hear it with certain few tracks....
Then it probably wasn't all that important.
I thought a low damping factor was an undesirable characteristic?
@@exitar1 In virtually all MODERN equipment that is the case. Most modern speakers have a very strong "motor", a relatively heavy cone, and relatively little mechanical damping in the speaker itself. A high damping factor in the amplifier works in conjunction with this to enable the amplifier to tightly control the driver - usually the woofer is the one that matters the most. And you WANT the driver to be tightly controlled by the signal coming from the amplifier. (The damping factor basically acts as "dynamic braking" to control the movement of the cone when the signal stops.)
However vintage speakers, designed back when amplifiers were all vacuum tube, and had a low damping factor, were designed differently. They tended to have lighter cones, and often had a wider voice coil gap, resulting in "less tight coupling between the motor and the cone". And, since they didn't expect the amplifier to control the movement of the cone very tightly, they were designed with more built-in mechanical damping, or simply "tuned" to "sound right" without it. In short they were designed to provide as much of their own damping as they needed rather than to expect it from the amplifier. This is also true for some modern speakers specifically designed to go with tube amplifiers.
The result is that, if you take a modern speaker, designed to work well with an amplifier that provides lots of damping, and connect it to a tube amp, the bass may sound "loose" or "tubby" or "sloppy". And, if you connect a good vintage speaker, designed to work well with tube gear, to a modern amp, it may sound "dry" or "bass shy".
This effect mostly affects cone speakers... because they have both lots of moving mass and a powerful motor. And it will have less effect on horns because their horn design provides "loading" for the cone movement. And, of course, it affects some speakers far more than others, but it is one of the primary reasons why "some speakers sound better with tubes and others sound really bad".
It's also worth putting the numbers in context. In the days of tube amps, a damping factor of 2-4 was somewhat low, a damping factor of 6-8 might have been considered normal, and designers worked to get this as high as possible, against various technical limitations that limit a tube amp, with an output transformer, pretty much to a DF below about 10. In contrast, modern solid state amplifiers can easily achieve a damping factor of 100+, and typically claim a DF of 500+... which is effectively infinite... or "as high as matters". (The reality is that over about 100 the practical difference is minimal... and the actual value becomes difficult to measure.)
The presentator probably doesn't know that kind of things.
The more you spend the more you WANT it to sound better, so it probably will.
@@mk1st Indeed.
I think the problem here is the idea that the effects are within certain measurable parameters. While I think you can differentiate between bad, highly distorted equipment through measurements, once you move past a baseline of distortion you are moving into the areas of how the equipment affects you which is a combination of a number of factors. My wife has significant hearing loss from childhood yet I bought her an expensive headphones because her hearing loss meant she was particular sensitive to distortion and a much better quality source meant a much better experience for her. My own hearing is varying but rather than saying well then I won’t be able to hear 20hz or 20khz anymore so why bother I prioritising equipment that works within the midband were a considerable element of the emotional in music is present. I would therefore maybe take your point on “full Range” systems I am still perfectly capable of telling a good system.
The most expensive amp I had was the Marantz PM10 and i loved it.
I have owned many amps in my life including Theta, Aragon, Marantz, Bryston, Hegal, and Kinki just to name a few.
Currently I have Denon PMA-A110 and it's the best amp I have ever owned for my ears.
Coupled with Q Acoustics Concept 500s, they sound magical.
When I listen to audiophiles talk about the enormous amounts of money they spend on their equipment and the efforts they go to in order to get sound that they are satisfied with, it makes me very thankful that I do not have a discerning ear. It reminds me of time when I dated a girl who bragged that she could tell an expensive wine from a cheap wine, and because of this you could only drink expensive wines. I thought, "Well, that sucks. She has to spend a lot more money to enjoy a glass of wine than I do." I can enjoy music on modest, inexpensive equipment and I can enjoy cheap wine too. I've been to audio shows and I have listened to very high end systems. Yes they sound great. But the cost-to-enjoyment ratio just isn't there for me. And I'm thankful for that, because it saves me a lot of money 😊
I'm fairly young (early 20s) and can hear up to somewhere in the neighborhood of 23KHz, which means I need at least a 48KHz sample rate to reproduce all the frequencies I can hear (46 theoretically, but most DAC filters aren't 100% perfect, so you'd want a couple KHz of headroom -- same reason CD audio uses 44.1KHz instead of 40 when their goal is to reproduce up to 20KHz, which is the limit of the vast majority of adults' hearing range). It's honestly kind of inconvenient, 44.1KHz sounds mostly fine to me, but things like cymbals and the S consonant sound very slightly muffled, which can sometimes be a bit distracting.
Much of everything said here is quite accurate. For “hard core” audiophiles, you do get to a point of diminishing returns. The cost/improvement becomes so great that without it, you’ll never miss the difference.
can you spare 10000 dollars for a poor man?@erwindewit4073or just buy me a pair of audiophile headphones, ive never tried any. best and most expensive headphones i ever tried was massdrop sennheiser hd6xx.
@erwindewit4073 Paying more for less improvements is literally what diminishing returns mean, it doesn't mean that you hit a cap and can't improve anymore.
So it's very easy to know since this factor kicks in already at the bottom level. With the very cheapest set up you can listen to music, compared to having nothing but silence, and no further change will ever be as dramatic as that.
@erwindewit4073 Yes, I agree, there's nothing wrong with spending money on your hobby if you have it to spare and you enjoy what you are doing. My system is more expensive than what I imagined spending when I started out so I've done that and I'm happy with it. I do however feel quite content now and I'm just happy discovering new music. Hopefully that feeling lasts a long time since the joy of chasing new things as an audiophile comes at the cost of not enjoying what you have quite as much.
We all have our journeys in the hobby and in the end the main goal is to be happy. If we achieve that then we've gotten the most important value out of it.
Different components sound different. In all price categories. So many audiophiles would most certainly confuse "different" with "better". Whether having 80$ or 5000$ ears you may prefer the sound from specific components. Without even going to the part where different components sound different depending on room acoustics, placement and so on. I think getting decent and reasonably price components and doing the best you can with your room acoustics will give the most bang for the buck. The rest is just waste of money (of which audiophiles seem to have plenty)
Why are you confused? If you like something better, and you think it sounds better, then it's better. It's your gear! You can (hopefully) give some reasons why you think what you think, but you shouldn't judge other people for the choices they make. I think audio masterclass has some strong opinions, but I think he understates his lack of knowledge. If your hearing is missing some frequencies due to age, you still have ears spaced apart on your head, so timing based clues aren't likely to be compromised. Cables do make a difference to your overall experience, but you need a reasonable system to hear that. One lst thing. One persons waste of money, is another persons dream system. Please don't judge.
I shall remember these words of wisdom for life: " You're wasting your money if your equipment is better than your ears."
There are premium USB cables. The price there has nothing to do with hearing and everything to do with gullibility. The same goes for a lot of other stuff on the market.
I'm 75 and got very interested in audio equipment in my teens. I worked at audio retailers later on and as a manufacturers rep for three well known manufacturers. I learned early on that so called audiophiles never really listened to MUSIC! They listed to five or ten second seconds of a record when auditioning the the object of their current fascination. It was very disheartening. Any system that fits your budget and produces a reasonably good (to you) facsimile of MUSIC you like to actually listen to in full and enjoy is a GOOD system.
I wonder if I do fit the definition of an audiophile, I may be the weirdest audiophile of them all.
I tend to make extremely deep dives into audio equipment when I need a new sound system. But once the search ends and the trigger is pulled, unless I RMA the unit, I just keep using what I bought until it kicks the bucket.
As a result when I need to, I dive very deep into the audio rabbit hole. But only sporadically like every 5 years or so.
I have the HiFiman HE400se for indoor usage and the Truthear Hola for outdoor usage. I feel no urge to upgrade.
On the other hand, I want to set up a home theater system which is something I'd be doing for the 1st time in my life. Which seems to be the biggest rabbit hole yet.
But what I find the strangest about this statement is that I never used any piece of audio equipment only for music. It's all very general purpose for me.
@@JoelHernandez-tz3vk Your statement about actually using your equipment for for "general purpose" is very much the same for me. The main pieces are a Carver MXR-130 receiver (130 watts/channel and that I like so much that last year I sent it to a company way out out in Oregon comprised of old Carver Techs and spent $700 having it totally rebuilt with new and upgraded electrolytic caps and other components) and Carver ALS-III speakers (downward facing 10" woofers only about 2in. above the floor in a ported cabinet tuned to 24 Hz ( and has awesome bass) and 48in. tall dipole radiating ribbon "tweeters" mounted above that actually handle everything above 250 HZ), all of which I have owned since 1997, so about 26 years "new"! Since they are in our living room where the TV is, I naturally turned the TV's internal speakers off and routed the line output of the TV into the Carver receiver thereby turning it into a "2.0" home theater. I would say that 90% of the time the system gets used is provide VERY good sound for watching general TV, and cable movies sound GREAT) and only here and there tossing in a CD or two if we want music, but mostly just turning the TV cable box to the Music Choice channel, selecting their "smooth jazz" channel and just letting it play an endless selection of rotating artists where I discover a lot of music I wouldn't have heard normally, and it is CD quality as well! So, that's a lot of words jut to tell you I use my system probably much like you do and totally "get it". I intend to keep this stuff 'till I leave earth! It does everything I need at a high level of quality. The only cost for 26 or so years was the money for the receiver rebuild and the electricity to run the system. I'll close by saying I have watched several of your You Tube videos Ind enjoy them a lot, and on this video in particular we think VERY much alike!-- Larry
HiFi is a an ageless and endless quest. Your videos just add to my enjoyment. I'm 69 years old, and convinced that $$$-to-ears ratio is probably a curve similar to $$$-to-years. Heck, just figuring out a graphic would be loads of fun! My ears enjoy music a lot, and I try to find tech that stays out of the way when I'm listening. Thanks for a thought-provoking and entertaining channel. PS. Thanks for memories of Quad. I owned a 33-303 for a few years and only sold them because a friend said she would offer them a good home. I visit now and then ( the friend ...amd the Quad ) they are both doing fine.
I can get my System to sound very close to how I hear a live concert. Then I added a linear power supply to my DAC and the sound stage improved . I'm very happy , that was a good purchase. Great Video !
Sir , a great video with some brutal truths. Shall I say that as a man of a certain age , I’ve been there done that and got the T shirt. Oh, yes and I have acquired a pair of hearing aids along the way. I have now settled down to audio that sounds good to me and enables me to enjoy the music.
Hi, I agree with most of your comments- except that over the past couple of years I have had 3 different amplifiers but kept the same speakers. The first, a Rega Elicit was wonderful sound but there was a slight edginess to it that I became intolerant of over time. The next was a NAD C399 streamer - a flat uninvolving sound that gave me no feelings of power despite my ramping up the volume. With the Rega I could feel bass in my body, but had no experience of that with the NAD, so it was on-sold. My current amp is the Marantz PM7000N, another streamer and while it it keeps me engaged is not ideal either, but I'm reluctant to go to the expense of trying a 4th choice. The speakers by the way are The Focal 936s. These have a neutral sound well balanced sound, so it was easily possible to identify the sounds of the amps from one another. Maybe I'm not buying amps at a high enough cost to meet you criteria of at a certain price where the amps should be exceeding my hearing capabilities, but at age 80 and using hearing aids with a 'music' setting to bring in treble that I would otherwise not be able to hear, I seem perfectly capable to hear the differences in amps. Other than that, I really enjoyed your talk and have subscribed to your channel.
@djlafg58
You may be reluctant to try it because it is "Class D", but the DIY Hypex Nilai500-based stereo amplifier from DIYclassD punches way way above its price point.
It can be purchased from DIYclassD for less than $1400 in the U.S. and can be assembled in an afternoon with basic household tools, no soldering whatsoever.
Just one of the advantages of this amplifier is that it is "impedance agnostic", meaning that its frequency response and phase coherency are not affected by the loudspeaker's wild swings in impedance that occur as the full spectrum of frequencies are played.
Most typical passive HiFi speakers will have at least some variance in the impendance load that they present to the amplifier which is dependent on frequency. Look at the impedance vs. frequency plot for any traditional non-electrostatic loudspeaker.
As most amplifiers are powering the speakers during playback of your dynamic music, this variance in impedance load will affect the instantaneous power output, frequency response, as well as cause phase shifts that are dependent on the impedance load at any given time and frequency.
This type of Class D amplifier is NOT affected by and is immune to these swings in impedance. Some speakers have a larger impedance swing over their frequency range than others, but for most speakers the impedance can actually vary by a large margin.
Let's say you have a loudspeaker that is nominally rated at 8-ohms. When playing certain frequency ranges, especially at the very high and very low end where we want consistently neutral and high-quality performance, the speaker's impedance may drop to below 4-ohms, and also rise to above 30+ ohms.
This induces inconsistent power output that is frequency dependent as well potentially causing a Phase Shift over the speaker's frequency range which can result in an unnatural and disjointed sound, and can also degrade the imaging and soundstage performance. This is the opposite of what you want your amplifier to do when connected to your expensive speakers. ;)
After I had used my DIYclassD Nilai500 stereo amplifier for several weeks and was very impressed with it, I took it over to my cousin's house and we tested it in his much higher-end system which uses SOTA Børresen Acoustics Model 03 floorstanders and very expensive Aavik amplifiers.
There was no way that we could realistically do a completely Blind A/B test between these two amps with a quick switch between them, but we level-matched the SPL output between them as close as possible by using a -0dB 1kHz Sine Wave test tone and measuring the A/C output voltage directly from the speaker output binding posts on each amp.
After the levels were matched, we played multiple different high quality recordings from various genres that we are both infinitely familiar with, and the Nilai500 amp held its own against the MUCH more expensive Aavik amplifier.
In fact, the Bass and Lower Midbass seemed to be more present, rhythmic, and dynamic, and it "separated" the notes with more air or space slightly better on Upright Acoustic Bass.
The only attribute that we could determine was consistently but only marginally better with the Aavik amp was the HEIGHT of the Soundstage, and this was just on one particular track...
"Woman In Chains" by Tears For Fears which was expertly mixed by Bob Clearmountain and where Oleta Adam's female background vocal floats ~3ft Above and well Behind Roland's main vocal which is already at eye-level.
The Height of Oleta's background vocal was roughly 8"-10" higher with the Aavik amp, but overall roughly the same apparent Depth and Width in the soundstage with both amplifiers.
We also played "Dissidents" from the 2009 Remastered Collector's Edition of Thomas Dolby's "The Flat Earth" album. Note that USUALLY most "Remasters" are not as good as the original release, but in this case the 2009 Remaster is noticeably better IMO.
The detail, speed, spectral balance, and all aspects of the imaging and soundstage were incredibly similar, except again that the "front & center" kick drum seemed just a little bit more distinct and impactful using the Hypex Nilai500 amp.
Changing gears, we played Patricia Barber's "Use Me" Live track with it's excellent Upright Bass, Female Vocals, Drums/Percussion, and organ. The "space" and "ambience" of the room and lifelike reproduction of Patricia's vocals and the Upright Bass were uncanny WITH BOTH AMPS.
Same experience for the Live version of " 'Round Midnight" on the Clifford Jordan Quartet's "Live At Ethell's" release on the Mappleshade Records label. The saxophone, upright bass, drums, and piano were incredbly lifelike and dynamic, and the air and space captured in the room was incredible, especially the sound of the audience and waiter staff in the background...they floated in 3D space and were precisely localizable!
Either amplifier didn't do any injustices to these recordings, and it was basically "an even draw". We both would be completely happy using either amp on these speakers.
Changing gears again, we played Prokofiev's Symphony No.1, Opus 25 by the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by James Gaffigan. An INCREDIBLE 24-bit recording from the Channel Classics label available on Presto Music with the Full Dynamics and a DEEP/WIDE Soundstage that puts you AT THE SYMPHONY.
We also played Bruch's Violin Concerto No.1 in G major, Opus 26, Movement 3: Finale: Allegro energico (abridged) from the Hyperion Records label. It's another FANTASTIC recording with the full dynamics and rich, resonant detail of the strings and orchestra, along with excellent imaging and realism!
We also played the two "Percussion Ensemble" tracks from the Stockfisch Records' "Are You Authentic - AYA - Authentic Audio Check" SACD along with the "Les mains d' Elsa" female vocal track that tests TREBLE, MIDRANGE, and DEEP BASS accuracy and purity, as well as ALL aspects of a speaker's performance. I HIGHLY recommend this Stockfisch Records "AYA" SACD or LP if you want just ONE test & demo album that will test your system to its limits.
After all of our listening, we could not definitively choose a clear "winner" between these two amplifiers, at least when using these particular speakers, in this particular room. We felt that while they may have been ever so slightly different in presentation, both amplifiers brought out every positive attribute of these speakers and the respective recordings.
The Nilai500 amp had absolutely NO impression of being "harsh" or "grainy", and it sounded extremly natural, smooth, but dynamic and controlled, like the best Class A and A/B amps that either of us have heard (a lot).
This powerful "Class D" amplifier certainly raised my cousin's eybrows and dropped his jaw, and I was able to confirm that this amp was a "keeper" and I could buy a new BMW with the money I saved compared to the Aavik amp, LOL. 😊
This is a BARGAIN for this type of performance! If it is within your budget, at least give this one a try. You can always sell it at very little loss if you find you don't like it in your system.
I would personally separate the amp from the streaming source component. That way you can experiment with different streamers, and have a baseline with the amp outputting some other source (a well known good one).
With all the things going into a streamer (or A/V amp) the actual amp section will have to be built to a lower budget. Not to mention the chances of anything breaking in these highly complex beasts and rendering the whole thing useless.
But people want one-box solutions, I suppose.
Best audio upgrade...ear wax removal. I'm a headfi guy and could never understand why people thought beyerdynamic cans are considered bright. After this treatment, I could definitely hear the 8khz spike in my dt880...I now tune them with cotton wool😂...and speakers/headphones make the biggest difference
Why am I 13 minutes into a video with this man waffling when all I came to see was him validate my decision to buy a5+ audioengine speakers. It is almost 3am, I am lying in bed after a tough gym session and feel sick and this video has made me feel worse quite honestly. I will leave you a thumbs up, God bless you sir.
Your down to earth talks make perfect sense. I've always believed that things are less "better or worse" and more just "different".
I have four integrated amplifiers that all sound different. My hearing cuts off at 15khz but I think there's alot more to it than that. My Vincent sv 700 is crazy hollographic, my Micromega M150 is more smooth, my primaluna evo400 is really dynamic, my ML 5805 has really tight well defined bass and open top end. I've also in recent years had a Rega aethos which was nice but lacked something in vocal reproduction for me. Also had a norma Revo 140 on home demo but just didn't jive with my speakers. Also from the get go I think it's more to do with your brain if you're the type of person that's stimulated by high end audio at all. Some of my friends are blown away and some just don't get it... I've been an audiophile for 35 years and five years ago I was lucky enough to develop Menieres disease in my right ear. Over the last five years my hearing in my right ear has changed as a result. Less ability to hear lower frequencies and higher frequencies have been exaggerated. Never the less I still hear the differences clearly... Go figure😊
I knew a guy who had a Vincent Black Shadow 1000. It had really low latency and smooth delivery. Also once had a friend who swore by the Plavalaguna Blue Diva. Frequency output was consistent across the spectrum with extremely wide range. Very impressive vocal reproduction.
I've got my eye on a Vincent, not sure what model yet
Very enjoyable when properly warmed up however as with all class A it runs hot. I use it in winter and just offset the running costs against my heating bill. Same with Primaluna very toasty....😁
@@johnbritton895
Vincent should integrate a Bitcoin miner into their amps so you can.
1. Heat your house
2. Listen to nice sounds
3. Pay your electricity bill with the Bitcoin you mined.
Win win win situation 🏆
What do you reckon?
There is a big chance you are hearing the op-amps in those amplifiers, an easy way to define a "house sound". Marantz is doing that with their HDAM circuitry. What they *should* sound like is nothng at all, just make the amplitude louder.
i'm a live sound engineer
my number 1 rule is: speakers need to be good, mics need to be good
mixer and amps wont add anything noticeable into the sound unless they're really cheap
"nobody hears the amp.".
100% spot on, my first listening experience was on a wind up record player and a 78rpm record. Everything i have owned since has been an improvement. Now at the great age of 61 and after spending a small fortune on audio equipment, vinyl, cassettes, cds and mini discs, i have found great pleasure in using music streaming services which offer hd audio and various wired and Bluetooth headphones which were comparitably inexpensive but do hit the spot to be the way forward.
Thanks for keeping it real, have subbed to your channel 👍
The biggest elephant in the room, is, the ROOM🤪
Or rather, roomtreatment.
Most of the time, a "lesser" system in a good room, will sound much better than a "better" system in a bad room.
I have heard loads of expencive systems, at shows (most expencive one was about 1 mill $, insane, I know).
But it did not sound any better than my own system (16500ish $, cinema/ musicroom).
Different, sure, and it most likely has a much higher potential in a better room. My point is:
The room, placment of equipment, listeningposition etc, is as important, if not more important, than the gear itself.
Please point us to good advice for improving our rooms. Thank you.
I can also hear the difference in sound depending on the actual color of the cables. And when it comes to turntables, to my ears, the sound quality changes depending on how expensive the table is, on which the turntable is located.
All of this is true, but only on the days when I’ve not taken my meds.
@erwindewit4073 I cannot confirm or deny taking LSD with any level of certainty. However, I actively participate in a contest called “lucky meds switching night” at the retirement home where I live.
I went to an audio show recently and took the time to sit and listen to each room and setup. Point 1 - electronics and fancy cables at all price points don't sound different enough to my old ears, and then don't ask my opinion about those silly little stands that hold a speaker cable off the floor. Point 2 - rooms playing boring music with noisy dirty records on overpriced turntables didn't get much time from my ears. Point 3 - the speakers showcased do absolutely sound different. My ears enjoyed a number of products but the speakers I found too bright or harsh typically were very pricy. I actually was disappointed that money does not buy happiness. Point 4 - I went home realizing that my vintage gear was perfectly satisfying. No need to replace what works fine.
Yes, that always gets me. Silly little stands that hold your speaker cables off the floor. 🤣 And then the audiophile babble: "Since I lifted all my cables off the floor, the soundstage and definition between the instruments has improved greatly, you wouldn't believe it !" No, I honestly don't believe it ! 😂
Serious question. Assuming each setup had different electronics (common at shows) , how did you conclude all the electronics sounded similar, but the speakers didn't?
@@particularlynothing An excellent question! My conclusions about the different rooms are totally subjective and mine only, based on past experiences during my private and professional life (including a 10 year stint at a company building audio noise and distortion measurement systems). I've listened to many sets of electronics connected to one speaker set and feel that good electronics at many price points deliver satisfying sound. But different speakers connected to the same quality amplifier can sound so totally different. The speakers I didn't like at the show were "high end" (pricy) and connected to high end electronics. Quality electronics, in my opinion, do sound similar but speakers really need to be chosen by the buyer's ears.
This man makes more sense than any review of equipment. I'm just a music lover and I always thought theirs a limit to our hearing.some do hear better than others
I was on “The Bourbon Trail” in KY. At one distillery the guide told us there were so many subtleties in their product but most of us couldn’t appreciate them because we did not have refined palettes. My question was Why then should I spend the money when I could literally not taste the difference?! 😃
Yup, I experienced that at Makers Mark Distillery a few years ago..
@@cletusberkeley9441 Yeah the arrogance in that business made me not finish the trail.
Great comparison.
The reason why experts with "Golden palates" and "Golden ears" won't perform double blind tests to prove their claims are the same.
Because everyone will see that they're full of shit
I absolutely love this video! The way you compare audio equipment to human hearing is very clever. I've been a professional concert sound engineer for 30 years and have distantly watched the audiophile scene evolve over that time. I hope that newcomers consider your very clever teachings in deciding their future purchases.
I hope that newcomers listen with their own ears and decide for themselves.
@Rendon276 Exactly.
Out of curiosity, what did you find so compelling in this video? Having been an audiophile for 25 years I thought the video was quite awful.
Audiophiles...hehehe 🤣 I'm so glad this channel exists, thank god there's a "voice of reason" on this subject. Most people, in my opinion, would never be able to tell the difference between a Technics SL-1200 and a multi-thousand-dollar "audiophile" contraption. But, an "ordinary" SL-1200 wouldn't LOOK impressive enough on their absurd-looking hifi rack. The placebo effect is absolutely HUGE in the "audiophile" space. A fool and their money are soon parted (by a "high end" audio dealer). Not my problem, though 🤣
I somewhat disagree, because I have found that differences can be clearly heard in a direct comparision, the A/B test. Floyd Toole researched this and found the same thing. But I would agree if you said the differences don't matter when the speaker is heard in isolation. The differences can be surprisingly large; I did a listening test of studio monitors, and each one had clear strengths and weaknesses....but the most expensive one seemed to have no weaknesses compared to the others. But I am sure that sound quality in "audiophile" speakers does not correlate to increasing prices. At a certain point the speaker becomes a work of art that may not actually work very well as a speaker.
@@fredygump5578 you're talking about speakers, right? ABSOLUTELY they sound different...and very different in different surroundings, too. I had a pair of powered studio monitors at work, which I loved...borrowed them for a night, and they sounded like crap in my apartment 😄 I was talking about turntables. I do not believe that anyone (99.99% of people) can tell the difference between a high-quality Technics direct-drive deck and a mega-thousands "audiophile" deck (using the same cartridge).
@@njm1971nyc The argument works better for speakers; atleast old speaker tech is still relevant? In the case of turntables, I can tell the difference between any turn table....and a CD player! I might even argue that today's "bad" turntable is the more accurate representation of what people previously believed was "hifi". So to me, it is an excercise in futility. I don't understand investing thousands on a tempermental device that is easily bested by a CD player that cost $10...20 years ago.
@@fredygump5578 I'm not sure I really understand your point about speakers. Speakers are the one component that sound vastly different from one make/model to another. Turntables, once you've reached a certain level of quality, shouldn't really sound much different to each other, assuming the cartridge is the same. I couldn't really care less about turntables, though - CDs are vastly superior in every way. I do still NEED to play records sometimes though, and my SL-1200/AT-440mla combo is plenty good enough. I would never buy a more expensive "audiophile" turntable, because I don't believe the miniscule potential improvement to be worth thousands of extra dollars. Records are yesterday's tech, and shouldn't really be having a renaissance, but I think audiophiles are so bored with the perfect sound of digital that they want to go back to the bad-old-days of fiddling around with decks, cables, carts, isolation platforms, record cleaning devices, etc etc etc in the never-ending and somewhat impossible task of making vinyl sound "perfect" (which it never will!).
@@njm1971nyc I meant that the principe behind speaker transducers is essentially unchanged for the last 50+ years, so it IS reasonable to compare old to new speakers...but it is NOT reasonable to comparing vinyl to digital...because vinyl loses regardless of which turntable is used! (And I originally said that speakers do make a difference, but cautioned that price and quality are not always directly correlated!)
"only as good as your hearing", is the best line I have heard in a long time. Just this week, I pulled out an old pair of Tannoy PBM 8ii out of my closet, set them up on top of my upright piano, just under my new 75" 4k television. It had been almost 15 years since I have listened to these Tannoys. Back in the 90s, this was the speaker in every live television production truck and I believe at least one of the earlier star wars films was mixed on PBM 8's. Today I mix almost solely on Genelec's or Neumann's but I never really had anything at home to really listen to.
I bout the PBM8's in the late 90's, not because I needed them but because my brother was putting together a THX approved 7.2 home theater with seven Tannoy PBM 8 mark 1 and two Cerwin Vega 18" subs, and he found a pair of mark 2's at such a good price he told me I should buy them as he wanted to keep to the original mark 1's. They are studio reference speakers, not necessarily "Listen" speakers. but that is what I am use to and I love the natural, flat, with very little color, and there it was. My brother has recently upgraded to an all dante Genelec, 7.2.4 dolby certified Atmos system.
15 years later after mixing live TV shows for decades and working on the best equipment, My standards have been raised to an almost unobtainable heights. I didn't think the Tannoy's could possibly still have it, I thought there is no way an 8" passive crossover box could satisfy me. But they did. I sat in my living room for an hour, for the first time, and just truly listened to my music. The detail is still there. you can hear the layers and relish in hearing reverb trails again.
I will be creating a 5.1 system featuring these PBM8ii for the Lf Rf and center. I just purchased a 12" Genelec subwoofer, and I am looking at a pair of PBM5ii for the Ls Rs rears. this system with be 50% for enjoyment and 50% for mixing audio for short films. every piece in my system was purchased USED. I love used gear because if you buy the right gear, you can sell it for what you paid for it. Thank you for reading
Thanks for the points you laid down, I do not have perfect pitch and I do not even consider myself an audiophile. As of now, I go by what I can enjoy and make most use out of and of course, taking my budget into consideration.
This video made me smile. Maybe it’s our generation, but so much of what you’re saying resonates with my own experience and thoughts. I’ve had ns10s and quad amps too. Thanks for sharing
The best loudspeakers I ever heard were at Abbey Road mastering studios, mastering a Gregorian Chant / Piano recording I made in an ancient Abbey. It made me realize that most hi-fi products are filtered for our homes, filtered to sound a certain way, and designed for our home environment to some extent. Our homes aren't acoustically treated like Abbey Road!
Most cables, amps, speakers even the mics and mixing desks that record the original sound are different. The big question is what is better? It is entirely a personal choice, also how much you want to spend, and of course the status value too.
This has got to be the most refreshing and enlightening video about Hi-Fi audio that I've heard in a long time; lots of great audio (even life) advice. I enjoyed every minute of it. Congratulations!!!
I was about the comment the same thing---excellent video!