All that is wrong with "HiFi"

[Lee]

I was talking to a friend the other day who is not involved much with Audio forums, but he does have a great deal of knowledge and experience in the hobby. He told me that he thinks the problems with hi-fi are increasingly inefficient speakers and streaming. In other words, the direction in which we seem to be heading.

I think I agree on streaming. There are a lot of noise issues I had to get through on streaming before I was happy.

 

[MarcelNL]

Streaming can be great, BUT it requires the same sort of attention to all details as listneing to music in high quality using Vinyl.

I just completed my dual Xeon music server, basically it does nothing other than push some zeroes and ones to the DAC, but boy it does so in a great way.

I agree on the low efficiency speakers....those are not great for good sound, at ETF last week the best system I heard was a 115 (or so) dB/W/m efficient setup powered by 1.2Watt of triode. The front end still needs to be good but it's the way to go IMHO.

 

[treitz3]

<snip> It sounds like you disagree with his opinion. <snip>

I do. Just based upon my own experience. Honestly, a few years ago? I never thought this would be the case but here we are.

Tom

 

[Rt66indierock]

I believe this Le Bon quote illustrates the case with MQA.

Early on, some, not all, mastering engineers (many big names were supportive) were worried about MQA taking away their fees for mastering for different formats so they were natural MQA enemies. As well, some competing and far less successful codec designers on the then Computer Audiophile were jealous. This formed an unholy alliance that really added a lot of confusion, misinformation, and to be fair some elements of truth on some things and they created a tidal wave (no pun intended ) of ill will toward MQA. And honestly I feel that Chris Connaker knew his website was benefitting from the MQA religious war on traffic as well so moderation was not neutral. I did my best to counter some of the criticism of MQA on that forum but I was subject to endless personal attacks and was banned twice.

On the other hand, you had well-regarded technical people at the major labels who approved it for distribution. You also had two very good guys in Robert Harley and John Atkinson whjo listened to the sonics and found it to be an improvement. Separately Peter McGrath started using it on his recordings and found it valuable.

One can certainly disagree on the authentication process of MQA but the fact is MQA never implemented any evil digital rights management. And it was clearly a mistake for MQA to not explain at the launch that the process was audibly lossless and not purely lossless.

It’s like our national politics in many ways. Things and people are deemed “controversial” but when you dig into the actual facts, you find there is a genuine contrarian opinion with merits to its argument.

I can only urge members here to have an honest listen and decide for themselves.

If you don’t like It then definitely check out Qobuz. I love that service for streaming and can highly recommend the sound quality.

Lee the truth is the MQA fight was Mans Rullgard a ARM chip designer, Archimago an MD in psychiatry, Mitch Barnett a software engineer and me a CPA with a tax practice who was around when digital audio was a theory. We convinced people all aspects of MQA are bad.

You have got to stop spreading false information.

 

[morricab]

I think I agree on streaming. There are a lot of noise issues I had to get through on streaming before I was happy.

I got rid of noise issues by running my streamer off of a battery and using optical out to my reclocker…totally isolates the streamer from the rest of the system.

 

[Lee]

I got rid of noise issues by running my streamer off of a battery and using optical out to my reclocker…totally isolates the streamer from the rest of the system.

I solved it with an Ansuz ethernet switch, better cables, a Sortz noise control device on the router and the router plugged into a Shunyata PS8 power conditioner with Defender module.

 

[twitch]

View attachment 139843...

now we're talking !
I do prefer Red Breast, either 12 or 15.........

 

[godofwealth]

Great hifi doesn’t need to be expensive but you need to hear it before you realize what you’re missing. One of my lucky breaks 30+ years ago was listening to a pair of Quad ESL-63s at my local dealer. I had no idea speakers like that existed. The other was subscribing to a whole year of the Pittsburgh Symphony as a grad student in the mid 1980s for the equivalent of $5 per concert (student rate) that got me seated in the first 5 rows. Unforgettable experience of listening to great soloists of the caliber of Jessye Norman with her unforgettable performance of Richard Strauss’ Last Four Songs — I didn’t know a human voice could have such a dynamic range unamplified — and hearing Mahler performed with a full piece orchestra and chorus. That sort of early experience shaped a lot of my later choices.