Hi-Fi is NOT a subjective hobby.
- Thread starter Rexp
- Start date
I got rid of expensive HiFi gear some time ago. I went to a low-cost portable CD headphone system that I can tweak to my heart’s content. No more house AC, no more huge speaker cables, interconnects, digital cable. No more humongous transformers or big honking capacacitors, no more fuses, no more room treatments.
No more pencils, no more books, no more teacher’s dirty looks. The sound quality I have now is actually better than my big systems of Yore, Quad 57, Fulton, Class A tube amp/Sennheiser 600s. It’s not what you have it’s what you do with it.
I found this review interesting. He explains, starting around 3:30, how he used EQ to adjust the frequency response and it led to slightly different perceptions of imaging and depth.
I personally don't know what to make of this but perhaps some can relate to his explanations?
I personally don't know what to make of this but perhaps some can relate to his explanations?
As far as I’m concerned, how people spend their money entirely up to them and no one else’s business. people are not very rich because they are frugal. Frugal people are slightly less poor than people less frugal than themselves. A dealer I use has had people coming to his shop and spend $500,000 inside an hour without questioning the price. Last time I saw him, he was selling a pair of Chronosonic XVX and it had become a weeks long negotiation between him, the customer and the distributor. The customer could easily afford the speakers without blinking, he obviously just liked negotiating and getting good price. The lower end of the hi-fi market is much more price competitive because there are so many similar products. You just have to look at whatHiFi.
Sadly, lots of people work extremely hard and barely have enough money to live, they just get paid badly and then there’s the cost of living crisis.
There used to be an expression, the idle rich. Ever heard of Bertie Wooster? I have a friend who is one of those. He’s a very nice chap. inherited a stockbroking business and lots of assets. He’s barely done a days work in his life. There was a joke, which he much appreciated, that it was far better that he didn’t go into his office because it would likely cost him money.
Yeah, there is too much lazy and arrogant misunderstanding about "merit" and money.
A few places I use in in stereo aligning analog inside equipment. Back when I was exposed to the pro recording world I interned as a recording engineer and would use the scope to set up stereo recording something. Because microphone placement is that critical. Sad thing is I can't tell anyone what I recorded due to an agreement with that studio/publisher because someone else gets the credit for it since I was an intern that was learning (supposedly).
Belden Blue Jeans cables arrived . 5m pair of 10AWG 5T00UP delivered to the UK for $200. Turns out they are exactly the same cable and termination as the QSA Gamma Infinity, although I chose spades (same price). Sorry, I forgot, the other difference, $5,800, but that's the cost of superconducting fairy dust these days.
I was looking into the specifications and the key thing seems to be low inductance without high capacitance. The Belden Iconoclast have half the inductance and cost $2,000. Of course for Iconoclast you are also paying a lot for the multi-strand weaved cable geometry. These are about the same inductance as several Nordost cables, like Blue Heaven, which have very low inductance. This is a specific requirement for Quad ESL users and Quad use Nordost themselves.
Resistance is apparently not a big issue, all the cables are low resistance, and the Nordost Blue Heaven have resistance about 4 times more than the 5T00UP wire. Belden put all their cable measurements online - how about QSA putting their measurements online and we can see their superconductivity.
Initial listening - no complaints.
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For speaker cable most of the time it makes no difference. As most amplifier speaker outputs are balanced. But it depends on the amp. The wire run length and gauge size dictates what kind of performance. So how does that compare with a 10 gauge contractor extension cord at the same length?
