Hi
I have been an audiophile for a very long time. since I was teenager actually earlier . I had audiophile father and uncle. My uncle was also an Electronics technician of the highest caliber and did explain some circuits to me especially tubes ..
I grew up in a house where music was played constantly on good systems, Quad, Celestion, Kef, Ellipsons, Acosutic Research, Advent, Infinity, Yamaha, Dynaco, Bozark, Mac Intosh, Scott, Harman Kardon, Lafayette graced our living rooms but also Garrard, Rabco, Transkriptor, Dua,l B&O , Philips, Grunding, etc..
A good friend of mine ( the father of a friend as a matter of fact) has even better systems than my dad and introduced me to the crazies in TAS ( some people were pretty far out then .. )
I have had some pretty good systems, some of these could be said to be SOTA... I have been an Audiophile orthodox for most of my Audiophile life until recently when I began to doubt of a great many of our audiophile tenets... Mind you I am an engineer and suspect that a good portion of Manufacturers claims were Bovine Manure but .. Cables, they measured different and would be "easily" recognizable ? Huh? Like most audiophiles I had changed cables and found some of these to be the best I had ever heard ... My last cables were amongst the "best" and cost so much they could not dare to NOT be the best
... Someone suggested a test .. in which it was very difficult for a serious audiophile to reliably discern his own cables within not so heralded cables .. I tried a similar test .. Some of my friends replaced without me knowing which was which these cables with with thick 4 AWG cables ... I could not reliably discern between my cables and the lowly thick normal copper cables nor thus begun a more inquisitive look into some of our claims our beliefs, our tenets.. I have not become a flat-earther ; I don't hold , nor believe that Everything sound the same but I have come to question and open myself to the science underlying what we hear and generally got much more from my former system once this path was taken. I began paying very close and serious attention to the room and its treatment , looking how much taking care of the frequencies under 500 Hz had an extraordinary impact on the realism of the reproduction, minimizing the early reflection , taking care of the back wave had much more impact on the final sound in a repeatable fashion to tossing amps, cables and other things around...
It became clear to me that the speaker and the room were key .. The stronger determinant in good sound and this close to 84.32% .. The rest is icing on the cake ..
My new point of view is that if you get the room /speaker right you have a good system even if you were to use ordinary components.
That electronics make a difference but only when you have gotten the room/speaker right .. then you can spend whatever money you have left there ..
That sources are important .. The better the rest of the system the more important sources need to be.
Cables ? ... Blue Jeans , Belden, Canare, etc are your friends ... If you must go toward an Audiophile-approved brand, try Supra .. Good science and relatively sane price ...
Room Treatment .. if you can, are patient and willing to learn, Do it yourself, else .. Get the service of a serious professional some of them are on this very board.. The BEST investment you will make however long you have been an audiophile or however much you think you know or however much you believe your ears .. Small Rom Acoustics are not the province of moon-lighters .. The underlying Science is not trivial.. You don't need to understand all the Science but you must be able to measure well and be able to correctly interpret your measurements.. Interestingly it doesn't necessarily cost a lot ...
Power ? get it clean Get it right . I believe in the cleanest possible AC and serious grounding , not a simple task by the way.
Digital? The best digital is to me better than analog. NO! I don't consider CD to be the best Digital.. I think the best LP and especially the best R2R are superior to CD .. I could change my position but for now that is where I stand .. I believe the best sound I have heard from a medium was the Hrx from RR and also think the better 24/96 are superior to what I have heard from the best analog R2R or LP.
I hasten to say that my deceased reference system wasn't not lacking in definition and I have heard some over the top systems that could not compare .. I have also heard some truly excellent systems. The recurrent theme in ALL these systems? EXCELLENT ROOMS Acoustics .. One of these being that of Steve Williams, aka admin, aka OB... His room is the key to his system ... Not that his components are lacking but the key to what you will hear at his place is his room make no mistake about this ...With the right room the speakers (X-2 and Gotham) gets you very to 89% of his sound the rest is up to you but with such revealing transducers and room you better get the best electronics you can put your hands on ...
Better late than never
Frantz
I have been an audiophile for a very long time. since I was teenager actually earlier . I had audiophile father and uncle. My uncle was also an Electronics technician of the highest caliber and did explain some circuits to me especially tubes ..
I grew up in a house where music was played constantly on good systems, Quad, Celestion, Kef, Ellipsons, Acosutic Research, Advent, Infinity, Yamaha, Dynaco, Bozark, Mac Intosh, Scott, Harman Kardon, Lafayette graced our living rooms but also Garrard, Rabco, Transkriptor, Dua,l B&O , Philips, Grunding, etc..
A good friend of mine ( the father of a friend as a matter of fact) has even better systems than my dad and introduced me to the crazies in TAS ( some people were pretty far out then .. )
I have had some pretty good systems, some of these could be said to be SOTA... I have been an Audiophile orthodox for most of my Audiophile life until recently when I began to doubt of a great many of our audiophile tenets... Mind you I am an engineer and suspect that a good portion of Manufacturers claims were Bovine Manure but .. Cables, they measured different and would be "easily" recognizable ? Huh? Like most audiophiles I had changed cables and found some of these to be the best I had ever heard ... My last cables were amongst the "best" and cost so much they could not dare to NOT be the best
... Someone suggested a test .. in which it was very difficult for a serious audiophile to reliably discern his own cables within not so heralded cables .. I tried a similar test .. Some of my friends replaced without me knowing which was which these cables with with thick 4 AWG cables ... I could not reliably discern between my cables and the lowly thick normal copper cables nor thus begun a more inquisitive look into some of our claims our beliefs, our tenets.. I have not become a flat-earther ; I don't hold , nor believe that Everything sound the same but I have come to question and open myself to the science underlying what we hear and generally got much more from my former system once this path was taken. I began paying very close and serious attention to the room and its treatment , looking how much taking care of the frequencies under 500 Hz had an extraordinary impact on the realism of the reproduction, minimizing the early reflection , taking care of the back wave had much more impact on the final sound in a repeatable fashion to tossing amps, cables and other things around... It became clear to me that the speaker and the room were key .. The stronger determinant in good sound and this close to 84.32%
.. The rest is icing on the cake .. My new point of view is that if you get the room /speaker right you have a good system even if you were to use ordinary components.
That electronics make a difference but only when you have gotten the room/speaker right .. then you can spend whatever money you have left there ..
That sources are important .. The better the rest of the system the more important sources need to be.
Cables ? ... Blue Jeans , Belden, Canare, etc are your friends ... If you must go toward an Audiophile-approved brand, try Supra .. Good science and relatively sane price ...
Room Treatment .. if you can, are patient and willing to learn, Do it yourself, else .. Get the service of a serious professional some of them are on this very board.. The BEST investment you will make however long you have been an audiophile or however much you think you know or however much you believe your ears .. Small Rom Acoustics are not the province of moon-lighters .. The underlying Science is not trivial.. You don't need to understand all the Science but you must be able to measure well and be able to correctly interpret your measurements.. Interestingly it doesn't necessarily cost a lot ...
Power ? get it clean Get it right . I believe in the cleanest possible AC and serious grounding , not a simple task by the way.
Digital? The best digital is to me better than analog. NO! I don't consider CD to be the best Digital.. I think the best LP and especially the best R2R are superior to CD .. I could change my position but for now that is where I stand .. I believe the best sound I have heard from a medium was the Hrx from RR and also think the better 24/96 are superior to what I have heard from the best analog R2R or LP.
I hasten to say that my deceased reference system wasn't not lacking in definition and I have heard some over the top systems that could not compare .. I have also heard some truly excellent systems. The recurrent theme in ALL these systems? EXCELLENT ROOMS Acoustics .. One of these being that of Steve Williams, aka admin, aka OB... His room is the key to his system ... Not that his components are lacking but the key to what you will hear at his place is his room make no mistake about this ...With the right room the speakers (X-2 and Gotham) gets you very to 89% of his sound the rest is up to you but with such revealing transducers and room you better get the best electronics you can put your hands on ...
Better late than never
Frantz
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