State of the industry - Roy Gregory Editorial

[Lee]

I would also say, and I think most here know this, that I love records. I have been collecting them since 2004 and have 6K LPs. LPs can sound amazing. The playback on my Scoutmaster with 3D arm is amazing with the Etna Lambda cartridge. But I have a new table coming and it will take things even closer to heaven.

 

[stehno]

Lee, i respect your feelings regarding the attacks on your team. there is a fine line between dissing MQA, and making that personal toward proponents and connecting that to some sort of commercial interests. Stenho will tend find the dark side of stuff like that and mostly gets ignored. so don't take that too seriously.

.....

I tend to find the dark side of stuff, eh? You mean me and Roy both, don’t ya?

As usual, you’re too funny, Mike. Sometimes it’s really just a matter of connecting a couple of dots and next thing you know the dark side can be staring us right in the face so that it’s impossible to ignore. Or maybe it’s just a gift?

BTW, who was the designer of your Evolution Acoustics speakers you so highly tout?

 

[Mike Lavigne]

I tend to find the dark side of stuff, eh? You mean me and Roy both, don’t ya?

As usual, you’re too funny, Mike. Sometimes it’s really just a matter of connecting a couple of dots and next thing you know the dark side can be staring us right in the face so that it’s impossible to ignore. Or maybe it’s just a gift?

BTW, who was the designer of your Evolution Acoustics speakers you so highly tout?

figured you might not be offended, more entertained, by my comment. you are a serious minded person. i respect that.

the designer of my speakers also designed the original Von Schweikert VR11SE, VR9SE and VR7SE when he worked for Von Schweikert. he left there to join with your neighbor, Jonathan Tinn, to start Evolution Acoustics. his name is Kevin Malmgren. lives in San Deigo. he did the heavy lifting to finish a design Jonathan started years before and i even had a small part of listening feedback of that prototype. that became the MM3. then in 2012 Kevin designed my MM7's based on the MM3. i got the 3rd pair of those, the 2nd pair of the MM3's 7 years prior.

 

[ddk]

Because I get to hear all manner of streaming systems, I have a good idea of what streaming can sound like and it’s definitely at reference level these days. Recently I’ve heard my Rossini playing Qobuz and Tidal Masters on my Alexia 2s as well as Tidal and Qobuz on Hugh’s Select 2 with his Apex/Commander/Kodo system.

I find R2R sounds the best of all but to deny how far digital playback has come is not fair imho.

I'm not denying that consumer digital playback has come along since the 70's but take a step back and listen to some to physical digital media media including DAT, digital R2R and video tapes and compare them to streaming that you believe to be a high end standard. Of course we first have to figure out the streaming software/hardware combination you're thinking of .

FYI I get to hear quite a lot of the latest and greatest in digital too.

david

 

[tima]

My personal experience (independent of other's experience) is that the sq from streaming can be very fine (or "high end").

I encourage you and others to post your system in your profile and/or your signature.

 

[microstrip]

Hmm, streaming can be argued to be overly complex but to say that high end sound quality from streaming is not possible is off the mark.

High-end streaming can be complex because it is a developing technique.

I agree that analog has a collector aspect but please define tweak and ritualistic and what aspect of it is a requirement for analog audio or video playback? Is streaming digital files on a high priced streamer really sonically superior to redbook CDs played back on a high quality 20 year old player? It's 40 years since CD standards were introduced and much longer since the advent of digital sound should we at least have the so called high end format settled by now if it was there at all? Why is the reference standard that streaming strives to achieve is still analog? Be it reproduced or natural sound because nature is analog.

david

Some of my friends having high-end systems got turntables just for the ritual - going to a LP shop, buying something with a nice cover and playing it later at night.

Even my self I am attracted by such rituals - putting the LP on the turntable, handling the sleeve, checking the tonearm and lowering it. Surely more fun than clicking the iPad.

Quality streaming is very recent - no one was really aware of the issues with of streaming in the high-end. What is curious is that if you record a CD with the streamed content you will probably be more happy with it!

 

[tima]

David is a smart man. but he does tout a 5 figure cartridge which cannot be reliably purchased unless he personally inspects it, as the manufacturer cannot control quality. and mostly has it sent back to be fixed. like cartridge roulette.

I see others praising Master Sigs and Grand Crus and very little 'tout' from David -- certainly not as much as your own daily praise for this or that piece of gear that you own. Nothing wrong with that, you seem to enjoy telling your story.

David sells, sets up, and services audio equipment, including VdH cartridges. The fact that he inspects what he sells, serving as quality control for his customers is but one reason that buyers come to him for hand made bespoke items. His AS 2000 sold out quickly. His industry contacts and ability to get things done help many audiophiles. I appreciate his superb service.

 

[PeterA]

David sells, sets up, and services audio equipment, including VdH cartridges. The fact that he inspects what he sells, serving as quality control for his customers is but one reason that buyers come to him for hand made bespoke items. His AS 2000 sold out quickly. His industry contacts and ability to get things done help many audiophiles. I appreciate his superb service.

Tim, that’s a nice post. I’ve learned a great deal from David Karmeli. One of the most valuable lessons is how to properly set up a cartridge and tonearm. David provides this instruction for his clients who express an interest. They are then equipped with the knowledge of how to do it themselves. Knowing how to do this can elevate a system to a completely new level. Other dealers I have met are not nearly as generous about sharing their experience.

If there were more dealers and manufacturers like David Karmeli with his experience willing to help and not just sell boxes, I might be a little bit more optimistic about the future of the hobby.

 

[microstrip]

I see others praising Master Sigs and Grand Crus and very little 'tout' from David -- certainly not as much as your own daily praise for this or that piece of gear that you own. Nothing wrong with that, you seem to enjoy telling your story. (...)

Tim,

Mike is a contributor to this forum since long and most of us in WBF highly enjoy and praise his findings and the narrative of the evolution of his system. He is an enthusiast and IMHO WBF must thank him for his very frequent contributions.

 

[Alrainbow]

I think many are the contributors here excluding me of course lol. there is no audio god
in fact we each like our own even if it’s wrong
to make anyone who does the work as opposed to those who just post there own findings is in itself the making of an audio god concept
I love all posts and learn from all here , but there is no audio god in my world.
there is a saying never get close to your god it ends in exposing there ungodly faults

 

[Mike Lavigne]

I see others praising Master Sigs and Grand Crus and very little 'tout' from David -- certainly not as much as your own daily praise for this or that piece of gear that you own. Nothing wrong with that, you seem to enjoy telling your story.

David sells, sets up, and services audio equipment, including VdH cartridges. The fact that he inspects what he sells, serving as quality control for his customers is but one reason that buyers come to him for hand made bespoke items. His AS 2000 sold out quickly. His industry contacts and ability to get things done help many audiophiles. I appreciate his superb service.

if you step back and read my post for the point i was making, it was not in any way critical of David, in any way, shape, or form.

it was only relating the complication of a particular product he sells, to the point he had made a big deal about regarding the apparent complication of streaming and network optimization. and that once sorted out people love his fav cartridge, as they also do streaming. many things in the hobby are deep and require a bit of work to sort out.

you are making it much more of it than i did. my first words were to acknowledge he is a smart man. and i said nothing to temper that. David throws haymakers left and right at digital all the time. and i leave them be. i threw a marshmallow. a very narrowly focused marshmallow at that.

 

[ddk]

if you step back and read my post for the point i was making, it was not in any way critical of David, in any way, shape, or form.

it was only relating the complication of a particular product he sells, to the point he had made a big deal about regarding the apparent complication of streaming and network optimization. and that once sorted out people love his fav cartridge, as they also do streaming. many things in the hobby are deep and require a bit of work to sort out.

you are making it much more of it than i did. my first words were to acknowledge he is a smart man. and i said nothing to temper that. David throws haymakers left and right at digital all the time. and i leave them be. i threw a marshmallow. a very narrowly focused marshmallow at that.

Mike,
QC standards of a cartridge brand are one thing and people also have many other choices touting an unsettled format which is struggling with it's most basic elements and even infrastructure after many decades as a high end standard is quite different. My haymaker as you put it is thrown at streaming and not digital in general and I haven't seen anyone contradict what I'm saying about standards of the medium.

david

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Mike,
QC standards of a cartridge brand are one thing and people also have many other choices touting an unsettled format which is struggling with it's most basic elements and even infrastructure after many decades as a high end standard is quite different. My haymaker as you put it is thrown at streaming and not digital in general and I haven't seen anyone contradict what I'm saying about standards of the medium.

david

technically the standards of streaming and digital are the PCM and dsd formats. you have silver discs, digital tape, files, streaming.......

transports, dacs and adc's. various interfaces. servers, i-pads, phones, storage devices. ethernet, fibre, USB, optical (various) and others for data transfer.

for analog.......

we now have how many pressing types? sizes? vinyl formulations? thicknesses? speeds? equalizations? and then there is tape.

cartridge types? phono pre approaches, SUT's, and circuits? arm types. tt's? OMG!!!!

can we count the stars in the sky?

over air FM?

standards, schmanderds.

let's just not even go down this road.

 

[tima]

if you step back and read my post for the point i was making, it was not in any way critical of David, in any way, shape, or form.

it was only relating the complication of a particular product he sells, to the point he had made a big deal about regarding the apparent complication of streaming. and that once sorted out people love his fav cartridge, as they also do streaming. many things in the hobby are deep and require a bit of work to sort out.

you are making it much more of it than i did. my first words were to acknowledge he is a smart man. and i said nothing to temper that. David throws haymakers left and right at digital all the time. and i leave them be. i threw a marshmallow.

Actually, no. You write "David is a smart man, but ... " which, regardless of your claimed intent, now that I read it again, strikes me as an obvious back-handed criticism. In effect you said he tout's unreliable cartridges. If your point was to draw similarities between the complexity of streaming and cartridges "which cannot be reliably purchased" in order to claim every format has challenges, then for me that did not succeed. You could have made that point without the ad hominem and a different example. A point, btw, so broad as to be pointless.

I'm not making more of this than you. There's a difference in consequences between someone who has customers and someone who does not - impugn his integrity or his products vs claiming a format you happened to spend big money on is sucky - no equivalence. I would expect more than haymakers.

 

[ddk]

technically the standards of streaming and digital are the PCM and dsd formats. you have silver discs, digital tape, files, streaming.......

transports, dacs and adc's. various interfaces. servers, i-pads, phones, storage devices. ethernet, fibre, USB, optical (various) and others for data transfer.

for analog.......

we now have how many pressing types? sizes? vinyl formulations? thicknesses? speeds? equalizations? and then there is tape.

cartridge types? phono pre approaches, SUT's, and circuits? arm types. tt's? OMG!!!!

can we count the stars in the sky?

over air FM?

standards, schmanderds.

let's just not even go down this road.

WHAT EXACTLY HAS CHANGED WITH VINYL PLAYBACK SINCE THE 50's?

david

 

[Gregm]

Well, 8 years later and after many dove into its entrails, all’s one should have to do is ask themselves, where is MQA today? Maybe I’m just psychic?

Purportedly the MQA team got a goodly sum of seed money in the beginning. Apparently that money ran out.
Closer to the original topic, I find that reviews (for the same type of product under test) are often indistinguishable from one another. Except when the reviewer hits upon the "exceptional", that is.

Or am I not paying enough attention to the text?

 

[jep123]

What IMO the industry should be worried about is that it will not manage to recrute younger people into this hobby. Their listening habits are very far from what we + 50 year olds grew up with. Now Iphones and streaming is what they are using and they don`t care much about the sound quality at all. To convince younger people to spend xxxxx money on a high end system will be an (almost impossible) challenge.

Is the high end audio business as we "older" people with the economy to fullfill our dreams (at least to a certain level...) know it dying with us? I predict unfortunately that it is. Slowly yes, but times they are changing. Like it or not.

 

[Al M.]

Mmm

What IMO the industry should be worried about is that it will not manage to recrute younger people into this hobby. Their listening habits are very far from what we + 50 year olds grew up with. Now Iphones and streaming is what they are using and they don`t care much about the sound quality at all. To convince younger people to spend xxxxx money on a high end system will be an (almost impossible) challenge.

Is the high end audio business as we "older" people with the economy to fullfill our dreams (at least to a certain level...) know it dying with us? I predict unfortunately that it is. Slowly yes, but times they are changing. Like it or not.

There seem to be a lot of young headphone audiophiles. It may not be our traditional idea of speaker-centric audiophile, but that's how things roll. It's just a different market. I started out as an audiophile with a headphone system as well.

 

[MarcelNL]

Did young people ever buy high end audio, mostly they are just starting to earn money and have other areas requiring attention (housing, kids etc) to spend their budgets on high end audio.

I suspect that high end audio is much like fine dining, you do not see many youngsters in a ** or *** Michelin level restaurant yet those are nowhere near at risk of going out of business judged by the reservation schedule.

 

[jep123]

Did young people ever buy high end audio, mostly they are just starting to earn money and have other areas requiring attention (housing, kids etc) to spend their budgets on high end audio.

I suspect that high end audio is much like fine dining, you do not see many youngsters in a ** or *** Michelin level restaurant yet those are nowhere near at risk of going out of business judged by the reservation schedule.

It is a big difference between spending USD 3-500,- at a restaurant than to spend USD 10.000,- on f. ex. a amplifier. Or much more... All this said, this hobby has given me (still does) much pleasure for the last 40 years +. I even read TAS, Stereophile and online magazines and find much pleasure in doing so. I hope I am wrong with my "predictions".