Yes, even high end nuts do have a budget!
In the twenty years I am professionally involved with Hifi, I never encountered a customer with endless resources...
So the best advice I could give is:
"Balance the budget, and only believe your ears."
One of the most common mistakes is to spend almost the entire budget on the speakers. Yes, it appears like they are making a lot of difference. But even the best speaker can not make up for the losses in the signal before its input. Because speakers are the most visible part of a system, they often take more credit (or blame ) than they should.
The Hifi system is often talked of as a chain, and as anyone knows, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.... ? Not completely !
The Hifi system is not a chain, its strength is not measured by the weakest link, but it is more like this game you play at the scouts, where you pass on a messages from one person to another. Any information lost in a previous component will never be recovered!
It looks like an audio chain is only as good or bad as the sum of its losses.
Back to speakers... See the point? What good is it to try to recover a signal that is mutulated before it enters the speaker?
So what are the components that can influence the sound? Below, we list the basic components of any system. In the next posts we will explore each of them, and possibly split them up in subparts.
- Recording : there is a whole book to write about how to make the perfect recording, but for a hifi chain the only thing that matters is the audio carrier (CD,LP,MP3) he holds in his hand.
- Source : the CD player, turntable, mp3 player
- Interconnect : the cable from source to amp
- Amplifier : the integrated or pre-amp that drives the speakers
- Speaker cable: cable from amp output to speaker
- Speaker
Next time you are visiting a shop to choose a new system, ask the sales guy what he is driving the speakers with. If you want to get the same result at home, you best bet is to take the whole setup home with you.
One last advice: avoid shops where they demonstrate 1.000€ speakers with 10.000€ on electronics. I have seen that happen! And it is a guarantee for disappointment after the sale.
If the sales person does not bring up the electronics as the main reason for the sound of such a system, he is trying to cheat.
So that is it folks. Next time I will discuss in more detail how to find your ideal system.
If you have any questions, or remarks, just let me know.
2 comments:
Nice ideas - could you inform us on the components & speakers you have used yourself, and give a short description of the pro's and cons?
Being a sceptical hifi-man, i cannot bring myself to believe that cables make all the difference (although i did notice that "flatcables" DID sound different), and seeing that you used to make your own cables, how are your ideas about this ? In my opinion, one would be better off resoldering the units completely with quality solder instead of spending ridiculous amounts on interconnects or speakercables... Since some time, I am in the process of discovering that 'vintage" or just plain old TOTL stuff is mostly equal or even better than some of the hi-end components the mags seem to be so full of nowadays.
Admittedly, speakers an most cd-players from long ago have been surpassed technologically, but has this resulted in better sound - in some cases i think not! Examples for this are for example the ess amt heil tweeters (for speakers) or the philips 950 or better yet the ultimate "silver crown Bitstream" DAC from Philips (for cd and anything digital.
Hurray for the comments on surround - it seems like blasphemy nowadays to propagate stereo in public, since surround (how much is it nowadays, 7+1, 9+1 ?) is still all the rage.
Thanks for the compliment. It is certainly good to be sceptical.
I am a trained Electro-Mechanical engineer, with electronics as a specislisation, just to inform you that I do not believe in fairy tales.
On the other hand I am not deaf, and if I hear something, that is proof enough to me.
I do not have to know exactly how it works, or even be able to measure it to acknowledge something.
It is not because you can not measure it, that it does not exist. Science will have to do a lot of research to catch up
with my empirical findings.
About cables. Indeed they are only part of the solution. They can never improve things...
If you solder them, you eliminated a lot of contact losses in the plugs, so if it is practical to do so...
Vintage is not bad at all. Electronics seem to become cheaper every year, but some things really have to be done right, and simply cost money.
Also, commercial influence is gaining, in stead of loosing ground.
So vintage in good condition can still be very good.
I do not really agree that CD player technology has been surpassed.
Since the 90's the limiting factor is mostly the CD format itself.
It may be that the mecahnics and laser of older players have deteriorated, so some caution is good...
I do have some vintage stuff for sale from my old shop. You can see it
at
http://www.2dehands.be/winkel/orpheo_highend
It is not possible for me to list all equipment I used and tested since 1987 when I started to really being interested in High End.
There are more than 100 brands I have tested hands on, over the 10 Year period I was a pro, and probably several hundred I listend to on shows over the years.
I will try to write a post on this subject later. You would have to look for second hand equipment to find most of them anyway.
For the moment, I thought people would be more interested in learning how to do these tests for themselves.
Do you want to hear about vintage equipment first?
Please let me know.
Post a Comment