O.T. - Hi Fi buffs - are they serious?

[alfonso]

Converters do the difference. Absolutely, not only for trained ears.

[Griffinator]

Originally posted by Dave Horne:

Griffinator,

 

<<>>

 

For one, there's a $450 price difference and a feature difference, but for the rest, I doubt if I could hear any difference. What are the specs on a cheap unit? Do they still publish specs for CD players? When I go to buy another player, I will only look for features, I won't even consider specs on a CD player. (I never checked the specs on the CD player in my computer ... does anyone?)

 

I'm sure there are differences, I would not want to bet my life's savings that I could tell the difference in a double blind test where two units matched to within 1/3 decibel, however. Would you care to bet your savings that you can tell the difference between two units in a double blind test?

 

The key phrase here is audible differences.

 

I remember reading a test on a first generation CD player where they hooked up a light to show when the error correction circuitry kicked in. The techs were amazed how many times the light came on. but they could not hear that anything had occurred.

You're really being argumentative here.

 

Guess what: A Spectrum Analysis will not reveal clock jitter errors, and clock jitter errors are the biggest audible difference between a $50 and $500 CD player.

[rylos]

Converters do the difference. Absolutely, not only for trained ears.

Also the filters, and the buffer amplifiers. It's not uncommon to take a CD player that brags on the front about how many times oversampling it has, pry off the lid, and find the cheapest, noisiest op-amp chips available.

[Dave Horne]

Griffinator,

 

<<>>

 

I'm not obsessed with all of this, but I've done a bit of googling and came up with this:

 

link

 

Test #1

I produced a 99th-generation versus 1st-generation audio test on Chesky Records' first Test CD. If jitter were accumulated on subsequent dubs, then the 99th generation would sound pretty bad, right? Well, most people listening to this CD can't tell the difference and there is room for doubt that there is a difference. It's pretty hard to refute a 99th generation listening test! [end quote]

 

I am sure there are _very subtle_ differences between units (not that I could hear it). I have a fantasy where I go into a person's home and replace the guts of their high end CD player with the guts of the cheapest model that's on sale at Walmart.

 

I know there are differences with cheaper units. I bought a cheap Philips CD player and it skips on every CD somewhere within the first two minutes on Track 1. I'm sure there's a rough surface on a worm gear that's the source of the problem - the problem is mechanical and not electrical, per se. It's out of warranty and I just live with it.

 

The quoted source from that web site makes an interesting statement, don't you think?

[ksoper]

I followed the link and got caught up reading many of the pages. It's a great resource.

 

I noticed, though, that the author supported my point in an earlier paragraph. Italics for emphasis are mine:

 

"A properly dithered 16-bit recording can have over 120 dB of dynamic range; a D to A converter with a jittery clock can deteriorate the audible dynamic range to 100 dB or less, depending on the severity of the jitter. I have performed listening experiments on purist, audiophile-quality musical source material recorded with a 20-bit accurate A/D converter (dithered to 16 bits within the A/D). The sonic results of passing this signal through processors that truncate the signal at -110, -105, or -96 dB are: increased "grain" in the image, instruments losing their sharp edges and focus; reduced soundstage width; apparent loss of level causing the listener to want to turn up the monitor level, even though high level signals are reproduced at unity gain. Contrary to intuition, you can hear these effects without having to turn up the listening volume beyond normal (illustrating that low-level ambience cues are very important to the quality of reproduction). Similar degradation has been observed when jitter is present. Nevertheless, the loss due to jitter is subtle, and primarily audible with the highest-grade audiophile D/A converters."

 

I'm convinced that the D/A converters in my $300 Sony DVD player are cheesy. The Denon CD player sounds better.

 

OK, I'm done now.

 

 

k.

[Slowly]

This is too funny, I just went thru this with my cousin-in-law last night. He has this ho hum stereo system, all connected together with "Monster Cables". I've been in the repair end of the business since 1979. How can those 'gold plated expensive cables' make up for the non-gold plated connections inside the source? Kcbass

[Slowly]

Originally posted by konaboy:

"Directional speaker cables" really get me! What's all that about? Can it really make a difference what direction you send a signal down a metal wire?

 

 

And what's the difference in sound between a $20 digital interconnect and a $100 high quality digital interconnect?

 

Baffled...

$80.00. Believe it or not, only a few manufacturers make all the equipment out there. The big difference is if they make the product for "Radio Shack", they might use a wire to make the connection, but if they make it for Sony, then they use printed circuit wiring. Now the printed wire should have less noise than the wired connection, if it's properly engineered. Cause you see, only Intel, Sanyo, Hitachi,and a few other manufacturers make all the IC's and transistors that everybody uses. Kcbass

[Griffinator]

And Crystal, and (the big difference maker) Burr-Brown...

[Botch.]

I get a kick out of this topic also. The last "Hi Fi" mag I looked thru included battery-powered (one AA battery) interconnect cable, 1.5 meter long, only $10,800! Speaker cable that put Monster to shame ($5,000/foot, with end treatments factory-installed to your specified length). The one I giggle the most at are the high-end AC cords; don't these people realize that the wire on the other side of the wall is standard power cord from Home Depot???

 

What I really wanna know is how to muscle into this rarified market with my own, super-secret products?

[Griffinator]

Funny you should mention that, Botch. One of the companies I rep for in my HT business is called XLO.

 

They sell speaker cable - no kidding - SPEAKER CABLE - that retails for $16,500 for a 15 foot pair. Over $500 per foot!

 

How do they justify it? Well, when you order one, it takes 5 weeks to ship, because they hand make it, and the owner of the company personally auditions it for approval prior to shipment.

 

If someone orders a set from me, I'm not going to stop them from buying it (I need to make money too!) but I'm damned sure not going to try and convince anyone that it's worth the extra bucks!

[rylos]

The one I giggle the most at are the high-end AC cords; don't these people realize that the wire on the other side of the wall is standard power cord from Home Depot???

And they sound better after you "break them in" by running them a few days.

 

While there could possibly be audible differences between cords when you use different AUDIO /SPEAKER cords, the only way to get a better sound from a better AC power cord is if you were originally using a cord so under-rated that the current you needed just couldn't get through.

 

Some claim that the fancy power cord will even make the other parts of your stereo sound better, that just plugging in the fancy cord affects the power clarity to all the other equipment.

 

And that using one of these power cords on your video monitor makes the video image clearer.

 

[realtrance]

It's funny, though, that we laugh at the audiophiles here yet get all caught up in heated conversation about analogue vs. digital synths.... (ahem).

 

rt

[Bobro]

Got a truly blind test the other day- not even aware it was a test!

 

What happened was this: been listening to a friend's hi-fi system, nowhere near ultra expensive but nice, for some time now.

 

The other day I came in and he was playing a CD that he's had in "heavy rotation" for a while. I was quite taken aback and thought, have I really been ill recently? seems like my ears just got drained of wax or something, sounds amazing!

 

Shocking difference- had a moment of actual concern about my ENT health. Nothing to worry about, though- he'd simply replaced his older $100 or so CD player with a new Marantz, about $300.

 

I've decided that controlled A/B and even A/B/X tests are always misleading because they are tests, and whether being a testee sharpens the subject's perceptions abnormally or generates subconcious nervousness that muddies all response, the results simply aren't, IMO, as important as long-term feeling or "out of the blue" impressions.

 

Thus spake Dave Horne:

 

I just gave a lesson to a woman, an adult probably about 40 years old or so, who is 'dabbling' in astrology. She asked what my sign was and I gave my usual answer, 'guess'. I gave her two guesses and she was wrong both times. Amazing.

That's a comment about the woman, not necessarily astrology in general. I've had an open mind about astrology since the day a woman, complete stranger, walked up to me and said, "Taurus...early May...3d or 4th?" 4th being correct.

 

Of course

that

might also be more about that woman than astrology in general, too- talking to her, I realized that she was in some heavy emotional state about the death of her husband (later it occurred to me me that she might have been in this state for many years, I foolishly assumed at the time that she was speaking of recent events). People in shock do far-out things physically, why not mentally?

 

File under "trippy, who really knows?"

 

Anyway, as far as hi-fi buffs- come to think of it, never met an "audiophiliac" of the kind that shows up in the magazines, nor heard such a "voodoo" hi-fi system, so I simply cannot say.

 

"Real life for mere mortal musicians" stuff, like differences in placement and types of studio monitors, is both concrete enough and open to opinion enough to keep me entertained without going microscopic.

 

However, at least one musician does agree with

me that songs played back from the DAW do sound better when I hit the space bar with my toe and not my thumb. And no I'm not kidding- but it's obviously about altering the listeners,

not the gear.

 

-Bobro

[Superbobus]

Finally I got myself some decent hi-fi gear together (and no, I don't have the money to ALSO buy studio monitors for that, Klipsch will work for me).

The stuff contains an NAD amp, an NAD CD player and a Yamaha tape deck, bought in a week's decision.

For me, it just has to sound good. I don't believe in all that handmade speaker cable BS. OK, maybe I can hear it's slightly better, maybe it's measurable, but is it worth the bucks? Not for me...

Some people are thinking for more than half a year before they go for hi-fi. Am I missing something?

Some hi-fi just plain sounds good and if you want to get better results, you have to pay more than twice the amount of money. Am I missing something again?

[Dave Horne]

Bobro,

 

<<>>

 

You've got amazing aural memory! Most tests that have any substance employ switchers that instantly switch between the two sources. For you to hear such an improvement without an immediate comparison is amazing to say the very least. Amazing!!!!

[Superbobus]

Well, it was the set of a friend. Maybe he came there more often, at least I do have a picture in my head of how the set of one of my best friends sounds. What's up with the sarcasm?

I think speakers, the amp and the CD player can make quite a difference in sound, especially in the low and mid end range, but all this high end BS and cable crap...

[Griffinator]

Dave - I do need you to understand that I believe in diminishing returns.

 

While I've no doubt that there is a sonic difference between a $50 player and a $500 player, I'm not convinced that there's much of a difference between a $1000 player and a $5000 player.

[Dave Horne]

Originally posted by Griffinator:

Dave - I do need you to understand that I believe in diminishing returns.

 

While I've no doubt that there is a sonic difference between a $50 player and a $500 player, I'm not convinced that there's much of a difference between a $1000 player and a $5000 player.

I'm not that convinced that there's much sonic difference between a $50 unit and a $5,000 unit. The specs are the cheapest units are absloutely amazing. Actually the specs on most equipment today (even the cheap stuff) are amazing. I'm sure there are measurable differnces and I'm eqully sure if I replaced the guts of one high end unit (either in a home or a store) and replaced it with the guts of a cheapo unit, no one would notice it.

 

That would make a great Candid Camera episode.

[Dave Horne]

Originally posted by Superbobus:

Well, it was the set of a friend. Maybe he came there more often, at least I do have a picture in my head of how the set of one of my best friends sounds. What's up with the sarcasm?

I think speakers, the amp and the CD player can make quite a difference in sound, especially in the low and mid end range, but all this high end BS and cable crap...

Were you aware that he had purchased a new CD player?

 

I think a change of speakers would make the most noticeable difference in sound.

 

Any well made amp will sound the same as any other well made amp in its power range.

[alby]

Originally posted by Dave Horne:

I'm not that convinced that there's much sonic difference between a $50 unit and a $5,000 unit. The specs are the cheapest units are absloutely amazing. Actually the specs on most equipment today (even the cheap stuff) are amazing. I'm sure there are measurable differnces and I'm eqully sure if I replaced the guts of one high end unit (either in a home or a store) and replaced it with the guts of a cheapo unit, no one would notice it.

 

That would make a great Candid Camera episode.[/QB]

I tend to agree with Dave. But what I found with the cheap no name chinese stuff from Tandy is that the reliability is an issue. I bought a $170.00 Aus DVD player for Tandy and had to return it twice. (Mind you each time I took it back it had droped $20.00 in price, and I kept on getting money back!).

 

When it went the the third time, I traded it for a Sony, and paid the difference.

 

regards

alby

[Superbobus]

Originally posted by Dave Horne:

[Were you aware that he had purchased a new CD player?

 

I think a change of speakers would make the most noticeable difference in sound.

 

Any well made amp will sound the same as any other well made amp in its power range.

Of course I was aware of that. I'll be glad to hook my soon to be delivered NAD stuff up with my fucked up Philips speakers, before connecting it to the real deal.

IMO, there must be a difference between a $50 and a $500 amp or CD player. I mean, what's the reason for this price difference? I't cannot be only the name. Have you ever tested it yourself? I didn't try all of that, but for sure the NAD at least feels much more reliable and solid than any cheapo stuff. And an old borrowed Sony CD player gave already more warmth to the sound than my really cheapo Philips player (nothing against Philips, I just have the really cheap stuff which at least worked for fifteen years). I'm curious if you have tested this yourself, because IMO it's pretty blunt to make a statement like that without having this tested yourself.

What amazes me - again - is the real high end stuff, the fact that people are willing to pay thousands of dollars for very small advantage.

[DanS]

And then you put Rush's Vapor Trails in your $70,000 CD player and wonder what the phuck happened?????

[MurMan]

Reading some of these posts remind me of Phil Hendrie's radio act about the guy selling "Y2K-compliant jumper cables" for your car.

 

A serious comment: A problem with comparing the $50 CD deck with the $500 deck is that the $50 deck might have been a $500 deck a few years ago. Seems to me that it's useless to compare nameless technical devices organized by price.

[alby]

Originally posted by MurMan:

 

A serious comment: A problem with comparing the $50 CD deck with the $500 deck is that the $50 deck might have been a $500 deck a few years ago. Seems to me that it's useless to compare nameless technical devices organized by price.

And if you scale this up, your $10,000 investment in serious Hi Fi, may be worth nothing in 10 years time. A friend of mine had what looks like an expensive quadraphonic Hi Fi system, and he just bought a $100.00 dvd player to add to it, so he could play DVD's.

 

At least my alpha Juno 2 is still worth a couple of hundred bucks, and I can still play it!

 

Regards

alby.

[Bobro]

Originally posted by Dave Horne:

Bobro,

 

<<>>

 

You've got amazing aural memory! Most tests that have any substance employ switchers that instantly switch between the two sources. For you to hear such an improvement without an immediate comparison is amazing to say the very least. Amazing!!!!

Actually, when I stay away from the liquor for an extended time, I do have a strong "absolute" aural memory. This is not a boast, for years it was just as much, or more of a, hinderance to my musicianship as benefit.

 

But in this case, it was a matter of shear drill-first it was Moloko "Statues" 10 times a day for a week, then Jimmy Tenor about his mind being an open book for ya baby at the same rotational rate The really amazing thing would be to NOT retain an aural memory, LOL.

 

I must admit that big changes in weather/humidity have caused very similar double-take reactions on my part to familiar sounds.

 

BTW "Statues" by Moloko is a fine album IMO.

 

Have heard a 6,000$ CD player integrated into a fine very custom setup several times and I did NOT get that "floating on golden syrup" feeling of ... liquid stability as I have experienced when hearing LPs played on very expensive turntable systems. I mention this because a similar sensation does happen sometimes with 32/48 stuff coming out my DAW through ADAMs and it seems reasonable to expect the sensation of a pricey CD player.

 

-Bobro

[Griffinator]

Originally posted by Dave Horne:

Were you aware that he had purchased a new CD player?

 

I think a change of speakers would make the most noticeable difference in sound.

 

Any well made amp will sound the same as any other well made amp in its power range.

That's kinda the point that you're missing, Dave.

 

No, amps don't sound the same. Any home audio enthusiast will, for example, tell you that Yamaha HT amplifiers are noticably "brighter" than anything else in their class. Hence, most Klipsch enthusiasts go for Denon, Harmon Kardon, or Marantz amps for their K-Horns, because Klipsch speakers are already bright.

 

Back to CD players:

 

Do you really believe, for example, that a Behringer A/D/A box is going to sound the same as an Apogee?

 

Do you believe that a Samson amplifier will sound the same as a Crown?

 

Or perhaps you'd subscribe to the idea that a Peavey mixing desk will sound just as good as an SSL?

 

C'mon, Dave. You're smarter than that.

[burningbusch]

I agree with Scott on this. There is a lot of crap on the low end. Whether it's simply the best quality they can provide that this price point or they do it intentionally in order to upgrade you, I don't know.

 

Amps can make a huge difference. I learned this way back when. I had been using a Peavey CS800 and thought I'd try a Yamaha P2100 (I believe). I was amazed at how much tighter the bass was plus better high end. It had less power so it distorted sooner, but it was a much better power amp.

 

It seems that you have to get to a certain price to get quality, then after that you can pay extraordinary amounts of money to find only marginal improvements (or no real improvement at all).

 

I've got an in-law who is into this and it's hilarious to see the amounts he pays and what he gets for it. Value isn't the goal, it's bragging rights or some thing else.

 

Busch.

[coyote]

This high-end audio thing is a mutation of the 90-50 rule. But in this case, with today's low-end stuff you're 97.5% of the way there while spending 1% of the money. A $700 system will give you a wonderful listening experience. Spending $70,000 on a stereo is obsessive, and perhaps borders on insanity.

[Superbobus]

Originally posted by Griffinator:

[No, amps don't sound the same. Any home audio enthusiast will, for example, tell you that Yamaha HT amplifiers are noticably "brighter" than anything else in their class. Hence, most Klipsch enthusiasts go for Denon, Harmon Kardon, or Marantz amps for their K-Horns, because Klipsch speakers are already bright.

I thought they were much more "open" than the speakers I heard in there. The other speakers sounded boxy and closed compared to the Klipsch's.

I'm curious how they will work with NAD. I went for NAD because of the advice of lots of other people who know something about this stuff, because of the simplicity and because it has huge bang for the buck. You know if this combi will work? They need a little added warmth, but I'm not gonna spend a fortune on that, so I hope it will work. If not, I can change within eight days.

[Dave Horne]

Originally posted by Griffinator:

Originally posted by Dave Horne:

Were you aware that he had purchased a new CD player?

 

I think a change of speakers would make the most noticeable difference in sound.

 

Any well made amp will sound the same as any other well made amp in its power range.

That's kinda the point that you're missing, Dave.

 

No, amps don't sound the same. Any home audio enthusiast will, for example, tell you that Yamaha HT amplifiers are noticably "brighter" than anything else in their class. Hence, most Klipsch enthusiasts go for Denon, Harmon Kardon, or Marantz amps for their K-Horns, because Klipsch speakers are already bright.

 

Back to CD players:

 

Do you really believe, for example, that a Behringer A/D/A box is going to sound the same as an Apogee?

 

Do you believe that a Samson amplifier will sound the same as a Crown?

 

Or perhaps you'd subscribe to the idea that a Peavey mixing desk will sound just as good as an SSL?

 

C'mon, Dave. You're smarter than that.

I stand by my remark that a well made amp has no color (guitar amps are excluded from that).

 

BTW, the amps I looked at online are of the rack mount touring flavor and those are really the amps I was referring to when I made the statement re 'well made amps'. (Actually, I should have written - well designed amps.

 

There are measurable differences between a Crown tank, a Carver, a QSC, and a Mackie amp, but those differences are not sonically important.

 

Just for the hell of it, I went to QSC\'s web site because I own a QSC amp, a Powerlight. All of their Powerlight amps have a frequency response of at least 20 - 20k plus or minus 0.15 dB. That's flat, there ain't no color there.

 

I went to Yamaha's site to look for those HT amps you mentioned, but could only find the 'H' amps. That series amp has a frequency response of 10 - 50k + 0 dB, - 1 dB ... that's flat. (I would bet that if they just posted the specs from 20 - 20k, it would be about the same as the QSC amps.

 

You mentioned that a specific Yamaha amp was bright. Would you mind backing that up with a link to a Yamaha site ... or to a Yamaha pdf manual that shows the frequency response specs. 'Bright' would probably mean more than a 3 dB deviation from flat in the neighborhood of 6 - 10K or so. Specs would back that statement up, correct?

 

re CD players - If you can hear differences between CD players, great, I can't. My next CD player will only be bought for its features - the specs for all of them are better than my hearing ... and I suspect, better than your hearing as well.