Home Digital Drive

Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it.

RE: I was into hi-fi before you were born, RGA

Yes and now your an old deef boomer yelling at everybody to get off your lawn.

I can only afford $400 item X - anyone who spends more is crazy - they're getting ripped off by charlatans. You admitted you have hearing problems - you admitted your listening room isn't good. You posted a photo - yes it most definitely isn't good - you can have the best measuring gear on the planet and that room will not provide you with good measurements ANYWAY.

You judge things you have not heard. I get that in the sense that the measurements aren't particularly great but a remotely intelligent person says let's see - look at all the reviews globally and look at some Recording engineers - recording engineers who record/master for SACD. Not some local garage band but the biggest acts past and present.

Gee maybe if these guys who work with the best-measuring equipment day in and day out for 40 years - if these guys elect to go with it - maybe it is at least worth TRYING it once before I dump all over it.

I think I give a lot of gear a fair shake - gear that I don't like I try and try again. When I bought the KEF LS-50 it was after the fourth audition. Class D was unlistenable crap for 20 years but I kept on trying it and what do you know I liked one and bought it.

As for quantity of time in high-end audio, as Indian Jones once said - "It's not the years, honey. It's the mileage."

If one is going to judge the "technologies" one has to audition the best of those technologies - preferably more than one. Not just listen to "whatever I can afford that happens to be down the block from my house."

So you look around and see what is CURRENTLY viewed as the best of the various technologies. The stuff that maybe wins an award like a KEF LS-50 or the Audio Note E/SPX AlNiCo and you make an appointment at a dealer if necessary to audition one.

Granted I have a massive advantage living in Hong Kong where every day is an audio show but better than an Audio Show because they have had months and years to set up the rooms. So I can go and listen to a Magico or the new $30,000 Paradigms or top-of-the-line Focals or B&W Nautilus or Vivid Audios with D'Agostino amps, Magnepans, Quads, King Sound or an all Audio Note system or all Einstein system or Analog Domain or top of the line ARC or Benchmark or ATC or AvantGarde or YG Acoustics etc.

Have you auditioned ANY of these top of the range products?

If I want to give SS a try I am not judging all SS on whatever is at Best Buy this week. I read forums and some magazines so if several people are banging the drum on something I will spend the effort to go and listen to it. Sometimes I agree on Wyred4Sound, sometimes I don't like Bricasti.

And yet if I am at a dealer I will still give the Bricasti another try because maybe the speakers were the problem or it just wasn't a good match.

I no longer try to comment on any piece of gear unless I have auditioned it three times in three locations with three different systems. And those three locations can't be just audio Shows 1/3 can be an audio show.

So when I find that a Quad ESL lacks dynamics it's because it exhibited that issue at a couple of shows, a couple of dealers, and a person's home - with Class PP tube amps, Class A SS amps, with class A/B very high power SS amps, with a SET amp, With class D amplifiers.

So the speaker exhibited somewhat early compression with all of them. The sounded the best with a 27-watt SET Wyatech Labs 211 integrated amp. Good luck most anyone would try that combination. Second-best was the Audio Note OTO Push-Pull. Sugden was also quite good as was Quad's own Tube amplifier (Designed by Audio Note's chief engineer Andy Grove) Quad liked Audio Note's sound so much they hired him away from Audio Note to make their anniversary amplifier.




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  • RE: I was into hi-fi before you were born, RGA - RGA 01/9/2216:41:44 01/9/22 (0)

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