insanitybeard
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Post by insanitybeard on Sept 23, 2007 8:20:38 GMT
Just to diverge for a moment from the current debate, I would like to be able to listen to some of these expensive "high end" amps just to be able to decide with my own ears if they have anything more to offer.
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Post by gns on Sept 23, 2007 11:47:40 GMT
Just to diverge for a moment from the current debate, I would like to be able to listen to some of these expensive "high end" amps just to be able to decide with my own ears if they have anything more to offer. Don't they all? And that's the trap mate! Otherwise known as temptation. Many think the same, and it becomes an obsession. So much so, they actually buy one even if they can't afford it! Then, when they're let down, they lie about it sounding good to protect their pride - but that leads the next person into the trap. And here we are in the UK with one trillion GBP total personal debt.... ;D
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insanitybeard
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Post by insanitybeard on Sept 23, 2007 12:24:23 GMT
An excellent point Graham. Sadly you can't just walk into a shop and have all these amps or whatever lined up that you can listen to and form your own decision, which makes honest, impartial reviews so important (and hard to find due to people in the industry protecting their own interests). People (generally) don't settle for what they have, they can't help but want to see if there is "better"!
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Post by dc on Sept 23, 2007 12:41:37 GMT
yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm going to buy a green solo soon
but I still wonder how it compares to the GS-1, Lisa III, Black Cube Linear, Talisman, and some of the open source designs available through DIY such as kevin gilmore or phil larocco
I'm waiting for Miguel's green solo to get around to his buddies and see how they comment
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rowuk
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Post by rowuk on Sept 23, 2007 12:42:46 GMT
Insanity, how could you make that decision in a store? A wine tasting only is the tip of the iceberg. Decisions between two fine amps or bottles of wine requires a great deal of time. Your emotional state even changes your hearing/tasting.
A couple of hours in the store in an unknown environment, with all sorts of distractions will not bring you closer to nirvana.
Quiet, candles, cheese, a good wine and an hour of headphone can make any weaknesses in the chain VERY audible. The urge to tap your feet, excitement are good signs. Falling asleep or turning the volume DOWN are not good signs! Trust your own ears!
Finding people that you can trust and going to concerts are things that increase your awareness of what is necessary. Nirvana has nothing to do with slam, black or broad. It has to do with reproduction so natural that NOTHING sticks out.
I have been lurking here for 6 months or so. I think Graham is on to something............. I think Pinkie is on to something and it doesn't sound like 4 figures! THAT is exciting!
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 23, 2007 16:35:09 GMT
Divergent points of view and trying to pinpoint mine on this particular thread on "high end". But, I've got it back!
Fun.
I have fun finding the best sound for my ears within a specified budget. No wifey, just the dog and me, and she likes music, so there you are.
I'm having a blast investigating products and manufacturers. Yes I have 3 headphone amps, glad I got the chance to live with them. The Slee is staying, it's that good. The X-Cans v.1 I'll keep and do the Pink Floyd kit, I love tubes. The AudioAlchemy gets a trip to RAM here in Detroit Michigan, to have Doug Jesse's magic wand waved over it a bit, along with my soundcard.
It's not a business for me, I'm not edgy about other people's concepts of style or price, popularity or criticisms. I doubt I would have found Andrew Rothwell's magnificent preamp without digging around in this hifi world. I came to Rock Grotto because of the fun it seemed Mike was having working with Graham on developing the Solo and Mike's gracious willingness to help me get my X-Cans in order. It all seemed like such good fun to be a part of this, here.
Fun, gentlemen and gentleladies. I'm having the time of my life, finally, and the music I'm hearing through the Slee and the AT's is the best I've heard, yet.
John
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Post by serverbaboon on Sept 23, 2007 20:33:29 GMT
The only place you can hear HI End a lot of the time is at a HiFi show and unfortunately many a time it can lead to intense disappointment. I have been to several in my time, walked into a room with £100K worth of Kit (eg Rockport, Mcintosh) and walked back out almost immediately upon being greeted with a flat, sometimes aggressively forward bland HiFi 'Music'. Listened to excuses along the lines of, the room's wrong, the electricity is wrong etc. If I have paid £100K for Hi End amplifiers I would hope the manufacturers would have spent some effort on the power supply filtering so that it would sound good anywhere.
Having said that I have heard a £100K system made up of an SME10 and some Japanese valve exotica on the end of a bunch of batteries that sounded fantastic, Jimmy Hendrix was alive and well in a hotel room in Manchester. It's for these fleeting moments that as a glutton for punishment will yet again be visiting a Hifi show in Manchester next month.
Looking at my hifi rack only pieces of my kit I have actually heard at a Hifi Show are my Gyrodec and GS phono stages! The rest have I heard at hifi dealers who let me audition at home, it is the only place to audition hifi in a relaxed atmosphere. My speakers have not actually ever been reviewed (in the English language) I just heard them in the shop tried them at home.
HiFi reviews can be useful as a pointer to the expected 'sound' of kit but I think you always need to get as many reviews a possible to balance out any 'partialities' of a reviewer. There is a particular brand that gets a favorable on one of the hifi mags yet I queried the brand with someone who used to be a dealer he advised me against them as they tend to be rather forward.
I have over the years found forums, user reviews as the best pointers to start from but your own house and ears the best place to end with.
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insanitybeard
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Post by insanitybeard on Sept 23, 2007 21:13:36 GMT
Rowuk, very valid points. The trouble is where does that leave somebody who cannot resist temptation? If a piece of equipment has to be in a listeners possession for a good while before any meaningful opinion can be formed about it what do they do? Buy it and opt for a live and learn approach if it is less than they expected? I agree entirely that good sound doesn't have to cost the earth.
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Post by PinkFloyd on Sept 23, 2007 22:00:29 GMT
One thing's for sure...... you will never get close to a live performance however much you throw into a system. I bet everyone here has been to one live concert or more and I bet none of you have ever heard a live gig that comes remotely close to the stuff we listen to at home and call "Hi-Fi". Live stuff is full of distortion with everything driven into overload..... the type of sound an "audiophile" would class as "awful" if it was reproduced the same way it was at the gig through their uber expensive wankfest of components. These people who say "it sounds slightly bright to me" and want to tone everything down to a warm rose tinted pleasing sound have obviously never been anywhere near a live show! In fact, listening to music on your car audio system on full blast with a touch of distortion is a lot more true to a live concert than listening to the same piece of music on a £10,000 system which is hardly breaking into a sweat. Think about it....... drive along in your car with your el cheapo car system firing out distorted sound and what are you doing? You're either singing along or tapping your foot (your left one obviously!) You're not thinking about the system (after all it's just a cheap car radio) you're just engrossed in the music. Now go home, sit down and listen to the same piece on your uber expensive system and you'll find you spend most of your time picking fault with the system or trying to improve the sound.... I find "audiophiles" spend very little time actually listening to the music and spend more time rubbing their chins with a puzzled look on their face. I have yet to enter ONE Hi-Fi shop where the staff look like they actually enjoy what they're selling.......... They are usually smug bastards with a knowing look on their faces and look at you like you're a piece of shit that's just found its way off the pavement into their glorious "demo room" I can honestly say, in 30 years of visiting these joints, that I have never come across staff that are dancing about or tapping their toes enjoying the music that's coming out of their "top of the range" demo systems..... they are generally a bunch of miserable, smug, stuffed shirts. Now surely if the sound was as good as some of them claim it to be these guys would be in wonderland demoing all this gear.... you'd think that would be the case wouldn't you? Truth is it sounds lifeless, boring, processed..... anal even. It's all to do with "prestige" in these joints and has bugger all to do with reproducing music accurately, as I say by the look of the staff I've encountered over the years they spend most of their time working in these "boutiques" and the rest of the time jacking off to girlie mags...... and these pilchards are advising people on what sounds good? do me favour! As a previous poster said..... get out and listen to some live music and use that as your reference point, a few classical concerts are recommended so you get to know what an actual bassoon sounds like and what a timpani sounds like in "real terms"... It still amazes me how many "audiophiles" haven't even been to their local pub to hear a live band and they obviously have never heard live music going by some of the utter crap they spout. I play trumpet too, or should I say "played" trumpet... I started with a cornet, went over to a flugel horn and finally settled for a silver boosey and hawkes trumpet when I was in a brass band back in the seventies (showing my age there!) I progressed from third trumpet to second trumpet and finally made it to solo trumpet. Along the way I dabbled with euphonium, drums and trombone (being in a band you just have to try everything ) and when I left the band went to violin lessons and even dabbled in guitar..... I'd like to think I can tell the difference between a well primed French Horn and a euphonium on a good recording and not just say "the BRASS section sounds brassy" If there was a competition for "new member of the month" then rowuk would win hands down. What he is saying is 100% spot on.
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Post by PinkFloyd on Sept 23, 2007 22:18:18 GMT
Note: One size fits all, since one size is all that it comes in and only one pattern in a Marxist world. SHIT! I ordered "extremely large" with a view to cutting it in half, wearing one half and selling the other half as a "large"..... this way I get a free T-shirt...... I'm obviously not a Marxist
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insanitybeard
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Post by insanitybeard on Sept 24, 2007 0:28:09 GMT
As you say Mike, no matter how hard we try or how much we spend we'll never reproduce a live event, just as a picture, though representative of a landscape (for example) conveys no sense of scale, dimension or texture. Ok, maybe there is a huge difference between reproducing audio sound and a visual scene but neither reproduction quite captures all of the original event.
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Post by gns on Sept 24, 2007 1:34:34 GMT
One thing's for sure...... you will never get close to a live performance however much you throw into a system... Not wanting to cause an argument top buddy, but this guy reckons you can (with my gear that is)... I invested two and a half times my annual salary into the Reflex in both time and components, to beat my previous best (The Era Gold V), and make it RoHS compliant. And as the business simply doesn't have that kind of money, me neither, I did it by virtually working the clock round for two whole years. From my point of view the above is "Just-deserves". I am very grateful to Michael Fremer for "blowing my trumpet" again. I don't advertise with Stereophile, or have any other affiliation. Regular Rock-Grotto members may be a bit tired of having Graham Slee in yer face, but I'm getting a bit tired (at age 52) of waiting for the real break to come my way (after 42 years - I started when I was 10). I try to bring people the absolute best without taking the pish on prices. So if my brand of Marxism for the common man is so fecking revolting, well, there's no pleasing some folk...
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insanitybeard
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Post by insanitybeard on Sept 24, 2007 9:50:39 GMT
I am very happy with my green Solo Graham. Not quite so happy with my headphones, but then as I put in another thread, I fell for the "more I spend the better the sound" trap, and I don't mind admitting it. I am still learning. I am also sadly not immune to temptation.
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FritzS
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Post by FritzS on Sept 24, 2007 10:44:04 GMT
One experience I had some years ago - I visit Vienna the Autumn Fair with a great HiFi part and heared some HighEnd - so as JBL flagship loudspeakers with additional sub-woofers. The plaid big-band sound - wow ;D At afternoon I visit the parallel HiFi fair (in Scandic Crown hotel) and found some little loudspeakers named Rogers - much littler than JBL - but they make one "music" - natural and relaxed So I was cured from my mind - loudspeakers -> the bigger the better
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Post by serverbaboon on Sept 24, 2007 11:47:33 GMT
If you really want that live sound at home then we would all be listening in mono. Go to any pub, small concert venue or even some of the larger ones you get a load wall of sound with no stereo separation and wide sound staging at all. You are enjoying the atmosphere, feeling and energy of the moment. In fact some of the best concert experiences have been where the audience knowing the songs have sung along creating an atmosphere but it's not something I want at home.
The only types of concerts where I have heard any instrument separation at all are classical concerts and a couple of acoustic ones where little or no amplification is used at all.
I will qualify the above by admitting it's a long time since I have been to a large concert with decent sound quality.
What I want at home is what is on the studio album as close as possible, many a time the studio album bears little relationship with the live tour. Ok may of todays albums are mixed to be as 'in your face as possible' to make it sound exciting with zero dynamic range so that it can be played on car radios and mp3 players but I still want to get as close to what the artist wanted to put on the record, be in the studio as it were.
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insanitybeard
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My head feels like a frisby, like a football.....
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Post by insanitybeard on Sept 24, 2007 12:39:35 GMT
At risk of sounding like an idiot for contradicting myself, I agree with Serverbaboons' comments. Live music is of course different to studio music. Am I right in thinking that quite often studio music involves overlaying of various instruments/ vocals to create the track instead of all involved playing/singing together simultaneously?
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Post by serverbaboon on Sept 24, 2007 13:09:37 GMT
You get both, certainly for example the Later Beatles albums, Beach Boys are classics of the multi layered approach, I guess many of the eletronic/dance albums would be as well, but there are many of the band just 'playing' as well.
There are 'classic' live albums as well which I love which are different to the studio album they came from.
Some of my favourites ... Nirvana Unplugged, Portishead NYC, Bob Marley and Johnny Cash at San Quentin
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Post by PinkFloyd on Sept 24, 2007 13:59:34 GMT
You obviously haven't been to a Pink Floyd or Roger Waters show then? The sound is quadrophonic in parts and is extremely stereo in others...... I have experienced the "mono" scenario in very small venues like pubs and clubs but once you get into a bigger arena it is most certainly stereo (unless you've got your head in a bass bin or are sitting directly in front of a speaker) most definitely stereo!
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leo
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Post by leo on Sept 24, 2007 14:03:42 GMT
I thought Pink Floyd Pulse sounded great at Earls court
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Nigel
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Post by Nigel on Sept 24, 2007 14:15:11 GMT
There's some great venues for watching live concerts from a sound quality perspective, Manchester's Bridgewater Hall & Liverpool's Philharmonic Hall are two from personal experience.
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Post by PinkFloyd on Sept 24, 2007 14:17:40 GMT
I thought Pink Floyd Pulse sounded great at Earls court Beautiful sound Leo, I was there 2 nights in a row but for some weird reasone the plane didn't crash into the side of the stage on the second night Flamin' amazing show with half the audience smoking ganja, the vibes in that place were just spot on Most definitely not mono!
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leo
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Post by leo on Sept 24, 2007 14:31:21 GMT
Got to be the best I've seen! I went to the first one so was lucky The atmosphere was amazing! Others I've seen are Paul Simon, Jean Michel Jarre, Derrin Nuendorf and Eric Roche (one of his last before he died)
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FritzS
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Post by FritzS on Sept 24, 2007 15:15:03 GMT
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Post by serverbaboon on Sept 24, 2007 20:37:26 GMT
No not seen Floyd.
Bridgewater Hall is good, not just for Classical, saw some traditional Japanese drumming that was fantastic.
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rowuk
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Post by rowuk on Sept 24, 2007 23:34:20 GMT
High End to me is a playground for the partly informed. Vastly overpriced kit designed to kindle the eternal search for the holy grail. Even if you have invested 200,000 Quid, you still have another 200,000 to go, only to realize that your interconnects still are not optimal. ;-( The market for such things is very mature, most of the customers I would dare say not. If one can generate pleasure with projects never completed, there is no problem.
I think we need another term for systems designed to END the search, to give us a high level of lasting pleasure where the music and not the technology is paramount. I have a suggestion: LastFi. I am sure that there are many units that could qualify for LastFi. Any suggestions?
This type of equipment is not suitable for the X in ABX.
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