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Munich Hi-End

watchnerd

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I would be surprised, very surprised if that were the case in a blind test, but of course sighted, anything goes.

S.

On a concrete floor in a house with no foot traffic, I might agree with you.

But in a convention center with hundreds of people walking around? I dunno....

My TT (suspended type, Michell Gyro SE) sits on an Ikea Kallax, turned sideways filled with records, on a suspended floor. Adding the records adds a few hundred pounds / kilos of weight to the "rack" and makes the whole assembly less susceptible to room vibrations, either from music or people walking around.

Unlike cables, this doesn't require any magical beliefs, it's just another aspect of how to deal with mechanical energy in a TT. But it also doesn't require thousands of $$$$$.
 

stunta

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Tks

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Looks like they deliberately used cables longer than necessary just so they can put them on more lifters. Looks disgusting to me.

Likewise here. I really find no aesthetic value of not having most of these devices stacked in a column or two, and hading those wires.

This ordeal looks like some sort of radioactive land mine setup that needed exotic materials to be stable enough and be planted in the ground in such a configuration.

Why anyone would want a portion of their room littered like this is beyond me. Worst part being is this isn't something that's up against a wall, no, instead you have like 3 layers coming toward you for no reason at all aside from showing off lifters, and these insane cables a laymen might imagine what laying fiber under the ground might resemble in thickness..

It's simply telling that these companies will do ALL of this but they will not send these sorts of devices with these sorts of claims and practices under independent scientific review or testing.

I can find examples of plain unfurnished rooms that would inspire aesthetic emotional elation than some of these idiotic looking setups honestly.. This to me simply looks like someone dropped jewlry/limited edition gear all over the floor.
 

Juhazi

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Actually May is not at all the best time to visit München, five months later it's time for your lips to kiss yellow!
oktoberfest-munich.jpg

https://www.muenchen.de/int/en/events/oktoberfest.html
 
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watchnerd

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MattHooper

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Likewise here. I really find no aesthetic value of not having most of these devices stacked in a column or two, and hading those wires.

This ordeal looks like some sort of radioactive land mine setup that needed exotic materials to be stable enough and be planted in the ground in such a configuration.

Why anyone would want a portion of their room littered like this is beyond me. Worst part being is this isn't something that's up against a wall, no, instead you have like 3 layers coming toward you for no reason at all aside from showing off lifters, and these insane cables a laymen might imagine what laying fiber under the ground might resemble in thickness..

It's simply telling that these companies will do ALL of this but they will not send these sorts of devices with these sorts of claims and practices under independent scientific review or testing.

I can find examples of plain unfurnished rooms that would inspire aesthetic emotional elation than some of these idiotic looking setups honestly.. This to me simply looks like someone dropped jewelry/limited edition gear all over the floor.

I agree.

The "show every possible bit of technology" aesthetic one often finds in audiophile demos is a real turn off for me. That cable-strewn room is a disaster to my aesthetic senses, which aim toward neatness and subtlety. I prefer not to see all my equipment before me when listening. That's one reason why I have my rack of source/amps etc in another room, and just my speakers in the listening room, with cables hidden from view.

I was just listening at a friend's place and he's built a big new equipment rack for his equipment, which is placed between and behind his speakers.
I think the equipment rack is quite beautiful in of itself. My only problem is the placement between the speakers. I'm used to enjoying the sense of imaging/soundstaging at home where I have no distractions, but I find that a pile of equipment taking up visual space right where the "musicians" seem to be appearing is distracting.

So I do very much like some audio jewelry, but not placed where I'll be distracted by it. I like a very good looking pair of speakers, as I'll be looking at those a lot.
 

MattHooper

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The scientists and engineers here won't enjoy it so much as aesthetics aren't their focus. However, the visual artists and industrial designers here will most certainly be intrigued. And those of us who happen to fall into both camps (raises hand) will just feel conflicted... :rolleyes:

Ha. Yes.

That's actually one reason I personally can't restrict myself to pure "objectivist" discussion groups. I absolutely apprecite them, even need them, as respite from the eye-rolling b.s. that goes on in the subjectivist forums. So I go running to the objectivist forums to get a better grip on what's-what.
But I still simply love seeing and experiencing a wide variety of "audio viewpoints" in the form of varieties of equipment. I like all the different form factors, the designs, the different goals, engineering approaches, from sound to wacky. It often yields interesting suprises. (I'd never have predicted, for instance, that the woo-woo purveyors of Shun Mook, with their mpingo-disc filled ideas, would have produced one of the nicest sounding speakers I had heard! Even though I didn't take that to justify some of their wonky claims).

Honestly, when I spend too much time in a place like, say, Hydrogen Audio, it gets a bit dull or depressing. It's too arid for me, and the talk of equipment seems almost restricted to "look how modest my system is and how little I paid, while those idiot subjectivist audiophiles spent so much more!" You'd never see people talking about much of the equipment I find cool and compelling, especially speakers, because...well...that stuff is just stupid and overpriced so lets just stick to commodity-level performance gear. I get the rational, but it's just too dry and reductive and restricted for me; I enjoy the wilder west of different approaches.
 

watchnerd

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Ha. Yes.

That's actually one reason I personally can't restrict myself to pure "objectivist" discussion groups. I absolutely apprecite them, even need them, as respite from the eye-rolling b.s. that goes on in the subjectivist forums. So I go running to the objectivist forums to get a better grip on what's-what.
But I still simply love seeing and experiencing a wide variety of "audio viewpoints" in the form of varieties of equipment. I like all the different form factors, the designs, the different goals, engineering approaches, from sound to wacky. It often yields interesting suprises. (I'd never have predicted, for instance, that the woo-woo purveyors of Shun Mook, with their mpingo-disc filled ideas, would have produced one of the nicest sounding speakers I had heard! Even though I didn't take that to justify some of their wonky claims).

Honestly, when I spend too much time in a place like, say, Hydrogen Audio, it gets a bit dull or depressing. It's too arid for me, and the talk of equipment seems almost restricted to "look how modest my system is and how little I paid, while those idiot subjectivist audiophiles spent so much more!" You'd never see people talking about much of the equipment I find cool and compelling, especially speakers, because...well...that stuff is just stupid and overpriced so lets just stick to commodity-level performance gear. I get the rational, but it's just too dry and reductive and restricted for me; I enjoy the wilder west of different approaches.

High end audio seems to suffer from a conflict between appearance vs performance that doesn't afflict luxury cars.

Super cars have to both look amazing *and* perform amazingly.

But audio seems to have this strange inversion where one can get great performance from cheap gear and a lot of the good looking gear is nothing special from a performance POV.
 

MattHooper

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High end audio seems to suffer from a conflict between appearance vs performance that doesn't afflict luxury cars.

Super cars have to both look amazing *and* perform amazingly.

But audio seems to have this strange inversion where one can get great performance from cheap gear and a lot of the good looking gear is nothing special from a performance POV.

Absolutely.

But you can ALSO get fantastic performance from gear that is expensive and looks interesting/impressive/beautiful etc. I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
 

MattHooper

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You sure?


Yup.


The MBL 101 speakers, for instance, are a crazily original and distinctive design, I love their looks, they are very expensive. They have produced some of the most amazing sound I've ever heard from any loudspeaker.
 
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Purité Audio

Purité Audio

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It is a spectrum, unfortunately it seems that more and more that spectrum is tipped toward expensive ornament rather than Hi-Fidelity.
There are still some proper engineers around.
Keith
 
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Purité Audio

Purité Audio

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Yup.


The MBL 101 speakers, for instance, are a crazily original and distinctive design, I love their looks, they are very expensive. They have produced some of the most amazing sound I've ever heard from any loudspeaker.
They are just omni’s there are quite a few omnidirectional speakers around, for me they are little more than an effect, good for parties.
Keith
 

sergeauckland

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High end audio seems to suffer from a conflict between appearance vs performance that doesn't afflict luxury cars.

Super cars have to both look amazing *and* perform amazingly.

But audio seems to have this strange inversion where one can get great performance from cheap gear and a lot of the good looking gear is nothing special from a performance POV.
I'm not at all sure about that, as 'performance' is subjective. My judgement of 'performance' is great comfort and quiet. I like a car that 'wafts', so most of the 'supercars' are brash, noisy, uncomfortable things, I wouldn't give drive space to. They also have to be practical, so I can load lengths of 3x2 or 100 bottles of wine from France and take them home. A car that doesn't do that isn't a 'supercar' for me.

Audio, on the other hand, just has to work, preferably be 19" rack mounted so can be put away out of sight.

S
 

Confused_by_tech

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I am quite grateful that I found audio science review (by chance). It has freed me from audio bullshit (I’m not discussing aesthetic design) that has polluted the audio equipment industry much like the Exxon Valdez In Prince William sound.
1557608203451.jpeg
 

MattHooper

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They are just omni’s there are quite a few omnidirectional speakers around, for me they are little more than an effect, good for parties.
Keith

Sure. We totally disagree on that. I find myself mesmerized by their sound. Which is why I'm so glad there are people out there creating those types of speakers. I can't imagine why anyone would produce MBL speakers if they had your views, and I'm very glad the MBL guys have different views about the worth of such a design, and went all out to try to perfect their design.

This is what I mean: it seems to me if the pure "objectivist" attitude that I see in some places (especially Hyrdogen Audio) held the day, there are all sorts of held the day, products that I love that would never have been made.
 
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