High-end audio experiences for little money

[Romario]

But then again, a Lamborghini is not just an expensive Volkswagen with a tuned Audi engine. Or is it?

The distinction is hard these days.

A Lamborghini is just a status symbol. No one has a use case for a Lamborghini (I'm just kidding)

 

[Ropeburn]

A Lamborghini is just a status symbol. No one has a use case for a Lamborghini (I'm just kidding)

You say you're kidding, but in the real world this was just as fast as any Lambo:

Germany. The mythical land of utter Roman defeats that made the old empire weep like "Varus, give me back my legions", ahem I mean hyper family wagons of course. 1000hp Quattro for the affluent middle class dad, including Isofix™ kid seats. Unlike those slowpoke Italian so-called "supercars"...

 

[Pearljam5000]

These cars are irrelevant anyways in the age of EVs costing a lot less and being as fast or faster

 

[Romario]

These cars are irrelevant anyways in the age of EVs costing a lot less and being as fast or faster

But not in the 24 hours of Le Mans. I think we derailed a bit haha.

 

[Mart68]

These cars are irrelevant anyways in the age of EVs costing a lot less and being as fast or faster

Until you're sat at the roadside for an hour or so charging it back up and Mr Petrol sails on past you.

 

[Romario]

Back on topic. The thing I wondered about affordable hifi is when something measures good, like the Fosi V3 mono blocks, why do I see within a year that someone wants to upgrade from that. Is that because the stuff is not as expected or are expectations on " better" equipment is price related?

 

[Pearljam5000]

Back on topic. The thing I wondered about affordable hifi is when something measures good, like the Fosi V3 mono blocks, why do I see within a year that someone wants to upgrade from that. Is that because the stuff is not as expected or are expectations on " better" equipment is price related?

Measurements aren't everything

 

[Waxx]

My office setup was for a long time a pair of old but exellent Goodman Mezz SL speakers (75€ second hand + about 20€ to fix the filter), an (now old type) SMSL amp (50€) and my laptop as source (with inbuild dac). That worked quiet well for a secondary system. I replaced the Goodmans with own design and build speakers and there is an old Cambridge Dagmagic dac now between the laptop and the amp that is now my trusted Marantz PM5004. The dac and the amp come from my main system that now has a MiniDSP flex and a pair of Ncore amps. The goodmans are spare speakers and the SMSL amp moved to my workshop (driving some old Philips speakers now).

And that is how i keep it relavtive cheap, gear moves to other places or get sold to finance new gear. I started with second hand gear (i traded in it for years) and when i got a bit money i bought well studied gear. I knew that SMSL amp was a gem, even if it was cheap chinese before ASR was arround to measure it. The first one died pretty soon (in waranty), but i got a new one for free that works flawless almost a decade from the seller. But it was very cheap, so the loss of it would not have hurt that much. I originally bought it to have a small mobile amp to test speakers. I had an old gainclone amp before that, but it was to heavy to carry arround everywhere as it had a linear psu with a transfo.

 

[Purité Audio]

Measurements aren't everything

 

[Karmacoma]

Back on topic. The thing I wondered about affordable hifi is when something measures good, like the Fosi V3 mono blocks, why do I see within a year that someone wants to upgrade from that. Is that because the stuff is not as expected or are expectations on " better" equipment is price related?

You should ask that ''someone''. Must be for some practical reason I guess, and also, people just like to throw money and time at their hobby. I offered a V3 to a family member 2 years ago, he's still happy with it, the form factor is cheap, it heats a lot with the most powerfull alimentation block at high power but it works fine.

 

[JRowland]

it heats a lot with the most powerfull alimentation block at high power but it works fine.

I find it’s pretty easy to keep the heat down to just warm.

 

[digitalfrost]

I find it’s pretty easy to keep the heat down to just warm.

Did you simply lay some cooper heatsinks on the amps? Hahaha now I want some for my own.

 

[HalSF]

My current favorite hi-fi experience for little money is my setup for listening in bed without bothering my p̶a̶n̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ partner.

iPad Mini/Apple Music > Fosi DS2 DAC/amp ($60) > Truthear x Crinacle Zero:RED IEM ($65)

The last two of course I learned about from recent reviews here. The sound quality is ridiculously good.

 

[Keith_W]

Measurements aren't everything

You're right, there's also price, build quality, warranty, features, after sales support. But i'm not sure what you meant - would you be able to elaborate?

 

[Pearljam5000]

You're right, there's also price, build quality, warranty, features, after sales support. But i'm not sure what you meant - would you be able to elaborate?

I'm saying that I’ve heard good measuring speakers that I didn't like their sound, and other good measuring speakers that I did Iike their sound.
So it's not the most important thing to me

 

[drumphil]

I got a pair of Tannoy Mercury M1 speakers from the local recycling center for $15, and a Technics integrated amp/radio unit (can't remember the model, around 35 watts a channel if I remember correctly) from a church op shop for $20. That system served me well for a decade, and was all I had at home.

Best bang per buck I ever achieved in home entertainment. When I paid for them (speakers and amp) I was taking a gamble, expecting them to be broken, or just sound terrible, but they worked perfectly, sounded great, and gave me years of enjoyment.

I've heard more than a few systems with one or more extra zeros in the price tag that didn't sound as nice as that little system did.

When I finally got some decent KEF floor standing speakers, the Tannoy's became my computer speakers, until I gave them away to a friend when I got Neumann KH120's, which I'm looking at now, on either side of my computer monitor.

Now, I'll let go of the Neumann's when you pry them from my cold dead hands, but they don't come even vaguely close to the listening pleasure per dollar that I got out of those Tannoy's and that Technics amp.

 

[Talisman]

I find it out of place to include 20,000 euro speakers in a thread that asks for high quality at low prices. I don't think many can consider 20,000 euros a low price.
To return to the topic. I consider my bedroom audio system very high-performance and quite cheap.
Elac unifi 2.0 found at 350 euros a pair on amazon, douk A5 with integrated crossover at 110 euros and presonus eris sub 8 subwoofer at 189.
Total about 650 euros for a system that goes from 30hz to 20,000hz very well sounding

 

[drumphil]

I'm saying that I’ve heard good measuring speakers that I didn't like their sound, and other good measuring speakers that I did Iike their sound.
So it's not the most important thing to me

Doesn't really mean much unless you listened to them both in otherwise identical circumstances.

You might like the sound of a speaker with a dip at a certain frequency if the room/listening position results in a peak around that frequency.

That isn't a an issue of listener preference for a certain tonality, and doesn't mean that the things that influence your preferences can't be measured.

 

[Romario]

Doesn't really mean much unless you listened to them both in otherwise identical circumstances.

You might like the sound of a speaker with a dip at a certain frequency if the room/listening position results in a peak around that frequency.

That isn't a an issue of listener preference for a certain tonality, and doesn't mean that the things that influence your preferences can't be measured.

Well, the measurements of the electronics are quite clear ( to me). But speaker measurements are not so straightforward. I have a few speaker pairs, bookshelves, and alltough I can figure out what the tonality is by looking at measurements, still the more expensive ones sounds better. That is not on the dollar but more in a price range. What I can concur is that preference within that range determines a lot ( side grades) and that eq can't make them sound the same.

 

[Karmacoma]

I find it’s pretty easy to keep the heat down to just warm.

View attachment 446959

I found those heatsinks on Aliexpress for 20€. Nice to see it works.