Q) When does Steve Guttenberg like active speakers?

[garbulky]

lol. Well the ones he’s reviewed have been pretty positive. I don’t disagree too much with what he says about active speakers. I prefer to have as much choice as I can regarding amps. But I have heard super active speakers.
Some people like to trust the maker to perfectly match the speaker to the amplifier and design good active crossovers.
I like the idea of active crossovers but not enough to give up my freedom in separate amps.

For a secondary set up, I would have no problem choosing a nice set of active speakers.

 

[TC!!]

I only just found this video after owning the ARF-51s for a couple of months. Yes, I have the really expensive floor standers which sound exactly the same as the bookshelf version. It's a really long story but I got them half price from an audiophile who loved them at a show but in his £50,000 system couldn't beat out his £7000 speakers. So I got the floorstanders for less than the bookshelves with their stands.

My previous system had a 20 year old pre amplifier, Audiolab 8000c, 2 x 20 year old power amplifiers from Rotel, a pair of Q Acoustics 2050 floorstanders and a Cambridge Audio DacMagic getting music from my computer. Two years ago I upgraded the DAC to an Audiolab M-DAC and realised the rest of my system was holding me back.

I got interested in the speakers Elac where producing, then heard about the Navis bookshelves and started saving my pennies to get a second hand pair in a few years. When the floorstanders came up I had to jump at them. As I said I hadn't seen this video before but John Darko gave an identical review in terms of how good these speakers are at taking advantage of better quality sources, in particular better DACs:

I'm now very close to a system I'm going to stick with but my my final issue is due to problems with the USB input of the Audiolab M-DAC. Right now I use my Mac Pro with a USB3 card to feed it. I want to move to either a Mac Mini or a Ropieee to make use of Roon and listen to music without having to turn on my desktop computer. Any other USB source causes the M-DAC to produce popping sounds, there's a USB Buffer displayed on it's screen and when the buffer level drops you get a pop.

So this is how I found these forums, I heard about Topfield DACs and found more information here than anywhere else. I'm now really close to buying the Sabaj D5 as what I've read shows it has a good USB input and it has the balanced output I want for my speakers. The one issue I'm finding on this forum is a very negative attitude from some people towards the ability of a DAC to improve an audio system. The 2 reviews of the Elac show very clearly that these reviewers believe the sound from the Elacs was improved by upgrading the DAC feeding them. Should I listen to the reviewers or a couple of people on a forum trying to convince me a USB stick DAC is just as good as a £400 Sabaj D5?

There was a point in the video around 7:45 where he said the Elacs aren't revealing and I was close to walking away. I'm glad I didn't as he then came back to explain how much they'd changed with another DAC.

They were given a very poor review by Z but it's become obvious to me this guy likes super bright sound. The Elacs don't do that, but time and time again I put on a track that I haven't heard for a while and find myself listening to the whole album, they make me enjoy my music more than ever.

 

[watchnerd]

I only just found this video after owning the ARF-51s for a couple of months. Yes, I have the really expensive floor standers which sound exactly the same as the bookshelf version. It's a really long story but I got them half price from an audiophile who loved them at a show but in his £50,000 system couldn't beat out his £7000 speakers. So I got the floorstanders for less than the bookshelves with their stands.

My previous system had a 20 year old pre amplifier, Audiolab 8000c, 2 x 20 year old power amplifiers from Rotel, a pair of Q Acoustics 2050 floorstanders and a Cambridge Audio DacMagic getting music from my computer. Two years ago I upgraded the DAC to an Audiolab M-DAC and realised the rest of my system was holding me back.

I got interested in the speakers Elac where producing, then heard about the Navis bookshelves and started saving my pennies to get a second hand pair in a few years. When the floorstanders came up I had to jump at them. As I said I hadn't seen this video before but John Darko gave an identical review in terms of how good these speakers are at taking advantage of better quality sources, in particular better DACs:

I'm now very close to a system I'm going to stick with but my my final issue is due to problems with the USB input of the Audiolab M-DAC. Right now I use my Mac Pro with a USB3 card to feed it. I want to move to either a Mac Mini or a Ropieee to make use of Roon and listen to music without having to turn on my desktop computer. Any other USB source causes the M-DAC to produce popping sounds, there's a USB Buffer displayed on it's screen and when the buffer level drops you get a pop.

So this is how I found these forums, I heard about Topfield DACs and found more information here than anywhere else. I'm now really close to buying the Sabaj D5 as what I've read shows it has a good USB input and it has the balanced output I want for my speakers. The one issue I'm finding on this forum is a very negative attitude from some people towards the ability of a DAC to improve an audio system. The 2 reviews of the Elac show very clearly that these reviewers believe the sound from the Elacs was improved by upgrading the DAC feeding them. Should I listen to the reviewers or a couple of people on a forum trying to convince me a USB stick DAC is just as good as a £400 Sabaj D5?

There was a point in the video around 7:45 where he said the Elacs aren't revealing and I was close to walking away. I'm glad I didn't as he then came back to explain how much they'd changed with another DAC.

They were given a very poor review by Z but it's become obvious to me this guy likes super bright sound. The Elacs don't do that, but time and time again I put on a track that I haven't heard for a while and find myself listening to the whole album, they make me enjoy my music more than ever.

The reviewers saying the external DACs were better did not test blind.

Thus, it may be more imagined than real.

 

[TC!!]

The reviewers saying the external DACs were better did not test blind.

Thus, it may be more imagined than real.

Maybe but if you're saying may then it may be more real than imagined.

 

[watchnerd]

Maybe but if you're saying may then it may be more real than imagined.

Unless level matched and blind, you don't know.

Given how good some cheap DACs are, there is reason to be skeptical.

 

[BDWoody]

I only just found this video after owning the ARF-51s for a couple of months. Yes, I have the really expensive floor standers which sound exactly the same as the bookshelf version. It's a really long story but I got them half price from an audiophile who loved them at a show but in his £50,000 system couldn't beat out his £7000 speakers. So I got the floorstanders for less than the bookshelves with their stands.

My previous system had a 20 year old pre amplifier, Audiolab 8000c, 2 x 20 year old power amplifiers from Rotel, a pair of Q Acoustics 2050 floorstanders and a Cambridge Audio DacMagic getting music from my computer. Two years ago I upgraded the DAC to an Audiolab M-DAC and realised the rest of my system was holding me back.

I got interested in the speakers Elac where producing, then heard about the Navis bookshelves and started saving my pennies to get a second hand pair in a few years. When the floorstanders came up I had to jump at them. As I said I hadn't seen this video before but John Darko gave an identical review in terms of how good these speakers are at taking advantage of better quality sources, in particular better DACs:

I'm now very close to a system I'm going to stick with but my my final issue is due to problems with the USB input of the Audiolab M-DAC. Right now I use my Mac Pro with a USB3 card to feed it. I want to move to either a Mac Mini or a Ropieee to make use of Roon and listen to music without having to turn on my desktop computer. Any other USB source causes the M-DAC to produce popping sounds, there's a USB Buffer displayed on it's screen and when the buffer level drops you get a pop.

So this is how I found these forums, I heard about Topfield DACs and found more information here than anywhere else. I'm now really close to buying the Sabaj D5 as what I've read shows it has a good USB input and it has the balanced output I want for my speakers. The one issue I'm finding on this forum is a very negative attitude from some people towards the ability of a DAC to improve an audio system. The 2 reviews of the Elac show very clearly that these reviewers believe the sound from the Elacs was improved by upgrading the DAC feeding them. Should I listen to the reviewers or a couple of people on a forum trying to convince me a USB stick DAC is just as good as a £400 Sabaj D5?

There was a point in the video around 7:45 where he said the Elacs aren't revealing and I was close to walking away. I'm glad I didn't as he then came back to explain how much they'd changed with another DAC.

They were given a very poor review by Z but it's become obvious to me this guy likes super bright sound. The Elacs don't do that, but time and time again I put on a track that I haven't heard for a while and find myself listening to the whole album, they make me enjoy my music more than ever.

Sounds like you are putting together a very nice system.

Given your doubts, maybe a new post stating the question would get a bigger forum audience and a more complete set of responses. Sometimes posts at the trailing edges of long threads don't get the exposure a new post would.

It has certainly been covered before, but there are a lot of new people coming all the time.

Edit: please take this in the friendly spirit intended. You unintentionally started quite the exchange yesterday!

Also...no one said they were equal...just that the sound would be indistinguishable...

 

[TC!!]

Unless level matched and blind, you don't know.

Given how good some cheap DACs are, there is reason to be skeptical.

It's difficult to take your reply seriously when you were so quick to reply to my post that it's not possible you watched enough of the videos in the thread to see what the reviewers said. You had to instantly reply with the knee jerk, "BUT BLIND TESTING!!!"

 

[TC!!]

Sounds like you are putting together a very nice system.

Given your doubts, maybe a new post stating the question would get a bigger forum audience and a more complete set of responses. Sometimes posts at the trailing edges of long threads don't get the exposure a new post would.

It has certainly been covered before, but there are a lot of new people coming all the time.

Edit: please take this in the friendly spirit intended. You unintentionally started quite the exchange yesterday!

Also...no one said they were equal...just that the sound would be indistinguishable...

Hey, I'm the Rudy Giuliani of audio forums, hand grenade
Thanks for the reply and taking my post in the right spirit.

 

[BDWoody]

Hey, I'm the Rudy Giuliani of audio forums, hand grenade
Thanks for the reply and taking my post in the right spirit.

You are trying to answer questions...

Thing is, this ground has been covered so much, that people who have been here for very long don't have to keep debating it.

It isn't knee jerk to briefly explain why the claimed results are doubtful...because there are decades of study that tells us how easily our brains are fooled by internal bias of every kind and combination.

The only way to eliminate these biases is by controlling for them. Once you implement these simple controls, your results have reliable meaning. You don't need to watch a full video of faulty methodology to know it's faulty methodology.

Darko is not unknown around here... His job is to sell stuff.

 

[TC!!]

Your are trying to answer questions...

Thing is, this ground has been covered so much, that people who have been here for very long don't have to keep debating it.

It isn't knee jerk to briefly explain why the claimed results are doubtful...because there are decades of study that tells us how easily our brains are fooled by internal bias of every kind and combination.

The only way to eliminate these biases is by controlling for them. Once you implement these simple controls, your results have reliable meaning. You don't need to watch a full video of faulty methodology to know it's faulty methodology.

Darko is not unknown around here... His job is to sell stuff.

If someone's not going to bother taking time to watch the videos that were the main subject of the thread then why bother replying at all?
If he'd watched the videos and then said "OK, I see what they're saying but they can't be sure of those results without blind testing." then I'd be open to hearing what he has to say. Ignoring the main subject of the thread and still feeling the need to post seems like a knee jerk reaction, not a thoughtful response.

 

[watchnerd]

It's difficult to take your reply seriously when you were so quick to reply to my post that it's not possible you watched enough of the videos in the thread to see what the reviewers said. You had to instantly reply with the knee jerk, "BUT BLIND TESTING!!!"

I'd already seen the video before.

 

[TC!!]

I'd already seen the video before.

Both of them?

 

[watchnerd]

If someone's not going to bother taking time to watch the videos that were the main subject of the thread then why bother replying at all?
If he'd watched the videos and then said "OK, I see what they're saying but they can't be sure of those results without blind testing." then I'd be open to hearing what he has to say. Ignoring the main subject of the thread and still feeling the need to post seems like a knee jerk reaction, not a thoughtful response.

?

That is basically what I'm saying....

?

 

[watchnerd]

Both of them?

Yeah. They're not new.

The Navis video has been out for months.

It got promoted in Darko's newsletter ages ago.

 

[digicidal]

Once again it comes around to awareness. That's what @watchnerd and @BDWoody are getting at... it's not that there aren't perceptible differences necessarily - it's that most perceptible differences aren't actual ones (actual meaning "provable" in this case). Study patients given placebos have had real improvements in symptoms - especially where physical evidence assists in the delusion. This works even in many cases where the sham treatment/pill is made known to the patients (i.e not blind) - that's how good our brains are at finding things that aren't really there!

If you can reliably tell the difference in a foobar ABX between a WAV and a 320kbps AAC of the same track... then you might be able to determine a difference between two competently designed DACs of similar performance (although in most cases, the difference will be measurably far less than that comparison). Otherwise, it's the level, price, casework, brand, etc. that's governing the majority of any preference perceived. Of course, that's not an argument against striving to get the best performance possible for your budget - just that the differences are incredibly tiny and most are not audible at all. Especially in your average listening environment!

As an aside, I've had the Navis models on my very short list for some time... the only problem is I already have way too many speakers... so I either have to get rid of a few, or get my wife some nice jewelry first - before adding another pair to the pile.

 

[solderdude]

Why are people watching 'Steve Nichtsoguttenberg' videos anyway ?

 

[digicidal]

Why are people watching 'Steve Nichtsoguttenberg' videos anyway ?

I try to resist... but they just keep dragging me back!

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Why are people watching 'Steve Nichtsoguttenberg' videos anyway ?

I can't watch them. I just like to talk about them.

 

[solderdude]

I can't watch them. I just like to talk about them.

Don't you have to watch it before you can talk about it ?
Oh wait ... regardless what he says it is nonsense by default.

 

[ferrellms]

Recently I've been looking at active, preferably wireless, speakers as a possible replacement primary home system and something that surprised me is just how many audiophile speaker companies offer such products as well as the more professional monitor focused speaker manufacturers. KEF, Dynaudio, DALI, Meridian, Acoustic Energy and others all have offerings as well as the higher profile outfits who have really been pushing active speakers such as B&O. Which makes me question whether the audiophile micro-bubble inhabited by magazines and reviewers is an even smaller bubble than I thought and that the studious avoidance of active designs and continuing focus on passive designs and traditional components is not as firmly entrenched as I assume?

Promoting passive designs and traditional components is good for reviewers that need to obtain advertising and review samples of often over-priced and under-engineered gear and particularly good for dealers and manufacturers selling such silliness as cables, expensive amps, etc.

Active designs are better (not always, of course!) for a myriad of reasons that can easily be perused with a Google or two.