Hello ASR,
I recently visited a hifi dealership near me to demo the meze elite's. In which the resulting 3 hours I spent there led to a few conclusions made by the sales manager which I will be discussing here. I require assistance from others as I feel his statements directly oppose the opinions of others on this site.
One thing he told me was to not trust people on the internet for audio, but I NEED another source of opinion/guidance as he effectively is telling me to buy an expensive streamer for my setup such that in the future this setup would be able to support everything.
We mention 'future' as I'm a young audiophile, 19 and currently do not own any CD's and listen exclusively through Amazon Music.
To sum up my great learning experience, the sales manager arrived to a list of products to buy in order, that would allow me to have a complete hifi setup.
For reference here's my current setup (Which he is informed of) : Tower PC with gpu and the like, in which I use the fiio k3 (2021 version with ESS dac) powered via usb.
From this dac I power three things :
-Mackie MR624 Studio monitors via a 3.5mm to dual-rca adapter at the rear of the dac (They also need a £130 iDefender+ and iPower2 from iFi to break the ground loop they have)
-Audeze LCD-1 via a custom balanced cable from OIDIO
-Ikko OH10 iems via 2.5mm output, same as LCD-1
He did say "if you said to me 'this is a load of crap, I don't believe you and I am happy with my system' then that's fine too."
But what reason is there not to trust a guy who has sold and listened to hifi for 25 years of his life?
Heres the conclusion he arrived to in-store, after reminding me he is a *massive snob* when it comes to audio.
-First, get a source that is decoupled from the pc. For this, he suggested the Bluesound Roon however via email I have informed him that the roon has no channel balance which is crucial for my headphones, iems and speakers to sound centred. In light of this, he said the next step would be a novafidelity X35.
-He then listed various things to get after a streamer, but this would be years down the line. He said "upgrading is part of the fun"
-One of those was a NAS system, which I, as a student, am not currently interested in. Remember we're talking *years* here, but I thought it was good to mention.
Side note - I can justify the roon due to the fact it packs in everything a streamer has for £550 - I've watched some Darko Audio videos on streamers and they seem really neat! But no channel imbalance so its literally pointless :/
On the contrary, many people say that dac's + amp's are good when used on pc. So how can I possibly justify £1700 novafidelity x35, regardless of the fact it has *loads* of features? I could buy some really good stuff with that money for the pc itself.
Also- I don't think his business makes money from upselling or selling anything in general. Correct me if I'm wrong, because then his opinions are of-course business bias. (Then again, how else would the business make money...?)
"The PC is the greatest block to good sound. PCs are for email not for hi-fi audio. Any DAC, head amp etc. system will work better with physical formats. If you can't/won't use physical formats then a NAS drive on a wired network to a wired streamer that is then connected to the system is the best source. 'Garbage in, garbage out', a PC is a garbage source. Get the source right first, the system you have is OK for now. Just decouple the PC. " -Quote from the sales guy from our email discussion
Further,
"One of the NOVAFiDELITY options seems to me to be the sensible route. The X35 is probably your best bet, I know it's £1695, but it does all you need it to and should comfortably be an upgrade on what you have. I think part of the length of your email comes from having too much information and not enough understanding of the fundamentals. Worrying about DAC spec sheet comparisons and DATA transfer rates is, for me, a waste of energy. My advice is save a budget, be clear about what you want from the system and listen to the options. Let your eyes and ears be the judge. First and before everything else, remove the PC from the audio chain. Garbage in, garbage out. " Another quote from the email
Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to blindly buy the novafidelity without first doing the following : Bringing my fiio dac to the store and plugging it into the mac pc they have then Listening to the x35 via a LAN connection through ethernet, which is what I would be achieving first with a streamer since I would not buy a NAS system with the streamer. Simply too much upfront cost
"To recap, I think a NOVAFIDELITY X35 will give you all the functionality you require and is such a large upgrade on the items you have as to make a demo a waste of your time. It then has all the inputs and outputs you require to build up a complete 'separates' hi-fi system. By this I mean you could add a turntable, phono stage, CD player, power amp and speakers. This would be completed over time and would eventually leave the X35 as a preamp in your system and an upgrade to a dedicated preamp would be the last step on the road to hi-fi nirvana and leave you with a £2k per item system. " Another quote from the email
One more email quote then I'm done.
"I am happy to have met you and had the chat we did, I think it was useful for you and hopefully has shown you that you can't believe the forums or the data sheets. I do understand that as a young audiophile it can be difficult to get to hear the products you want to and that old audiophiles like me write off entry level gear as rubbish, but hopefully you have now heard why? "
This problem I have with this is that , well, I haven't explicitly heard the difference between *my* pc setup and a server setup due to the fact I was listening to Meze Elites (£3700) on a £3000 solid state amp through a £1000 streamer...
"shown you that you can't believe the forums or the data sheets" - In regards to this, I am still posting here because I need opinions on what he's told me. It does show *my ears* that frequency response opinions are a load of rubbish. The elites sounded completely fine. This is probably also influenced by the source though.
Interestingly he also told me that spending money on the source is more important than the headphones itself, which does make sense, but Joshua Valour (if i recall correctly) said that you should spend ~30% of your headphones on a dac/amp.
So a £1700 streamer paired with £400 headphones, £200 iems and £320 speakers?
Don't get me wrong the streamer is extremely "future-fi" with all its various outputs.
So to conclude, can people please tell me their thoughts on this very short summary of the experience I have had and whether I should invest my money into a super nice dac/amp plugged into the pc or delve into the world of streamers?? (I spent 3 hours in the store - we talked about A LOT.)
I recently visited a hifi dealership near me to demo the meze elite's. In which the resulting 3 hours I spent there led to a few conclusions made by the sales manager which I will be discussing here. I require assistance from others as I feel his statements directly oppose the opinions of others on this site.
One thing he told me was to not trust people on the internet for audio, but I NEED another source of opinion/guidance as he effectively is telling me to buy an expensive streamer for my setup such that in the future this setup would be able to support everything.
We mention 'future' as I'm a young audiophile, 19 and currently do not own any CD's and listen exclusively through Amazon Music.
To sum up my great learning experience, the sales manager arrived to a list of products to buy in order, that would allow me to have a complete hifi setup.
For reference here's my current setup (Which he is informed of) : Tower PC with gpu and the like, in which I use the fiio k3 (2021 version with ESS dac) powered via usb.
From this dac I power three things :
-Mackie MR624 Studio monitors via a 3.5mm to dual-rca adapter at the rear of the dac (They also need a £130 iDefender+ and iPower2 from iFi to break the ground loop they have)
-Audeze LCD-1 via a custom balanced cable from OIDIO
-Ikko OH10 iems via 2.5mm output, same as LCD-1
He did say "if you said to me 'this is a load of crap, I don't believe you and I am happy with my system' then that's fine too."
But what reason is there not to trust a guy who has sold and listened to hifi for 25 years of his life?
Heres the conclusion he arrived to in-store, after reminding me he is a *massive snob* when it comes to audio.
-First, get a source that is decoupled from the pc. For this, he suggested the Bluesound Roon however via email I have informed him that the roon has no channel balance which is crucial for my headphones, iems and speakers to sound centred. In light of this, he said the next step would be a novafidelity X35.
-He then listed various things to get after a streamer, but this would be years down the line. He said "upgrading is part of the fun"
-One of those was a NAS system, which I, as a student, am not currently interested in. Remember we're talking *years* here, but I thought it was good to mention.
Side note - I can justify the roon due to the fact it packs in everything a streamer has for £550 - I've watched some Darko Audio videos on streamers and they seem really neat! But no channel imbalance so its literally pointless :/
On the contrary, many people say that dac's + amp's are good when used on pc. So how can I possibly justify £1700 novafidelity x35, regardless of the fact it has *loads* of features? I could buy some really good stuff with that money for the pc itself.
Also- I don't think his business makes money from upselling or selling anything in general. Correct me if I'm wrong, because then his opinions are of-course business bias. (Then again, how else would the business make money...?)
"The PC is the greatest block to good sound. PCs are for email not for hi-fi audio. Any DAC, head amp etc. system will work better with physical formats. If you can't/won't use physical formats then a NAS drive on a wired network to a wired streamer that is then connected to the system is the best source. 'Garbage in, garbage out', a PC is a garbage source. Get the source right first, the system you have is OK for now. Just decouple the PC. " -Quote from the sales guy from our email discussion
Further,
"One of the NOVAFiDELITY options seems to me to be the sensible route. The X35 is probably your best bet, I know it's £1695, but it does all you need it to and should comfortably be an upgrade on what you have. I think part of the length of your email comes from having too much information and not enough understanding of the fundamentals. Worrying about DAC spec sheet comparisons and DATA transfer rates is, for me, a waste of energy. My advice is save a budget, be clear about what you want from the system and listen to the options. Let your eyes and ears be the judge. First and before everything else, remove the PC from the audio chain. Garbage in, garbage out. " Another quote from the email
Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to blindly buy the novafidelity without first doing the following : Bringing my fiio dac to the store and plugging it into the mac pc they have then Listening to the x35 via a LAN connection through ethernet, which is what I would be achieving first with a streamer since I would not buy a NAS system with the streamer. Simply too much upfront cost
"To recap, I think a NOVAFIDELITY X35 will give you all the functionality you require and is such a large upgrade on the items you have as to make a demo a waste of your time. It then has all the inputs and outputs you require to build up a complete 'separates' hi-fi system. By this I mean you could add a turntable, phono stage, CD player, power amp and speakers. This would be completed over time and would eventually leave the X35 as a preamp in your system and an upgrade to a dedicated preamp would be the last step on the road to hi-fi nirvana and leave you with a £2k per item system. " Another quote from the email
One more email quote then I'm done.
"I am happy to have met you and had the chat we did, I think it was useful for you and hopefully has shown you that you can't believe the forums or the data sheets. I do understand that as a young audiophile it can be difficult to get to hear the products you want to and that old audiophiles like me write off entry level gear as rubbish, but hopefully you have now heard why? "
This problem I have with this is that , well, I haven't explicitly heard the difference between *my* pc setup and a server setup due to the fact I was listening to Meze Elites (£3700) on a £3000 solid state amp through a £1000 streamer...
"shown you that you can't believe the forums or the data sheets" - In regards to this, I am still posting here because I need opinions on what he's told me. It does show *my ears* that frequency response opinions are a load of rubbish. The elites sounded completely fine. This is probably also influenced by the source though.
Interestingly he also told me that spending money on the source is more important than the headphones itself, which does make sense, but Joshua Valour (if i recall correctly) said that you should spend ~30% of your headphones on a dac/amp.
So a £1700 streamer paired with £400 headphones, £200 iems and £320 speakers?
Don't get me wrong the streamer is extremely "future-fi" with all its various outputs.
So to conclude, can people please tell me their thoughts on this very short summary of the experience I have had and whether I should invest my money into a super nice dac/amp plugged into the pc or delve into the world of streamers?? (I spent 3 hours in the store - we talked about A LOT.)
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