On the whats the best forum a bit before Amir started this one, someone asked for the least expensive path to high end sound. I answered the then new JBL LSR 305 speakers and a DAC preamp. That might still be my answer. $300/pr for the speakers, and various DACs might fit the bill. I know of a couple DACs for $250 which could not be audibly bettered at any price. So for $600 with cables you'd have some rather high quality sound in a small to moderate listening space. All that is left for more money is going for larger somewhat better speakers (though the LSR 305 mk II speakers will sound very good), or to something with more convenience, nicer appearance or other capabilities like streaming or room EQ.
I always say find speakers you like or love and build your system backwards from there. Everything prior to the speaker is a solved problem on the playback end.
If you haven't experienced such a thing my claim will seem somewhere between unbelievable to naive by someone who doesn't know good sound. My claims are true however and I have heard some good systems. Some expensive systems. Wilsons, Soundlabs, and a few other expensive bits of gear. And I don't mean I heard them a couple minutes at some showroom or show. I've known people with them or owned them and spent hours listening to them.
So speakers are the only hard choice left anymore and the only one that might need to be expensive.
I agree with you. I've been talking to you guys a lot, but I now know that if you're building a hi-fi system, the biggest investment you should make is speakers, and you can save money on the rest.
Just thought I would mention that Google translate is much, much better than when you were using the AI for translation.
Thank you! I'm using Google Translate. I'm pretty good at reading English, but I'm not confident in writing it.
You've made a real effort to communicate and that's appreciated. I hope you are finding value in your postings and are enjoying yourself here .
The Google translate minus AI is much more effective
That's what everyone says! Google Translate is the best!
Since you are looking to upgrade/replace your amplifier…Do you mind sharing what equipments (source/DAC/preamp/amplifier/speakers) are in your current audio/HiFi setup?
I currently only have the dCS Scalati full set and cables and am looking to build a new setup for the rest. I have decided on the speakers. So I am configuring the remaining elements. For testing, I will use Topping or SMSL products for the DAC, and I will choose among the Class D amplifiers for the AMP.
First, I ordered the SMSL DAC!
You can get good sound in sub $100 product!
Comparing the 'sound' of DACs is just a waste of your time. Buy a DAC that has the features you want, disregard the rest. I use the DAC built into a 35 year old Sony pre-amp. You will not distinguish it from the $100K DAC.
I use the Sony because I like the look of it and it has PEQ. These are the things that matter, not fantasies about the sound quality.
I use a £2K CD transport because I like the look of it. It's no different in sound from the £400 one it replace.
Power amp was bought used cost of £1200
Loudspeakers £5K
I've been doing this 40 years so you can imagine how many six figure price tag systems I've heard in that time. I can tell you that set up in a good acoustic that system will take the Pepsi challenge with any 2 channel system at any price. Plus it looks how I want it to look in my living room. And you could do it for less money than I've spent - if you wanted to.
I agree with you! I know very well that expensive doesn't necessarily mean good sound.
I've been listening to hi-fi and high-end systems for over 15 years. That's why I like listening to music and am sensitive to sound. I also like studying and learning on my own and setting them up. I don't set up my friends' systems for no reason. I really do it well.
Luckily, a really wealthy person I know bought the new Wilson Audio WAMM. So I was able to listen to it and set it up. Originally, a Wilson Audio US headquarters employee would come and set up the WAMM. However, because of the coronavirus, the buyer had to come in temporarily, and I went there and set it up frequently. That's why I said that the difference in tweeters by 1 inch is quite big. It really makes a difference.
I was just being unreasonably high-minded and kept worrying about making good sound, but now that I know that DACs and AMPs perform well for their price range, I'm going to test the DAC first and sell my dCS!
I need to buy better speakers!
It goes down to preferences and needs too.
Say you want a multichannel DAC to enjoy your MCH DSD's.
People can get away with some work and minimal cost, under $1k and do it.
And then there's people as our "own" Kal who prefer a much nicer Merging interface for 10 times this (and do it right) .
There's no blanket we can put over everything.
I agree with you. It's case by case. Each person's desires, assets, thoughts, and ability to hear are all different. The choice is yours, and it's whether you feel satisfied or not!
When you're really thirsty, drinking water is so sweet and pleasant, but when you drink 3L of water and want to go to the bathroom, drinking water feels completely different? Because people's minds are fickle, and as time passes, you'll feel different in the same situation, so it's really hard. Making a choice.
@Uranus a quick question for you, which of the following describes your audio philosophy?
A. You use your audio equipment to listen to music.
B. You use music to listen to your audio equipment.
.
A. I will choose. The purpose and the process should not be confused. I should focus on listening to music, which is the purpose. I will pursue that.
Thank you! It's all thanks to you!
Well, they are all wrong. And so will you be if you 'go with the flow'.
It’s an unfortunate mis-use of the term “high end”, which genuinely originates from a marketing term and genuinely means “high priced”, as an abbreviation of “the
high end of the price range”.
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The reason I harp on a bit about it, is because high end (high end of the price range) audio is snobbish and elitist. And a huge amount of mischief has been done by hifi writers conflating high price with high performance and throwing the term “high end” in there as a beautiful confluence of the two. Whereas we on ASR are largely aware of the lie and the mischief in that, as we know that a lot of staggeringly expensive hifi gear performs abysmally, and a lot of remarkably cheap hifi gear performs to a level that cannot be audibly surpassed, ie complete audible transparency.
So I will always encourage us to say “high performance” when that is what we mean. And when we mean very expensive, let’s say “very expensive” rather than “high end” in order to avoid the confusion about price and performance.
cheers
Clear answer!
Your answer is what I thought "extremely expensive products" were, and I think it's true that I thought it was just the word.
However, as you've summarized, high-end in audio doesn't necessarily mean that the sound is good just because the price is high, so ASR users talk about high-end in terms of sound rather than money, and let's clearly state that expensive means "very expensive."
Got it! I understand!
Following on from my post above, it seems that you actually want to discuss the price for HI-PERFORMANCE. Or even HIGHEST CATEGORY HIGH PERFORMANCE. (HCHP)
If so, you have to remove the words "in a 2CH speaker system" from your enquiry. Because the two things are incompatible.
There are two major ways they are incompatible:-
- a 2CH speaker system is taken to mean 2.0, meaning there are only 2 units involved. In that case, it is a natural conflict between the best room placement for the lowest frequencies and the best room placement for the midrange and high range frequencies. A two-unit speaker system cannot achieve HCHP.
- Two channel playback cannot achieve HCHP. You can achieve significantly higher levels of perceptual preference by simply adding more channels of discrete multichannel information.
cheers
You're right. It's not an easy problem.
But the place where we usually install speakers in our living spaces is the living room. It's often too small to install in a room. Unless you have a large private house, it's not easy. Installing it in a large space.
But multi-channel configuration in the living room is a system that wives really hate. Usually, women really hate thick speaker cables or various cables in the living room.
But multi-channel requires cables to be placed around the perimeter. Of course, you can use in-wall speakers or put cables inside the wall, but it's not easy to put cables in unless you're doing interior construction.
Even if you use wireless speakers, you have to connect the power at least. But there are more cases where the power socket is not around the appropriate speaker location.
In other words, for the various reasons mentioned above, we install a 2CH stereo system in the living room. And at this time, in order to solve the frequency interference problem you mentioned, you have to physically modularize the units of 3WAY or more speakers, or connect them individually to each unit using a perfect crossover instead of using a speaker network, and set them while providing time delay, but this is difficult.
Considering all these problems, we use 2 channels.
As is so often the case, opinions differ because there is no precise definition of high-end to which everyone refers.
Everyone has its own idea, which is also very clear in this thread.
In some areas of science and research, there are very narrow specifications for the material to be used. This is high-end per se, but is not referred to as such because the material is subject to the highest standards of production, modernity and reliability, such as technology that is installed in satellites, technology that is used to produce computer chips, technology for clean rooms and medical technology that is required in intensive care units and operating theaters.
It's all high-end, but it's very rarely referred to as high-end, it's technology that meets the desired or required specifications of the very highest standards. I assume
@amirm uses such technology to measure at a high level, so his equipment probably also meets high-end standards.
In the audio sector, for me personally and based on my experience, high-end simply means a lot of fancy advertising and beautiful packaging, whereby the content often does not meet what would generally be considered the highest technical standards.
However, this cannot be generalized either, because there are often sinfully expensive and beautiful devices that also fully meet the highest technical standards.
I think this is precisely the difficulty for the consumer: to distinguish between what is just for show (and hopelessly overpriced) and what really meets the very highest technical standards (and where the price is somewhat justified).
In the audio sector, there is no industry standard for what is high-end and no official seal of approval from an authority that classifies it into the high-end category according to comprehensible test samples.
In this respect, it will generally be important for inexperienced people to have a competent advisor at their side who is different from the salesperson in order to perhaps not necessarily get high-end audio, according to whatever criteria, but a component or combination that is good for their own ears.
I think this is a perfect answer.
Many people gave similar answers, but anyway, in the audio field, there is no one, company, or brand that has properly set the standard for high-end, so this discussion has come up. And people are confused because "expensive" products do not necessarily "sound the best."
If you have someone around you who is really interested in music and can hear sound, you will have a greater advantage in choosing a good product regardless of the price, and if you know such a person as a friend, you will be able to be more relaxed about financial loss.
Let me brag. In the previous article, I mentioned that I set up a B&W system. It was my friend's system. He said that he recently went to an audio show and an audio store and listened to music with the same speakers, and he was happy that the sound he heard at home was better.
This is why I help people set up their audio.
Rolex is the Wiim of mechanical watches.
What do you mean by Wiim? The all-in-one player with built-in DAC, called Ultra and Pro Plus models? This is a Chinese product, and it is very cheap, but it shows excellent performance for the price.
Shouldn't it be compared to watches like Casio or G-Shock? Rolex is still a luxury.
Car analogies never work very well, of course. But this one caught my eye because it furthers the idea that more money equals greater performance, whether or not that performance is realized.
Simply put, it's not so. It's like buying that F40 and then discovering it drives like a 1976 Toyota Corolla in bad need of a tune-up, but with an F40 body. With much high-end audio, you'll only wish you could do better after having already gotten the most out of it.
There are wonderful-sounding conventional systems that use passive speakers in regular rooms without all that time alignment and wall treatments and DSP. Not all rooms are minimalist echo chambers.
Rick "but that F40 sure does look slick" Denney
That's right. Just because a car is expensive doesn't mean it's fast. Just like just because an audio system is expensive doesn't mean it sounds good. In this sense, if you compare it to cars, the average person will quickly understand.
If each brand has no distinctive features, it must mean that they all sound the same. But that's not true. There are differences. Regardless of whether they sound accurate or correct.
