If you read the guys comments on the Ultra High Fidelity website he says the source is the most important part of the system. As you comment that is true, but only after you system reaches a certain quaility point. Also if one does not crank the sound up where it blows you out of the room source noise is not so obvious.
Another thing: I understand that most high-end vinyl is not pressed but individually lazer cut these days. Someday I hope I will get to hear one of those on a good system, at $100 a recording I'm not going to be able to buy them. That is for sure.
Being poor these days I listen on a 10 year old boom-box I bought when the Charlotte library dumped everything but CD's from their audio collection. The sound from it is fairly clean (at low volumn), but dead sounding. OK for background music, but not for serious listening.
Recently I decided I wanted something that sounds as good as my old earily 1980's system. It was a low Technics receiver, tape deck, and turntable hooked up to a pair of Baby Advent speakers. Nice clean sound. Those Baby Advents cost $300 each and were considered at the time to be the best bookshelf speakers available. I go down to the so called high-fi department of the computer/audio/electronic chain stores and nothing they are selling has that clean sound. Of course all they sell is consumer grade stuff even if some of it costs more than the real thing.
I decided to look for some old but good used stuff, then the truck breaks down and I have to put that idea on the back burner. This thread started just about then so the whole thing was on my mind anyway.
My listening preferences are about 60% jazz, 30% classical, and 10% other; so it is rather easy to tell the difference. Wouldn't you know that when I moved up into the mountains I moved out of the area where I could receive the only 100% jazz station in the Carolinas (sad smile).
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David Mann wrote:
graywolf wrote:
The funny thing here is I think we old folks need a better sound system then the younger folks. Why? Well, I at least have a far harder time separating noise, so the less noise the better the sound to my ears. Current consumer sound is: 1. loud. 2. excessively bassy. 3. noisy.
In my experience I've found that the more expensive the equipment, the more of the subtle recording flaws I can pick out. If you buy expensive hi-fi gear the recordings you buy had better be good or it'll just frustrate you. I guess its similar to a high-end film scanner picking out more grain along with the extra image detail.
I will say though that the sound coming out of cheap consumer systems is a lot better for the money than what was available 10 years ago... once you switch off the subwoofer(s).
That said I don't think many of us could tell the difference between a good $2000 system and a fine $20,000 system, but most of us who care can easily tell the difference between a $2000 high fidelity system and a $500 home theater system.
I'm young enough that I could probably tell a difference at the higher end (more due to the speakers than anything else) but I doubt I'd consider that difference to be worth spending an extra 18,000 hypothetical dollars on. Heck, at the moment I don't even have a listening room that would do justice to the $2,000 system.
Note that "us who care" part up there, I understand that that is only about 30% of the music listening public. The other 70% would be happy with a $29 system.
Just before reading PDML tonight I put one of my new CDs on. Bic Runga with the Christchurch Symphony live in concert. It was performed in our Town Hall in October. I didn't attend but I went to see Anika Moa with the Christchurch Symphony two weeks ago, and I hope they do a CD of that one as well because I thoroughly enjoyed it. You guys have probably never heard of these people.
Anyway, my stereo is a small bookshelf system I bought about 10 years ago. It was the bottom model of its series and the sound is far from any kind of hi-fi standard. But somehow I'm still enjoying my CD. It sounds a _lot_ better on my Sennheisers but I don't care right now. I'm listening to the music, not the sound.
Another thing is that the "other 70%" aren't likely to be listening to music which will benefit from a high-end system. I'm not sure if Britney Spears would be any more compelling on vinyl than as an mp3 file.
-- graywolf http://graywolfphoto.com
"You might as well accept people as they are, you are not going to be able to change them anyway."
