Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Buying a transporter these days
Golden Earring wrote: > Hi Antonio! > > I fully concur with Mynb's last 2 posts & would simply note that the > stand-mount style of loudspeaker which I have suggested for your room > tend to be simple 2-way designs, usually with equally simple passive > crossovers which present a relatively benign load for the amplifier. > > So go listen to loudspeakers, & allocate the majority of your budget to > them: any halfway competent modern amplifier design (i.e. NOT expensive) > should be able to drive them satisfactorily. > > Don't forget to damp out your piano, as recommended earlier, while > you're quaffing the Ricard Cinquante Et Un (SO much better than Pernod, > lol) & indulging your taste for contemporary music... > > Dave :cool: Hi Dave, By "2-way designs" do you mean something like yours, the B&W 805S ? with or without subwoofer ? At the moment, I have in this room a pair of little Audioengine A2, they're the speakers I take with me when I leave my home for some time, and a Audioengine S8 subwoofer that I added recently. I like very much the A2, for their nice sound for the size, but a bit disappointed by the S8, at too low volume I don't hear it, at too high volume it's boomy. I'm not sure that I like very much subwoofers actually. The Ricard 51 is a good drink for the aperitif, specially in summer, with some ice cubes, sitted at a Café Terrace or with friends at home. When I try to have some quiet time at home, I rather have a good rum from venezuela or an old Cognac ;) , But my origins are Portuguese (please don't mention the paella, it's spanish) so I should have a vintage porto, except that porto wine is not a drink for aperitif or for the evening, it's a dessert wine. Hum, not so simple. As for my taste in music, I think you're asking what it is, and certainly it has its importance for choosing the gears, with the time it has changed, it's true I liked very much contemporary music when Stevie Wonder, the Pink Floyd, Bob Marley, the Dire straits or David Bowie were contemporary, now I still love them but I don't usually like the contemporary music, too much synthesizers pretending they're real instruments. I prefer jazz: Piano, Guitar, Organ, classic or modern jazz, everything except the female vocal jazz (really too boring), some blues, and I don't dislike some modern artists like Dave Matthews (with Tim Reynolds, I really love), John Mayer and a few others... To continue with the clichés, I don't like Edith Piaf, but I like Amalia Rodrigues (it's a "fado", the typical portuguese music, singer). Thanks a lot, your posts are very funny ! (and instructive of course) Antoniop LMS 7.9.0 on Linux Mageia 5 and RPI 3 1 SB3, 2 radio, 1 touch Plugins : Trackstat, Smartmix, MusicIP, ... Antoniop's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=39292 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=107946 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Buying a transporter these days
Hi Antonio! I fully concur with Mynb's last 2 posts & would simply note that the stand-mount style of loudspeaker which I have suggested for your room tend to be simple 2-way designs, usually with equally simple passive crossovers which present a relatively benign load for the amplifier. So go listen to loudspeakers, & allocate the majority of your budget to them: any halfway competent modern amplifier design (i.e. NOT expensive) should be able to drive them satisfactorily. Don't forget to damp out your piano, as recommended earlier, while you're quaffing the Ricard Cinquante Et Un (SO much better than Pernod, lol) & indulging your taste for contemporary music... Dave :cool: Golden Earring's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=66646 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=107946 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Buying a transporter these days
Oh and "within specs" quality amps usually behaves ok when driven close and slightly over their limits and still sounds "ok" not so well designed stuff can behave really bad . In the early 90's I saw magazine actually measuring amps with a real speakers , they built a very robust speaker not intended for listening but it had typical anomalies that real world speakers have like phase and impedance shifts reverse EMF and such things , nonlinear coils in the xover . The best amps pretty much behaved as their specifications even if those where the typical 8 ohm resistive load specs, they did not change much with real speaker as load. Lesser amps did not reach thier specs in these kind of tests . What I want to say is that the old sayings that measurements don't tell the whole story is kind of true but not in the way many audiophile's think . But rather if we had the rigth kind of measurements against a common standard they could tell us much more that they actually do . Having the spec wars of the 80's in fresh memory:) Main hifi: Touch + CIA PS +MeridianG68J MeridianHD621 MeridianG98DH 2 x MeridianDSP5200 MeridianDSP5200HC 2 xMeridianDSP3100 +Rel Stadium 3 sub. Bedroom/Office: Boom Kitchen: Touch + powered Fostex PM0.4 Misc use: Radio (with battery) iPad1 with iPengHD & SqueezePad (spares Touch, SB3, reciever ,controller ) server HP proliant micro server N36L with ClearOS Linux http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html Mnyb's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4143 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=107946 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Buying a transporter these days
Well choose your speakers first . Todays amp's -driven within their spec's- rarely impose any audible signature at all unless designed that way ( tube amplifier with transformers ) . Speakers are usually designed so that an amp with very low output impendance and a flat frequency response gives the output the designer expects and designed for . ( There are exceptions as always ) So it comes down to speakers impedance demands ( complicated xover in multiway speaker ) sensitivity and room size . That sets how much power and stability you need then it's feature set build quality and compatibility with other things and even design if it's going to sit in fulll view in the music room . If you are frugal you get the cheapest amp that can still handle your speakers in your listening situation :) Anecdotaly I've has speakers from Canton and Snell that where quite happy with 50wpc and then Dynaudios that needed >200w Main hifi: Touch + CIA PS +MeridianG68J MeridianHD621 MeridianG98DH 2 x MeridianDSP5200 MeridianDSP5200HC 2 xMeridianDSP3100 +Rel Stadium 3 sub. Bedroom/Office: Boom Kitchen: Touch + powered Fostex PM0.4 Misc use: Radio (with battery) iPad1 with iPengHD & SqueezePad (spares Touch, SB3, reciever ,controller ) server HP proliant micro server N36L with ClearOS Linux http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html Mnyb's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4143 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=107946 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Buying a transporter these days
Antoniop wrote: > Hi Dave ! > You seems to be an endless source of knowledge regarding hifi ! Very > interesting post indeed. > Sorry, I was posting an answer to iPhone, and I'm very slow, my english > flows too slowly. > My room is a little sitting room, about 20 m² (67 ft), rectangular, I'll > be approximatively at 10ft from each speaker, ceiling is at 9 ft heigh, > walls are solid but it's open on each side of the room without doors (at > right I have a kitchen and at left the living room and dining room). > Floor is parquet and ceiling is solid. The room has a few furniture: a > sofa (where I sit in front of the speakers), an upright piano (very nice > old Pleyel, I'm proud of it), a little table at the corner of the sofa > (for the drink of course) and a low dresser. > Thanks a lot for your help ! :) Hi Antonio! Thanks for the info, it's much easier to give specific advice based on your actual room rather than to try to generalise! Like everyone else on the forum (I guess, unless they listen out in their garden, lol) the highest main modal resonance in your room will be based on the floor to ceiling height, which is better than many people's at 9', but will still be a shorter distance than that between any parallel walls. The fact that your floor & ceiling are both solid makes matters worse. But don't despair yet! If you are in love with your (doubtless very pretty but also highly reflective parquet flooring, then I would suggest a nice thick rug or two - you don't have to cover the entire floor, any damping will improve the acoustic to some extent. OTOH, if you don't mind covering it up, a THICK wall-to-wall wool carpet on top of the thickest underlay you can get would be even better. The open sides to your room will improve its acoustic, since the sound will spill out into your kitchen on the one side, & your living & dining room on the other: the effect will be as if you were in a larger listening room. The conventional wisdom with a rectangular room is to position the speakers on one of the long walls, 6 - 8 feet apart (& certainly no more than 10', else you'll get a "hole" in the middle of your stereo image unless you really turn the wick up!): however from your description, I imagine that your walls with the door-less gaps are the long ones, & that it will therefore be more ergonomic to put the speakers across one of the shorter walls & sit to listen with your back to the other one. This is OK, since the gaps in the side walls will prevent the sound being unduly funnelled towards you. I would however suggest that decent stand-mount speakers will give a more musical effect than floor-standing speakers, because the former are less fussy about being located relatively close to the wall behind, or even to being fairly near the corner of the room (this will inevitably cause a LF boost to a degree though, the bass radiates pretty much 360 degrees around the speaker, it's the HF that is far more directional... ). If you miss the lowest octave, a sub-woofer (or better yet 2, wired up in stereo - not because you can hear an extreme LF stereo image: you can't, but because having more than 1 source of low bass in the room, especially doing different things, reduces room resonances) carefully adjusted to match the LF roll-off of the stand-mounts, will sort that out for you. The sub-woofer positioning is not critical, although it (or they) should be in front of you, not behind. If you don't have it/them close to your main speakers, you may find that they sound better with the phase inverted - just try both settings, it'll be obvious which is correct for the location. Then adjust the cross-over frequency to get a good sound without overlapping or missing low frequencies & last of all set the gain. -*Everyone*- sets it too high to start with, then you detect some "boominess" after a while & keep edging the gain down for a week or two until you finally get a smooth & natural effect. We're just after a subtle reinforcement of the lowest notes... ;) The strings of your beloved piano will try to "sing along" as well if you turn up the volume, which will be bad for a sharp image - I'd suggest a half-brick or heavy door-stop strategically placed on the soft pedal when you're not playing, lol. That's my two pennyworth, I hope it helps... Dave :cool: P.S. Enjoy your drink - I'm currently on the Jack Daniels with Zero Coke (in a separate glass, of course... ). Salut! Golden Earring's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=66646 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=107946 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Buying a transporter these days
Golden Earring wrote: > Hi Antonio! > > I absolutely agree with the previous answer to your question, i.e. it is > the transducers which have the final job of imparting the sound waves > into your listening room that are now the weakest (arguably the only > weak) link in the audio chain as far as modern music reproduction > equipment goes. Indeed, at least in theory, any earlier components > *-should-* work together without any significant problems, since the > voltage levels & impedances of both unbalanced (RCA phono) & balanced > (XLR) interconnections at the line level are now standardised & most > equipment adheres to these specifications. > > The problems with loudspeakers (or headphones for that matter) derive > from the physical construction of the drivers (cone stiffness, mass, > linearity when displaced from their static position & off-axis response) > & in the case of loudspeakers the choice of loading (infinite baffle, > reflex, transmission-line or even occasionally free-air or even > isobaric) combined with the quality of construction & precise internal > volume of the cabinet. There are other schools of thought (e.g. > Harbeth's deliberately flexible cabinets), but most designers now aim to > make their enclosures as rigid as possible. There is also the critical > choice between a stand-mount cabinet (often referred to as "bookshelf" > loudspeakers, although actually placing them on a crowded wall-shelf > will usually result in a poor sound compared to using rigid & adequately > damped speaker stands & having some free space around the enclosures... > ) or having larger floor-standing enclosures (which usually have more > drivers than stand-mounts). Finally, the crossover design & positioning > of the various drivers relative to each other are critical to achieving > a coherent musical performance. Active speakers may be preferable to > passive ones if you have deep pockets! Whilst the fidelity of modern > transducers has improved markedly compared to designs from say 40 years > ago with the current availability of lightweight rigid materials such as > carbon fibre, graphite or Kevlar for LF drivers & exotic ones like > beryllium or even diamond for HF drivers, it remains the case that > almost all of the non-linearity (aka distortion) of your system will > derive from the transducers - even the very best & astronomically > expensive ones are still not perfect! The specific impact of these > issues for you will depend in part upon the size, shape & even > construction materials of your listening room. > > So loudspeaker design still involves considerable compromise, & > different speakers will usually sound much more distinct from each other > than different amplifiers or earlier components in the audio chain. So > whilst there are some general guidelines that will point you in the > right direction in terms of selecting the right type of loudspeaker for > your room, ultimately the acid test is whether you are happy with the > musical reproduction that you achieve which is inevitably a subjective > matter. I do not believe that any published numerical specifications > pertaining to loudspeakers have any useful bearing on their sound > quality (this is not the case with amplifiers, for example, where > generally accepted measurements can give a reasonable basis for the > unit's suitability(. Arnyk recently send me a link for a 2017 research > paper by 3 eminent Danish academics who were seeking to quantify > loudspeaker performance. It was a tough read, but ultimately I did not > feel that they had actually made much headway! A particular problem is > that some loudspeakers may sound very initially impressive & it is over > the course of several months of regular listening that their sound > begins to grate upon you - the trial period typically offered by even > "top-dollar" dealers is usually NOT long enough for this effect to > manifest itself, which is another reason that I would serious recommend > buying "as new" s/hand loudspeakers, since it leaves you the option of > selling them on later *-without-* losing a significant amount of money > if you change your mind 6 months down the line... > > What is your listening room like (i.e. approximate shape, size, ceiling > height, solid or plasterboard walls, solid or suspended floor & > ceiling)? > > Dave :cool: Hi Dave ! You seems to be an endless source of knowledge regarding hifi ! Very interesting post indeed. Sorry, I was posting an answer to iPhone, and I'm very slow, my english flows too slowly. My room is a little sitting room, about 20 m² (67 ft), rectangular, I'll be approximatively at 10ft from each speaker, ceiling is at 9 ft heigh, walls are solid but it's open on each side of the room without doors (at right I have a kitchen and at left the living room and dining room). Floor is parquet and ceiling is solid. The room has a few furniture: a sofa (where I sit in front of the speakers), an upright piano (very nice old Pleyel,
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Buying a transporter these days
iPhone wrote: > . > . > Hello Antonio, > > "Gear Fitting" as you call it, IE matching separates for one of four > reason (price, sound, better half demands, or a combination of the first > three) takes many paths. For most of us, price plays a huge part in this > process plus what sounds good to one's own ears (all ears are shaped > differently and some are more sensitive then others). I am of the option > that the majority of one's HiFi Dollars need to go toward quality > Speakers. I say this for two main reasons, firstly having the best > source device, pre-amp, and amplifier are all wasted if the output > devices, one's speakers, are crap! No matter how great one's front is, > it can't make up for speakers that are poor quality, will not accurately > reproduce what is sent to them, and last are of a poor design that > actually adds artifacts or colors what they are being presented. > Secondly, if the majority (half to two thirds) of one's HiFi budget is > spent on quality Speakers knowing that they are fairly expensive and > hence a major expense to upgrade or replace (don't know anybody that > upgraded to a "Better" pair of speakers that cost less then the pair > they replaced), one can buy good source and amplification knowing that > those will be the pieces upgraded in the future trying to caught up to > the upper most ability of the speakers originally purchased. I have been > making this journey for decades repeating the process as I moved up the > HiFi quality ladder and this HiFi building/upgrading model has severed > me well. I am almost there as soon as I have saved enough money to > purchase my ultimate Pre-Amplifier. > > Interconnects, power cords, and speaker cables are important, but good > quality that works properly in where to spend the money on these, not in > fancy covers or looks, nor on over priced hype. Properly setup, 4 coat > hangers can sound just as good as $5000 speaker cables! So again, don't > waste large sums of money on outrageous speaker cables and interconnects > when good quality engineered ones do the exact same job as $25,000 > cryogenic silver speaker cables! > . > . Hi iPhone, thank you for your post. I agree with all you're saying but I'm not sure you see what I mean, I was not clear. I don't mean choosing (very) good speakers for a good amp, I agree it's not right to buy an expensive amplifier or dac when speakers are poor. I still agree with you, they are the most important components. I will speak about my (limited) experience: last time (a long time ago) I bought my amp and speakers, I bought it at the same shop. In the auditorium I first choose the best speakers that I listened with my own music in my budget, then I tried the different amps and selected two of them, one luxman and a Denon, they were about the same price, but the Denon was a noticeably better. Then I tried the luxman and the denon with another pair of speakers, Cabasse speakers, a little pricier (Cabasse was very famous in France in the past). The Luxman was better than the Denon with the Cabasse, but Cabasse was very good with Classical music but poor with other styles of music, and I'm not very found of classical. According to the salesman, it's because Cabasse where more defined than the speakers I preferred, then they fitted better with the Luxman, that was less defined than the Denon (ie A high defined amp fits well with less defined speakers and vice-versa). So my question is: don't you think it's better to try to listen at least the amp and the speakers together, just to hear if they fit well ? or is it just an illusion I had. Of course, sound appreciation is very subjective, one can be influenced by the look of the gear (must be killing), flattering reviews, the price (the higher is the better), a friend who said that gear was fantastic, an advice on amazon from someone who was an expert, or the reputation of the brand, and realize some days later, with time, at home, that we just don't like the sound of it. That happened to me recently. A good thing that we have in France, by the way, is that when we buy on the internet we have 2 weeks to change our mind, we can send back the gear and get the money back, we'll pay only the transport. If you buy in a shop, you usually only have your tears to cry. I agree about the cords, I don't see the point paying 1000 euros for an electric cable, even if it's the best electric cable in the world, since all the other cables in the area are just average honest electric cables. LMS 7.9.0 on Linux Mageia 5 and RPI 3 1 SB3, 2 radio, 1 touch Plugins : Trackstat, Smartmix, MusicIP, ... Antoniop's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=39292 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=107946 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/l
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Buying a transporter these days
Antoniop wrote: > Hi Dave, > I see that you're an expert regarding hifi and you're quite hard to > please, but what do you do about "gear fitting", I mean, I'm not an > expert myself but it seems to me that for example some speakers give a > better sound with some amplifiers than some others, regardless if the > amplifier is better or not, just because they fit better, or do you > think that the better gear together always give a better sound ? > Usually, I try to listen the new equipment I want to buy with the one > that I already have, or at least with equipments from the same brand, to > know what I'll have when back home. > That's not possible when you buy second hand. > I hope you understand what I mean (my english is a bit weak). > > Antonio Hi Antonio! I absolutely agree with the previous answer to your question, i.e. it is the transducers which have the final job of imparting the sound waves into your listening room that are now the weakest (arguably the only weak) link in the audio chain as far as modern music reproduction equipment goes. Indeed, at least in theory, any earlier components *-should-* work together without any significant problems, since the voltage levels & impedances of both unbalanced (RCA phono) & balanced (XLR) interconnections at the line level are now standardised & most equipment adheres to these specifications. The problems with loudspeakers (or headphones for that matter) derive from the physical construction of the drivers (cone stiffness, mass, linearity when displaced from their static position & off-axis response) & in the case of loudspeakers the choice of loading (infinite baffle, reflex, transmission-line or even occasionally free-air or even isobaric) combined with the quality of construction & precise internal volume of the cabinet. There are other schools of thought (e.g. Harbeth's deliberately flexible cabinets), but most designers now aim to make their enclosures as rigid as possible. There is also the critical choice between a stand-mount cabinet (often referred to as "bookshelf" loudspeakers, although actually placing them on a crowded wall-shelf will usually result in a poor sound compared to using rigid & adequately damped speaker stands & having some free space around the enclosures... ) or having larger floor-standing enclosures (which usually have more drivers than stand-mounts). Finally, the crossover design & positioning of the various drivers relative to each other are critical to achieving a coherent musical performance. Active speakers may be preferable to passive ones if you have deep pockets! Whilst the fidelity of modern transducers has improved markedly compared to designs from say 40 years ago with the current availability of lightweight rigid materials such as carbon fibre, graphite or Kevlar for LF drivers & exotic ones like beryllium or even diamond for HF drivers, it remains the case that almost all of the non-linearity (aka distortion) of your system will derive from the transducers - even the very best & astronomically expensive ones are still not perfect! The specific impact of these issues for you will depend in part upon the size, shape & even construction materials of your listening room. So loudspeaker design still involves considerable compromise, & different speakers will usually sound much more distinct from each other than different amplifiers or earlier components in the audio chain. So whilst there are some general guidelines that will point you in the right direction in terms of selecting the right type of loudspeaker for your room, ultimately the acid test is whether you are happy with the musical reproduction that you achieve which is inevitably a subjective matter. I do not believe that any published numerical specifications pertaining to loudspeakers have any useful bearing on their sound quality (this is not the case with amplifiers, for example, where generally accepted measurements can give a reasonable basis for the unit's suitability(. Arnyk recently send me a link for a 2017 research paper by 3 eminent Danish academics who were seeking to quantify loudspeaker performance. It was a tough read, but ultimately I did not feel that they had actually made much headway! A particular problem is that some loudspeakers may sound very initially impressive & it is over the course of several months of regular listening that their sound begins to grate upon you - the trial period typically offered by even "top-dollar" dealers is usually NOT long enough for this effect to manifest itself, which is another reason that I would serious recommend buying "as new" s/hand loudspeakers, since it leaves you the option of selling them on later *-without-* losing a significant amount of money if you change your mind 6 months down the line... What is your listening room like (i.e. approximate shape, size, ceiling height, solid or plasterboard walls, solid or suspended floor & ceiling)? Dave :cool: --
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] RC (Inguz etc.)
If anyone is interested attached is a zip file containing all of the Inguz web site pages and content from 2015 which I downloaded it from the 'Wayback Machine' one page at a time. The page URL links don't link through to the other pages so each page needs to be looked at individually but it may be useful. 23649 Bob +---+ |Filename: Inguz Web Site.zip | |Download: http://forums.slimdevices.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=23649| +---+ 1 x Touch 1 x Radio 1 x Boom 1 x Intel-NUC server/squeezelite running LMS 7.91 on Windows 10 1 X Odroid-XU4 server/squeezelite running LMS 7.91 on Ubuntu 16.04 WaveIO USB into Lavry DA-10 DAC Starfish Pre-amp : Based on NAIM NAC 72 Heavily modified NAIM NAP 250 Power-amp Behringer DEQ2496 Linn Isobarik DMS bobertuk's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=30376 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=77084 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
