Nice Sound System for Home

:annoyed:

I did just win my first cajun 78 for $100 though!
 
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Nice. It ain't no mouse music.
Don't know much about Moise but he seems to have a more deeper bluesy zydeco feel than say Nathan Abshire?
 
Journeyman said:
Interesting (to me) article from the BBC on very expensive speakers:

Why are the world’s best loudspeakers so expensive?

It would be interesting to hear LelandJ LelandJ 's opinion on the article and on how some of the ideas used there compares with his setup, or whether they're designed very differently.
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That video is pretty impressive, regardless of what you think of the actual speaker. But 10 coats of lacquer only takes one moody cat to render it for naught.

Leland's setup is going for something ultra high efficiency and completely different.

Much of the spend in these ultra high end speakers is making it look expensive, as pointed out. You can replicate the sound quality for a fraction of the price if you remove the frills.

If you have ever been in an anti-echo room, its a really weird experience. It feels like you're floating. There is something otherworldly about the lack of reverberation of sound in the room. You say something and it goes completely dead, hard to explain.

Most of this money is wasted because it's spent on speakers that get put in rooms with shitty treatments, you might as well get Bose in this case.
 
Here's a snap of me and my home system
1962 stereo.webp

.
 
Journeyman said:
Interesting (to me) article from the BBC on very expensive speakers:

Why are the world’s best loudspeakers so expensive?

It would be interesting to hear LelandJ LelandJ 's opinion on the article and on how some of the ideas used there compares with his setup, or whether they're designed very differently.
Click to expand...

The dungeon laughs at diamond tweeters, first I've heard of it. O-pants is right, those crazy expensive speakers are mostly profit margin, advertising costs, and selling a sports car image to wealthy people who for the most part are clueless about real high fidelity.

Some of them might not sound bad but I would never waste my time with them. For giggles I'd demo a Magico speaker but probably get tired of it within an hour.

If I were forced to go for a boxed multi-way speaker, which I'd never want to revert to, I'm sure almost* nothing could surpass the Shindo Latour:

latour.gif


*There's a crazy German engineer who's been experimenting with esoteric cellulose cone designs which I know sound amazing but he's ripped people off in the past, he probably would've swindled me if I weren't on the fence originally before the fraud stories came to light. Here's his full-range field coil 15" I was going to purchase:

rc805-1.jpg
 
Journeyman,

I don't understand why you're so interested? I mean you don't want to buy a sound system right?
 
LelandJ said:
The dungeon laughs at diamond tweeters, first I've heard of it. O-pants is right, those crazy expensive speakers are mostly profit margin, advertising costs, and selling a sports car image to wealthy people who for the most part are clueless about real high fidelity.

Some of them might not sound bad but I would never waste my time with them. For giggles I'd demo a Magico speaker but probably get tired of it within an hour.

If I were forced to go for a boxed multi-way speaker, which I'd never want to revert to, I'm sure almost* nothing could surpass the Shindo Latour:

latour.gif


*There's a crazy German engineer who's been experimenting with esoteric cellulose cone designs which I know sound amazing but he's ripped people off in the past, he probably would've swindled me if I weren't on the fence originally before the fraud stories came to light. Here's his full-range field coil 15" I was going to purchase:

rc805-1.jpg
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A Shindo is on my bucket list. Probably a pre-amp. I want one from when Ken was still alive, and will pass it on in a will.
 
OfficePants said:
A Shindo is on my bucket list. Probably a pre-amp. I want one from when Ken was still alive, and will pass it on in a will.
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Buy used if it's cheaper but a new one will be of the same quality. Their pricing still includes hefty dealer margins and fancy enclosures, saying you can get equal quality if uglier gear direct from other engineers.
 
LelandJ said:
Buy used if it's cheaper but a new one will be of the same quality. Their pricing still includes hefty dealer margins and fancy enclosures, saying you can get equal quality if uglier gear direct from other engineers.
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What you're saying is true. And I had used in mind which for the reasons you state, holds it's value.
 
Rambo said:
holy fucking shit
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There was NYT article on the recently deceased collector this came from. His widow will make a good six figures, after dealer commissions, when the auctions are all finished in a couple years.
 
LelandJ said:
Waiting on a 309 tonearm and SUT to test this 60 year old mc cartridge which is considered the very best ever made for 78s.

0.5 mV output and VTF of 7 to 15 gr, none of that weak 1.5 to 3 gr modern microgroove nonsense.

View attachment 6084
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Finally got this back from the retipper this week. Tracking 10 gr and has more refinement in the vocal range than my contemporary Ortofon, very different frequency response.
 
Rambo said:
Can you put this in engligsh please?
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It's like drinking Petrus.

Well I only had it once and that was after I was drunk already so don't really no how good it tastes but for the price assume..
 
I just bought a couple of SONOS speakers. I'm no audio snob but the sound seems really good for portable speakers. And the set up and integration with music streaming etc. via the app was easy as pie. I can see adding another couple to the set in the near future.
 
prince nez said:
I just bought a couple of SONOS speakers. I'm no audio snob but the sound seems really good for portable speakers. And the set up and integration with music streaming etc. via the app was easy as pie. I can see adding another couple to the set in the near future.
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are you using them randomly around the house or in a main speaker configuration?
 
Rambo said:
are you using them randomly around the house or in a main speaker configuration?
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So far I only bought a play 1 and play 3 to try them out. So one's in the living room and the other in the kitchen/bedroom. Am thinking I'll get another P1 for the main bedroom and another P3/P5/SUB for the living area. I'm a total novice I'm just guessing based on where the sound is good now and what I think will work with my space.
 
In the digital arena, the Bluesound Vault 2 is worth considering as a hard drive for Flac files of CD's and downloads. Mine's hooked up to the NAIM hifi and with the iPad out you can some great playlist making on the go.

The only downside is that it gets all a bit slow when there's no metadata, typing in or overwriting artist, album and song title.
 
My Bluesound Vault 2 is stuck in red software upgrade mode so is in repair. According to my reliable source in South Africa, the Bluesound streaming hardware is the choice of Billy Joel in his guest rooms. If it's not repairable or too expensive, I will just get the Node 2i and hook-up to the HiFi. Qobuz HiRes streaming is good enough. You pays your €25 a month and that's well worth it.

Haven't listened to CD's outside of the car for sometime, a couple of years now, so over the weekend went into the loft and brought down some for listening. First one played was Paul Weller's Studio 150 on some platinum CD and it sounds mega. My missus said it sounded tremendous better than streaming.

A lot was down hill from there on in. A Japanese YMO release of Naughty Boys completely overwhelmed with the layers of sound, on vinyl it's great. A John Lennon Greatest Hits completely condensed to first generation MP3 shiteness. I've still got some David Bowie first German releases on RCA from the mid-80s and they actually sound extremely good, but not as good as the recent remasters.

You also get that glassiness with a lot of CD's.

Overall, CD's are too hit and miss, they can deliver, but sadly, there was too much condensed remastering going on. I put that down to the fad for miniature HiFi and CD players in the late 80s and early 90s. The record labels thought why bother?
 
You can see and hear it if you use something like Audacity (cos it’s free) {or Pro Tools if you have access} to copy a CD, LP or whatever to your computer and look at the peaks and troughs etc. Then use a good label like the jazz one that doesn’t compress. The name escapes me now.
 
Isn’t it Steve Hoffman who is an articulate apostle and good engineer who rails against compression. And runs a website and forums.
 
Journeyman said:
Interesting (to me) article from the BBC on very expensive speakers:

Why are the world’s best loudspeakers so expensive?

It would be interesting to hear LelandJ LelandJ 's opinion on the article and on how some of the ideas used there compares with his setup, or whether they're designed very differently.
Click to expand...
At one time BBC designed loudspeakers were famous in hifi circles. Notably the Spendor LS3/5A - an early ‘bookshelf’ speaker and the Spendor BC1. Both had excellent, accurate midranges though rock fans might want more bass.

Quad electrostatics were another classic speaker from days gone by.

You can go beyond these with money no object designs. In the early days enthusiasts bought woofers, tweeters and crossovers and made their own speaker cabinets.
 
fxh said:
ECM was what I was trying to think of.
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Mega successful that German label. Still sell tens of thousands even now each month in CD's and downloads.

All very much the same to me: intellectual ambient musical wallpaper for those for whom exotica and muzak is beneath them.

fxh said:
Isn’t it Steve Hoffman who is an articulate apostle and good engineer who rails against compression. And runs a website and forums.
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The Steve Hoffman Forums, haven't been on there for quite sometime.
 
We'd better not talk about this stuff too much, otherwise we'll descend into discussions about mounting your stereo on little gold-plated cones to reduce vibration, and suspending all your cables on styrofoam cups so as to reduce interference...
 
Pimpernel Smith said:
Mega successful that German label. Still sell tens of thousands even now each month in CD's and downloads.

All very much the same to me: intellectual ambient musical wallpaper for those for whom exotica and muzak is beneath them.



The Steve Hoffman Forums, haven't been on there for quite sometime.
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I've only got a few ECM CDs but its proper jazz.

I'm a big fan of exotica and Tiki etc

Local radio program here:: https://www.pbsfm.org.au/program/ports-of-paradise you can listen to back episodes or "live"

Also SOMA FM on internet has a few exotica stations
 
Didn't realize we had a thread here. I was just thinking about having some sort of aspirational sound system now that I'm getting my turntables out of storage to organize my record collection. The obvious name was Klipsch, though my reference point is a couple decades old. They seem to still be around. Anyone know if they are still top of the line? Or have they gone the way of so many other aspirational brands?
 
ballmouse said:
Didn't realize we had a thread here. I was just thinking about having some sort of aspirational sound system now that I'm getting my turntables out of storage to organize my record collection. The obvious name was Klipsch, though my reference point is a couple decades old. They seem to still be around. Anyone know if they are still top of the line? Or have they gone the way of so many other aspirational brands?
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Think they're more into speakers now. Been around since 1946 so must be doing something right.

I've gone the reverse: records and player stored and I've embraced HiRes streaming with Blusound hooked up to the Naim with Qobuz as the music provider. There really is no competition if you just want access to music and are not bothered about owning the physical article as a collector. I've made the evolutionary jump and there's no going back.

Also have Spotify for the kids. They complain that Qobuz is too hard to find the music they're into.
 
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