Do you consider yourself an audiophile?

[8115]

Either because it's bollocks, or because I'm stupid. Or both.

 

[ViolentPanda]

no. they'll just pretend to have one and over charge anyway.

your perception of sound is where the magic is and only there is every detail important, more details than your tiny little mind understands.

'Tis ye antient science of ye psycho-acousticals, Sirrah!

 

[ViolentPanda]

So, if cables aren't it, excluding magic, what is good for getting good sound? Or is it something that only sound engineers learn, while slaying a lamb and being sworn to unending secrecy?

Always best to sacrifice a goat. There's something about goat blood that no demon or deity can say no to.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Last question I promise. Is it true that when you buy a new stereo you should play varied music through it for twenty (can't remember the exact number) hours to make it better?

You mean the old "breaking the stereo/speakers/amp (delete as appropriate) in" schtick?
never made any difference to any of my set-ups, although letting the valves in my guitar amp warm up does make the sound richer, but that's a function of non-solid state electronics, not of anything else.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I wonder why?
Don't forget to keep your CDs in the fridge while you are at it.

Next to the pickled gherkins, so your music sounds SHARP!

 

[gentlegreen]

You mean the old "breaking the stereo/speakers/amp (delete as appropriate) in" schtick?
never made any difference to any of my set-ups, although letting the valves in my guitar amp warm up does make the sound richer, but that's a function of non-solid state electronics, not of anything else.

Other way around in my experience.

My CD player needs to warm up. Used to leave it switched on for years - not done a critical appraisal recently, but I would be worried if it had changed - i.e. "broken in" ...

Valve amp is ready very quickly.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Other way around in my experience.

My CD player needs to warm up. Used to leave it switched on for years - not done a critical appraisal recently, but I would be worried if it had changed - i.e. "broken in" ...

Valve amp is ready very quickly.

I wish my guitar amp was. 3-5 minutes depending on ambient temperature. My old WEM amp was worse. Then again, IIRC, Leak hi-fi amps have "heaters" for the valves, do they not?

 

[gentlegreen]

All valves do - that's why they're called thermionic.
Some of the other components in old amps are likely to be prone to shifting with temperature.

 

[blueplume]

Always best to sacrifice a goat. There's something about goat blood that no demon or deity can say no to.

ohhh i forgot, to improve your knowledge about goats, just read Mr Seguin's goat (A.Daudet)... quite exciting!

 

[Cid]

Other way around in my experience.

My CD player needs to warm up. Used to leave it switched on for years - not done a critical appraisal recently, but I would be worried if it had changed - i.e. "broken in" ...

Valve amp is ready very quickly.

Why would your CD player need to warm up?

All a CD player does is bounce a laser off a disc and interpret the data before feeding it through some kind of DAC. What would need to warm up?

As to speakers warming up, again - why? The only conceivable differences would be negative surely? e.g the material of the cone being deformed or becoming less stiff due to heat.

I strongly suspect that 'improvements in sound' after a few hours would strongly correlate with blood alcohol levels. Also I bet people rearrange their set-up when installing an expensive new component.

I have to say I know next to fuck all about audio kit, but the physics of sound aren't that complicated (on a basic level I mean, acoustic engineering a whole different kettle of flex), nor are the basic laws around electronics.

I love this thread btw, read it when it started out, but hadn't seen it for a while.

 

[gentlegreen]

A CD player has masses of precision analogue components - precision voltage dividers, comparators etc. I haven't actually been in the right headspace to do this sort of listening for years - and in fact I now need to find a cheap alternative to a NAIM media player ...
My old NAIM player even has a philips transport that's modified mechanically - manual loading / magnetic puck. When I bought it I listened to several players and was amazed at the variation in sound quality.

My speakers - being decades-old electrostatics need a while to charge up, but the super-light diaphragms are definitely worn-in now.

My valve amp, ironically needs just as long as it takes for the valve cathodes to get up to temp - just a few minutes.

 

[xenon]

AFAIK power valves in guitar amps always need warming up for best performance and maintainence. Preamp valves like ECC83s are fine from switch on. My guitar amp's a hybreed. Would love a Marshall TSL half stack but hey.

 

[Cid]

A CD player has masses of precision analogue components - precision voltage dividers, comparators etc. I haven't actually been in the right headspace to do this sort of listening for years - and in fact I now need to find a cheap alternative to a NAIM media player ...
My old NAIM player even has a philips transport that's modified mechanically - manual loading / magnetic puck. When I bought it I listened to several players and was amazed at the variation in sound quality.

Oh huh, well that explains everything! Consider me converted, the scales have fallen from my ears... It's precision analogue components warming up. The electricity needs to do a few laps of those circuits before it can really get moving, the copper in the wires needs to be excited so that the quantum beams can get through it faster, the resistors need time to work out their electrical opposition's weaknesses.

We're talking about circuits here (precision ones no less), there's nothing particularly arcane about them - they're just bits of wire (or PCB) with components. The design of those circuits might vary enough to produce a different conversion I suppose, but there's no reason I can see they'd vary with time. certainly nt with the components you mentioned. If anything a higher end design should be more stable.

Incidentally, when you listened to these different cd players, did you do so on exactly the same system sitting in exactly the same place?

 

[Garek]

So which bits should you concern yourself with and which bits of kit should you get the cheapest of? Obviously cheapest speaker wire but what else?

 

[gentlegreen]

In my case it was completely backwards because I started with electrostatic speakers - though I did rebuild my valve amp around that time - 1993 - as the nasty little transistor amp I was using was unstable ...but waited 4 years before I replaced my 14 bit Philips CD player... when I replaced that I couldn't believe how I'd endured it so long.

I don't know how much secondhand Quads are these days - my current stacked pair cost me about £700 in the late 90s...

Completely back to front - but in my case speakers, source, amp ...

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

So which bits should you concern yourself with and which bits of kit should you get the cheapest of? Obviously cheapest speaker wire but what else?

Cheap CD player, cheap cables, expensive speakers, amp matched to their power requirements and youd desired volume levels, expensive room treatment if you're really serious.

The speakers are the single most important bit of gear, the room you listen in has the biggest effect on them.

Oh and providing you're not using something from the early 80's I still say that all CD players sound the same, any sonic differences are irrelevant compared to the difference you'd get by moving your head 6 inches to the left.

 

[Garek]

Cool. Well speakers is where I have spent my money. And I am not going to bother with a CD player as I see no point when I can just use the DVD player.

 

[Cid]

In my case it was completely backwards because I started with electrostatic speakers - though I did rebuild my valve amp around that time - 1993 - as the nasty little transistor amp I was using was unstable ...but waited 4 years before I replaced my 14 bit Philips CD player... when I replaced that I couldn't believe how I'd endured it so long.

I doubt you'd find much difference between your current one and any bog standard modern one. Might not last as long mind you.

 

[Cid]

Oh yeah, does anyone know about speaker building? The actual cutting up of ply etc would be piss easy for me as I have a fully kitted-out workshop... Acoustics of them are presumably a little more complicated than 'reduce vibration as much as possible' though. I know a lot of sound-system people, but I reckon high-end home audio would be more in line with the rest of my business. They just seem like quite a good added value product.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Cheap CD player, cheap cables, expensive speakers, amp matched to their power requirements and youd desired volume levels, expensive room treatment if you're really serious.

The speakers are the single most important bit of gear, the room you listen in has the biggest effect on them.

Oh and providing you're not using something from the early 80's I still say that all CD players sound the same, any sonic differences are irrelevant compared to the difference you'd get by moving your head 6 inches to the left.

I used to have hilarious convos with a couple of civil servants I worked with who were audiophiles, where they'd waffle on about "preserving the purity of the sound chain". After much translation it turned out that this meant buying expensive components, powering them through expensively filtered/conditioned mains outlets and linking them with expensive cabling. Apparently any "weak link" in the "sound chain" could cause your "system" to "give sub-par reproduction". You might think that some sort of substitution for having been born with a small penis was taking place, but I couldn't possibly comment as to that...

Both of these paragons of illogicality had record collections numbered in the tens. To surmise that they probably neither of them liked music would have been harsh, but fair.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Oh yeah, does anyone know about speaker building? The actual cutting up of ply etc would be piss easy for me as I have a fully kitted-out workshop... Acoustics of them are presumably a little more complicated than 'reduce vibration as much as possible' though. I know a lot of sound-system people, but I reckon high-end home audio would be more in line with the rest of my business. They just seem like quite a good added value product.

WinISDPro is a good program for working out cab dimensions that match speaker parameters, and people like Vivian Capel have written easy-to-read stuff that deals with the maths and with construction techniques.

 

[ViolentPanda]

They just seem like quite a good added value product.

Especially if you're custom-veneering them with a choice of various bookmatched rainforest delights to match their existing decor.

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

Think of how many transistors, capacitors, resistors, transformers, AD/DA converters, and DSP chips are involved in the signal chain as a piece of music is recorded. It must be hundreds of thousands of components, yet people still insist on believing that the last 0.1% of the whole process - a piece of copper wire - will make a difference to signal degradation.

What's more, 3500 quid for a kettle lead. What in the flying fuck? Really, what in the FLYING fuck? What else could improve an audiophile's listening experience? Should we gold-plate the substation? The pylons?

 

[Spymaster]

I used to have hilarious convos with a couple of civil servants I worked with who were audiophiles, where they'd waffle on about "preserving the purity of the sound chain". After much translation it turned out that this meant buying expensive components, powering them through expensively filtered/conditioned mains outlets and linking them with expensive cabling. Apparently any "weak link" in the "sound chain" could cause your "system" to "give sub-par reproduction". You might think that some sort of substitution for having been born with a small penis was taking place, but I couldn't possibly comment as to that...

Both of these paragons of illogicality had record collections numbered in the tens. To surmise that they probably neither of them liked music would have been harsh, but fair.

I knew a similar bloke. He spent way more time pissing about with his kit and talking about that, than he did listening to music.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

What's more, 3500 quid for a kettle lead. What in the flying fuck? Really, what in the FLYING fuck? What else could improve an audiophile's listening experience? Should we gold-plate the substation? The pylons?

Ha ha, It's not even a kettle lead, it a domestic unpolarized cable. Jesus wept.

Just out of interest, a actual kettle lead has a little nick out of it at the bottom they are slightly different from the kettle leads you get on computers and music stuff.

 

[Apathy]

I know an audiophile with tinnitus. Shouldn't laugh.

 

[Cid]

Especially if you're custom-veneering them with a choice of various bookmatched rainforest delights to match their existing decor.

Not only that, but the high specific gravity of tropical hardwoods when combined with premium audi-grade ply creates a composite material that gives supreme density and vibrational resistance while preserving the tone-colour that you can only get with real woods. With our premium-grade ebony veneer the advantages extend still further - the blackness of the external surfaces helps reduce electromagnetic noise.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I knew a similar bloke. He spent way more time pissing about with his kit and talking about that, than he did listening to music.

Yep.

The only bloke I knew who was both interested in audio kit and really interested in music was a Welsh chap named Fryd who was a total hard rock addict, lived in his parents' garage, and had done it out into a ground floor "listening" room, with a mezzanine sleeping/shag palace floor. He's also the only bloke I ever knew with a fully-operational quadrophonic system.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Not only that, but the high specific gravity of tropical hardwoods when combined with premium audi-grade ply creates a composite material that gives supreme density and vibrational resistance while preserving the tone-colour that you can only get with real woods. With our premium-grade ebony veneer the advantages extend still further - the blackness of the external surfaces helps reduce electromagnetic noise.

Fucking ace sales spiel, my friend!!!

 

[ViolentPanda]

I know an audiophile with tinnitus. Shouldn't laugh.

But we do, nonetheless!!