Hoo boy, I hesitate to enter this conversation, but I've gotta...

I absolutely understand the skepticism associated with wacky expensive hi-fi gear. I completely used to be in your camp -- I did all my listening from 192k mp3s through a Yamaha receiver and Boston speakers and was convinced that expensive gear couldn't possibly give me enough improvement to matter, let alone something as silly as a "high-end" cd player.

But that was before I was between jobs for a while and ended up working at a high-end hifi store. I went in convinced that I'd just have to lie my way through convincing customers to buy big systems (much as that made me wince). Then I started listening to stuff.

I've read and heard a lot of explanations for how various components/speakers/wires can sound better than others, some of which sound reasonable to me, but in the end all I can say is I can hear a difference in all of those things. Double-blind test of nothing but different grades of Kimber Kable? Damned if I couldn't call the better wire. Was it a dramatic difference? No, but it's there, much as it ticks me off. And I can also say after listening to a lot of stuff that it's got almost nothing to do with power rating, frequency response, THD, signal-to-noise or the other stats that are usually compared (although the first two at least give you some clue). It's just something about how these things are designed and the quality of stuff used to build it and you've got to listen to know the difference. And CD players are one of the biggest quality differences I've heard.

So this skeptic ended up buying a lot more crazy low-power, overdesigned British hifi than I ever dreamed of and I don't regret it in the least. I enjoy my music more. It's not worth it for everybody and I'm still no believer in all the nutty wood-block snake oil kind of stuff, but if you love music it's worth going to a good hifi store and have them try to convince you. If it doesn't do it for you, go home feeling better about what you've got. Oh and I've since gone back to engineering where I belong so I'm not trolling for business

 

I have to admit, you have real courage mentioning that different CD players can make a difference. They do, but every time I try to explain that one to my friends I get nothing but blank stares. Why is the fact that 1s and 0s are NOT music until they have been converted to an analog waveform so hard to understand. It is kind of like Alchemy. A Digital to Analog converter takes lead "digital" and tries to turn it into gold "analog", but you can't turn lead into gold. Some do a better job of fooling you than others, and that is why they sound better.

 

I was waiting for someone to bring up amplifiers

For all the bad talk about the products offered at Mac's website, most of us would still prefer the $1000 amp to the $100 amp citing a difference in sound quality [QUOTE]Originally posted by modifry
I'm an old man, so my ears are long since gone, but I remember a test done by a major Hi-Fi magazine many years ago where they tried to see if audiophiles and professional musicians could tell the difference between one amplifier and another.

 

of the key components within a serious audiophile system, CD players, speakers, and interconnects are probably the 3 key criticals.

for speakers - defintitely a personal choice based on taste. demoing here is uber critical to being happy. there is a point of diminishing returns with speakers, but generally, spending more on speakers gains you bigger gains vs spending that money on other components... (in other words, your sound improvement to money spent ratio is best here.) however, you can spend too much here if you don't upgrade components too...

for a CD player, having a good transport is nice, and most good CD players will have an adequate transport with good noise isolation. but the D/A converter is the single most important factor in that choice. the quality of the pre-amp outputs and whatever else are all worth being concerned about, but generally there will be weaker components in your chain if you get a good CD player w/ a high quality D/A converter.

interconnects -- i'm a believer that interconnects don't have to be the best to sound great. once you get into the higher tiers, then you'll have to start shopping them carefully... but for a good portion of audio equipment, standard upper end monster cable (or equivalents) should be adequate. whatever you do, never pay MSRP for this stuff... work it into the deal w/ other gear, and insist on paying 1/2 to 1/3 below the asking prices.

most decent amps and pre-amps will sound very good if you've covered the above bases, and while they are important, they definitely aren't the place i'd start to upgrade. you need some very responsive and accurate speakers, a high quality CD player, and good interconnects before you'll ever notice amp issues. (assuming you're not using the cheapest low end receiver from BB).


of course, all this is my opinion and you can do whatever you want... but if i were going to suggest a good upgrade chain, this would be my recommendations...
others may disagree and ymmv.

 

I think it's interesting that a guy named Clark is conducting car amplifier comparisons when the guy that did the home amp testing for stereo review was named Clark too. Different first name, but I wonder if they are related?

Anyway, I have posted a scanned copy of the home amplifier test on my web site. I can't put it here for obvious reasons and it will only be on my site for a few days, just for the purpose of this discussion. It's from Stereo Review, Jan 1987. Some of you will say that todays gear is so much better that a 17 year old test is no good. Do you really think that amplifier designs have changed much in 20 years? Not.

First - I was wrong on some of the details of the test, it's been a while since I read it. It was a $219 Pioneer receiver at the bottom end and $12,000 Futterman Tube amp at the top. But overall I had the right idea. Here is a quick summary:

1. They used top-notch equipment donated from high-end manufacturers and the best cables they coud find, including speaker cables that were 3/4" in diameter. Gold plated everything, contact enhancers, etc. They let the listeners listen as long as they wanted using their own music (records or CDs), played on either a mega-buck turntable or high-end CD player.

2. Before the actual test began, when listeners had access to the equipment and knew which amp was playing, almost everyone agreed they could hear differences between amplifiers, including those that were non-believers coming into the test.

3. During the test, the best any one listener could do was guess which amp was which 63% of the time. You'd think if the differences were as obvious as people claim they could do much better. I guarantee I could tell if my SC was hooked up or not, every time.

4. Overall, the total ability of the listeners to correctly identify which amp was playing was 50.3%. Dumb luck would account for 50% of the right answers, so that doesn't say much for the amplifiers being different.

Here's the link . This is over 2mb web page - so dial-uppers beware.

.

 

PJK3,
I think you would appreciate my old system. I sold some of the components last year and changed some out. I just like change.

Cary Audio 805 amps
Cary Audio SLP-98 preamp
CEC TL1 transport
Parasound DAC
Proac speakers
Balanced Synergistic research cables
Master coupler AC cables

The 805's also doubled as heaters in the winter.

I do have some different kinds of isolation feet and they do work on the transport and tube amps/preamp. (no mater what everyone here says)

 

modifry... on my way. i'm interested in checking this out. and i would agree with you that 17 years shouldn't matter.

and also, let me point out (what i said above) that i do not feel that amplifiers are where major gains are/can be made on the route from low to high end systems. (i would even state that a good pre-amp is more critical than an amp... and even then, the pre-amp isn't near the top of my list... )

Bacchus:

i'm not familiar with the Proac speakers... (linkage?) and imo, the jury is still out on the Balanced Synergistic cables -- but the rest of it i'm at least familiar with... nice gear.

 

I mean balanced as in XLR not RCA cables. I use the reference series not the X2 stuff they are advertising now. My cables are about 5 years old.

http://www.proac-loudspeakers.com/

I have a few pairs of speaker wire but I'm not sure what I actually have hooked up now. I'll have to check.

 

ahh... Balanced XLR... yup, now that's a tried and true technique to clean up sound... sorry, i was / am confused and thought you meant the whole parallel DC thing... that technology, i'm not sure about...

checking out the Proac site now...

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by PJK3
whatever you do, never pay MSRP for this stuff...