GRollins said:
Uhm, the table radio is the Advent 400! The Advent 300 is a stereo receiver, and was/is a breakthrough audio product, designed by Tom Holman among others. It's phono preamp is STILL regarded as among the best available.
http://home.netcarrier.com/~rstevens/advent.html
http://www.lacieg2s.ca/public/w3terra/ols/advent.htm
Look at the 7th paragraph...an Advent 300 driving Quads.
http://www.stereophile.com/tubepoweramps/704mac/
GRollins said:
You are focusing on the brands that you want...
Let me help you with the rest of the list a bit:
Audio Research, Bryston, Bel Canto, Carver, Cary Audio, Halcro, Jeff Rowland, Kharma, PS Audio, Lyngdorf, Esoteric, Theta.
Well, I guess these companies are new in the audio industry and don't really know what good sounding products are like...
Oh, and the masses are currently buying tubes and other stuff, not Class D amps.
What I really like is that when Wes Phillips and the rest of the Stereophile crew (as well as other reviewers around the world) are raving about a Class A or class AB amp they know what they are talking about but when they rave about a Class D amp, they are talking nonsense.. Oh, puhleeze!
Oooooh, it's Advent! It must be good! Whoa, I think I feel a tingle in my little toe!
Dear Gussie, I'm glad I'm not in your shoes. I've already traveled the road ahead of you. It was a long and wearying journey and I wouldn't do it again for all the tea in China.
You have the following choices:
--Get out of audio entirely. Buy only the bare minimum necessary to make sounds recognizable as music.
--Remain where you are. On the plus side, you'll have lots of company. You can buy Bose speakers and run them off of a mid-fi AV receiver and call yourself...well...you can call, but I'm not sure that there'll be anyone there to answer.
--Start trudging down the road ahead of you. If you do it the way a lot of people (including me) did it, you'll spend a lot of time poring over spec sheets. You'll buy something new every so often because the specs look good. It's a dead end road, but you won't realize it.
--Or you can go listen to live, unamplified music, come home, turn on the stereo, and come to the crashing realization that it doesn't sound a thing like what you just heard at the concert hall or jazz club. But how can this be? My Megawhoozis 450 has only .0003% distortion! It must sound like real music! Only it doesn't. After long contemplation, you realize that mid-fi is not where it's at, and that chasing distortion specs isn't getting the job done. At that point you can finally, belatedly, begin actually listening to the gear before you buy it. Marketing doesn't count for squat. The vast majority of reviews are simply extensions of the marketing fluff. The name on the front of the equipment doesn't count for very much. It either makes music or it makes sound. Sound is nice. Sound works great for parties, especially if it's loud. But music is another level entirely.
It's your money. It's your time. It's your life. Spend it any way you want. But I'll give you a hint: It's one thing to learn from your mistakes, but it's wiser to learn from others'. Learn from mine and save yourself a lot of angst down the road.
If you're serious about music, that is.
Grey
Dear Gussie, I'm glad I'm not in your shoes. I've already traveled the road ahead of you. It was a long and wearying journey and I wouldn't do it again for all the tea in China.
You have the following choices:
--Get out of audio entirely. Buy only the bare minimum necessary to make sounds recognizable as music.
--Remain where you are. On the plus side, you'll have lots of company. You can buy Bose speakers and run them off of a mid-fi AV receiver and call yourself...well...you can call, but I'm not sure that there'll be anyone there to answer.
--Start trudging down the road ahead of you. If you do it the way a lot of people (including me) did it, you'll spend a lot of time poring over spec sheets. You'll buy something new every so often because the specs look good. It's a dead end road, but you won't realize it.
--Or you can go listen to live, unamplified music, come home, turn on the stereo, and come to the crashing realization that it doesn't sound a thing like what you just heard at the concert hall or jazz club. But how can this be? My Megawhoozis 450 has only .0003% distortion! It must sound like real music! Only it doesn't. After long contemplation, you realize that mid-fi is not where it's at, and that chasing distortion specs isn't getting the job done. At that point you can finally, belatedly, begin actually listening to the gear before you buy it. Marketing doesn't count for squat. The vast majority of reviews are simply extensions of the marketing fluff. The name on the front of the equipment doesn't count for very much. It either makes music or it makes sound. Sound is nice. Sound works great for parties, especially if it's loud. But music is another level entirely.
It's your money. It's your time. It's your life. Spend it any way you want. But I'll give you a hint: It's one thing to learn from your mistakes, but it's wiser to learn from others'. Learn from mine and save yourself a lot of angst down the road.
If you're serious about music, that is.
Grey
TheShaman said:
Oooooh! It's Audio Research! It must be good!
I guess you weren't around back in the '80s when ARC was pretty much alternating between good/bad/good/bad with successive models.
The masses are buying tubes? Since when? What planet are you from? The last time the masses bought tubes on Earth was in the '60s.
Trying to impress me with names doesn't work. I've been in this game far too long for that.
Poking at Stereophile doesn't bother me either. I don't agree with their editorial approach, although they at least try to listen.
Man, you've got a looooong road ahead of you if you think that every piece put out by company X, Y, or Z is the living end. Golly, I think I'll repackage someone's class D circuit in a chassis with my name on it (which is what the majority of the people you listed do) and sell to people like you. I'll make a mint.
Grey
GRollins said:
It's evident you have been long in this game; too long...
So long that you can't even properly read posts of people that don't agree with you.
When you are all alone in a road it doesn't necessarily mean that you are far ahead - you could have been left behind. Better try and keep up instead of resting for ages.
You still haven't answered why Stereophile is right when they rave over a Class A or Class AB amp (esp. the "it got Class A in the recommended components list! Ohhhh, it must be good" that you and some other people keep repeating in this thread), and then the next moment they don't know what they are talking about...
GRollins said:
It doesn't explain why they are absolutely right when they say a John Curl amp (who can indeed make great amps) sounds good and they are wrong when they say a Class D amp sounds good.
I'm working on my reading comprehension, thank you very much. Unlike you, I'm trying to improve and learn new things every day and I'm not assuming I know everything.
TheShaman,
Ask someone who has a subscription to the magazine. I don't.
In the meantime, I suggest that you consider the possibility of...dare I say it?...educating your ears, then listening to anything that you might be interested in buying. It's a rather old-fashioned concept, I know; it's called taking responsibility for your actions.
Aside from listing to real music, let me suggest another way to educate your ears. I came across an article about people whose hearing became more acute after they lost their sight. Now, I already knew this, but that particular article rang a bell. I figured that if people could educate their ears after losing their sight, then there wasn't any reason that I couldn't do the same thing while hopefully retaining my sight. My approach was simple: I began walking through my house in the dark. No lights on. It doesn't take long to learn that furniture hurts when you hit it with your shin. But another thing happened...I found that I could hear open doorways, I could hear the couch, I could hear sheetrock walls. Well-upholstered furniture and open doors soak up sound. Sheetrock reflects. I've gotten pretty good at it now and it's taught me loads about what to listen for in recordings.
You might try it sometime.
It works a lot better than foolish bluster.
Grey
Ask someone who has a subscription to the magazine. I don't.
In the meantime, I suggest that you consider the possibility of...dare I say it?...educating your ears, then listening to anything that you might be interested in buying. It's a rather old-fashioned concept, I know; it's called taking responsibility for your actions.
Aside from listing to real music, let me suggest another way to educate your ears. I came across an article about people whose hearing became more acute after they lost their sight. Now, I already knew this, but that particular article rang a bell. I figured that if people could educate their ears after losing their sight, then there wasn't any reason that I couldn't do the same thing while hopefully retaining my sight. My approach was simple: I began walking through my house in the dark. No lights on. It doesn't take long to learn that furniture hurts when you hit it with your shin. But another thing happened...I found that I could hear open doorways, I could hear the couch, I could hear sheetrock walls. Well-upholstered furniture and open doors soak up sound. Sheetrock reflects. I've gotten pretty good at it now and it's taught me loads about what to listen for in recordings.
You might try it sometime.
It works a lot better than foolish bluster.
Grey
GRollins said:
I've worked in broadcasting, recording and sound reinforcement for over 30 years! I KNOW what "live" music sounds like.
Have you ever mixed anything in Carnegie Hall? I have! The Newport Jazz Festival-in the OLD Carnegie Hall no less. So don't you DARE tell me to get out of the profession and passion I have had for decades.
Let me clue you into something else...those recordings that you listen to ALL have been through LOTS of IC opamps. I suppose that keeps you from enjoying them? Hardly.
You show your ignorance when you speak poorly about the older Advent stuff. You also show it when you trash older gear. If it sounds SO bad, then how come it's SO prized? Seems to me that lots of people spend lots of time and money looking for and acquiring old gear. Why? Because in many cases it blows (the) new stuff out of the water!
I don't have ANY Bose. Now you're telling me that Mcintosh is mid fi? I don't think so! If it was, the amps wouldn't be selling for many thousands of dollars.
Newer isn't always better. My ears are just fine. I simply don't LET the small details get in the way of my enjoyment of music. To me, the picture is a picture, not the small dots that make it up.
Enjoy your dots....
dpuopolo said:
There's an old expression that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. I've known quite a few people in the recording/sound reinforcement end of the business. Only one had any idea of what music really sounded like. In other words, I'm not impressed. As concrete evidence, I offer 99% of the recordings on the market. And if it's got a PA system, it's disqualified. Period. You're listening to the "big stereo," not the instruments.
Your comment about opamps in the recording chain only reinforces the impression that you don't know much about audio reproduction. Of course there are opamps involved in most recordings. This is old news. If you thought that was supposed to be some sort of door-slammer comment, it didn't work (again). The question is not whether there are opamps in the recording studio, it's more along the lines of, "What can we do to keep from damaging the signal further?" In other words, if you ask the wrong questions, you'll get the wrong answers.
Two more listening tips to use while educating your ears:
--While at an acoustic concert, meaning no sound reinforcement--classical, jazz, bluegrass, etc.-- close your eyes and pretend that it's not the real thing. Pretend instead that it's your stereo. Think about it for a moment. Ask yourself if you have this itch to turn up the treble, or perhaps the bass. Then open your eyes and ponder the following thought: Are you on the right track if you're trying to change reality to match your stereo? This is one I had problems with, myself. People who listen only to rock/pop/whatever tend to have the worst time with this. In my case, it was rock. It wasn't until I started listening to other sorts of music that I realized how screwed up my system was. You don't even have to like classical or jazz...just think of it in the same terms as an eye chart--you don't want to read one of those, they're just for testing purposes.
--Again, while at a live concert at your preferred distance from the stage, close your eyes and listen to the "image." How far apart do you actually hear performers? A useful trick is to raise your finger and place it across the bridge of your nose (you can pretend that you're scratching an itch, if this makes you self conscious) and use your finger as a ruler to measure the stage width. For me, given the length of my forefinger and the spacing of my eyes, my forefinger pretty much spans the stage at a classical concert if I'm seated at about row G or H. Your fingers or eyes may be different from mine, so you'll need to calibrate this for your own body. Now, go home and listen to a good recording. Can your system reproduce that stage width? If your wife thinks you look silly with your finger across your nose, fall back on the scratching-your-nose excuse.
The sad thing is that people go listen to music, but they don't really learn anything from the experience. With these tricks, you might be able to do some more-or-less objective "research" while you're listening.
And, please, desist with the name-dropping. It's not working.
Grey
TheShaman said:
So you have heard all the Class D/T products of the following companies:
Alright. I guess the people who developed those products and the people who built those amps, along with the thousands of buyers around the world, including all the people that write on the Class D subforum here, as well as the reviewers around the globe (because many of those products have got rave reviews from numerous magazines and websites) have gone deaf and have forgotten what a good amp sounds like. It must be a plague.
All of these people are completely unbiased and unaffected by the business side of all of this.... ?
Actually, if you've never experienced better, mid-fi can be sold as state of the art. My guess is that most of the people listed in your wrap up statement have never heard anything that resembles the best that the market can produce, much less audio designs produced by people attempting to push the limits of the art. The cool thing is, this doesn't matter. Doesn't stop anyone from sounding like they know better.
It's not whose right or wrong, the person (or whatever) that talks the loudest and sounds the most convincing is the one who is listened to.
It's easier that way, you don't have to do your homework or waste time with the details.
Let's face it we have achieved audio perfection as of October of 2007. No need to try anymore, future generations will benefit from our advanced state.
Silly, silly arguments.
Mike.
I never said Class D is the end of the road or anything. You should re-read some of the above posts to see who likes to take for granted the superiority of one amp class over another.
I could list the names of experienced industry people*, reviewers and hobbyists that have heard good class D/T implementations and considered them among the best they've ever heard (and certainly not mid-fi), I could also list the gear Class D/T amps have been compared to - but it wouldn't make a difference. Everyone has been in this game longer than the next guy and knows better (and has more experience of good setups ofc).
*(who don't feel their work and their interests are threatened by those "damned amp modules" and can admit to what they hear)
Indeed.
I could list the names of experienced industry people*, reviewers and hobbyists that have heard good class D/T implementations and considered them among the best they've ever heard (and certainly not mid-fi), I could also list the gear Class D/T amps have been compared to - but it wouldn't make a difference. Everyone has been in this game longer than the next guy and knows better (and has more experience of good setups ofc).
*(who don't feel their work and their interests are threatened by those "damned amp modules" and can admit to what they hear)
MikeBettinger said:
Indeed.
Exactly!
My desire is for everyone to have the ability to have good audio in their home. This means that it has to be affordable. If a chip amp, class D amplifier or National Semiconductor IC can do this then why not? Why do so many here praise or condemn gear that they've never heard just because they are made by a certain company or sells for a certain price?
I wonder how much of the stuff we "hear" is more the result of politics and price then (its) actual sound? Does it take John Atkinson's rave review to make something sound good?
Let me tell you a true story that happened about ten years ago. A friend of mine worked for a high end salon in the Boston area. He did custom installs for them at customers' homes. He was working one day installing a high end system in a customer's media center. This was really high end stuff-Mark Levinson monoblocks, some megabucks preamp, and a pair of large Magnaplanar speakers. My friend had hooked up his el cheapo Radio Shack portable CD player up to one speaker using a Radio Shack mono 10 watt PA amplifier he had found in the trash. He was listening to some jazz just to keep him company while he worked. The customer stuck his head in the room and exclaimed: "WOW! What great imaging those speakers have!" My friend diplomatically stifled a laugh and told the customer that things would sound even BETTER once he was finished! My point it this: too many times we believe that something sounds good (or bad) because SOME ONE ELSE TELLS US SO!
If it's cheap or digital or an IC, it can't sound good, can it?
Well, I'm here to tell you that it can-especially with today's equipment.
What's ironic is that I'm sure that last generation's audiophiles probably said the same thing about solid state amps vs tube ones. And in the beginning, they probably were right! But who today would deny that solid state amps can sound GREAT!
The same thing can likely be said about IC's and T amps....though yesterday's opamps sounded bad, today's simply do not.
My desire is for everyone to have the ability to have good audio in their home. This means that it has to be affordable. If a chip amp, class D amplifier or National Semiconductor IC can do this then why not? Why do so many here praise or condemn gear that they've never heard just because they are made by a certain company or sells for a certain price?
I wonder how much of the stuff we "hear" is more the result of politics and price then (its) actual sound? Does it take John Atkinson's rave review to make something sound good?
Let me tell you a true story that happened about ten years ago. A friend of mine worked for a high end salon in the Boston area. He did custom installs for them at customers' homes. He was working one day installing a high end system in a customer's media center. This was really high end stuff-Mark Levinson monoblocks, some megabucks preamp, and a pair of large Magnaplanar speakers. My friend had hooked up his el cheapo Radio Shack portable CD player up to one speaker using a Radio Shack mono 10 watt PA amplifier he had found in the trash. He was listening to some jazz just to keep him company while he worked. The customer stuck his head in the room and exclaimed: "WOW! What great imaging those speakers have!" My friend diplomatically stifled a laugh and told the customer that things would sound even BETTER once he was finished! My point it this: too many times we believe that something sounds good (or bad) because SOME ONE ELSE TELLS US SO!
If it's cheap or digital or an IC, it can't sound good, can it?
Well, I'm here to tell you that it can-especially with today's equipment.
What's ironic is that I'm sure that last generation's audiophiles probably said the same thing about solid state amps vs tube ones. And in the beginning, they probably were right! But who today would deny that solid state amps can sound GREAT!
The same thing can likely be said about IC's and T amps....though yesterday's opamps sounded bad, today's simply do not.
Re: Exactly!
Innarestingly enough this is all I care about. When I sit down and listen to my system, or the latest change I've made, all I care about is if it is more involving or if the edge on Gillian's voice is less distracting, can I buy into the presentation of a live recording, as if it might be real; does it get me to suspend reality? Take a vacation from the real world...
I sit and listen, don't really care what Mr. Atkinson hears, it's what I hear. I read Stereophile because it's input on my hobby, not because it's the bible.
I could go on, but I won't. But I will say it's all about the personal experience, unless you want to duke it out in the commercial world, if so you better have a thick skin.
Mike.
dpuopolo said:
Innarestingly enough this is all I care about. When I sit down and listen to my system, or the latest change I've made, all I care about is if it is more involving or if the edge on Gillian's voice is less distracting, can I buy into the presentation of a live recording, as if it might be real; does it get me to suspend reality? Take a vacation from the real world...
I sit and listen, don't really care what Mr. Atkinson hears, it's what I hear. I read Stereophile because it's input on my hobby, not because it's the bible.
I could go on, but I won't. But I will say it's all about the personal experience, unless you want to duke it out in the commercial world, if so you better have a thick skin.
Mike.
Re: Exactly!
I'm sorry...I must have missed the part of the story where your friend told him it sounded good. Your anecdote does not support your contention.
Just because someone has enough money to buy high priced gear does not mean that they listen very well. I had a lot of those back when I was in the retail end of the business. While I was happy to sell them the gear, it was also bittersweet seeing the equipment going into a home where it wouldn't be fully appreciated. This is just the flipside of expensive gear that doesn't make the grade. Sometimes the gear isn't worthy of the price charged; sometimes the buyer isn't worthy of the gear.
There also seems to be a bit of confusion over terminology. There is an amplifier biasing characteristic called class A. This means, in essence, that the output devices do not turn off at any point during the signal's traverse from positive to negative and back again. Then there is class A as used by Stereophile, meaning stuff they think is good. They are not the same thing. Class A amps (in the electronic sense) are generally all pretty decent sounding amps, but they are rare, due to the size, weight, and expense involved. Class A in the Stereophile sense is open to amplifiers (preamps and other low level gear always run class A in the electronic sense) of all electronic classes.
If you like class D amps, by all means take one home and be happy. Just don't try to delude yourself that it's top notch in the sonic sense. It's just not ready for prime time. If you want to say it's efficient, I'm okay with that. If you want to say that it provides a lot of power per dollar spent, I'm okay with that, too. But don't try to tell me it can run with the big dogs as far as sound quality goes. At a guess, it'll be another five or ten years before we get there.
I've got a system here at my elbow that some people would probably call high end. It's a background music system and it tends to get whatever is floating around the house not being used elsewhere at the moment. The preamp is an Audio Research SP9 which I got for virtually nothing--in fact, it wouldn't be here if I hadn't gotten it so cheaply, simply because it isn't one of ARC's better efforts. In my eyes, it's not worth bragging about because it's rather thin sounding. To someone who gets a hard-on every time they hear the name Audio Research it's probably a to-die-for component. My advice is not to sell your life so cheaply. This preamp ain't worth dying for. Sure, it says Audio Research on the front. So what? It's just not that good, compared to some of the models that came before and after.
You have to be able to appraise the sound of things honestly if you're going to play the high end game. If all you want is day to day music, then you don't need high end equipment. Mid-fi will do the job admirably. That's fine. There are hundreds of thousands of households here in the US where people turn on the stereo and sing along with the music or eat supper or have a party. I have no problem with that. It's when people with mundane stuff start claiming that they've got top line gear that my eyebrow rises. They either need to get over their egos or they need more listening experience...or both.
Grey
dpuopolo said:
I'm sorry...I must have missed the part of the story where your friend told him it sounded good. Your anecdote does not support your contention.
Just because someone has enough money to buy high priced gear does not mean that they listen very well. I had a lot of those back when I was in the retail end of the business. While I was happy to sell them the gear, it was also bittersweet seeing the equipment going into a home where it wouldn't be fully appreciated. This is just the flipside of expensive gear that doesn't make the grade. Sometimes the gear isn't worthy of the price charged; sometimes the buyer isn't worthy of the gear.
There also seems to be a bit of confusion over terminology. There is an amplifier biasing characteristic called class A. This means, in essence, that the output devices do not turn off at any point during the signal's traverse from positive to negative and back again. Then there is class A as used by Stereophile, meaning stuff they think is good. They are not the same thing. Class A amps (in the electronic sense) are generally all pretty decent sounding amps, but they are rare, due to the size, weight, and expense involved. Class A in the Stereophile sense is open to amplifiers (preamps and other low level gear always run class A in the electronic sense) of all electronic classes.
If you like class D amps, by all means take one home and be happy. Just don't try to delude yourself that it's top notch in the sonic sense. It's just not ready for prime time. If you want to say it's efficient, I'm okay with that. If you want to say that it provides a lot of power per dollar spent, I'm okay with that, too. But don't try to tell me it can run with the big dogs as far as sound quality goes. At a guess, it'll be another five or ten years before we get there.
I've got a system here at my elbow that some people would probably call high end. It's a background music system and it tends to get whatever is floating around the house not being used elsewhere at the moment. The preamp is an Audio Research SP9 which I got for virtually nothing--in fact, it wouldn't be here if I hadn't gotten it so cheaply, simply because it isn't one of ARC's better efforts. In my eyes, it's not worth bragging about because it's rather thin sounding. To someone who gets a hard-on every time they hear the name Audio Research it's probably a to-die-for component. My advice is not to sell your life so cheaply. This preamp ain't worth dying for. Sure, it says Audio Research on the front. So what? It's just not that good, compared to some of the models that came before and after.
You have to be able to appraise the sound of things honestly if you're going to play the high end game. If all you want is day to day music, then you don't need high end equipment. Mid-fi will do the job admirably. That's fine. There are hundreds of thousands of households here in the US where people turn on the stereo and sing along with the music or eat supper or have a party. I have no problem with that. It's when people with mundane stuff start claiming that they've got top line gear that my eyebrow rises. They either need to get over their egos or they need more listening experience...or both.
Grey
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