corradoboy

Won't know until I get that elusive invite for cheese & biscuits

Have you got the stuff yet, I know there was a delay ?

Alan C

Dave. YHPM to save hijacking this excellent thread..

Hoppy

Guys, guys, mega-hi-fi is cool - it's a man-thing, like expensive watches and posh cameras, but you've just gotta say it's bollox.

Have you all really read this thread? Thousands of pounds on a string of wire FFS Vinyl is better than CD (if you can hear it over the hisses and clicks - yeah, right). And barely a mention of any MUSIC.

Just try this test. Make a cup of tea and drink it from a wine glass. Now take a good wine and drink it from your favourite tea mug. Does it taste the same? No it bloody well doesn't!!!

Mind over matter. Nothing wrong with that, other than self-delusion

Cheers,

Richard.

PS Edited to add, nobody has answered my earlier question about what an electric guitar should actually sound like. Or a singer through a microphone...

tiggers

Try this. Go to a concert and listen to a band playing live for two hours. Then go home and put one of their CD's on your Nikki-Nakki-Too "hi-fi" you bought from Currys. Turn up the volume and close your eyes. Just like being at the concert isn't it?

Regards,

tiggers.

P.S. Vinyl *is* better than CD.

ProperCharlie

But there are reasons for this - a wine glass is desined to present the aroma of the wne to the drinker's nose in an optimised way. Most of "taste" is actually smell - thus a good wine actually doesn't actually taste the same out of a tea cup.

zoog

Exactly. Once you are used to a decent system then low-fi stuff is unlistenable. If it was all a load of cobblers then Abbey Road studios would save a fortune and kit themselves out with Matsui gear!

And yes, vinyl beats CD hands down, detail, presence, dynamics, timbre and musicality. More information is resolved,and there's no digital processing and compression issues. Hiss and surface noise are not an issue with a proper cartrige/stylus. I always avoid viny that "boasts" Digitally Remastered as it is universally ****e compared to the original analogue recording.

zoog

True. There are different shaped glasses for different wine regions even, tailored to the nose of the wine.

TelBoy

Hoppy, any price you want that i could change your mind about whether decent equipment is mind over matter. You just haven't heard it, or maybe know you can't afford it, and therefore dismiss it. Understandable, but fallacious.

As regards music; well yes, but this thread isn't about music per se, is it?

tiggers

LOL!. Actually come to think of it I reckon the studio where Big Country's first album was recorded must have had Matsui gear

Cheers,

tiggers.

Pbr

Depends on the CD player. The old "vinyl is better than CD" debate was done to death in the late 1980's and no conclusive proof was offered either way. CD players have come on in leaps and bounds as companies with extensive experience in amplifier design (like Naim and Krell) turned their hands to CD player design. Power supplies and circuit board design are vital to the "musicality" of the player NOT seperate DAC's as was once thought.

I'm a big fan of analogue, but hearing a Meridian digital active system does tend to change one's outlook somewhat!

tiggers

Well I have a Naim CD player and an LP12. I and most of my friends still prefer the sound of the LP12 although there's not much in it. Vinyl just sounds more 'real' to me - hard to describe really.

tiggers.

zoog

I was dissappointed in the Linn CD12 I heard. I thought they must have just made up the £12000 price tag so it fitted with the model number! Even the dealer conceded that the LP12 Sondek beat it.
There are some interesting valve dacs about and Shanling do one from China which looks lovely but I ve not heard it. audio note do iintersting things with dacs, valves and no filters....

Pbr

What amps/speakers are you running tiggers?

messiah

Only 10 weeks old and he's pinched my Sennheisers!

tiggers

I have a Naim active set-up

NAC 102/HI-CAP's/SNAXO-2-4/135's/Credo's

Not the best by modern Naim standards, but very musical nonetheless.

Cheers,

tiggers.

Pbr

Naim active set ups are superb for rock music, I've always thought. Bags of pace and drive and a sense of effortless power that sometimes appears missing from passive rigs.

tiggers

Yeah I love the sound it produces, probably not the most accurate or detailed in the world, but the rhythm, power and dynamics more than make up for it for me. Most of my listening is rock/pop so it works just fine - waited many years to get it to where I wanted and it's been worth every penny IMHO.

Cheers,

tiggers.

Hoppy

LOL at you guys

I understand what it's all about, and the whole process of top-end hi-fi, vinyl LPs, beautifully engineered turntable and tone arm set-up just-so, gorgeous speakers, gold-plated this and that - it's all utterly seductive. And I really miss those 12in album covers which were art in themselves.

But it hasn't got much to do with music.

And I ask again, just what is modern electronically generated music supposed to sound like? How can you say this is better than that, of anything outside a classical orchestra?

Richard.

TelBoy

It's got *everything* to do with music!!


Without music, there'd be no justification for decent hi-fi. The goal, obviously, is to get as close to the "real" sound as possible. I'm saying that with equipment of sufficient quality, you can get *very* close....

zoog

When I listen to Jazz I want the music to sound as close to the live performance experience as possible, and find that is best achieved with the system I own currently rather than the ones I had before. Jazz probably suits vinyl and valves more than CD/transistors. But for rock my system is not so well tailored.

You buy a porsche for the looks and engineeering true but mainly for the sublime driving experience. HiFi s the same: ie music is the priority and the rest is subordinated.

Adrian

C h a z II

I'm lucky enough to have a full Linn Komri set up atwork with CD12. Sounds sweet


Come and have a listen if you like. Bring some money though!

Pbr

C h a z II

Tis very nice. No pictures on our site but some of the showroom is on there.


www.majikhouse.com
www.visionarysystemsuk.com (thats the one with the pics of the showroom etc)

C h a z II

If I e-mail a pic can someone put it on for me?

C h a z II

Alan C

Richard. You know what the answer is. There isn’t a single ‘true’ signature. There are so many variables as to make the question impossible to answer.
And it misses the point completely. Any sound recorded will always be subject to those variables and will therefore sound different every time.

Have Norah Jones sing in your front room and then take her next to door to an identical room, but with different furnishings and she will sound different. Add in the electronics if you record her and you no have another infinite amount of variables. Infinite, as the electrons travelling down the various wires will be subjected to differing forces that will distort, mask, amplify, attenuate each electron etc etc etc..

But the point of high end hifi is to reduce those variables to a point where they make as little difference as possible. Again, this is simplistic as each manufacturer will have their own interpretation as to how best achieve this. My Sugden kit goes down the solid state & pure class A amplification route.. Others take high speed sampling.. However it’s done, they only reduce the variables a degree, whilst adding in their own..

There’s no denying that my Sugden sounds a damn sight better than a £50 Matsui spinner.

fatscoobyfella

Im glad i started this thread!!!!

tiggers

Me too, one of the best threads on here for a while to be honest.

fatscoobyfella

Just a bit of info...me and a friend are gonna be doin the northern sound and vision show in January at the Hilton in Manchester..Were gonna really be using our own systems to demo.We will see what the feedback from the show will be as to whether we continue to pursue in the selling of the products..If we get good feedback we will just continue as we are,tryin to demo stuff as of peoples request,as and when contacted..
So if ya never heard a transducer speaker,now will be your chance..think were only gonna allow a certain amount of people at a time in and give 15 min demo's.Instead of people milling about and hearing a snippet of music and creating an opinion on that..

Will give more details if anyone interested as the show approaches..

regards

Gary

chaarl

With regard to LP's vs CD's, I must say it is my experience that LP's played on my venerable Rega Planar 3 (do they still make them?) sound better than the CD equivalent. It was pointed out to me that the CD's are quite often taken off the master tapes, however when an LP is produced there is an extra step in the process in that equalisation is added, and that the technician that performed this step quite often "tweaked" the sound. Anybody know if there is any truth in this

One thing I do know is that very often "accurate" reproduction does not sound as good to the human ear as slightly "coloured" sound, the former often being described (as was done earlier in the thread) as too clinical... (I use the quotes to emphasise the subjectivity of these terms)