Audio My new Hifi room

vij said:
2L for an audio setup :S

Has not mentioned what the music budget is :)

In fact thats the odd thing out in the picture.

Where's the shelves of LPs or the digital hookup, with wireless touchscreen for selection.
 
Well, people spend five times that on cars that pollute the environment and get you from one place to the other, a function easily fulfilled by your legs. I don't see anything to be so surprised @.
 
blr_p said:
Has not mentioned what the music budget is :)

In fact thats the odd thing out in the picture.

Where's the shelves of LPs or the digital hookup, with wireless touchscreen for selection.

I prefer using a netbook to TS into that machine over there - cheap and works very very well. Any extra bits in the system that have no reason to be there are unwelcome in stereo audio :)

I've not invested in very good racks/furniture yet, nor any treatment. I'm having a couple of bass traps built which I think should be enough since I don't have any issues other than a slight bit of bass bloat.

A good rack is also due!

@cranky: TBH, I'm one of those ppl whom you just mentioned :). But then cars are my other passion these days.
 
cranky said:
Well, people spend five times that on cars that pollute the environment and get you from one place to the other, a function easily fulfilled by your legs. I don't see anything to be so surprised @.

“It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters in the end.â€
 
cranky said:
Well, people spend five times that on cars that pollute the environment and get you from one place to the other, a function easily fulfilled by your legs. I don't see anything to be so surprised @.

False comparison :p

Its not about walking but the kind of ride. What you're saying in effect is a top of the line is always preferable to mid-range.

Figure it out dude, which is the more expensive hence most desirable element of an audio system ?

The one which wont age if carefully done and which requires lots of time to do.

If its good then it will also be over mid-range and maybe even down to AM radio, because its not what you hear but what you think you heard :)
 
@Nikhil, my point exactly. Everybody puts money on what they love. Raised eyebrows are unnecessary, patronizing and irritating. Somebody who earns money deserves to put it behind what they love. If anything, this is not the first or the last system Chaos has bought, so the total bill is actually much bigger than what you see here. If I start detailing some of the systems I've seen in the last few years, those people will go blind just from raising eyebrows.

I could point with similar derision to any purchase anybody else makes, because it's not important to me OR I can't afford it. The fact is that the things that give anyone pleasure, are the ones they work hard and earn money for - cars, music systems, families and children. I don;t see anything wrong with spending the money, if one has it, be it 20K, 2L, or 20L.

The 10-L car gets you from A to B, so do your legs. Eventually. Both are extremes, and both are unnecessary. The reproduction of music is itself an erroneous system, as music is meant to be heard live. The movement of human beings in cars is wrong, as our bodies are biologically meant to walk, or run.

I don't see anything wrong with the comparison. Both are creature comforts, both are artificial, and both require lots of money (though one gives considerably less enjoyment, for the most part).
 
cranky said:
If I start detailing some of the systems I've seen in the last few years, those people will go blind just from raising eyebrows.

You wouldn't happen to be a salesman by any chance ?
cranky said:
Your ears?

Ok, how important is it that you use lossy sources with a system like this ?

I'd say very, after all that is the point is it not.

Now, how easy is it to get that kind of content here at an affordable price. Stick to the mainstream and its very possible. Dare to stray and it gets harder. Listening to music is like reading books. The more varied you experience the more your tastes develop.

Is it not clear as this point that you cut yourself out of a lot because you demand the best sound ?

Being an audiophile with mainsteam taste, in India, OK, otherwise (thumbs down).

The funny thing is i'm no different that you, i'm also an audiophile :)
 
I'm no salesman. You need to be less offensive.

Is it not clear as this point that you cut yourself out of a lot because you demand the best sound

And so what if I do? I buy my CDs or hi-res audio, sometimes from secondhand shops on the street. I save for it, because it is important to me. Maybe that is incomprehensible to people who download stuff all the time. I see no reason to own lossy music, much less steal it, as it is worthless.

I see no point in continuing the discussion. Someone here raised eyebrows at a 2L setup, and I frankly think it's inappropriate. It seems you are making this into a personal issue, so I see no point in contributing. I have a life, and may not be able to always respond to posts it does not mean that

cranky, cat got your tongue

Have a nice day yourself.
 
cranky said:
I'm no salesman. You need to be less offensive.

Thx for the confirmation and my apologies :(
cranky said:
And so what if I do? I buy my CDs or hi-res audio, sometimes from secondhand shops on the street. I save for it, because it is important to me. Maybe that is incomprehensible to people who download stuff all the time.

Sure, thats what you end up having to do, but India is a much more harder place to pull this off than say abroad and even there your best bet is ordering off the web.

And what do you do in the case where there is only a digital download available ?

You can't always buy lossless, the best available is 320cbr or at times lame APE.

My point is if you can readily get your lossless material then there isn't much stopping to go with better sound reproduction.
cranky said:
I see no reason to own lossy music, much less steal it, as it is worthless.

My contention here is because you have experienced better sound that it then becomes a prime criteria for listening. Lets not forget its the tune that first hooks you and then the better sound is icing on the cake.

Otherwise as the saying goes, a pig with lipstick is still a pig :)
cranky said:
I see no point in continuing the discussion. Someone here raised eyebrows at a 2L setup, and I frankly think it's inappropriate.

Perhaps but i'm not coming from there. I don't think its far fetched to find ppl whose audio collection is prolly worth an order of magnitude more than what they put into equpiment.

Now given you have seen many rigs that were even more expensive, lets see if you can correct a stereotype.

Ppl that spend so much on the equipment tend to spend less on the actual playback material. I'm not saying they download or anything but that their tastes are about as mainstream as anyone else. The quest for them is not so much varied sounds but more refined sound. IOW their collections aren't all that remarkable compared with many, they just have a more expensive system.

Does this correlate with what you have seen ?

Sure there might be the odd few exceptions but they are just that, exceptions.

Cos the ppl i've seen with gigantic collections tend to stop at mid-range and then devote the rest of their time to hunting for the next vibe :)
 
Ppl that spend so much on the equipment tend to spend less on the actual playback material

Generalisations are not a good thing in any field. I know people who have over 4,000 CDs, and about the same number of records, and have spent a dime on equipment in the last decade. From them, I learn there may be people with lots more. I'm only at about 1,000. That is still about 3 times my current equipment cost, at roughly 550/CD (Yes, I import a lot of them).

My contention here is because you have experienced better sound that it then becomes a prime criteria for listening

For you, maybe. Not for me, it's chicken and egg. I still listen to a lot of stuff with very bad recordings (think 80s rock). I don't complain. The music is always most important. But my taste has evolved and changed. And that is not only in the direction of better 'sound'. I listen to a lot of alternative and modern rock, which is pretty badly recorded. Some old jazz recordings are not very well made, and for the most part, vintage blues is terribly recorded. In my collection I could look at about 10-20 CDs and point them out as examples of great recordings. The rest are music (and not always the best kind either). My last purchases from amazon.com had three CDs of Jackson Browne, who probably puts out the worst recordings in history. This was after I purchased my BE-718s, so no, the SQ was never the prime criteria....

Lets not forget its the tune that first hooks you and then the better sound is icing on the cake.

Again, music is an experience. I respect the fact that everybody's experience, requirements and senses may be different. So no, it is not always the tune that hooks me. Just like a flat voice sounds dull, uninspiring and unpalatable, a harsh, bloated or otherwise bad reproduction system spoils the experience for me. No matter how good the song is. OTOH, when I hear a song on a good system, I can start to appreciate something I've heard only briefly before, or discover new things about the music I already have.

Never compare experiences. You don't know what the other person's journey is about.
 
cranky said:
Generalisations are not a good thing in any field. I know people who have over 4,000 CDs, and about the same number of records, and have spent a dime on equipment in the last decade. From them, I learn there may be people with lots more.

Have spent or not spent, i think you mean the latter. If so is it not kinda reinforcing the idea that once you've got a 'decent' system the challenge becomes the collection, which will take a lifetime.

Rather than just upgrading the system over time for diniminishing returns <-- this is the bit i find difficult to accept.

see below for what i mean by 'decent'
cranky said:
I'm only at about 1,000. That is still about 3 times my current equipment cost, at roughly 550/CD (Yes, I import a lot of them).

That means your equipment is worth under 2 lakhs which is on the way to high end from mid-range.
cranky said:
For you, maybe. Not for me, it's chicken and egg. I still listen to a lot of stuff with very bad recordings (think 80s rock). I don't complain. The music is always most important. But my taste has evolved and changed. And that is not only in the direction of better 'sound'. I listen to a lot of alternative and modern rock, which is pretty badly recorded. Some old jazz recordings are not very well made, and for the most part, vintage blues is terribly recorded.

Right, this is the part thats not intuitive.

You spend for an above-average system as you expect above-average reproduction.

But if the recording itself is not always there then why spend as much ?

cranky said:
In my collection I could look at about 10-20 CDs and point them out as examples of great recordings. The rest are music (and not always the best kind either). My last purchases from amazon.com had three CDs of Jackson Browne, who probably puts out the worst recordings in history. This was after I purchased my BE-718s, so no, the SQ was never the prime criteria....

This sounds like only 10-20 CDs out of a 1000 make your system worth it ?!

Given the genres you listen to have strings & cymbals ie sounds with high harmonics then the upper end reproduction makes a big difference to the experience. I see similar mastering quality with electronic music but i think the problem would be heightened for you given your tastes. In addition there is the ever present loudness war raging now for over a decade+ which means stuff is compressed to hell to make it sound 'loud' losing a lot of its dynamic range, which your system excels at :(

This is the part where i'm talking about drifting off the beaten path. These bands prolly don't have the resources for better mastering but nevertheless are worth acquiring, as you're not going to hear cutting edge ideas from the majors. Nor do the artists concerned want to sell their lives into slavery and would rather own the recordinds and prefer to release under their own labels.

So if a good portion of the music you listen to is of a similar quality does it not negate the reason to have high end equipment.

On a mid-range the stuff will sound ok, but on a better system you will hear the imperfections more, no ?

Which leads me to think many could get away with little over half that cost for a decent or mid-range and put the rest into the music. That it would be advisable to prolly wait before going in for a 'good' system only after having acquired a suitable sized collection to better decide how much of a budget to spend on it. A thousand albums is prolly a good point to reach where one has a fairly good idea of the range of music one likes and also an idea of the recording quality.

Rather than getting the 'good' system early and THEN buidling up the collection :)
cranky said:
Again, music is an experience. I respect the fact that everybody's experience, requirements and senses may be different. So no, it is not always the tune that hooks me. Just like a flat voice sounds dull, uninspiring and unpalatable, a harsh, bloated or otherwise bad reproduction system spoils the experience for me. No matter how good the song is. OTOH, when I hear a song on a good system, I can start to appreciate something I've heard only briefly before, or discover new things about the music I already have.

Never compare experiences. You don't know what the other person's journey is about.

Are you are saying a better system makes a bad recording sound less bad, ..as opposed to highlighting more how bad it actually is ?
 
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