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- Thread starter Robotstar5
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the snooper
getting older by the day
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Never read so much rubbish,
Parm
Respect The Sound System
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Interesting, audiophiles would have you believe that they can hear the difference between this cable when compared to that cable.
By the time you get old enough to have enough experience to have an opinion on a situation our hearing begins to deteriorate with significant loss in the upper frequency spectrum (medically and scientifically proven)
While you can tell the difference between a cheap HIFI and a reasonably good quality one I don't think its that easy to split hairs when getting to the nuances of cable specification
I mostly think it's tosh to keep the marketing department happy and massage the ego's of mostly middle aged men with more money than sense
By the time you get old enough to have enough experience to have an opinion on a situation our hearing begins to deteriorate with significant loss in the upper frequency spectrum (medically and scientifically proven)
While you can tell the difference between a cheap HIFI and a reasonably good quality one I don't think its that easy to split hairs when getting to the nuances of cable specification
I mostly think it's tosh to keep the marketing department happy and massage the ego's of mostly middle aged men with more money than sense
Jim Davey
R H Davey Welding Supplies Ltd
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I'm going to link my uncle to this thread, he has about 30k sunk into a high end Naim Audio setup, it sounds great to me but so does my £700 Denon home cinema/stereo setup I have at home. He blasts rock out of it and plays LPs too that pick up all the authentic crackle and warmth but I don't have the ears to appreciate it and I'm not convinced anyone else does either.
This is an argument that will run and run with proponents on either side. Either you can hear the difference or nothings better than mains cable.
My stance is that (some) cables do make a significant difference to the sound, if your system (and hearing) is good enough to hear it. When I first built my power amp i used military grade thick multi-strand silver plated copper wire for the internal wiring and the speaker leads. I was a physicists and did the maths for skin effect etc ad was convinced that expensive cables were snake oil.
I was a happy bunny......until a friend gave me a pair of old Naim cables to use as he had just bought the latest and greatest Naim upgrade. I was sceptical but they looked better than mine cosmetically so I tried them. The difference was not subtle!
There's certain snobbishness with those that do spend/waste the money and an equally inverted snobbishness to those that can't here the difference and won't believe that someone else can if they can't. The threads on the subject of cables, capacitors, resistors etc are sometimes vitriolic to the extent that they make me laugh. Both sides trying to convince the other that they are stupid.
Since then I have upgraded the wiring inside and outside my amp a number of times with good effect, not to the £1.5k a metre. There are lots of overpriced Hifi things out there and it's a law of diminishing returns, with the esoteric stuff getting into silly money, but there's people out there who will pay silly amounts of money for a Christmas tree star. £20k for a turntable?? It's a bit like buying an exotic supercar, is it worth it?? As with all things it depends on how rich you are and your priorities.
My stance is that (some) cables do make a significant difference to the sound, if your system (and hearing) is good enough to hear it. When I first built my power amp i used military grade thick multi-strand silver plated copper wire for the internal wiring and the speaker leads. I was a physicists and did the maths for skin effect etc ad was convinced that expensive cables were snake oil.
I was a happy bunny......until a friend gave me a pair of old Naim cables to use as he had just bought the latest and greatest Naim upgrade. I was sceptical but they looked better than mine cosmetically so I tried them. The difference was not subtle!
There's certain snobbishness with those that do spend/waste the money and an equally inverted snobbishness to those that can't here the difference and won't believe that someone else can if they can't. The threads on the subject of cables, capacitors, resistors etc are sometimes vitriolic to the extent that they make me laugh. Both sides trying to convince the other that they are stupid.
Since then I have upgraded the wiring inside and outside my amp a number of times with good effect, not to the £1.5k a metre. There are lots of overpriced Hifi things out there and it's a law of diminishing returns, with the esoteric stuff getting into silly money, but there's people out there who will pay silly amounts of money for a Christmas tree star. £20k for a turntable?? It's a bit like buying an exotic supercar, is it worth it?? As with all things it depends on how rich you are and your priorities.
Parm
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Many a frienship has been made and broken over the esoterica of HIFI
I do believe that playing music through a record player is more enjoyable, you thumb through the stack of records, you've got remember which sleeve it goes into, you've got to clean off the dust with the carbon brush, you need to have the next one selected and then get off your backside to change the damn thing. Far better than pressing buttons to skip through thousands of songs which mostly have been ripped off from other people's hard drives
As for sound quality who knows, and who cares, I enjoy all the drama that comes with playing records
I do believe that playing music through a record player is more enjoyable, you thumb through the stack of records, you've got remember which sleeve it goes into, you've got to clean off the dust with the carbon brush, you need to have the next one selected and then get off your backside to change the damn thing. Far better than pressing buttons to skip through thousands of songs which mostly have been ripped off from other people's hard drives
As for sound quality who knows, and who cares, I enjoy all the drama that comes with playing records
Jim Davey
R H Davey Welding Supplies Ltd
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I've got one, first and last record I ever bought. Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits, £5.00 in Tesco, paid for with my 6th birthday money. CDs came in right around that time and I swapped to them from that point. Shame as I always envied my Dads record collection and knew they were special (never touched them) the same can't be said for his cassette tape collection, when I was a toddler I helped myself to a rack holding about 40 to use the cases as scoops for digging up the flower bed, they broke really fast (obviously) but that was ok because there were so many. When all the cases were broke I used the tapes themselves, they were much tougher than the cases. How I've made it to age 36 I'll never know...
Love you Dad.
Kayos
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I think the laws of diminishing returns comes into play with audio
My main setup is fed from the PC optically into a Cambridge Audio dac, a valve pre amp that's also my headphone amp, into an Onkyo main amp feeding Wharfedale Amber floor standers, vinyl is on a 1210 from my dj days, a passive pre then into the Onkyo. All the cables are good quality (but not £1k/m!) and decent connectors
I could spend 10 times what I have but would I notice the difference? Doubt it
A good test is Adele 21, one of the most superbly engineered and produced albums of the last few years IMO, on a good system you can hear some fantastic subtleties that would otherwise be lost
As for car audio, that's a whole other game, that I'm playing again next year
My main setup is fed from the PC optically into a Cambridge Audio dac, a valve pre amp that's also my headphone amp, into an Onkyo main amp feeding Wharfedale Amber floor standers, vinyl is on a 1210 from my dj days, a passive pre then into the Onkyo. All the cables are good quality (but not £1k/m!) and decent connectors
I could spend 10 times what I have but would I notice the difference? Doubt it
A good test is Adele 21, one of the most superbly engineered and produced albums of the last few years IMO, on a good system you can hear some fantastic subtleties that would otherwise be lost
As for car audio, that's a whole other game, that I'm playing again next year
Parm
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Spot on, what you doing with the car, I'm interested?I think the laws of diminishing returns comes into play with audio
My main setup is fed from the PC optically into a Cambridge Audio dac, a valve pre amp that's also my headphone amp, into an Onkyo main amp feeding Wharfedale Amber floor standers, vinyl is on a 1210 from my dj days, a passive pre then into the Onkyo. All the cables are good quality (but not £1k/m!) and decent connectors
I could spend 10 times what I have but would I notice the difference? Doubt it
A good test is Adele 21, one of the most superbly engineered and produced albums of the last few years IMO, on a good system you can hear some fantastic subtleties that would otherwise be lost
As for car audio, that's a whole other game, that I'm playing again next year
Can you recommend a pair of 12" subs that won't break the bank. I wanna use them for a bit of fun in my barn
Kayos
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Car will be a full on SQ (sound quality) install, using old school Alpine amps (class A on the tweeters, V12's on the rest) DLS speakers and a dsp in the middle, difference this time is it will all be fed from a Raspberry Pi.
What subs are best is a very very very open question, budget, amps, source, etc etc all have an impact. I'm considering trying some Dayton Audio stuff this year, rave reviews and looks to be good kit, I'm looking at the reference series
Parm
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I know what you saying but I've been out of the game for nearly 20 years, I've just got a mini dsp 4x4 and wanna build a couple of subs to create some pressure, I don't want to break the bank but want it do sound decent, suggest me something
Parm
Respect The Sound System
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That sounds cool and iive got an old V12 amp kicking about somewhere
Kayos
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In the car world JBL Gto's are known to be a loss leader so very good value for money, dual voice coils mean 2 could be wired to suit pretty much any amp out there
Parm
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Ok cool but what do you mean lost leader I dont understand
Kayos
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They are sold possibly at a loss by the manufacturer, so you go "ooooh that was good and quite cheap" so you buy more stuff they make money on
Compare the Gto 1202D to another £80 ish sub and you will see it should cost far more, I've seen streetbass installs putting 1kw through each coil!
Parm
Respect The Sound System
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Cool, I just saw this on eBay at
£50 quid each I think that's just the ticket, gonna go order two, now to the box design, can you help with that ??
Kayos
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There is a couple of decent basic box calc sites, when I'm on the PC I will get you a link. I put 2 in a Vectra and set it up sensible, the lad who's car it was turned it up to ridiculous and it used to shake the house when he pulled up
