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LostHighway

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  1. There are certainly audio systems that are voiced to sound warm, rich and perhaps a bit dark. These could also be described as forgiving. They impart at least some of those qualities to all content. The extreme flip side of that would be systems that sound bright, spotlit and perhaps rather clinical, again with almost all content. My personal take is that both are "wrong". A system that leaves a consistent sonic fingerprint across a broad range of material simply isn't truthful. This is not to say that it can't be pleasant, only that it isn't transparent. There is also not one sound to live music. An instrument or a singer at close range, say five to seven meters, in a live room of modest dimensions is a very different experience from that same instrument or singer heard twenty-five meters back in a large, warm sounding hall packed with people. There are also massive differences in recording techniques and equipment. IMO a good system should fully reveal those differences.
  2. Pedantic correction: The Exogal crew may have been there at the beginning of Wadia, I don't know, but the late Don Moses was the primary founder. Wadia was the first name of his father.
  3. I didn't vote in the poll. My choice would also be the room itself and room treatments. Aside from that if we were talking audio systems broadly and including analogue sources and preamps with built-in phono stages I would say the preamp. However, in a digital only system which may not even require a preamp I have to go with amplifier. IME there are far more dramatically different "flavors" of amps than there are of cables or DACs,
  4. I never was terribly interested in the hi-rez physical formats so there isn't much I can contribute to this thread but I will say that IMO the early big Sony's (SCD-1, 777 & 9000) were not all that great as redbook CDPs. There were a number of other CDPs out there in the late '90s/early 2000s that I liked far better for redbook. I've never heard the 5400 as far as I can recall. I liked what I've heard of the big (read out of my price range) Esoteric transports and players but was less impressed with their "entry level" (but still expensive) efforts, however, I think it has been a decade since I last auditioned them. My exposure to the Oppos has been limited but based on what I've heard, again for redbook performance not video or hi-rez audio, I would tend to concur with Master and tranz. In an AV system they may still be good value but I don't think I'd buy them for audio only.
  5. I wish I could believe that there was a tongue firmly planted in cheek there but the available evidence suggests otherwise.
  6. Kudos for one of the more sensible and less inflamatory posts on this thread. Your experience was similar to mine. I found the early CDPs (including the Boothroyd Stuart MCD and MCD Pro) nearly unlistenable but by the end of the 1980s you could get tolerable mid-fi sound out of them. IME it wasn't until the late 1990s that digital even begin to rival good TT set ups. Curiously two of my major high end audio mentors diverged on digital almost from the beginning; one went the J Gordon Holt route of embracing digital immediately while another hated it, at least in the first ten to fifteen years. Interestingly, the one who hated it had far more background and expertise in the computer world. There clearly is something going on there that we don't have the right understanding or measurements to quantify, assuming it even is quantifiable. I tend to align with the late, great, Arthur Eddington on both the importance and limitations of science.
  7. As is typically the case with threads of this nature there is far more heat than light. To me the two formats simply sound different. Surface noise on LPs does bother me and the 15 to 23 minute sides of an LP now seem to fly by rather more quickly than they did when vinyl was the primary medium. On the other hand digital can often sound thin, glare-y, etched, brittle, closed-in, etc. I will freely confess that I have much more experience with high end vinyl rigs than the current digital SOTA. People tend to forget that hearing along with our other senses is not an objective measuring instrument. Ultimately we hear or see or taste with our brain (mind if you prefer) and exactly what goes on in that processing is only very partially understood. I simply fail to see the point of trying to convince people that they are "wrong" or should change their minds about liking what they like. Unlike politics for example the ramifications of personal preferences don't really reach much beyond the individual. While it seems less true here than at say Hydrogen Audio I will note that that those who hew closer to a purely objectivist position often seem to have not terribly good systems but there are always exceptions to try the rule. Of course the internet being what it is anyone can claim to own or have owned or heard almost anything they have simply heard of. Perhaps a debate between the R2D and DSD camps might prove more interesting?
  8. Neither. As tempting as the $100k stereo may be I'd like to think that I'd spend it booking jazz. In a venue that doesn't serve alcohol (not that I have anything against alcohol but the sort of venues I'm thinking of aren't licensed) jazz tends to be, at best, a break even proposition and a loss is as likely as not. I'd be looking at the likes of Aram Shelton, Harris Eisenstadt, Dave Rempis, Steve Lehman, Kirk Knuffke, Joe Morris, Nate Wooley, Lotte Anker, Joachim Badenhorst, Daniel Levin, Magnus Broo, Jason Stein, Darius Jones, etc. Mainstream classical music has been vastly better funded than new music, both improvised and written. I'd rather put my money on the creative edge and make the tickets cheap enough that almost anyone could afford it.
  9. Ayre KX-R Twenty line preamp, I haven't heard the Twenty version but the original was the best preamp I've ever auditioned and the Twenty is said to be better. It is possible that I might prefer one of the serious money speaker systems from YG, Vivid, Wilson, Magico, Rockport, etc. but I haven't heard most of these and cost is certainly no guarantee of performance to my taste in high end audio.
  10. Based on twenty plus years of off and on high end retail audio experience I'll offer some broad generalizations: Anything can fail but the failure rate of most audio components is quite low. Per above the life of electrolytic PSU caps tend to be ten to twenty years but can be much less in high heat situations. I would single out Bryston and Ayre for both very low failure rates and exemplary customer support, the best in the industry IME. Based on personal as opposed to retail sales experience Green Mountain Audio is absolutely great for customer support but be aware that they are a very small company. Vandersteen is generally quite good with most customers but can run out of patience or be caught on a bad day. High prices don't necessarily equate to good customer support. I have grown to be quite cautious about tiny, boutique-y companies; they can be very good about support and around for decades but they also can be flaky or suddenly disappear. Personally, factory support either through a very good importer with factory-trained service staff or domestic production/factory support is important to me and something I will pay a premium for. The nightmare of products that have to be shipped internationally for service is an experience I don't wish to revisit. Speaking only for myself I am not a fan of Harmon International companies for support.
  11. My concern would be that 10% of the time. Most of the amplification options under discussion are, IMO, marginal but probably at least adequate for the vast majority of the proposed use. However, attempting to provide music for parties where the ambient noise floor is higher and many of the guests are outside the house with the patio doors open could very easily lead to disaster.
  12. I haven't heard the JBLs or the PSBs. I found the Swans larger than I was willing to put up with for desktop use. I have the Emotiva AirMotiv 4s which are currently $299. They are slightly smaller than AudioEngine 5+. I substantially prefer them to the 2+ and slightly prefer them to the AE 5+. IMO you do need to get any desktop speaker up off the desk surface, something like the DS2 that Blake linked I would consider a minimum. I find the AirMotivs fine for jazz or chamber music. Asking tiny $300 speakers to convincingly reproduce Mahler symphonies or Beethoven's 9th is, IMO, a bridge too far but they work well for what I listen to: jazz from Ben Webster to Henry Threadgill, singer-songwriters like Dylan, Randy Newman or Leonard Cohen, and chamber music (heavy on Baroque and 20th C). No $300 active speakers are going to be highly resolving or truly neutral judged against what is out there for substantially more money but these more than meet my expectations for desktop use and I don't find them fatiguing at the levels I listen.
  13. With the caveat that this is just my opinion I think you can get very good desktop sound with either passive speakers and an external amp OR with active (powered) speakers. While there is a theoretical case to be made for the superiority of internally powered speakers my experience is that implementation almost always trumps theory in audio. To me the main advantage of internally powered speakers is simply fewer boxes and cables but should trouble arise with the amplification you might wish you had an external amp. I think the AudioEngines and Emotivas are fine for relatively inexpensive powered speakers. I have not heard the KEF Egg or X300 but almost everything I've heard about them has been favorable. I believe Adam, Genelec and Dynaudio also have well regarded offerings in the roughly $650 - $1100/pr range. If you have very deep pockets the PMC TwoTwo.5 or ATC SCM20ASL might be worth auditioning. This is far from an exhaustive list. Even if you have the physical space for larger speakers for nearfield listening I strongly recommend smaller speaker systems that approximate a point source. There are also a great many, very good, small, passive speakers voiced for nearfield use. There are so many variables that it is difficult to hypothesize performance per dollar when comparing passive to active systems. If you choose to go down this road I can recommend the small chip amps like the 47 Labs Gaincard or its semi clones (many DIY). I am a little less sanguine about small inexpensive switching amps but I confess that I'm not terribly current on that technology. If you have further questions I'll try to be of help but I'm sure there are many participants here with far more experience and expertise than I possess when it comes to desktop audio.
  14. Perhaps you mean >$100? To tell the truth although I've heard numerous Logitech speaker set ups, either at the homes of acquaintances or when dragged along on shopping trips as the "more knowledgeable friend", I've never kept close track of model numbers or price points. My general impression, however, is that the more elaborate they become, e.g. 2.1 rather than a stereo pair, the worse value they represent. If you're happy with you're speakers that 's great, be happy! My opinion or anyone else's here doesn't make them sound any different, but I still wouldn't recommend them to a third party.
  15. Like Agropo on page one of this thread I own the Emotiva AirMotiv 4s for my desktop speakers. IMO they are a bit more resolving and bit smoother than AudioEngine A5+ and they are also a bit smaller. I find them vastly superior to the AudioEngine A2+ but the AirMotivs are larger. I have not heard the KEFs mentioned in this thread but I have little doubt that they are good. You might also consider the Definitive Technology Inclines, Adam speakers and perhaps Dynaudio depending on your budget and what size you can tolerate. I am typing on a Logitech keyboard and I have used and liked some of their mice but I would not buy their speakers YMMV. "We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart." H L Menken (I believe this applies to other people's taste in music and audio equipment as well)
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