Expensive equipment, help me understand.

john_smith said:
Surely there's a level of expense where you can't notice the difference above?
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I wouldn't agree. A Naim Statement will sound better than those Chord amps, better grip on the bass and resolution.

>The Naim Statement is a flagship, ultra-high-end amplifier system, with the complete setup (NAC S1 preamplifier and NAP S1 mono power amplifiers) priced around £235,000 (or approximately $200,000 USD)<
 
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hornetstinger said:
And some people come to the conclusion that a soundbar is as good as a decent separates system, either because of waf, decor or inability to afford decent gear.

Don't need to go high end to get good gear either I'd say couple of grand gets you a decent audio system, although the more channels you want the more I'd spend to keep the quality.

I'd rather have a £1500 5.1 system than a £1500 7.2.4 system
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A soundbar is as good as a decent separates system for me because I couldn’t have a separates system in my flat.
 
Ive been banging on about expensive gear but great sound starts pretty cheap, Denon M41 territory which you can pick up for £249, I've had a couple of older versions over the years and not sure how they do it for the cash?
 
turbot1984 said:
Mines like that, very rarely have it past 30% vol. 130W per channel Naim power amp
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200W into 8ohm, 300W into 4ohm for my ATI

Went slightly ott on those, even 60W is plenty from my Audiolab 8000SX amplifiers, 100W is plenty all rounnd - although I would recommend dedicated power over a all in one AVR

Mines pretty good overall, although compared to others it's not even close, some spend £100,000 on stereo speakers alone and my entire system isn't even close to that. Plus some build a dedicated room, so the dimensions are perfect, audio and video calibrated, room treatment etc.

There's a guy in singapore who has (if memory is right) Eight or Sixteeen of these, and I think one pair of speakers about £100,000, and he's got got multi channel system so multiple of those £100,000 loudspeakers around the room

www.jtrspeakers.com

JTR Captivator 4000ULF — JTR Speakers

www.jtrspeakers.com www.jtrspeakers.com
 
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hornetstinger said:
nah that's fine, not many amps can double from 8 to 4 ohm

Thats a beast of an amp! Not too common in UK? A bit like McIntosh.
Anyhow here's one that doubles power as impedence halves. My NAP250DR. Rated down to 2ohm with 400W transient power.

Fed by Atom HE preamp its easy best power amp i've owned
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I think quite a lot of the time the market is there purely for rich people to spend money on. I don't even hit the higher rate tax bracket so expensive system are not really justifiable to me, but just based on how some of them look, if I had the money is definitely buy some (thinking of speakers here mainly). I'm in the snake oil camp, however I'll use the caveat of typically if you are mega wealthy (think footballer level), they'll your rooms would be bigger, and I think a cheap satellite system would struggle a bit with the size so physically bigger speakers are the way to go, and obviously if someone is easing the average yearly wage, but in a week then 100k speakers are peanuts to them, regardless of if they sound better.
 
CorrectHorseBattery said:
I think people convince themselves they can hear a difference but they actually can’t.
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This is a slight concern I have at the moment regarding my centre speaker.

I feel like it's currently the weakest link and I've been on the lookout to upgrade it. Recently found a used centre speaker I've been on the hunt for that is apparently the next level up, but I'm not convinced that the difference will not be noticable enough to justify spending the money (even though it's only about £300 (used)). I suspect placebo effect could creep in and it could be £300 wasted. Anything further up the classes will be physically too big to fit.

I mind listening to a demo of Mad Max Fury Road at Richer Sounds and the quality was amazing, even grains of dirt and stone being thrown over the ground in the film were clearly audible with precision. But it was a £40k system, so I would expect such. But I'm not sure if moving up one or two levels of class is good enough value to perceived quality, if you know what I mean. I'm just guessing though, still pondering about getting this speaker to finding out for myself.
 
turbot1984 said:
I don't think they are silly, some would be musicians, composers, song writers, producers whose livelyhood depends on a great sounding system.
The more you spend, the better it sounds!
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Not really. The more you spend the more different it can sound.

The reality is your paying in many instances for the name and reputation and to a larger degree snake oil.

Most of the music people listen to is on lower priced small speakers within an industry that expects 30hz to 20khz mastering and the majority of what goes into an engineers desk is nothing like what comes out.

Audiophiles are sold a parlour trick and placebo, and if they actually heard the reference of what something should actually sound like, would not be happy.

Soundstage and depth are classic examples, they are not in the original take, it's a bunch of individual performances in small booths and corners taken at different times, an engineer takes that pile of noise runs it through plug ins and compressors connected with hundreds of feet of £1.20 cable in some cases, and makes it sound like a band on a stage.

I gave up on a lot of it years ago as I got fed up with the con men and forum arguments, not to mention misinformation.

The reality was a decent treated room was the best thing.
Sadly the better professional equipment became very fashionable so prices became extortionate.

Then some clever buggers found out you could simply run room EQ and class d amps.
 
This is a spectacular article. I feel I agree with all of it.

benchmarkmedia.com

Audiophile Snake Oil

The Audiophile Wild West Audiophiles live in the wild west. $495 will buy an "audiophile fuse" to replace the $1 generic fuse that came in your audio amplifier. $10,000 will buy a set of "audiophile speaker cables" to replace the $20 wires you purchased at the local hardware store. We are told...
benchmarkmedia.com benchmarkmedia.com
 
Dunno chaps? Cars are are a great analogy, people somehow convince themselves that Skoda diesels are 'better' than BMW's costing £££'s more, but they are just justifying their purchase.
There is a degree of snake oil in high-end hifi for sure, but in the £500 to £10000 system range, nope. More cash gets you a better listening experience.
I've got a Wiim streamer/preamp (£350) and a Naim Atom HE streamer/preamp (£2,300) and have done many AB tests, its like night and day.
 
turbot1984 said:
Dunno chaps? Cars are are a great analogy, people somehow convince themselves that Skoda diesels are 'better' than BMW's costing £££'s more, but they are just justifying their purchase.
There is a degree of snake oil in high-end hifi for sure, but in the £500 to £10000 system range, nope. More cash gets you a better listening experience.
I've got a Wiim streamer/preamp (£350) and a Naim Atom HE streamer/preamp (£2,300) and have done many AB tests, its like night and day.
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Whatabout when you use the two streamers into the same DAC?
 
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