Meeting a High Priest of the world of hi-fi BS.

[Globalti]

Unfortunately we are all victims of the ever-good magazine reviews; when did you ever see a bike or gear review that said: "It's garbage - avoid"?

 

[NorthernDave]

Perhaps he couldn't hear his doorbell properly as he'd only used the cheap cable when he wired it up?

(One for the hi-fi buffs there... )

 

[Profpointy]

A friend of mine used to work on a hi-fi magazine - as a photographer rather than a reviewer, but he recalls they did an article looking at the stereos owned by some actual musicians; one in rock band, a jazz musician and someone in a classical orchestra. All had fairly ropey hi-fis, so after some judicious listening and trying stuff out, they set each up with a reasonable mid-range system. All the musicians naturally had a good ear and all thought their new systems were indeed much better, but none had been particularly unhappy with their old ropey systems - it seems they were listening to the music "through" the systems, rather than listening to the systems themselves, and thus were less troubled by the sonic deficiencies but were more concerned with listening to the underlying music.

A also recall reading an article in Wireless World many years back, which was looking into the the claim of "valve sound" being a big thing compared to transistor amps. A debate that continues to this day. Wireless World was a professional electrical / electronic engineers' magazine with some academic rigour behind it (we'll forgive them the daft series of articles by an anti-relatively crank, but hey ho). Anyhow they took a valve and transistor amp from the well respected company Quad, and did proper blind listenings with very precisely matched levels and so on, then did a serious statistical analysis of the results. It turned out the listeners, all "experts", preferred A to B very slightly more than they preferred A over A, or B over B - and all within the bounds of chance. Thus, it wasn't even possible to reliably tell the difference between Quad's valve or transistor amps by listening. Of course Quad don't make crap kit, so that's not to say that a cheap and nasty amp would be the same, but it was interesting.

 

[Globalti]

Very true I'm sure; our brains are far cleverer than we think at decipering sound and differentiating between sounds. I have noticed that when I'm playing a CD in the car it takes my brain a bit of time to block out the background car and road noise and begin to hear the music.

If the sense of hearing is anything like the sense of smell it can play all kinds of clever tricks on us.

 

[Proto]

Any Hi Fi buffs ever had a hearing test I wonder? If the receive end is cr&p the send end doesn't matter. Unless some clever kit can somehow compensate at the send end.

Will a decent HiFi setup overcome the nasty tinnitus in my left ear? If so, I’m getting one.

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

Will a decent HiFi setup overcome the nasty tinnitus in my left ear? If so, I’m getting one.

You can get a system calibrated to give you equally nasty tinnitus in your right ear if that helps?

 

[Drago]

Unfortunately we are all victims of the ever-good magazine reviews; when did you ever see a bike or gear review that said: "It's garbage - avoid"?

I gave up cycling magazines a couple of years ago after reading one spectacularly bad piece of codswallop. Every cliche was in there, stiff transmission, soaked up road buzz, lively climber, etc, etc. Out of curiosity I googled the testers name, and less than a year prior he'd been writing for a model railway magazine from the same publishing group.

 

[Edwardoka]

Honestly @Globalti my first thought when you mentioned the "vulgar stands" and "the man took us up to a bedroom" was "Lynn, these are sex people!"
Well done for fleeing before you were introduced to "Bang" and "Olafsen".

 

[MontyVeda]

... All the musicians naturally had a good ear and all thought their new systems were indeed much better, but none had been particularly unhappy with their old ropey systems - it seems they were listening to the music "through" the systems, rather than listening to the systems themselves, and thus were less troubled by the sonic deficiencies but were more concerned with listening to the underlying music.
...

This, in droves... I don't buy vinyl because it has more warmth than CD, i buy it because it's bigger and I like the covers. Plus... my favourite music is still my favourite music regardless of what it's being played on. I'd rather hear Robert Wyatt's Shipbuilding on a tiny transistor with bad reception than listen to Radiohead on a hi-fi costing twenty grand.

 

[swee'pea99]

There's a bloke here selling some speakers for £24,000, and also claiming the manufacturer ripped him off for thousands over a turntable.

Perhaps this is what @Globalti's man meant when he spoke of charlatans in high-end hi-fi.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Horning-...279577?hash=item2f378a64d9:g:IwUAAOSw3H1dm7C0

YeGods - those are even worse!

 

[Pale Rider]

I recall one successful band who said they always wanted to hear their latest recording through a basic ghetto blaster rather than the studio's monitor system.

The idea was to hear the record the same way as the fans would hear it on the radio.

 

[RoadRider400]

Good hifi does sound better than most compact systems that are generally designed with fashion in mind. You just need to consider the point of diminishing returns and for a pair of speakers that well below £75,000.

 

[Drago]

I recall one successful band who said they always wanted to hear their latest recording through a basic ghetto blaster rather than the studio's monitor system.

The idea was to hear the record the same way as the fans would hear it on the radio.

On the loo?

 

[mustang1]

I think EVERYTHING is full of BS. Cars. Bikes. Motorcycles. Watches. Hi fis. Houses. Computers. The only thing that isnt, is me. You should look at all my posts and press the Like button. Smash a subscribe and dont forget to hit that bell icon. Magazine reviews used to be the worst, but I feel its youtube influencers and the crap they peddle. BTW have you SEEN those adverts that should the picture quality, and sound quality, which is viewed on your OWN tv? That never made sense to me. Nothing does.

 

[Pale Rider]

On the loo?

BBC 6 Music for me in the smallest room.

Most of the records are rubbish, but at least there's no adverts and it does wonders for my street cred.