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

[Profpointy]

There's no mystery to acoustics; many rooms are too lively acoustically and high frequencies bounce around making it difficult to hear clearly, especially for older listeners whose ears are less able to filter out noise. There's a popular cafe near me, which has sloped ceilings so the noise was terrible, you had to shout to make yourself heard. However the last time I went there I noticed that they had installed sound-absorbing panels on the ceiling and the transformation was remarkable; large family groups were sitting at long tables conversing at reasonable volumes and the cafe was a much more pleasant place to be. We experienced the same when we bought an ex-MOD Land Rover 90, which was just a bare metal shell. The noise was terrible until I glued felt inside the roof, which soaked up all the nasty high-frequency clatter and made the engine a more bearable bass sound. For Manchester residents the Home cinema on Bridgwater Street has sound panels in the ceilings of the cafe and restaurant, making them pleasant places to sit quietly chatting. Just hanging curtains and fitting carpet in your room will make a massive difference, then sitting so that your ears are level with the speakers will make another difference.

That's so true, and at the risk of further thread derailment there are a few bars which I find really unpleasant to sit in due to accoustics. I end up sitting glumly and increasingly cross unable to hear what my companions are saying over the general hubble, in and of itself not necessarily that loud.

 

[Smudge]

Over the years i've had many different music systems & hifi separates, some expensive, some cheap..... But the one i have the most fond memories of is a massive Crown radio/cassette ghetto blaster i had in the late 70's early 80's. Pretty expensive for a portable, i had to buy it on hp, but they had a real quality build & sound in those days. I lugged this box around various bedsits i lived in and it always went with me when i worked away. You always wanted to plug it into the mains, as the 10 D cell batteries it took were expensive and only lasted a few hours with the power it banged out.
I probably played more music on this thing than any other music playing system i've owned since.

 

[ColinJ]

Bringing together the subjects of 'hifi' and cycling... I had my bike stolen from the school bike sheds when I was 13***. The bike was insured but I was seduced by the idea of having my own 'stereo' so I spent the money on parts and built myself an amp and a pair of speakers. It was 20 years before I cycled again.

I got a lot of pleasure from my DIY hifi system but I regret the 20 cycling years I lost when I was young and potentially very fit.


*** It was a long time ago, when most children still cycled, walked or caught the bus to school. I never saw a child being dropped off by a parent back then. These days the 'school run' to that school almost blocks the main road for about 15 minutes in the morning and again in the afternoon!

 

[Fab Foodie]

With regards to speaker stands... I noticed that my (floor standing) speakers sounded better when i was sat on the floor than when sat on the sofa, and figured that it was the height of the bass ports relative to the height of my ears, so made a couple of stands about 10" high. That made a difference.

Regarding other stands... a young lad i used to work with showed me a TV corner unit he was planning on buying. It cost about £120 and had glass shelves and I wasn't impressed. I suggested he could get something much cheaper, and nicer. "Read the review" he said. So I did... now I might be naive on this one, but how the hell can a TV corner unit improve the picture quality of the telly on top of it???

My Rogers studio 1a’s sounded better upside-down on their stands than the right-way up
....just look ugly!

 

[raleighnut]

There is one way to ensure the drivers are at the correct height, build a 'line source' set that are over 7' tall,

Infinity IRS V

 

[raleighnut]

View: https://youtu.be/u-THnT8LGY8

 

[Globalti]

Farkn'ell - for a fraction of the cost you could buy a front row ticket at any concert venue around Europe and hear the best orchestra or band AND enjoy watching the musicians too.

 

[Grant Fondo]

View: https://youtu.be/u-THnT8LGY8

I am definitely buying them if the wife says yes

 

[raleighnut]

I am definitely buying them if the wife says yes

Paul McGowan (the guy in the video) has to have them at work* because his wife (Terri) won't allow him to have them at home


* It is his company though, PS Audio (Paul and Stan)

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

There's a lot of mumbo-jumbo and BS involved without doubt, but some old vintage gear was very very good, if you had a big enough room and could live with racks and wires everywhere. Unfortunately my own rooms are too small to get super sound quality, but I've heard stuff from the 1960's using vinyl and 1/4" reel-to-reel tape as the source played through a relatively low-powered Class A valve amp and sensitive Tannoy dual concentric speakers and the detail apparent in the recording would never be revealed to the same extent by modern budget solid state stuff and smaller speakers using trickery to enhance the bass response. I don't think speaker cables make a huge difference, so long as the connections are electrically sound and the contacts clean. Valve gear uses high-impedance circuits and is very sensitive to mains hum, so it does have to be well designed and well put together, otherwise you get a poor signal to noise ratio compared to even cheap solid state equipment.

 

[Grant Fondo]

Not sure there are too many CC'ers into hi fi, but i have been loving getting back into some proper kit over past few weeks. Last owned some Naim in 2006 and recently got a Uniti 2 and power amp secondhand. Its making the lockdown a bit more bearable, which aint no bad thing

 

[Chromatic]

I was going to post this here a while ago but never did, now @Grant Fondo has brought the thread back I think I will. It's not a tale about hi-if BS but whilst not quite the opposite it's about a good hi-if shop experience.

Three years ago my wife and I went to Edinburgh for her to go to the Edinburgh Yarn Festival and one of the days I had to myself I decided to find a couple of hi-if shops to browse in. I found a couple on the interweb and set off to the first. I was expecting a high street type shop but what I found wasn't, it was a fairly up-market place a bit out of the centre almost in a residential area (they had a pair of ( I think used, maybe ex demo) speakers for sale in there priced at £27000 and that was half the rrp).
Anyway I walked in for a look and got talking to the man in there, he wasn't the owner but just an old guy who helped out for the love of it. I came clean saying I was only browsing and not looking to buy but we got talking and after I noticed a valve amp they had on the go I said that I had long hankered after a valve amp. Even knowing I wasn't going to spend any money that day he made me a cup of tea, invited me to sit down to listen to a few records and generally chat about music, it was a good experience.

The amp I saw was this:

and a few months later I contacted them and bought one. I drove up to fetch it, had a pleasant night in a nice hotel near Peebles before picking it up and driving back home.
I am very pleased with it.

 

[Chromatic]

Not sure there are too many CC'ers into hi fi, but i have been loving getting back into some proper kit over past few weeks. Last owned some Naim in 2006 and recently got a Uniti 2 and power amp secondhand. Its making the lockdown a bit more bearable, which aint no bad thing
View attachment 512647

I once bought a turntable off a bloke in Weston-Super-Mare who had a load of Naim kit.

 

[Grant Fondo]

I was going to post this here a while ago but never did, now @Grant Fondo has brought the thread back I think I will. It's not a tale about hi-if BS but whilst not quite the opposite it's about a good hi-if shop experience.

Three years ago my wife and I went to Edinburgh for her to go to the Edinburgh Yarn Festival and one of the days I had to myself I decided to find a couple of hi-if shops to browse in. I found a couple on the interweb and set off to the first. I was expecting a high street type shop but what I found wasn't, it was a fairly up-market place a bit out of the centre almost in a residential area (they had a pair of ( I think used, maybe ex demo) speakers for sale in there priced at £27000 and that was half the rrp).
Anyway I walked in for a look and got talking to the man in there, he wasn't the owner but just an old guy who helped out for the love of it. I came clean saying I was only browsing and not looking to buy but we got talking and after I noticed a valve amp they had on the go I said that I had long hankered after a valve amp. Even knowing I wasn't going to spend any money that day he made me a cup of tea, invited me to sit down to listen to a few records and generally chat about music, it was a good experience.

The amp I saw was this:
View attachment 512654

and a few months later I contacted them and bought one. I drove up to fetch it, had a pleasant night in a nice hotel near Peebles before picking it up and driving back home.
I am very pleased with it.

A mate of mine has got a valve phono stage and swears by it, I will check one out next time upgrade my Rega turntable.

 

[cookiemonster]

One question that has always confused me. What is a pre-amp and what is a power amp and what do they do?