the retro hi-fi thread!
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Harryburgundy
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Lo-Fi?
Homemade Deck (by my father-in-law). The arm is a good one... apparently.
2200 Beocentre....must get the CX25 shelf speakers fixed. Not Hi-FI I know, but just looks great...in my humble
Homemade Deck (by my father-in-law). The arm is a good one... apparently.
2200 Beocentre....must get the CX25 shelf speakers fixed. Not Hi-FI I know, but just looks great...in my humble
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CD has brickwall filtering so when you play it through an oscillascope, all the high frequency sounds (high hats percussion etc) have
flat spots (unless its a well mastered CD) which you can hear as 'dead' sounding or 'glassy'. These flat spots should be nice and round.
Vinyl and reel to reel have an almost unlimited high frequency recording capability which is why they cans sound so good.
The equivalent today would be high bit rate sampling 256kbs (or higher) recordings. (CD is something like 128kbs, DAB as low as 80kbs)
Its all a digital mess but now you're only limited by:
1. the original mastering in the studio
2. the amount of fast memory to record onto / playback from
flat spots (unless its a well mastered CD) which you can hear as 'dead' sounding or 'glassy'. These flat spots should be nice and round.
Vinyl and reel to reel have an almost unlimited high frequency recording capability which is why they cans sound so good.
The equivalent today would be high bit rate sampling 256kbs (or higher) recordings. (CD is something like 128kbs, DAB as low as 80kbs)
Its all a digital mess but now you're only limited by:
1. the original mastering in the studio
2. the amount of fast memory to record onto / playback from
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ferrus":jz7mxllw said:Damn I've tried to resist this thread, but can no longer!
Old Hifi (well old technology;valves, AlNiCo magnets etc) is my main passion. Yes, even more than reto-bikes!
System is:
Pathos Twin Towers amp. (single-ended class A valve/MOSFET hybrid.) I think this is the most beautiful hifi componant ever made, it really is a piece of art or sculpture. It's also the most natural sounding amp I've heard with a lovely valve warmth, but solid-state balls and speed in the bass. The only problem with it is that being class A it consumes 450w but puts out only 30w. Oh and it weigh an absolute ton. But it's definitely my most prized possession!
Speakers are Alon Lotus Elite Signatures. These were the HiFi Plus magazines review pair. I got them for a quarter of the retail price but they still cost a fortune! They've two bass units in a sealed box, with the mid and treble mounted open-baffle, so the sound is very spacious and open. All magnets are AlNiCo. The problem with these speakers is that they are just too good for the rest of the system, -you can hear every tiny flaw or tweak downstream. I thought I could get away with mid range cables but no, even different terminations are painfully apparent. :roll:
CD player is a Musical Fidelity Tri-Vista valveDAC and Theta transport. It's ok, smooth and spacious but it's still a CD player isn't it, so sounds a bit mechanical and unsubtle. (A fact the speakers readily remind me of)
Cables are SupraSword speaker, Yamamura interconnect and Nordost Shiva power cables, -these aren't great really' very 'fast' and clean but give your system a bit of a 'transistor-radio' thinness...
Bloody hell, I'm glad to have got that of me chest. Haven't been able to be that boring for years!
Cables - :roll:
My best ever system was Wilson Audio Puppies, TAG McLaren DVD32R, TAG McLaren AV192R, 2x Krell FPB350M - about £60,000 retail in 2004.
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....and before you think twat' jammie git/ show-off etc, working in the Hifi industry, doing shows at Earls Court and working for the McLaren group gave me a pretty serious stress related breakdown. It took me a good 6 months to recover and a year to look another Hifi product in the face.
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Al - dont say anything to ferrus but, I think he's a bit bonkers...
Shhhh....
When I was at TAG McLaren Audio - we used to laugh at the people who'd bought expensive power cables, all our (TMA) shielding & insulation was done inside the units which meant that expensive power cables were pointless.
Interconnects & speaker cables - oh god, so much bull surrounding this subject. Again, TMA cables were Belkin cable with the connectors fitted by the F1 TAG Electronics factory. When compared to silly priced stuff, it all measured exactly the same or worse (in some cases the silly stuff possibly causing damage to the hardware!).
I still have a load in the loft... I think.
Shhhh....
When I was at TAG McLaren Audio - we used to laugh at the people who'd bought expensive power cables, all our (TMA) shielding & insulation was done inside the units which meant that expensive power cables were pointless.
Interconnects & speaker cables - oh god, so much bull surrounding this subject. Again, TMA cables were Belkin cable with the connectors fitted by the F1 TAG Electronics factory. When compared to silly priced stuff, it all measured exactly the same or worse (in some cases the silly stuff possibly causing damage to the hardware!).
I still have a load in the loft... I think.
LGF, so you don't fancy Nordost Odin @ £10K for 1m interconnect or £20K for 3m speaker cable ? 
surely a snip at twice the price !!
But I couldn't agree with you more. In no other industry are consumers conned so easily into a world of utter hocus-pocus bullshit.
Most hifi cable's not made by the company anyway. It's just bought in off-the-reel, covered in a bit of plastic and sold on with x100 mark up. Obscene.
Fact is though it can make (a small) difference. Everyone who's heard my system has been amazed how different cables 'change' the sound, and they were ALL sceptics before. Most noticeable is the effect of crappy brass terminations, which is why I use bare wire connection where possible.
Just stick some Shiva's in your system and tell me they don't 'sound' shit!
The trick is to discriminate the phoney baloney from the genuine, and you can only do that by listening. Just don't accept any form of techno babble, either from the hifi industry OR scientific theory..
surely a snip at twice the price !!But I couldn't agree with you more. In no other industry are consumers conned so easily into a world of utter hocus-pocus bullshit.
Most hifi cable's not made by the company anyway. It's just bought in off-the-reel, covered in a bit of plastic and sold on with x100 mark up. Obscene.
Fact is though it can make (a small) difference. Everyone who's heard my system has been amazed how different cables 'change' the sound, and they were ALL sceptics before. Most noticeable is the effect of crappy brass terminations, which is why I use bare wire connection where possible.
Just stick some Shiva's in your system and tell me they don't 'sound' shit!
The trick is to discriminate the phoney baloney from the genuine, and you can only do that by listening. Just don't accept any form of techno babble, either from the hifi industry OR scientific theory..
