Is "better" equipment always ... better?

[G8HQP Dave]

Originally Posted by MeanDumpsterCat

I've always found that audio quality is entirely subjective.

Audio preference is entirely subjective. Audio quality is a mix of subjective and objective. Some people prefer a reasonably high fidelity reproduction of the original sound; others prefer to have the sound fiddled with in some way. Problems occur when these two are confused.

I was thinking about how there are a lot of people out there who will spend ludicrous amounts of money on audio equipment to a point where I cant see how its justified (i.e a pair of speakers that cost over £10,000).

Spending a lot of money does not guarantee better (i.e. more fidelity) performance. In audio you will generally get the best technical performance from mid-range equipment. Cheap stuff cuts corners too much; really expensive stuff is often aimed at satisfying a particular market, such as people who want to brag or people who can afford to pay for their preferred distortion.

Since hanging around on an audio website I have discovered that there is little correlation between skill in electronics and commercial success in 'high-end' audio; at times there even seems to be a small negative correlation!

Originally Posted by emeritus

I had listened to classical music various friends' 1970's hi-fi setups before I went to my first real orchestral concert at the Royal Festival Hall. My impression of the real thing was that it lacked both bass and treble!

I have heard other people say that their own system is 'better' than the real thing. This could be a way of determining whether someone prefers genuine hi-fi or something different.

[russell_w_b]

Originally Posted by MrBungle

I disagree. The Casio F91W for example...

Well, OK then. Maybe £1.99 and £11.99 in the case of a wristwatch. I was being a bit generic there. I worked with a chap who, when we were at BBC ETD, came into a lecture ten minutes late. His excuse? His brand-new £1.99 'Pineapple' digital wristwatch bought from the local market was not keeping very good time!

[dr_nick]

Many years ago I stopped listening to all the music that I had once enjoyed so much; and then realised that it was because of the partial degree of deafness that I had slowly acquired (with a significant high end loss).

One pair of NHS digital hearing aids later - fitted by a good audiologist who took time to make sure that I had a range of switched filters, including one tailored to listening to classical music - and I again enjoy music, live or recorded.

Just goes to show that (a) I'm a useless self-diagnostician given how long it took me to work out the problem (b) how good the modern NHS digital hearing aids are (c) how important it is that the audiologist finds out what you need them for and sets them up correctly.

Now I'm sure that the digital amplifiers and sound reproduction system in these aids would have the HiFi nuts people laughing themselves silly - but I can now perceive and enjoy music in a way that I have not been able to do for very many years.

So maybe there is a place for HiFi hearing aids. People just need to know that they already exist and the NHS provides them and services them for free. When you've been partially deaf the subjective improvement that they give is enormous.

Dr Nick.

[AC/HL]

Originally Posted by joebog1

Hi-Fi ?, well my very modest setup sounds good to me

Requirement satisfied, whatever the price.

[Radio Wrangler]

There were valve-based hearing aids with miniature wire-ended triodes. Come to think of it, they are one piece of valve related vintage stuff I haven't come across being restored on this group...

David

[broadgage]

For audio equipment and most other things, very cheap is liable to have defects in design or materials, and a more costly article will usually perform better.
Only up to a point though, there is a point of diminishing returns beyond which the gains in performance are small and possibly illusory.

A hifi system that costs £1000 will almost certainly perform better than one that cost £100, and spending £10,000 might produce a slight improvement but not detectable by most listeners. £100,000 would IMHO be OTT.

[Junk Box Nick]

Originally Posted by russell_w_b

Well, OK then. Maybe £1.99 and £11.99 in the case of a wristwatch. I was being a bit generic there. I worked with a chap who, when we were at BBC ETD, came into a lecture ten minutes late. His excuse? His brand-new £1.99 'Pineapple' digital wristwatch bought from the local market was not keeping very good time!

I always found watches to be the exception that proves the rule. My most faithful digital watch was one that came free with a gallon of 20w50. It kept perfect time and I wore it to work for years. My most faithful traditional style watch was a Sekonda that came via a rewards scheme similar to Green Shield stamps. I loved that watch and kept it through several straps. I only discarded it when the numerals fell off the face and rattled around inside the glass though it would have made an interesting puzzle to see if you could shake them all into place! Watches of respectable make from the high street jeweller that would be considered 'better' invariably failed very quickly.

With everything else I have tended to have had regard for the law of diminishing returns and follow a middle path. In my youth I did go through a period of, in some areas, striving for perfection but decided it wasn't worth the expense or the worry of deterioration, depreciation, will it get stolen?, will it get damaged?, was that an imperfection I just noticed?, etc., or the potential for neurosis that might arise from the quest. I've learned to enjoy most things for what they are.

[PsychMan]

This is my view. Whatever you think something is, is exactly what it is

While crap systems are demonstrably crap in technical terms, if someone owns one and likes it, then who are we to rain on their parade.

Above a certain price point (again debatable where that lies!), its much of a muchness to me. 10-15 years ago I became obsessed with audio quality, I didn't spend thousands by any stretch but probably more than I could afford at the time.

Discovering older music gave me some perspective and I enjoyed listening to period music on period equipment. My standards then dropped overall to whatever I liked at the time. I still have my hifi, I still enjoy it, but not really fussed what source I feed it. Typically spotify for convenience.

I see many people still trapped in a similar cycle I was in, always chasing better sound. If you enjoy being in that, again fair enough. But its expensive and unfulfilling from where I'm sitting

[G8HQP Dave]

£100k could buy worse performance than £10k or even £1k. It all depends on what the extra £90k is spent on: a cleverer designer or a worse designer who happens to be a better story-teller.

I have seen 'high-end' audio which is so poorly designed that frequency response varies somewhat according to volume control position. To an engineer this is a basic mistake. In the hands of some audiophiles or audio journalists this allows 'focussing' which is a sign of 'high discrimination'. Similarly, being fussy about cables is a sign of poor design (e.g. high output impedance) yet in 'high-end' audio it is regarded as a good thing, the assumption being that cable problems are exposed by good systems.

[Studio263]

Having heard various 'high end' setups I'm of the opinion that hi-fi at this level is like poncey 'haute cuisine' food - too expensive and it doesn't do the job. A big plate of nothing with one green leaf, a lump of something horrid looking and a streak of brown goo twirled around a bit in some swanky joint, or a bag of chips and a can of coke sitting on the wall outside the chip shop for a fraction of the price?

Sometimes I think the disappointing sound of high end hi-fi is deliberate - to keep the outsiders out and to make you feel small because you 'don't understand'. Shrieking treble, no bass and obvious distortion everywhere? Yes sir, you pay extra for that. Just like expensive and horrible food that doesn't even stop you feeling hungry (surely its central purpose?), the whole concept is flawed.

I know I'm a hi-fi peasant in these people's eyes because I like the sound of early Philips CD players, big chunky Japanese amplifiers and cassette decks, quartz locked direct drive turntables, MFB speakers, Yammy NS-1000Ms and anything from B&O's 'high fidelity' line but I'm happy with that.

[russell_w_b]

Originally Posted by Junk Box Nick

My most faithful digital watch was one that came free with a gallon of 20w50. It kept perfect time and I wore it to work for years.

You were lucky then! One of the things that you pay for with 'better' at that level is quality control of production.

Originally Posted by Junk Box Nick

My most faithful traditional style watch was a Sekonda that came via a rewards scheme similar to Green Shield stamps.

Was it a Soviet one (USSR on the dial at 6 o' ciock)? If so, it would've been comparable to a half-decent Swiss one. Soviet Sekonda watches were heavily subsidised by the government and were sold at a price that belied their quality. After the collapse of the Soviet Union any Sekonda watch I've been in the back of had a Miyota (Citizen) movement.

[DonaldStott]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

There are signs you've left the real universe:

* All the small differences have mysteriously vanished.
* Prices have been scaled up by large factors.
* Every poster on internet fora lists all their equipment at the foot of every post.
* You suspect more effort went into choosing a product's name than in developing the product itself.
* Real, hard, science is like sunlight to a vampire, so pseudoscience is used instead.
* No-one is ever unsure which of two things is better.
* Things are designed for eye appeal, the ears have to live with it.
* Every ounce of equipment comes with a pound of justification.
* You can smell the fear, and the aura of insecurity is tangible. Anyone numerate and logical is seen as a threat.
* There are various words; soundstaging, granularity, authority, quantum, etc which are clues.

So if you start to get that feeling you aren't in Kansas anymore, lock your wallet!

Brilliant David - I know some hifi "colleagues" who would tick all these boxes!

[russell_w_b]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

There were valve-based hearing aids with miniature wire-ended triodes.

Like the one the 'sea view' woman wore on that episode of 'Fawlty Towers'?

[JohnBG8JMB]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

There are signs you've left the real universe:

* All the small differences have mysteriously vanished.
* Prices have been scaled up by large factors.
* Every poster on internet fora lists all their equipment at the foot of every post.
* You suspect more effort went into choosing a product's name than in developing the product itself.
* Real, hard, science is like sunlight to a vampire, so pseudoscience is used instead.
* No-one is ever unsure which of two things is better.
* Things are designed for eye appeal, the ears have to live with it.
* Every ounce of equipment comes with a pound of justification.
* You can smell the fear, and the aura of insecurity is tangible. Anyone numerate and logical is seen as a threat.
* There are various words; soundstaging, granularity, authority, quantum, etc which are clues.

David

#11 Product info, reviews and specifications from Richer Sounds and What HiFi make technical sense...

John

[Junk Box Nick]

Response to Russell re 31:

The free watch I had in the early 1980s. I had another digital one (which was silver appearance metal rather than the black plastic of the free item so looked a bit more 'respectable') which was a couple of quid market stall item and which went just as well. I think the Sekonda arrived around the time of the Soviet collapse - can't remember now. It didn't take that many stamps to get it - it was another petrol promotion. Those and the little watch I had when still at junior school were the best in terms of reliability I've owned and thus count as 'best' for me. I don't seem to have ever had much luck with anything 'better'. I haven't worn a watch for years. Though not unusual now with time on mobile phones, I was once asked how I coped and replied that I knew where all the clocks were on my regular journeys!

[ekjdm14]

Originally Posted by Studio263

Having heard various 'high end' setups I'm of the opinion that hi-fi at this level is like poncey 'haute cuisine' food - too expensive and it doesn't do the job. A big plate of nothing with one green leaf, a lump of something horrid looking and a streak of brown goo twirled around a bit in some swanky joint, or a bag of chips and a can of coke sitting on the wall outside the chip shop for a fraction of the price?

Chips 'n' Cheese for me please! Can't think of anything of value I could add to this thread, it's pretty much all been said. For me, audio equipment is a tool & it's job is to reproduce sounds in a way which pleases your ear/mind.

Whilst looks do have a bearing, they are secondary to the listening pleasure. If the GEC 5645 currently next to me didn't sound good to me, I'd not hesitate to strip it for parts as it's cosmetically ruined, cracked/scratched/yellowed, back cover dog-eared and with mismatched screws, scale lamp diffuser missing etc but it sounds fantastic to me.

Same goes for the basic Technics stack system in the front room, the CD player was dropped and has a dodgy tray mech while the integrated amp has a gouge in the front plus has no EQ just bass/treble pots, but it all sounds great to me and fits in with the room well.

Maybe I ought to replace the old thin speaker wires with some pre-burned in cryotreated tree-branch diameter cables though just to see if it improves things

[MeanDumpsterCat]

Originally Posted by G8HQP Dave

I have heard other people say that their own system is 'better' than the real thing. This could be a way of determining whether someone prefers genuine hi-fi or something different.

I agree with what you were saying in regards to electronics. I was watching a video on some £300,000 audio system a while back. While the equipment looked fantastic, the electronics were janky at best. I've seen high school kids do a better job at soldering than these guys!

[julie_m]

Originally Posted by IanBland

Not necessarily. I still reach for my cheap "Draper" brand multimeter for simple measurements over my more expensive, more accurate, theoretically better Tenma for a couple of reasons; firstly it's smaller and lighter and thus a bit more ergonomic but secondly because it gives its less accurate readings much faster. This is particularly true of the continuity checker which is basically instant compared to the Tenma which has to think about it before beeping.

There is also the thought that the first time you probe an unfamiliar piece of equipment in an unknown state of repair with a multimeter, there is a small but finite risk of blowing up the meter.

However, one of the reasons why decent multimeters are so expensive, is that they contain various protective devices -- sand-filled ceramic fuses, metal oxide varistors, PTC thermistors, and so forth -- that are conspicuously absent from the cheap no-name specials. So an expensive meter is actually better capable of withstanding an overload than a cheap one -- and the cheap one is more likely to fail "dramatically" (euphemism).

[Tyso_Bl]

So what about the recording equipment if we're discussing hifi? I've some recordings made many years ago of live bands made using a stereo ghetto blaster. I still have those cassettes, many of my friends that have heard those recordings have commented on how lifelike the recordings are. They're not faultless, but there is a reality about them that doesn't make it through a studio.

[Beobloke]

When it comes to hi-fi equipment I'm not really sure you can generalise. I've been attending the Munich High End Hi-Fi Show for every year since 2008 and I've heard some awful stuff there bearing price tags that look more like telephone numbers, yet I've also heard some systems that are truly breathtaking.

The best system I ever heard there was in 2009 and it used a pair of speakers that were a one-off design that retailed for 215,000UKP per pair. I actually flew home a little depressed as I felt sure I would never hear anything as astonishing ever again, and, to date, I haven't. And in case you're wondering where the money went, I'm guessing mainly on the 30 drive units per channel including two 18" bass drivers, 6000W of amplification per channel (they were active designs) and a matching pre-amplifier/controller with extensive DSP facilities.

Whilst I would agree there is a great deal of snake oil, bling and nonsense in the high end hi-fi industry, there are also a few companies who know what they are doing. When they pull out all the stops, however, a high price is inevitable.