Discussion
I've wanted a decent hi fi for a while but i'm not a fan of any old electrical store crap but neither have I been able to justify the money for what I want all year. So, two weeks ago I put a throwaway bid into ebay for an old Nad CD player and a 3020 amp, low behold I won, £72 and a few days later I had both cleaned up in my living room.
Last week saw me scouring ebay for a nice pair of bookshelf speakers, but unfortunately nothing came up that I trusted to be worthwhile, so on Sunday I visited my local Hi Fi shop. 30 minutes later I emerged with some Tannoy Mercury F1 Custom speakers and good quality cable and interconnects all for £140, and after setting everything up and having a good listen to various different CD's i'm very impressed, more so than I expected.
Trouble is, it's made me wonder how much better a nice new system would be? I wouldn't class my self as an audiophile, I appeciate good kit and a good sound but never enough to spend megabucks. At what price point do system really get that much better? £500, £1000, £15000?
Last week saw me scouring ebay for a nice pair of bookshelf speakers, but unfortunately nothing came up that I trusted to be worthwhile, so on Sunday I visited my local Hi Fi shop. 30 minutes later I emerged with some Tannoy Mercury F1 Custom speakers and good quality cable and interconnects all for £140, and after setting everything up and having a good listen to various different CD's i'm very impressed, more so than I expected.
Trouble is, it's made me wonder how much better a nice new system would be? I wouldn't class my self as an audiophile, I appeciate good kit and a good sound but never enough to spend megabucks. At what price point do system really get that much better? £500, £1000, £15000?
Depends entirely on how focused/minimalist you are willing to be - build an all-singing, all-dancing home theatre system for a LARGE room and succumb to all the gadgets and you're unlikely to get much of an improvement in music reproduction quality on what you have even at £10K, OTOH a single-source system that may not play very loudly in larger rooms or offer bass to shake the foundations can be utterly beguiling and close to the high end at a couple of grand.
900T-R said:
Depends entirely on how focused/minimalist you are willing to be - build an all-singing, all-dancing home theatre system for a LARGE room and succumb to all the gadgets and you're unlikely to get much of an improvement in music reproduction quality on what you have even at £10K, OTOH a single-source system that may not play very loudly in larger rooms or offer bass to shake the foundations can be utterly beguiling and close to the high end at a couple of grand.
Depends how you define high end.If one was to commission a properly designed screening room I can absolutely 100% guarantee that you'll notice an enormous difference between the acoustic peformance of that when compared to a low to mid range consumer setup at around £10K.
Hi-Fi setups rule the graph of diminishing returns. The industry is not helped by the number of snake-oil manufacturers selling you stuff you don't need that makes bugger all difference to the actual or perceived quality of reproduction (I am referring to high end interconnects, especially ones designed for coaxial digital links, plus speaker cable etc etc).
First rule is get to the stores and listen to stuff. Take as many CD's or whatever you use with you to really listen to the systems. Forget magazine reviews - IMO they are all bent. Buy what you like the sound of that fit in your budget...!
Spending a fortune on interconnects is a waste of time. Pull the lid off your amp and the other side of the cinch connector is often a 2p bit of Maplin bell wire between the cinch and the amp board (as I demonstrated to a mate with his £1000 plus amplifier). By all means get some half decent well shielded stuff that flexes well and won't snap or wear but all this rubbish about directional cables and stuff. Bee-ollocks. Speaker cable. Again, get some decent grade, well shielded fat cable and hook it up. Job done. none of this grand a meter made by virgin mermaids from unobtainium crap.
I did all this and ended up with a half decent setup by Arcam also with some Tannoy loudspeakers. The latter are pretty low-spec Mercury M3 floorstanders. It's not a fortune's worth but it sounds how I like my music to sound and will hopefully last me many years to come. My only change would be to the speakers. I have hooked up my gear to a pair of Castle Severn 2's (now out of production) and it sounded sublime. Alas, I couldn't afford them at the time.
Edited to fix typos
All this said, the missus has a high specification Panasonic micro system complete with speakers that look like they were made from offcuts of Ikea packaging yet it sounds remarkably good, unlike my old Kenwood all-in-one box that sounded more like one of their food processors.
First rule is get to the stores and listen to stuff. Take as many CD's or whatever you use with you to really listen to the systems. Forget magazine reviews - IMO they are all bent. Buy what you like the sound of that fit in your budget...!
Spending a fortune on interconnects is a waste of time. Pull the lid off your amp and the other side of the cinch connector is often a 2p bit of Maplin bell wire between the cinch and the amp board (as I demonstrated to a mate with his £1000 plus amplifier). By all means get some half decent well shielded stuff that flexes well and won't snap or wear but all this rubbish about directional cables and stuff. Bee-ollocks. Speaker cable. Again, get some decent grade, well shielded fat cable and hook it up. Job done. none of this grand a meter made by virgin mermaids from unobtainium crap.
I did all this and ended up with a half decent setup by Arcam also with some Tannoy loudspeakers. The latter are pretty low-spec Mercury M3 floorstanders. It's not a fortune's worth but it sounds how I like my music to sound and will hopefully last me many years to come. My only change would be to the speakers. I have hooked up my gear to a pair of Castle Severn 2's (now out of production) and it sounded sublime. Alas, I couldn't afford them at the time.
Edited to fix typos
All this said, the missus has a high specification Panasonic micro system complete with speakers that look like they were made from offcuts of Ikea packaging yet it sounds remarkably good, unlike my old Kenwood all-in-one box that sounded more like one of their food processors.
Edited by Roop on Wednesday 14th November 13:04
Depends on your ears really and what you listen to.
My parents have got a fairly tasty setup in their house, I went along to most of the listenings and demos with them when they got the whole setup.
As stuff gets more expensive the differences generally get smaller, the difference between a 500 quid set of speakers and a 1k set of speakers was like night and day for me, I could hear things that simpley didn't seem to be there on the cheaper ones, you could really picture the location of the instruments too.
But when we got to speakers costing upwards of a grand, I could notice differences and improvements but they just didn't really bother me and so the big price hikes seemed unneccessary, the parents on the other hand seemed much more concious of these smaller differences and they're music choice(classical) seemed to benefit more so they spent abit more.
My parents have got a fairly tasty setup in their house, I went along to most of the listenings and demos with them when they got the whole setup.
As stuff gets more expensive the differences generally get smaller, the difference between a 500 quid set of speakers and a 1k set of speakers was like night and day for me, I could hear things that simpley didn't seem to be there on the cheaper ones, you could really picture the location of the instruments too.
But when we got to speakers costing upwards of a grand, I could notice differences and improvements but they just didn't really bother me and so the big price hikes seemed unneccessary, the parents on the other hand seemed much more concious of these smaller differences and they're music choice(classical) seemed to benefit more so they spent abit more.
So... are we agreeing that a system for £8-£10,000 isn't automatically better than that costing £1-£2000? and that alot (possibly more than I had previously thought) comes down to the positioning of speakers, size of room and type of music played?
ETA, my parents quite like their music and have two Denon systems in the house, one cost IRO £600 and the other just over £1000, neither sound as good IMO as what i've managed to put together for £200, which kind of confirms what has been said above.
ETA, my parents quite like their music and have two Denon systems in the house, one cost IRO £600 and the other just over £1000, neither sound as good IMO as what i've managed to put together for £200, which kind of confirms what has been said above.
Edited by WildCards on Wednesday 14th November 14:51
WildCards said:
So... are we agreeing that a system for £8-£10,000 isn't automatically better than that costing £1-£2000? and that alot (possibly more than I had previously thought) comes down to the positioning of speakers, size of room and type of music played?
I think you'd have to get really unlucky to spend 10k and get something that sounded poor but its perfectly possible.But yes, certain systems suit certain music and some music is far more revealing.
Positioning depends on speakers, some dont seem to be affected at all and others are very sensitive. I've been looking at some electo-static speakers for example, because they fire forward and backward they have to be at least a metre away from the wall.
And yeah room accoustics make a big difference too, take your hifi to a room with a laminate or hardwood floor and there will be an appreciable difference.
It's horses for courses.
It really is down to what you want from your system.
From what you are saying what I would do is subscribe to 'What Hi-fi' and keep an eye on the market etc. There are a lot of people out there not disimilar to the car market that will buy whatever is the latest fashon must have - use it to your advantage.
I run a pretty much all Arcam monoblock system in the front room, inspired from the above and it is the bo
ocks but only because I wanted that sound, nothing else.
I ended up with a £5k system that cost me no more than £3k
Above all, use your ear - if you want a certain element to improve in your system then research it, if it's fine, then go on holiday with the spare!
It really is down to what you want from your system.
From what you are saying what I would do is subscribe to 'What Hi-fi' and keep an eye on the market etc. There are a lot of people out there not disimilar to the car market that will buy whatever is the latest fashon must have - use it to your advantage.
I run a pretty much all Arcam monoblock system in the front room, inspired from the above and it is the bo
ocks but only because I wanted that sound, nothing else.I ended up with a £5k system that cost me no more than £3k
Above all, use your ear - if you want a certain element to improve in your system then research it, if it's fine, then go on holiday with the spare!
Plotloss said:
Depends how you define high end.
If one was to commission a properly designed screening room I can absolutely 100% guarantee that you'll notice an enormous difference between the acoustic peformance of that when compared to a low to mid range consumer setup at around £10K.
But given the same optimum acoustic environment, I'd wager that your average £10K home cinema system including, 5 speakers, a sub, a big frigging plasma screen and every feasible digital recording/replay format catered for will have a hard time keeping up with a single-source £2K system consisting of high-quality CD or vinyl source, a small and simple valve amp and sympathetically chosen speakers, in purely musical terms. The latter, if done right, will offer you a genuine slice of the high end - much the same as a £16K Caterham Roadsport or a £25K Elise will offer maybe 80% of the thrills of say, a Zonda and a BMW 760iL costing several times that, erm, won't.If one was to commission a properly designed screening room I can absolutely 100% guarantee that you'll notice an enormous difference between the acoustic peformance of that when compared to a low to mid range consumer setup at around £10K.
I'm a big fan of buying s/h hi-fi, there are some absolutely great bargains out there and for home cinema too.
I have a Meridian based AV system, the parts of which would have cost the original owners in excess of 12K, mine (with a few deals on the way!) for 2.5K
I'm also a great fan of budget audio systems and have put a couple of £500 when new Amp/Speaker packages (cot to me less than £100 each) on the back of Squeezeboxes for use in the Kitchen and Studio.
Kepp you eyes peeled, know what you are buying, and don't be afraid of buying a whole system and splitting it up (often for free components or a bit of £££ ) and you can do really well.
davidy
I have a Meridian based AV system, the parts of which would have cost the original owners in excess of 12K, mine (with a few deals on the way!) for 2.5K
I'm also a great fan of budget audio systems and have put a couple of £500 when new Amp/Speaker packages (cot to me less than £100 each) on the back of Squeezeboxes for use in the Kitchen and Studio.
Kepp you eyes peeled, know what you are buying, and don't be afraid of buying a whole system and splitting it up (often for free components or a bit of £££ ) and you can do really well.
davidy
Edited by DavidY on Thursday 15th November 08:33
Edited by DavidY on Thursday 15th November 16:59
Ex-demos can be good too - bought the Pink Triangle back then including tonearm for about half the combined retail price.As someone said above - use your ears.
I demoed a whole load of hi-fis with a friend a few years ago, and we weren't happy with any of them - from £3k up to £10k. We ended up in Richer Sounds looking at a £1000 system that sounded way better than any of them. That isn't a rash uninformed comment: we both play and produce our own music, as well as frequently attending concerts and gigs in everything from classical to rock music and are ultra picky in what we want to hear. That £1,000 Richer Sounds hi-fi still amazes me when I hear it.
I demoed a whole load of hi-fis with a friend a few years ago, and we weren't happy with any of them - from £3k up to £10k. We ended up in Richer Sounds looking at a £1000 system that sounded way better than any of them. That isn't a rash uninformed comment: we both play and produce our own music, as well as frequently attending concerts and gigs in everything from classical to rock music and are ultra picky in what we want to hear. That £1,000 Richer Sounds hi-fi still amazes me when I hear it.
DavidY said:
I'm a big fan of buying s/h hi-fi, there are some absolutely great bargains out there and for home cinema too.
I have a Meridian based AV system, the parts of which would have cost the original owners in excess of 12K, mine (with a few deals on the way!) for 2.5K
Absolutely agree. In the mid 80's when I was still living at home our house contained a Quad 34 pre, Quad 306 power, Quad FM4 tuner coupled with a Michell Synchro deck + obligatory Linn arm and a set of Castle Durhams. Sounded sublime and was the best part of about £5k at that point. I have a Meridian based AV system, the parts of which would have cost the original owners in excess of 12K, mine (with a few deals on the way!) for 2.5K
Fast forward 20 years and 6 months ago I picked up a completely mint set of Quad 34, 306 + FM4 for £320 from eBay. It still sounds as slick as it did 20 years ago although the source is now a CD player (I did hook it up to my old Dunlop SystemDek II with Linn arm, but I couldn't honestly be a*sed with vinyl).
Castles are available on eBay sometimes and they too can be had for a couple of hundred.
Try sticking "Meridian" "Linn" or "Quad" into eBay and top end 80's gear is now available for the price of a good restaurent meal.
Edited by apguy on Thursday 15th November 22:29
Regarding E Bay though, do try and listen first. I won't mention brand names, but my friend and I listened to some fairly serious kit when we had those hi-fi demos. Some of it was very sensitive to what it was paired up with or the music that was played; whereas some was just plain over-priced rubbish. Even if you do end up buying second hand, I'd recommend a demo first.
Yep, I agree, it's all subjective. I have been on the upgrade path with my hi fi for the best part of 25 years, adding components as I could afford to, but extensively doing back to back tests with alternative makes, & only choosing when I was satisfied. The size & shape of your listening room, & your choice of music, can make a difference, but if you have a well balanced system it will always sound good whatever. I eventually arrived at my current setup 5 years ago, am blissfully happy with it & will never change it. It comprises Mitchell Orbe turntable, with QC power supply, SME 309 tonearm, Ortofon Rohmann moving coil cartridge, Unison Simply 4 valve amp & valve phono stage, with uprated Groove Tube valves, & Audio Physic Spark floorstanders. Probably the best part of 10 grand, but to MY ears it sounds the biz, & copes with all my varied musical tastes. It wouldn't do for us all to be the same. Most people who hear it are blown away, & one friend of mine thinks his Sony midi sytem is 3 times better than mine. If he genuinely thinks so then he has got the best deal, no point in him spending a fortune is there?
Roop said:
Hi-Fi setups rule the graph of diminishing returns. The industry is not helped by the number of snake-oil manufacturers selling you stuff you don't need that makes bugger all difference to the actual or perceived quality of reproduction (I am referring to high end interconnects, especially ones designed for coaxial digital links, plus speaker cable etc etc).
First rule is get to the stores and listen to stuff. Take as many CD's or whatever you use with you to really listen to the systems. Forget magazine reviews - IMO they are all bent. Buy what you like the sound of that fit in your budget...!
Spending a fortune on interconnects is a waste of time. Pull the lid off your amp and the other side of the cinch connector is often a 2p bit of Maplin bell wire between the cinch and the amp board (as I demonstrated to a mate with his £1000 plus amplifier). By all means get some half decent well shielded stuff that flexes well and won't snap or wear but all this rubbish about directional cables and stuff. Bee-ollocks. Speaker cable. Again, get some decent grade, well shielded fat cable and hook it up. Job done. none of this grand a meter made by virgin mermaids from unobtainium crap.
Pretty much bang on, although a mate that does reviews for various UK mags would try to disagree, although he's had issues with the management about what they think the reviews should say ....First rule is get to the stores and listen to stuff. Take as many CD's or whatever you use with you to really listen to the systems. Forget magazine reviews - IMO they are all bent. Buy what you like the sound of that fit in your budget...!
Spending a fortune on interconnects is a waste of time. Pull the lid off your amp and the other side of the cinch connector is often a 2p bit of Maplin bell wire between the cinch and the amp board (as I demonstrated to a mate with his £1000 plus amplifier). By all means get some half decent well shielded stuff that flexes well and won't snap or wear but all this rubbish about directional cables and stuff. Bee-ollocks. Speaker cable. Again, get some decent grade, well shielded fat cable and hook it up. Job done. none of this grand a meter made by virgin mermaids from unobtainium crap.
I'm pretty happy with my original Sondek LP12, LVII arm and Roksan Chorus Black cart, running through an Incatech claymore amp and Stax Lambda Pro earspeakers.
Went up to see my mate earlier in the year, and even though his system is worth masses more (Basis Debut Gold t/t, can't remember the arm/cart, outboard PSU, monobloc amplifiers, separate phono stage, separate pre-amps, huge speakers), whilst it sounded different to my kit, I did tell him that I didn't think it really sounded any better. He totally agrees that diminshing returns kicks in big time.
And he reviews components worth £10k and up (he's becoming the alleged king of high end reviews in the UK). There can be subtle differences and improvements in some of the more ludicrously high end systems.
One thing is absolutely certain though - you've got to be a bit of an idiot to shell out stupid money on a CD transport. That truly is snake oil ....
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