Audio Equipment

Does FOH have any audiophiles?

For the past ten years or so I've been listening to music on a Logitech potato, and I've decided to start building another system. I moved around quite a bit, so the last one I had was in storage at my parent's place. I decided to give it away.

I'm thinking tubes, glorious warm tubes, perhaps a Yaqin or Boyuu, or a Musical Paradise M301 designed right here in Alberta. I bought a Dilvpoetry tube pre-amp, and a Topping D10 DAC should be arriving any day now.

I'd love to see what systems FOHers, audiophile or otherwise, are listening to. Or if you have audio-related stories, or comments post em up!

Very nice setup! I've heard a lot about the Maggies, they're one of Steve Guttenberg's all time favorite speakers. One of his contributors did an interview with a guy that runs a set off four Emotiva monoblocks, through Behringer active crossovers. I'd love to hear a set some day.

I'm curious about your opinion of balanced versus unbalanced. I remember when balanced was first becoming big on the audio scene, and there was a whole lot hype around it. Also, have you ever considered doing a room treatment?

I'm literally starting from scratch again; still in the exploration phase. As I said in the original post, I gave it all away. I have a couple of vintage components -- Technics 100 watt 5 channel and Mach 5000 speakers -- I can use as a starter, but I don't know what direction I'll go. When the Topping DAC gets here I'll set it up and see what it sounds like. In the meantime I've been listening to KEF Q150s on an SMSL AD18 80 watt amp, in near field. The KEF Uni Q driver is another astounding piece of technology. The imaging and sound stage are amazing, but no where near what I imagine the Magnepans produce.

I've been watching a lot of DIY videos, thinking of attempting a DIY tube amp. If I build it myself I should be able to leverage my budget and learn something to boot. I've also been looking at Bob Crites' Cornscala speakers -- they're an amalgamation of the Klipsch Lascala and Cornwall speakers done with JBL compression drivers and horns. I've always been curious about the horn sound. I can buy the components as I can afford them, and Bob provides enclosure drawings on his website, or ships the panels as a flat pack.

I'm not sure, though. As I said, I'm still in the exploration phase.

In the meantime, and talking of pure coincidence, Steve Guttenberg released a review of the new Magnepans just this morning:

I visit a couple forums regularly: AVS Forum and diyAudio, mostly. I'll register at Audio Asylum and have a look around.

The Topping DAC arrived today so I set it up and hooked up the Technics and SMSL to it. The DAC has RCA and toslink out so I can use it as a switcher between two separate systems. The Technics doesn't have a DAC or toslink, so I couldn't connect it to my computer -- straight analogue. I put a Dilvpoetry tube pre-amp between the DAC and Technics and I'm pretty impressed so far. The difference between a 20 pound transformer and the SMSL chip amp is pretty amazing. One thing about the Technics is it's feature packed: turn off the DSP and it becomes a traditional 100 watt/channel bi-ampable stereo receiver -- drives the KEF like a champ.

I still have a couple hundred CDs laying around here somewhere so I can start ripping them into FLAC files and use FOOBAR to play back lossless in PCM format. Eventually I'd like to have a NAS with a few terabytes of storage.

They're bottom of the line at $400 CAD; but it's the very same driver that's in the $40k Blade. You can't tell from the pic but they're about 4 feet apart and diagonal to the room; it's a corner desk. I tipped them on the side to get them at ear level, and the rear port is about a foot and a half away from the wall, close but not too close. The phantom center is right in the middle where it should be.

I got the Mach 5000 set up and tested them out. They're 91 db at 1 watt/1meter, where the KEF are only 86 db, and the port is tuned to 38 db, so the 15 inch woofer really punches the bass. The problem is I don't have a room where they can really perform, so they won't get used for now. They should sound pretty good with a tube amp.

Would you pay $80k for a 27 watt per channel integrated tube amp? Audio Note is a Japanese manufacturer, and seriously anal about the components they make -- like using Italian pure silver ingots to make wire to wind transformers, make capacitors, voice coils, and tubes, drawing it out by hand, wrapping wire with silk thread by hand. I mean, holy fuck!


ONGAKU | AUDIO NOTE

The debate about analogue and digital seems to be eternal. Some swear vinyl is superior; others say digital sampling reproduces a sine as pure as that produced by the transducer -- the plucked string vibrating above the pickup, the vocal sung into the mic. The problem is that reproducing a live performance relies on a wide variety of variables in both recording and playback that color the final product. Some audio enthusiasts talk about faithful reproduction of the original master, while others discuss the merits of measurements. But those in the business of reviewing music and audio equipment almost always emphasize the value of listening, using subjective adjectives to describe a personal listening experience.

So how good are your ears? Can you tell the difference between a compressed file and a lossless file, MP3 versus FLAC?

Take this test: How Well Can You Hear Audio Quality?

I know I have hearing loss above 13khz from decades of working in high noise environments, yet I was still able to pick five out of six of the high fidelity files. Was it just luck, or have years of listening trained my ears to recognize high quality? The results seem to indicate the general public can do no better than picking a file at random.

I've never been a big Radiohead fan, but I saw their song, Weird Fishes, referenced as an example of high production values, juxtaposed to the Noordpool Orchestra cover of the same song. I've listened to both a number of times, and all I can say is they both have unique strengths.

I also admit I've never been a big jazz or orchestra fan, though my father listened to countless hours of Count Basie and Lawrence Welk. I am essentially a product of the 60s and 70s, cutting my teeth on bands like Ten Years After and Creedence Clearwater Revival -- with some Elvis and Roy Orbison thrown in because I didn't have a choice. I will further admit I've never been big on instrumental pieces; I like to ponder the lyrics as I listen. Lastly, I also freely admit I am no expert, I can only offer a subjective opinion based upon listening to a specific track or album. I have no education in audio engineering, nor am I musician.

In my opinion saturation is the bane of the modern music industry – the urge to play loud has destroyed the quality of recordings; the first thing I noticed about the Radiohead track is the lack of it -- each component of the Radiohead recording is clear and distinct. I can hear the vocals and guitar coming just left of center; there is a bass over there as well, though neither is as pronounced on headphone as on speaker (That could just be the narrow sound stage of my Koss headphones, though. As an aside the Koss KSC75 is the most astounding clip-on headphone you will ever hear for less that $20 US).

The Noordpool Orchestra recording is equally well done. Though there is a far greater range of instrumentation I can hear where each instrument is placed. And even though the orchestra declined to include the vocals, the piece stands up well as a representation of what a recording should sound like.

Neither of the YouTube tracks are anything approaching lossless quality, but they serve to give the listener a taste, and perhaps motivate them to seek more. Also, my cheap little system is far from the precision of a reference system, but I don’t believe you have to drop $100 K to have “audiophile” quality. Like most things in life, if you focus on the destination and ignore the journey you will be disappointed when you get there. But listen for yourself:

Here's an imaging track. I love the way they played around with the vocal positioning. I'm not sure if the link will play in Spotify high quality, though.

Andrew Jones and Steve Guttenberg discussing speaker design at Axpona 2019. Jones is probably most famous for being the designer behind Pioneer components, has worked for KEF and TAD, and is presently designing speakers for Elac. Guttenberg has been reviewing stereo equipment for decades.

Unfortunately they don't actually show the equations and graphs, but you get a pretty good idea what they are talking about: