I'm creating an album that features the emotions and states of the human mind, what's your favorite note/chord and what does it evoke within yourself? If I see patterns in the responses I'll likely use them when creating songs and soundscapes for the album.
A smaller-format player, this Musical Fidelity X-Ray sold for about $1000 USD in 2004, when CD was still the primary listening source. It would be about $1700 today, assuming you could find a CD drive manufacturer - Philips supplied this one.
And Stereophile seemed to like it:
https://www.stereophile.com/content/musical-fidelity-x-rayv3-cd-player
Anyone have experience with this for a home theater setup? I was looking for a sound setup and decided to hook up this RS250 my family wasn't using. It fills the room very well but it feels like it's just so overwhelmingly warm sounding that it's not good for anything but music. I've played with the EQ, turned the bass down completely, and still can't find a nice spot where dialogue doesn't come through slightly washed out. All I see online is praise for this unit but it's leaving me disappointed.
I don’t know why but I want to try and get back in to cds but I end up turning the cd player off after the first track. I bought myself an Arcam CD5 to play them on.
I normally listen to vinyl and even though the vintage vinyl can have some background “texture” I don’t mind it. (Rega Planar 6)
So currently the sound coming through my new Wharfedale Linton speakers and Rega Elex Mk4 amp:
Would switching to SACDs help?
I listen to most everything from orchestral music, jazz, psychedelic, 1920s-1980s pop.
Let me know your thoughts people.
I’ve been actively following this subreddit for the last year and it seems that horn speaker are very low in demand.
Why is that?
And why is there kind of this stance against horn speaker and their sound?
Is it because most horns sound bad?
Is it the size ?
Or are manufacturers just not interested in developing them?
To clarify: For me a horn speaker has to have at least a horn midrange to count as a „real“ horn speaker.
I personally have horns which in my opinion blow everything away in terms of dynamic, soundstage and clarity.
In fact the best speakers I’ve ever heard were horn speakers. I will post about them in the near future…..
I’m really interest in what you think :)
Beautiful unit, I know they are worth money! It’s got a ton of noise, went away when I cleaned the switches and knobs but eventually came back. Lasted a good while though and sounded beautiful. I’ve also got a Harman Kardon 630 that works great but could use some love and i’m torn on which one to focus on more. Thoughts and opinions?
$100 at the local shop, which is usually pretty well priced but the lack of… many things made me think they’re home built and not “real” 901s, not like that would make them sound better.
Some years ago, Foster The People came to my local music fest and played "Harden the Paint". I haven't listened to it before and it felt so electric with my whole body vibrating with the song. When I came back home I played it in my Bluetooth speaker but I couldn't recreate the same experience.
Years have passed and I have learned a lot about audiophile stereo systems, but even with my equipment I can't seem to get it close. What am I missing? Just a subwoofer?
I don't think they'll play that song ever again live (based on their latest setlist.fm) so I want to recreate it at home as much as possible
Current equipment: Pioneer SX-680 -> Elac Debut 2.0 B6.2
I just ran Dirac ART for my cinema 40.
I’m not familiar with editing the curves ects so used the default settings given by Dirac, loaded it into the cinema 40 and gotta say I don’t love the results.
The sound does sound like it’s uniformed a lot more, more immersive and 3D. But it sounds weak, the dialogue is very weak and some sound just doesn’t kick like it should.
My room is not treated it is my main living area opened into the kitchen and rest of living area so room treatment is not possible.
Is there anything else I can do here? Feeling kind of bummed to have spent $800 and not being happy with the results.
Thanks in advance.
Currently running project debut carbon evo with Sumiko Olympia (and a Moonstone for certain genres) into Yamaha rn800a out to wharfedale Lintons.
I’d be bypassing the Yamaha internal phono. The hope is for more of a tube sound on vinyl, leaving the solid state to handle streaming. The idea is to create a greater tonal difference between the two sources, not to somehow make vinyl sound clearer than a digital source.
I have the opportunity to buy a floor model (of a hi fi shop) for $750, possibly being able to knock the price down a bit.
It is unclear to me if my Sumiko styli are a good match for the phono, if the phono outclasses the rest of the setup, and if I’ll even hear enough of a difference for $750. If it isn’t obvious, I’m going for med-fi at best.
So basically thats what its about…could a Technics SL-1200 Mk2 or a later version for example be a hood audiophile component? Or will Hifi-Record Player sound different?
I would like to DJ on them and still listen to pieces on my system and relax.
Saw this today at my local thrift store. Heavy and well made. Super super unfortunate. There was only one! There was no matching pair! I tried to look everywhere gods knows why. I considered buying the one but thought it could be impossible to source the other. Are they really good? Or just sub par?
Pretty simplified explaination.
https://www.travsonic.com/red-book-cd-format/
It doesn't delve into CD players or the engineering required to read the data.
I see this constantly. The classic audiophile stack. Turntable on a butcher block or marble platform, platform on hifi stand/furniture, everything spiked at every junction. Looks serious. Mostly isn’t.
Let me break down the actual physics because this matters.
Where spikes have a genuine use case...
Suspended timber floors with carpet. That’s basically it. The goal there is to penetrate the carpet and underlay and find the structural layer beneath, which stops the speaker rocking on a compliant surface. That’s a real problem with a real solution. I’ll give spikes that.
Where spikes are actively wrong...
Concrete floors. Concrete resonates. The frequencies are higher than timber but it absolutely has modal behaviour. Spiking into concrete couples your speaker directly into those resonances with minimal damping. You haven’t isolated anything, you’ve just changed which resonances you’re exciting. Decoupling platforms with correctly rated compliant material is the physically correct approach on any rigid substrate.
Electronics...
No. A solid state DAC does not care about floor vibration. Neither does a power amplifier. There is no mechanism. No studio in the world spikes their SSL console or their outboard rack and nobody in professional audio loses sleep over it. This is purely a consumer audiophile phenomenon driven by accessory manufacturers and confirmation bias.
The one partial exception is high gain valve stages and MC phono stages, which are genuinely microphonic. I run Sorbothane feet under my WiiM Ultra specifically because the MC phono stage is sensitive and it makes a measurable audible difference. That’s physics working as expected. But the mechanism there is decoupling, not spiking.
Turntables...
Yes, isolation platforms are justified. The stylus is a mechanical sensor with zero rejection of external vibration. Acoustic and structural feedback into the cartridge is real and measurable. But the correct interface material between platform and surface is compliant, not a spike. Spikes into marble is coupling into marble’s resonant modes. Sorbothane feet into the same marble is breaking the transmission path. These are not equivalent and they don’t produce the same result.
What spiking actually does when people report it “working”...
It changes the coupled resonant behaviour of the stack. That changes the colouration of the sound. It’s a tone control. If you preferred the result, fine, but that’s a preference not a fidelity improvement, and misidentifying the mechanism matters because it leads to worse decisions downstream.
The tell...
Anyone stacking components with spikes at every junction while claiming physics-based reasoning hasn’t done the physics. The aesthetic signals seriousness. The mechanism doesn’t hold up. Those are different things and conflating them is how this hobby ends up full of expensive nonsense.
Get the load calculation right for whatever compliant material you use. Decouple on rigid substrates. Save the spikes for carpet. Spend your money on things that actually matter.
Anyone telling you different is selling something or mentally inflexible and driven by dogma.
Picked up a new (to me) Thorens TD-160 Super reproduction from Vinyl Nirvana about a month ago (Post) with a solid Bloodwood plinth, a custom black top plate, a new Moth TA-8 tonearm and a new Hana SL MKII cartridge. I had plans to upgrade speakers at some point, but after getting a nice little work bonus and seeing a pair of Mofi SourcePoint 888s on Crutchfield's "scratch and dent" store at a nice discount (paid $4,437 for the pair with not a single scratch or dent, mind you) I pulled the plug sooner that I had planned (Post).
I just got the speakers in yesterday and setup last night and spent 3+ hours listening to a mix of jazz, classical, Celtic, rock, metal and a bit of rap on both vinyl and streaming (Wiim Pro) to get a feel for the sound. Honestly the setup sounds amazing and I'm very happy with the bass output on the 888s vs my previous Definitive Technology Mythos STs with built in subwoofers. Probably won't need a sub at all (we'll see...).
I do, at some point, also have plans to add a dedicated amp to the signal chain, but I'm resisting that temptation right now.
Current signal chain: Thorens TD-160 Super Reproduction > Darlington Labs MP7B phono preamp / Arcam CD5 / Wiim Pro > Arcam Radia A25 integrated amplifier > Mofi Sourcepoint 888.
Ignore the somewhat randomly placed decorations/furniture, missing mantel, baseboards and cabinet doors as we just finished a remodel of our living room and still have some finishing touches (I'm building new doors for the cabinets and finishing a spalted pecan slab for the mantel) and are currently remodeling the theater room.
OK, I have a fair number of albums and a smaller number of CDs. I have a really nice Technics 1200GR2, a Phasemation phono amp and cartridge, a stellar Accuphase E480 amp, and a very competent set of PMC Prophesy 9 speakers. My CD player is passable with the Audiolabs 8300 CD.
However, my streaming setup (I use an RPi channeled into the USB in on my CD player) and I get excellent sound from Tidal and other streaming source inputs that frankly, sound just as rich and present as the LP analog source and raw CD playback. I'm about ready to pull the trigger on a Holo Audio MKT DAC to juice my digital processing capability (versus put more into my analog LP rig)
I see no reason to keep shelling out $$ to add to my LP or CD collection given that it takes a good bit of time to accumulate as well as I have to deal with the upkeep and the storage solutions. With a few exceptions, I've found everything I am interested in listening to via stream. I also save a ton of time and can actually spend time listening versus chasing.
I can't be alone in this quandary! I'm curious at what point in their own audiophile journey do people hit this marker and why they either agree and stop the collection growth or they ignore it and continue to chase LPs and CDs of interest.
I've been into audio for a long time, but only in the last couple of years have I taken steps to build out my system to the point where it's very capable and provides a very nice listening environment.
How about you? Prioritizing "Collect" or "Stream".
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Added some pannels on the front wall.
I think between the speakers i should change to diffusion but not sure.
Any suggestions for better panel placement?
I cant give any measurements yet but umik 1 is on the way.
I decided it was time to upgrade from my "lifestyle speakers" (Definitive Technology Mythos ST) that I purchased as floor models from Bjorn's here in San Antonio, TX in 2010. They were playing double duty for a while as home theater (LR with a Mythos Ten as C; now all PowerSoundAudio) and stereo speakers in our media room and single duty more recently as stereo speakers in our living room. I've had both sub amps blow; first one was covered under warranty in 2016 (outside of warranty coverage, mind you) and the second one blew last year way out of warranty and they're now hard to get parts for. I've enjoyed them for the most part, but as I'm sure many might agree, the bass sounds a bit artificial, heavy/boomy, and these cabinets were designed to look great (and I think they do, IMO) and modern vs sound great given the lack of cabinet space.
I chose the Mofi Sourcepoint 888 for a few of reasons: primarily because of the overwhelmingly positive reviews, they're in my price range, and positioning doesn't matter as much for imaging since I have limited space to play with given our odd living room layout. I also considered Philharmonic BMR towers, Ascend ELX, Sonus faber Sonettos and Wharfedale AURAs, among others.
I just had them delivered today (purchased from Crutchfield Scratch and Dent at a discount with not a single scratch or dent) and I have to say, I'm very pleased so far after listening to them for 3+ hours (I listened to a mix of jazz, classical, Celtic, rock, metal and a bit of rap). The highs are crisp and clear, great mid-bass, and enough low-end that I don't think I'll need a subwoofer in the room. I'm also very pleased with the room filling sound and the pretty forgiving imaging moving to different spots out of the MLP on the couch. Both the wife and I will have to get used to the size compared to the slim DTs, but I think they look great and very high quality.
Current signal chain: Thorens TD-160 Super Reproduction > Darlington Labs MP7B phono preamp / Arcam CD5 / Wiim Pro > Arcam Radia A25 integrated amplifier > Mofi Sourcepoint 888.
Ignore the somewhat randomly placed decorations, missing mantel, baseboards and cabinet doors as we just finished a remodel of our living room and still have some finishing touches (I'm building new doors for the cabinets and finishing a spalted pecan slab for the mantel).