Attachments
Last edited by a moderator:
Its amplifier schematic is much along the lines published on this forum and still variations used in many high-end designs, so not much has changed in 40 years, just the price tag. It was as beautiful and easthetically pleasing as the highest of high end pieces available today. So why is sounding better than this or that such an issue, it has existed for many years and we still haven't come to any conclusion, amplifiers have sounded the same for decades. But nobody wants to admit it.
I suppose you want to make a point that you have a B&W speaker. We will have to take your word for it.
High end audio stuff only sells because of fancy precious looking housing and aggressive marketing. The electronics and acoustics inside are too often of the shabbiest kind.
And you need to find a fool to buy it: Someone with a deep wallet, not the slightest clue about electronics and the strong urge to "improve" his equipment by simple measures like buying overprices tuning equipment like cables and other useless junk. See the car tuners. Almost same story.
But this is not only a boy's game. You can fool the girls as well with tiny cute looking stuff that doesn't interfere with the interior too much.
A good example is Bose. High price, crappy technology, lots of marketing.
I'm not into audio that much and see everything from a neutral technical point of view and what I've seen since I got involved into the audio scene is funny and saddening at the same time. One day I will open a store selling all the voodoo stuff and become very rich...
And you need to find a fool to buy it: Someone with a deep wallet, not the slightest clue about electronics and the strong urge to "improve" his equipment by simple measures like buying overprices tuning equipment like cables and other useless junk. See the car tuners. Almost same story.
But this is not only a boy's game. You can fool the girls as well with tiny cute looking stuff that doesn't interfere with the interior too much.
A good example is Bose. High price, crappy technology, lots of marketing.
I'm not into audio that much and see everything from a neutral technical point of view and what I've seen since I got involved into the audio scene is funny and saddening at the same time. One day I will open a store selling all the voodoo stuff and become very rich...
If we pick 1973 to represent the "early 70's," adjusted for inflation, $2.50 comes out to just $11.94. My niece is making nearly that working at Starbucks.
The minimum wage in 1970 was $1.60 an hour. Today it's $7.25. Only 4.5 times hat it was. If it had kept pace with inflation, it would be $8.74.
If we take 1953 to represent the "early 1950's," and using the 1953 Radio Shack catalog as a guide, you could get this 3 way portable radio for $24.95:
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
And adjusted for inflation, $25 in 1953 would be $198.26 in today's dollars.
Today, this little Tivoli table top radio sells for about $150.00.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Interestingly the Tivoli isn't much larger and weighs nearly the same, although it's not portable.
The 1953 radio was a discrete design using vacuum tubes and was made in the United States by workers making a decent wage. The Tivoli is based on integrated circuits and is made in China by workers making less than my grandfather made in the 1930s.
se
Expensive! That's about $1900 in today's dollars.
I remember those, always liked them.
Shortly after those came out, I stumbled into my first "Real Hi-Fi" store. The Pioneer and its Yamaha rivals were all in the front half of the shop. It was the Hi-Fi section. In the back was the "High End" room with Magnaplanar - the 3 panel Tympani speakers - and Audio Research electronics. Also Ampzilla and the single panel Maganapan. Revox R2R and some high end turntables. I was awe struck.
I remember actually walking around behind the Maggies (that I thought were just screens) to see who was playing the violin! No way could that have been a speaker - I was in the youth orchestra at the time, so knew very well what real instruments sounded like.
All that gear was far, far too expensive for me, but I could dream. And they were very kind to a poor kid like me. Let me hang around the shop to listen and ask silly questions for months. If that was high end, I was hooked. Have been ever since. It was a least a decade later that I discovered that I could actually build stuff as good, myself. Hello DIY.
..
Yeah, don't ya wish?
So you say, but the Nautilus has all metal cones for its four drive units. It has two mid-range, one of which I recall has a flat surface. No disagreement with you about the DM683.
This is just not true. You just change a couple of transistors or a cap and the sound changes.
If there has been progress? A bit.
Well, according to some, the "sound changes" after they put photographs of themselves in their freezers. So saying the "sound changes" isn't really saying much.
The question is whether or not there any actual audible differences.
se
AVE...
The psychological mechanism behind this "expensive sounds better" syndrome and this search for better amp that will sound the same, no matter what parts one use is very simple. When you buy/make something expensive, you expect that it will sound better, and this will change your perception of sound. This is very simple. Even if you know, that your expensive high-end gear sounds exactly the same as your earlier top-of-the-midrange gear, you will hear the difference with your wallet...
Lets look at the USB cable that connects DAC to the computer. For example Audioquest’s Diamond USB. Expensive, isn't it? Now let's look at the ***** that's written on Stereophile.com:
The psychological mechanism behind this "expensive sounds better" syndrome and this search for better amp that will sound the same, no matter what parts one use is very simple. When you buy/make something expensive, you expect that it will sound better, and this will change your perception of sound. This is very simple. Even if you know, that your expensive high-end gear sounds exactly the same as your earlier top-of-the-midrange gear, you will hear the difference with your wallet...
Lets look at the USB cable that connects DAC to the computer. For example Audioquest’s Diamond USB. Expensive, isn't it? Now let's look at the ***** that's written on Stereophile.com:
The capacitance is a parameter of the two conductors separated by insulator. The phase distortion is not important for digital signals, since USB use differential signaling for 0's and 1's. Besides protocol adds parity bits and checksums to all data. This makes impossible to change the quality of output sound by changing the cable connecting the DAC to computer. So this claim:
is a giant *****. But audio-morons will buy it anyway...
Did you know that cleaning your ears can result in great change of sound quality. I cleaned mine and the whole mid-range became more vivid and now has more details...
Last edited:
Also, is the change causing a difference in the operating points? Do they add distortion that wasn't there before?
People have odd ideas about what sounds good and often (it seems) that they prefer to covertly change the tone of the music via an amplifier with a tailored distortion spectrum. D. Self says it should be a "niceness" knob.
Ironically, up front tone controls on any amp are anathema though.
And it may. There is some recent medical evidence that the placebo effect works even when the subject knows it's a placebo. The human mind is a strange thing.
Absolutely.
Now, changing a cap or a transistor in an amp, that's a whole other matter.
se
So you are suggesting everyone use cheap gainclone amps ....
At least at one time in the past quality hifi really was a cut above the "also rans" both technically and subjectively. Coming from the U.K. I can mainly comment on British equipment but I'm sure it would have been the same around the world.
At the time when the Quad II, 22 and Leak Varislope, Stereo 20 were top dog amplifiers and Quad had the first electrostatic speaker (and Leak the Sandwich Cone speaker), equipment of this ilk really was in another league to the gear that most people had ever heard or seen. It was not however much to look at.
As time has gone by and technology has "improved" it is both cheap and easy to give this level of performance and better. So how do they now justify the high cost?? Fancy styling and bull**** marketing of course!
I remember the leak speakers very well, fantastic at the time ...
I would not consider that hi end in 1974...
That is not high-end , never was and never will be ...
There is some truth here, but not all high-end is like that ...
You have the cart before the horse here boss...
This ridiculous trend in audio is actually driven by the consumers and the mags not the manufactures. Consumers thru collective internet/magazine ignorance, demand a certain High-end factor to what they purchase and is played along by the mags. This forces the manufactures to "stepup" or be left behind.
Most recently everyone is hyping diamond tweeters, in a few months you will not be able to sell speakers without diamond tweeters, why? did every other tweeter just go awful all of a sudden...
Throw in dealer markups, marketing and better than furniture finish and Bingo
car prices.
I will admit that some manufactures have cashed in on this trend and have gone berserk with there pricing structure. I will iterate and say it would not be possible without the consumer supporting this crap, most think it's OK to spend that kind of cash on audio and frown on lower value price performance products, sometimes you are actually forced to price the product higher for credibility. Wrong timing , you will starve
the time for that has past , this is audio's swan song era and the high-end will be changed for heeevar...
Even if it did, that doesn't necessarily mean the difference would be audible.
True.
se
- Status
- This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.