Ah, this is where the discussion degrades. Expectation bias and all those other psychological factors can more than explain this sort of thing:
From experience, I know that I am prey to such notions when making the effort of swapping pieces of equipment in and out and, if I had to bet on it, I would suggest that everyone else is too. And even if we all have 'golden ears', a genuine distortion that sounds good on our preferred style of music does not mean that it doesn't make other recordings sound worse. We don't audition our systems on recordings we're not familiar with, and if your preferred style of music is 'anodyne' like jazz or Ella Fitzgerald, you may like different distortions from the sort of person who listens to Stockhausen.
From experience, I know that I am prey to such notions when making the effort of swapping pieces of equipment in and out and, if I had to bet on it, I would suggest that everyone else is too. And even if we all have 'golden ears', a genuine distortion that sounds good on our preferred style of music does not mean that it doesn't make other recordings sound worse. We don't audition our systems on recordings we're not familiar with, and if your preferred style of music is 'anodyne' like jazz or Ella Fitzgerald, you may like different distortions from the sort of person who listens to Stockhausen.
With that attitide, I suggest you should stick with whatever you have now ... until you die.
There's no point in changing.Regards,
Andy
At least if I do change, I'll have a reasonable idea why I'm doing it, and what I hope to achieve. I'm not just blowing with the wind, imagining 'improvements' with every dollop of cash I haemorrhage.With that attitide, I suggest you should stick with whatever you have now ... until you die.
Coppertop,
Do you own an aspen amplifier? Have you heard one?
Your comments seem quite generic in nature, and lead me to think that you have no first hand experience with an aspen amplifier of any design or vintage, especially as you have not posted here before.
If you have any first hand experience with any aspen amp, by all means share it.
This isn't a generic forum, this is the Aksa forum, about aspen amplifiers. Aspen amps do not all sound the same. They are of different circuit designs and perform differently. It is not hard to hear.
Mmmm ... interesting comment. So you are saying that I:
* do not have a reasonable idea why I change anything?
* have no idea what I'm trying to achieve, when I do change something?
* imagine "improvements" when I do change?
Rather arrogant, I suggest ... but it's a free world (at least to us in the west)!
And BTW, I never "haemorrhage cash" - I'm far too controlled for that. All the best,
Andy
I've said it before and I'll probably say it again.
When it comes to Hi-Fi, take your ears shopping. At the end of the day you are buying something that you will be listening to.
There are lots of High Street manufacturers that make perfectly reasonable Hi-Fi.
I started with an old Arcam Alpha 8 which I thought was the d**s b******s.
Over time I replaced it with an Arcam AVR280 which was markedly better. Not so much of a surprise as it was some 10 years newer.
Then I spent some £400 having the AVR280 upgraded with "snake oil" components.
So by now I've got a modifies AVR280 worth - to me at least - about £2000 GBP.
It was good, very pleasant to listen to but I had the DIY bug.
I've recently inherited a Pass Aleph 4 DIY build. This cost my Brother-in-Law about £1000 to build. It surpasses the Arcam musically beyond belief.
You can use words like, Brighter, More Lively, etc. etc. All subjective terms. For £1000 I've got a DIY amplifier that I just LOVE LOVE LOVE.
The Downside of DIY will always be ERGONOMICS - what it looks like. This is where the mass produced giants will normally win.
A good start for DIY is to buy a defective amplifier just for its case and possibly for its heatsinks.
When it comes to Hi-Fi, take your ears shopping. At the end of the day you are buying something that you will be listening to.
There are lots of High Street manufacturers that make perfectly reasonable Hi-Fi.
I started with an old Arcam Alpha 8 which I thought was the d**s b******s.
Over time I replaced it with an Arcam AVR280 which was markedly better. Not so much of a surprise as it was some 10 years newer.
Then I spent some £400 having the AVR280 upgraded with "snake oil" components.
So by now I've got a modifies AVR280 worth - to me at least - about £2000 GBP.
It was good, very pleasant to listen to but I had the DIY bug.
I've recently inherited a Pass Aleph 4 DIY build. This cost my Brother-in-Law about £1000 to build. It surpasses the Arcam musically beyond belief.
You can use words like, Brighter, More Lively, etc. etc. All subjective terms. For £1000 I've got a DIY amplifier that I just LOVE LOVE LOVE.
The Downside of DIY will always be ERGONOMICS - what it looks like. This is where the mass produced giants will normally win.
A good start for DIY is to buy a defective amplifier just for its case and possibly for its heatsinks.
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Mmmm ... interesting comment. So you are saying that I:
* do not have a reasonable idea why I change anything?
* have no idea what I'm trying to achieve, when I do change something?
* imagine "improvements" when I do change?
Rather arrogant, I suggest ... but it's a free world (at least to us in the west)!
It wasn't particularly aimed at you, andy, just your suggestion that the placebo effect (or whatever you want to call it) can be overcome by the cognoscenti; if a new shiny box 'sounds' better to you then it must, indeed be better. I'm just saying that I'm aware of my own susceptibility to 'hear' shiny or expensive boxes as better, and if I really had to bet on it, I would say everyone here has it too. In other words, if my life depended on anyone in these forums really being able to hear the difference between two competent amplifiers, or a $2 cable and a $10,000 cable, or the difference between 16/44.1 and 24/192, I'd be very worried!
Now speakers, that's a different matter.
I was just responding to a fairly generic question at the top of the thread:
But point taken. I'll get my coat.
Mmmm ... interesting comment. So you are saying that I:
* do not have a reasonable idea why I change anything?
* have no idea what I'm trying to achieve, when I do change something?
* imagine "improvements" when I do change?
Rather arrogant, I suggest ... but it's a free world (at least to us in the west)!
All the best,
Andy
Nobody said most of those things directly.
I think you need to look at what you have posted yourself, Andy, before criticising what, after all, was a reaction to a pretty provocative post and could only be interpreted as indirectly aimed at you. Coppertalk wrote of haemorrhaging cash himself. You guys yourselves are reacting in a very defensive manner.
With that attitide, I suggest you should stick with whatever you have now ... until you die.
Regards,
Andy
As for sticking with what one has got, this is not an unreasonable course of action if one is happy with the equipment one has. I for one have no plans to replace any of my AV equipment unless it fails. It's not beyond the bounds of imagination that one should be happy with what one has, is it?
Testgear, I may replace, if better equipment becomes available at prices affordable to me.
I continuously produce and build new designs, but this is not driven by dissatisfaction with the existing ones, I just take pleasure in the exercise. I've got at least 3 completely different headphone amplifiers that I think are completely indistinguishable in performance with most sources and most headphones. When one has a transparent amplifier filling a niche what good reason is there to replace it, other than inefficiency or style?
We're told that all AKSA amplifiers sound different. That makes them failures in my book. I buy or build an amplifier to listen to music, not to listen to the amplifier, and I feel compelled to point out to the OP, that if this is in fact the case, then his taste might lead him to consider a range of amplifiers intended not to colour the program material.
Oh, and when you buy hi-fi, don't take your ears shopping. Sit at home, read a lot of specifications, read some reviews to make sure you don't get caught out by any anomalies, and make up your mind sight unseen.
Wow seems I've started an interesting debate...back to the actual components and physical hardware...
For £500GBP what amplifiers do you think I should consider and if that's DIY then who would be the best person to speak directly to about buying/building one?
Also can anyone recommend a DAC? This item of HiFi seems even worse than Amps where I'm struggling to get a straight answer to the difference between a £30 Ebay one and a £500 AudioLab...just to clarify I'm not talking about the difference in terms of looks (knobs, dials, screens etc) but the potential to increase sound quality from the audio coming from my MacBook Pro...
For £500GBP what amplifiers do you think I should consider and if that's DIY then who would be the best person to speak directly to about buying/building one?
Also can anyone recommend a DAC? This item of HiFi seems even worse than Amps where I'm struggling to get a straight answer to the difference between a £30 Ebay one and a £500 AudioLab...just to clarify I'm not talking about the difference in terms of looks (knobs, dials, screens etc) but the potential to increase sound quality from the audio coming from my MacBook Pro...
Hello,
The person you need to address your question to in this forum, Hugh Dean, is unable to do so at this time. It is easy to read the threads that explain why this is so. You might want to try a different forum to find an answer to your question(s), as Aspen only makes amplifiers.
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Nothing wrong with the topic or discussion, but unless it's aspen oriented, perhaps belongs in another forum.
Of course Hugh's products each make the music sound different from each other, otherwise there would be no need to design and make new products. That of course is not to say that they don't all contain similarities to each other as well.
Mods, maybe relocate this thread...
...to a more appropriate forum (but don't end it).
Regarding the costs of hifi equipment: this is the bane of high-end audio in general. There are a few reasons for the high cost compared to the actual component content costs.
Now of course there are other factors such as the cost of commodities that are used in the manufacture of electric/electronic components and the actual costs associated with engineering the product.
One of the ways to maximize content to price ratios is to dig.
...to a more appropriate forum (but don't end it).
Regarding the costs of hifi equipment: this is the bane of high-end audio in general. There are a few reasons for the high cost compared to the actual component content costs.
- usually the actual cost of goods is about 10% of "retail" including labour
- packaging can often be the single largest cost, followed by shipping, advertising and marketing, and any distributor surcharges
- in Canada, where I live, our population is distributed east to west with most (80% or so) living within 250 miles of the US border and our transportation routes are indicative of that.
- Canada's tax scheme is similar to the UK's in that our taxes are relatively high compared to the US', as we have a fairly robust social welfare and public health care systems.
Now of course there are other factors such as the cost of commodities that are used in the manufacture of electric/electronic components and the actual costs associated with engineering the product.
One of the ways to maximize content to price ratios is to dig.
The cost of a product is not just the cost of the final product, and the parts therein. For each final product there likely has been a few prototype projects, and all the costs and supplies associated with that. There are hours and hours of design work, and all that that entails. There are a great many hidden costs that end users never see or think about.
I don't know if other AKSA owners have had the same experience, but the pre amp used can make quite a difference.
The pre amp referred to in post #19 is a very simple op amp buffer (no gain) and worked better than expected, especially as it was basically a modded cMoy PCB running off a regulated 12VDC plug pack with rails split by a TLE2426.
JDS Labs - cMoyBB v2.03 PCB - Standard
The pre amp referred to in post #19 is a very simple op amp buffer (no gain) and worked better than expected, especially as it was basically a modded cMoy PCB running off a regulated 12VDC plug pack with rails split by a TLE2426.
JDS Labs - cMoyBB v2.03 PCB - Standard
I've moved the thread to the lounge. The redirect will expire in a week.The new Aspen GK-2 pre amp is the real deal, and one of the best there is, at any price, anywhere. Unfortunately it is a too well kept secret.
Now that this has been moved to a proper forum, most of my posts pertaining to "why is this in the aksa forum" seem a bit out of place.
I wouldn't worry about it stvnharr The original post mentioned AKSA, and quite a bit of dialog has been around Aspen amps, but the question was a generic one so moving from the AKSA forum to the lounge did seem the appropriate thing to do, anyone who reads this far will know why they seem out of place (if they notice at all ).
Tony.
The original post mentioned AKSA, and quite a bit of dialog has been around Aspen amps, but the question was a generic one so moving from the AKSA forum to the lounge did seem the appropriate thing to do, anyone who reads this far will know why they seem out of place (if they notice at all ). Tony.
At the cheaper end of a market you are probably getting what you pay for. You can choose what you want to pay for. Money spent on appearance hasn't been spent on sound, but you can choose.
At the expensive end of a market you can pay more for a better product, or you can pay for exclusivity and a nice story. Some combination of these two is of course also possible. 'Better' can mean better sound, or better appearance, or better reliability. In some cases 'better' can mean 'tailored to specific tastes' which might actually mean 'worse' in a technical sense.
A £1000 amplifier will sound better than a £200 one, especially if you know which is which.
At the expensive end of a market you can pay more for a better product, or you can pay for exclusivity and a nice story. Some combination of these two is of course also possible. 'Better' can mean better sound, or better appearance, or better reliability. In some cases 'better' can mean 'tailored to specific tastes' which might actually mean 'worse' in a technical sense.
A £1000 amplifier will sound better than a £200 one, especially if you know which is which.
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