That is what many people say about Hi-End audio... they wouldnt be able to hear the difference.... but they do when exposed to it.
🙂
I won't attempt to convert you, and I do know a few people who simply don't care for wine (although one likes beer). The more common experience has been to be told someone doesn't know the difference between good wine and bad, and in particular between good red wine and bad. Then I may give them a taste of a ready-to-drink great one.
In one case a business associate had some 1957 Volnay, Hospices du Beaune, which existed at a liquor store in an LA neighborhood that had de-gentrified if you will. They had remnants of bygone days and some were just gone, the Volnay however in great shape. It was about 14 bucks (this many years ago). I had had a few and knew it was probably good, and I got one of the last bottles that day for our lunch. My biz guy already had an abiding hatred of the French, based on a supposed recollection of being an RAF pilot in a former life.
He lit up when he tasted the wine, and I had to admonish him not to guzzle. I told him what it had cost, and he did a quick calculation to rule out drinking it every day. I had to point out that if the bottle had been guaranteed it would have cost several times more, even then. And it was scarce as well, to say the least.
It was a sad day when I bought the last one, and once another customer present cautioned buying any of the older bottles there, as he knew storage had been iffy at best. I agreed with him but said the track record had been very good despite this.
I do use more expensive wines for cooking, does have an effect on the food (though never done a DBT)... drinking, I'm not that fussy and can achieve the same level of happiness on £5 or £50 per bottle, I presume I quaff rather than sip🙂
I recall I also confiscated a load of snails at the RC estate.
(a Gitane Roma I met in Cluny cooked them for me at his camp fire. Complementary confiscated hare stew bonus)
Brad,
You may be right that I could tell the taste was superior. I just can't seem to drink red wines, they give me a killer headache. Once in awhile a mixed drink with dinner or even a beer but it is so rare my kids just know I don't drink, been around to many who don't seem to know when to stop. A good Japanese beer with Sushi does works though. But generally I have turned to water. I drank lots of juices growing up and milk which I finally came to the conclusion was giving me nothing but trouble, turns out I'm lactose intolerant, should have figured that out years ago.
You may be right that I could tell the taste was superior. I just can't seem to drink red wines, they give me a killer headache. Once in awhile a mixed drink with dinner or even a beer but it is so rare my kids just know I don't drink, been around to many who don't seem to know when to stop. A good Japanese beer with Sushi does works though. But generally I have turned to water. I drank lots of juices growing up and milk which I finally came to the conclusion was giving me nothing but trouble, turns out I'm lactose intolerant, should have figured that out years ago.
It might be the sulfites. My wife has a allergic fit when she imbibes some. Unfortunately,
sulfites form naturally in the wine, even if they're not added, including in organic wines.
Spent judiciously, £5 can buy some very good wine these days. And spending a lot more will usually be for something that requires years of cellaring to reach its peak, something few have either the cellar for or the patience.
I drank a couple of 1959 Lafites far too young. Pleasant but nowhere near what if would become. Finally got a bottle in good shape in 1994. Four hundred dollars, and people will react saying How could any wine be worth that? (and that was considered a good deal). It lasted for about five days, only fading noticeably at the very end. Staggeringly great.
That became one more empty bottle saved as a souvenir. Best Bordeaux ever for me.
And in my view, they'd be right, although excpeptions are always possible. Every now and then, a piece of audio gear comes along which does way better than you'd expect for the price, like the NAD did in its time.
Although I wouldn't go as far as saying that all expensive audio is nuts. There also one has his choice, and indeed, not all are the same, some are well worth the money and others are rip offs. The one thing expensive audio is worth its fame is in build quality.
I said some time ago that I feel my NAD C 565BEE CD player is better than most in its price category; I knocked its virtues down a peg or two, it is in fact unbelievably good in terms of sound, but it's let down by faulty manifacturing. After less than a year's service, mine started acting funny. Eventually I discovered that its pushbutton commands were faulty 3 out of 8. I changed all 8 and thought I was done - but I wasn't. I found that its flexible conncetion multiway cable was also off, some connections were very spotty. So I changed that as well, procuring the replacement for some funny money from their local service organization. Now it works fine again, but I wonder how many would bother to do all that. It's always possible that NAD used those parts in good faith and was delivered a poor consitsency (dummy) series from the manufacturer, such things have happened before to others as well, with far worse consequences. Remember the French Micromega - they were sunk as a company by poor Philips CD drive delivery.
So we lost an above average sounding company through no real fault of their own.
Brad, I have no particular love for wine, although I dearly love Greek Imiglikos wine, it's neturally sweet, no added sugar, and it's nicely laced, not offensively sweet.
I do love good beer though, not to mention traditional apple cider. Unfortunately, most cider available to me is industrial p**s water only (Somersby, Carling, etc), for the real deal I need to go back to Somerset (D Zider County) and grab hold of some of the stuff from the back yard barrel, front yard is for tourists only.
I do love good beer though, not to mention traditional apple cider. Unfortunately, most cider available to me is industrial p**s water only (Somersby, Carling, etc), for the real deal I need to go back to Somerset (D Zider County) and grab hold of some of the stuff from the back yard barrel, front yard is for tourists only.
Funny coincidence I just asked my son today if he wanted to sell my empty 1945 Lafite on ebay, the embossed bottle is neat. Due to the largess of a rich friend in the 70's/80's I could never pick a favorite.
Seems everyone is making small batch beers these days. If I could find one that tasted like the wheat beer I had in Germany during October fest that would be a nice smooth beer.
Do we still discuss low noise amplification here?
50++ pages and nothing... nix .. nada .. zilch .. zero.. 😡
[rant] To whoever moved this thread here - why don't you just rename it and stop using John's name to generate the traffic for the site? I haven't seen any posts by John here for a very very long time... [/rant]
Thanks,
50++ pages and nothing... nix .. nada .. zilch .. zero.. 😡
[rant] To whoever moved this thread here - why don't you just rename it and stop using John's name to generate the traffic for the site? I haven't seen any posts by John here for a very very long time... [/rant]
Thanks,
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I think it's about all been said now. This has become a chatroom, albeit with the prohibition against religion and politics.
But if you have a specific question, by all means voice it.
It was all done 40yr ago just as JC says, we don't contribute anything of value no matter who we are.
electroj,
Here I'll start a John Curl conversation, Bybee! That ought to get us back to talking about audio don't you think. Ask a legitimate question and I am sure someone will answer you and we can get back to talking audio.
Or we can talk about mm and mc cartridges if you like. I think that ship has sailed now, we need to move on to what is happening today, it is the age of digital whether we want to admit that or not.
Here I'll start a John Curl conversation, Bybee! That ought to get us back to talking about audio don't you think. Ask a legitimate question and I am sure someone will answer you and we can get back to talking audio.
Or we can talk about mm and mc cartridges if you like. I think that ship has sailed now, we need to move on to what is happening today, it is the age of digital whether we want to admit that or not.
Bybees do change sound....there, satisfied ? 
.
More seriously in the next couple of weeks while I am on holidays I will see if I can get some measurements of what I hear.
Anybody got suggestions on how to build a better power cable ?.
Suggestions I have seen is to run twisted pair for A/N and extra wire for earth.
I might try some mic cable.
Dan.
.More seriously in the next couple of weeks while I am on holidays I will see if I can get some measurements of what I hear.
Anybody got suggestions on how to build a better power cable ?.
Suggestions I have seen is to run twisted pair for A/N and extra wire for earth.
I might try some mic cable.
Dan.
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