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Bose 901's? Seriously, these were all hype and one of the poorest sounding speakers of that era of HiFi ... and I'm speaking as someone who not only bought the 901's, but the 1801 Bose amp specifically designed to drive them. Pure garbage for imaging, not to mention accuracy or dynamic range (and I don't listen to "loud" music, mostly acoustic ... rarely anything that's electronic in origins). Fortunately for me, the Bose hype was well marketed and I only lost $50 in reselling this junk. Sorry, too ... Denon never made an audiophile quality level turntable, again a well hyped and marketed piece of equipment, but nowhere near the sonic ability of a number of belt drive tables of the era.
I'm still listening to the Audio Research and Conrad Johnson tube preamps and amps I bought (and have upgraded, in some cases) years ago, along with a Linn table (upgraded), KEF and Maggie speakers, and Revox & Studer tape recorders (where I have 1st & 2nd generation studio or live performance tapes). I've got a lot of music on vinyl that has not been released on CD's (primarily Brit Isles folk music, solo instrumentals, or favorite artists/performers in the era of the shaded dogs ... you simply cannot get the reproduction of musical presence of those recordings on to a CD ... and I've A-B'ed a lot of those that have been rereleased).
The fellow I bought most of my audio gear from in the 70-80's has since moved on to being one of the biggest audio mid-to-high end wholesale distributors in the USA, and he knows my taste in music and what I prefer to listen to. He's told me time and again that ... while he has all the current demo gear that's been tweaked to optomize it ... to keep what I've got. He asserts that I'll be terribly disappointed to go change the sonic qualities that I have now, that the current crop of stuff is targeted to convenience but not necessarily the recreation of an acoustic musical performance. He's shipped me some of the "best" C-D players he's got for trial, and they are slightly (and I mean only slightly) better than the average players at the mass merchandisers.
When I've had the chance to buy current albums that are released in the USA on C-D and in other markets on vinyl, I'll buy both. The A-B comparison is striking. The C-D is great for putting in the car player for on the road, but at home? the vinyl rules.
Some time back, on this forum ... I mentioned recently showing up at Harrod's in London to audition their latest high end offerrings at the Linn shop. At the time, they were having a sales meeting and the only person there was their V-P. They were touting all of their latest digital equipment, but I wanted to listen to the latest iteration of their turntable, which was not hooked up and was gathering dust. I'd been shopping the used vinyl stores in the area, and had an armload of used vinyl, not cleaned and not listened to by me at that point. They didn't have any music on hand that I wanted to listen to, so the V-P had me go into the store and borrow any C-D's that I wanted to demo. I came back with a couple of solo piano recordings, newly released. We listened for awhile, and I was quite unimpressed ... you could hear notes, but there was no "presence" of a live musical performance from a piano.
Just for grins, I imposed upon the V-P to hard wire the turntable back up. I'm not sure who's jaw hit the floor first ... his or mine ... when the old vinyl was put on the table. We had an amazingly fine performance (Perahia, Bach English Suites) on tap, which was a direct comparison to the then current C-D that was an "album of the year" release. It was exquisite, and the piano was right there in front of us. Subsequently, I put on a Landowska (Goldberg Variations), an obscure European release I'd never seen before that was recorded in her home on several different harpsichords. The difference in the acoustics of each of her rooms, as well as the differences in the instruments was striking, but she used them to bring out the differences of the various movements.
Similarly, I've been able to find stuff on Shanniche and Green Linnet that was released on C-D and on vinyl ... and the vinyl simply blows the C-D's away. I'll take the vinyl anytime, even with older recordings with their possible flaws ....
Of course, there's no comparison for convenience when a little chunk of plastic electronics carried in your pocket can yield some entertainment compared to the ritual of cleaning and the bulk of a vinyl storage medium.
Interestingly enough, there's a lot of quality tube'd gear, speakers, and decent turntables around at reasonable prices. You don't have to spend a conspicuous consumption level of money now (or then, for that matter) to have superb music reproduction in your home. Yes, I've auditioned some $100K speaker systems, and they just weren't justified ... even when mated to $100K worth of electronics ... but they were definitely pretty and cosmetically awesome. Keep in mind that a lot of the music systems are geared to optomizing the reproduction of electronic noise which fills the entertainment industry ... if all your are listening to is that kind of stuff (loud, with a lot of visceral bass notes, and no real "soundstage" even when it was first performed), whatever the genre ... you won't be satisfied to listen to the audio systems that I enjoy.
I've been to a number of high end emporiums in the USA, where they "test" your sonic listening skills. They herd you into their first demo room based upon your current sound system (and a background check into your credit limits while you are given the dog and pony show), and depending upon your reaction ... they'll either do the hard sell routine on the junk they've just shown you or give you an audition of some of their better stuff (which is not to say, more expensive ... but better sonically). I've literally walked out of places when all they had to show me was mass appeal stuff that simply didn't measure up ... and they knew it. It was all about marketing and closing a sale, not on supplying an improved sonic experience. The key to this is to use your ears and not your eyes, and not to buy a big deal hype'd name line of equipment. Frankly, I've heard some home built preamps and amps that blew the doors off of commercial gear ... built by serious hobbyists using schematics from the 60'-70's that were distributed in hobbyist newsletters or in various small circulation magazines; the gear, unfortunately, not for sale.
Please note that I'm not trying to put anybody down here ... we all have different music values, we all hear music differently. What brings me pleasure and justification for my hobby may not be of any value whatsoever to many ... actually, most of the marketplace, judging by what sells in the mass market. I don't watch live sports, for example ... so I don't need to have a big screen and a surround sound of the stadium experience in my home ... or a war game experience of the battlefield, or any similar type of entertainment. I simply want to recreate the live performance of various acoustic instruments and unaltered human voice .... and the gear to do so is readily available today in the used and new marketplace, at various price points. If "hi-fi" is the name put on that equipment as opposed to all of the abbreviations for the latest electronics ... so be it. Enjoy!
I love the high end stuff but simply am not in the financial position to start buying again at the moment. It does not help that my classic car hobby takes up the majority of any extra money that does not get used up for my children.
My last high end set up was a Parasound Halo amp and pre-amp. I had to sell them along with the Paradigm speakers. I still have my Pioneer Elite compact disc player which I have now have hooked up to an old (early 90's) Yamaha integrated receiver/amplifier that I had. I was never into the surround sound craze so I invested in the Parasound equipment and the Paradigm speakers which had excellent sound for the same price as a mediocre surround sound set up.
I also still have a Sony turntable, a Pioneer turntable, and a JVC turntable. I also converted my vinyl records to MP3s for when using my ipod. Just for the record, you do not need one of those expensive USB turntables to make MP3s. I actually hooked up my regular turntable to my Mac's "line in" port and used a program called TOAST to turn the vinyl into MP3s. I connected my Yamaha cassette deck to the Mac the same way and used the same program to make the cassettes into MP3s as well. I am sure you can do the same things with Windows computers as well.
I get really good sound out of my Mac while using my Grado headphones. I am currently using the Grado SR80 headphones and they sound amazingly good when used with my Mac.
I have a system that is a mix of slightly older and a bit new. I still listen to music on - but it is also my home theater audio system.
B&K Ref 10 surround sound preamp
Sunfire Cinema Grand amp
Snell C/V front speakers
Polk LSi center
Monitor Audio bipole/dipole surrounds
Well Tempered Record Player
Parasound phono preamp
Slimdevices Squeezebox 3 media server
Panasonic DVD player
Self designed and built subwoofer
Adcom GFA545 amp (for subwoofer)
All my CDs are ripped at 320kbps and served to the Squeezebox via my network.
I listen to music more in my truck though. It has a custom system I installed that uses active crossovers throughout and a custom sealed box subwoofer. I usually listen to MP3 CDs.
I listen to tape recorders.
Here. Has bought 20 . Has ordered 20 . Сasete I buy. Now I buy it. Always so. Hasn't changed.
http://i057.radikal.ru/1004/16/fcd963db30aa.jpg (broken link)
After a couple of moves, my wife has seriously questioned why I bother with my old vinyl and hi-fi system that I got back in college about 30 years ago. Now I have an answer!
The hobby is still around though declining in numbers of people involved; not many young people are interested and seem to prefer ipods and such to hi-fi gear.
I dont really care for HIFI myself..... I mean on records YES ..... Records from the 60s and earlier HIFI makes it sound better but its NOT NEEDED to make things sound better..
None of my 8 track tapes have HIFI and to me sound gorgeous!! (They dont say anything about HIFI (like my records do) so I assume they do not)
They also dont have any DOLBY FILTERING CRAP which only makes it sound worse!! (I try hard to avoid 8 tracks/cassettes that have dolby noise reduction)
I don't keep up with high end stuff, but I still rock my 25 year old Klipsch KG 4.5's and KG series surround speakers. Just upgraded to a new Yamaha AV receiver as the main unit, and all my music is converted to digital and I just stream it via Bluetooth to my A/V receiver.
One day I'll get a new turntable for the old vinyl, but not for a while.
Interesting, grave digging a thread started seven years ago. Yet the fundamentals are unchanged:
- All guys, presumably, with interest in electronics and/or engineering.
- A fastidious, precise hobby requiring many hours of fussing and studying over obscure nuances in materials, motors for turntables, and so much more that few could care less about here in 2017.
- Presumably seriously on the wane as a widespread hobby, as modern electronics and delivery methods (iPods, MP3s etc.) combined with the latest generation of youth who have little, if-any, interest. When this thread started, "cloud delivery" of music was a bit cutting-edge; today, it's mainstream for most. I worked on Azure platform, for example, back when it was being envisioned in the last years of the previous decade...I saw then, and now, where delivery of content was going to go. And it ain't in tapes, discs, or other obsolete physical media from a bygone era.
The Hi-Fi craze started in what, the 1960s? My dad built his own system out of vacuum tubes and bear skins for all the sense it made. And it sounded like hell, too: he had what he called a "tin ear" and built junk just for the sake of building, not to gain some subtle tonal nuance between system types A and B. In fact by the time I was a teen he'd jettisoned all that for a transistor-based receiver that didn't sound half-bad, end of the day.
(Perhaps inheriting some intangible quality from my mom, who was a double music major in college, I actually "could" hear the difference between garbage and quality amps.)
It all probably peaked in the 1970s, with specific types of tubes, turntables, and all that. Being a sharp and curious lad, I caught the tail end via study of stereo magazines into the mid '80s. Though for me and my chummies, it was all about optimizing the best sound from our tape cassettes: we prayed over such gods as Nakamichi, Onkyo, Sony, and Akai. Hiss, wow, and flutter were our enemies. We'd thrill over the "extended dynamic range" of so-called metal and chrome tapes from TDK vs. the lesser normal-bias types. Hey, we were kids of our era. Turntables were either peaking or on the wane by then, another subject entirely, though undoubtedly did produce superior sound. No question whatsoever. Going full-nerd on turntable type A vs. type B (or stylus) could actually make a measurable difference in the sound quality delivered and perceived by the user.
The CD player, which I personally first encountered in 1986 (and promptly bought soon as I could, out of college a couple years later), was the proverbial bell tolling for all that. If the mass of people can't tell the difference, by-definition your "hobby" has suddenly become the purview of nerds and enthusiasts, no more or less. Sort of like all the PCs I could build damn near with my eyes closed c. 1995-2005: that era is mostly gone, it had its day and they were useful skills at the time, but the world has moved on. No one cares or would need to care today that I could assemble (very) specific hardware types from a vast number of choices into a system with optimized performance: you can buy laptops right out of Amazon today from the likes of Asus, MSI, and Dell that would blow the doors off anything I custom built. I'm typing on one right now.
Today, if I cared, I'd waltz down to the higher-end dusty Hi Fi shop outside of Seattle and buy a Naim Audio amp, preamp, turntable, and speakers and call it good. I almost did exactly that for less than $10K, six years ago, but ended up putting something together on my own that is definitely "good enough" for my purposes. The details are only interesting to curators of the obscure; I'll spare others.
End of the day, this is mostly about Baby Boomer engineer guys who were 20-something nerds in the 1970s, today graybeards in their 60s, holding onto an interesting but quite-obscure hobby. Gen X, my era, was beginning of the end for the genre. I'd be astounded if the market for truly custom Hi Fi didn't continue to shrink dramatically down to near-nothing in the next twenty years. What's the point?
@Blondbaerde: I think some of the hi-fi guys branched over into the home theater craze of around 2000 to 2007 plus or minus. Buying big AV receivers with 7.1, rear projection then plasma TV's, plus the onset of Hi Def, Blu Ray, etc...
End of the day, this is mostly about Baby Boomer engineer guys who were 20-something nerds in the 1970s, today graybeards in their 60s, holding onto an interesting but quite-obscure hobby. Gen X, my era, was beginning of the end for the genre. I'd be astounded if the market for truly custom Hi Fi didn't continue to shrink dramatically down to near-nothing in the next twenty years. What's the point?
Well, I know that describes me.
HiFi has never been better though -- everything is so cheap! Good receivers and speakers can be had all day on eBay, and at my age, the hearing isn't so great that I "audition" anything. You can pretty well fit your whole musical world on a flash drive and play it anywhere.
My main "HiFi" these days is a Black Friday special from several years back: Yamaha RXV-465 receiver, Energy Take 5 speakers and a Polk PSW-10 subwoofer. Cost about $500 new. Love it -- it's only input is an optical line from the computer. Music jukebox, TV, surround sound on a movie -- it all sounds great to me.
There are still a lot of hobbyists out there, and a lot of DIY going on with speakers in particular.
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