Ask an Audio geek

[Kosh]

I'm an avid audio geek and music fan.  I've been into audio gear and music since I was in my teens.  I purchased my first decent stereo when I was 14 (1982), and I spent over $1000 at the time.  I've been obsessed ever since.  I sold high end gear in the early 90's, and know a bit about audio engineering from friends and acquaintances.

I can tell you where the sweet spot is, and what is snake oil.

I also have an IT background so I've built a fair amount of HTPC's.

Fire away..

[J a c k]

  I don't have any questions. I'll just sit right here and enjoy the tech nerd talk. 

[ignoramus]

Do you find you obsession waning a little with age and online content and home theater?

I've since found myself happily compromising with age.
I'd never thought I'd have in walls, but these Sonance silhouette II's seem to kick arse!
Have since swapped all surround for Sonance inwalls (inceiling?).

Again, things change, got rid of the discreet 2 channel amp/pre for a receiver!
Not sure if because I'm losing my good hearing or have sold out! Lol.

Believe it or not, I'm still using my vpl vw10ht Projector. It's a dinosaur but just coping @720p.
Bare in mind, Aussie TV still doesn't reach this.
I'll probably invest in another this year. I was looking at 4k, but now with 8k in the works, I may be better off buying cheap for current standards but upgrade more often. Your thoughts.

[vorlon13]

I've got a pair of Heresys and a pair of Cornwalls.

neener, neener, neener

[Kosh]

Do you find you obsession waning a little with age and online content and home theater?

I've since found myself happily compromising with age.
I'd never thought I'd have in walls, but these Sonance silhouette II's seem to kick arse!
Have since swapped all surround for Sonance inwalls (inceiling?).

Again, things change, got rid of the  discreet 2 channel amp/pre for a receiver!
Not sure if because I'm losing my good hearing or have sold out! Lol.

Believe it or not, I'm still using my vpl vw10ht Projector. It's a dinosaur but just coping @720p.
Bare in mind, Aussie TV still doesn't reach this.
I'll probably invest in another this year. I was looking at 4k, but now with 8k in the works, I may be better off buying cheap for current standards but upgrade more often. Your thoughts.

I would say my taste and expectations have definitely shifted over the past 25 years.
 
I sold very high end gear at a boutique shop in the early 90's.  My two channel system around that time was probably worth about $20K, and I was in the clutches of audiophilia.  You could have called me a self-proclaimed golden eared audiophile, and I would have thanked you for the compliment .   A few years later I had moved on from selling audio gear, and was attending college.  I started going to a lot more live shows with friends for fun.  I really never liked "live" shows before my college days.  I hated live albums, and always preferred a bands studio offering.  As my taste started to gravitate towards live music, I started to like my high-end system less.   
          
I think I ended up selling that gear off to purchase some reliable transportation

I've gone to a receiver based HT system these days, but I do have a separate Rotel RB-1080 to drive my main speakers.  My sources are on opposite extremes.  I have all my CD music ripped to a HTPC as lossless FLAC, and I use JRiver media center as my playback software.  I can either queue up songs from the interface displayed on my TV, or through an APP on an android tablet.  When I'm feeling more hands-on, I listen to my Clearaudio Concept Turntable.
 
My system now is definitely geared towards LIVE audio.  I had a pair of Vandersteen 3a signatures for my mains, but one day I saw a pair of Klipsch Chorus II's for sale.  Those are big speakers with 15" woofers, 15" passive radiators, and horn loaded tweeter/midrange.   My intial thought was that I would use them for a second "rock" system in the basement.  I made the mistake of testing them in my main setup, and they have been there ever since.  My Vandersteens are relegated to basement duty.

---

I've got a pair of Heresys and a pair of Cornwalls.

neener, neener, neener

No laughing here man..  I use a pair of Klipsch Chorus II's these days as my main speakers.  Those are practically fraternal twins to the Cornwalls.

[vorlon13]

 

No kidding, I was offered all 4 for free, and when I realized what they were, I told her to Craigslist them and get some $$ for them.  A year later she told me she didn't want the likes of people who look at Craigslist knowing she had good stuff, so, I could either take them or she was putting them on the curb.

Wound up with the speakers and some early 80s electronics to make all 4 speakers a quad system.  I use the Cornwalls with the Sony big screen, and the pair of Heresys are upstairs on a smaller stereo system.

The most intense aspect of the Cornwalls is both cats are not declawed, have access to them (alternating days) and neither has sharpened their claws on them.  I do take the precaution of grinding their claws down, but they could still do some damage, but I've trained them enough they aren't tempted.

They share a cardboard sharpening pad and a scratching post, and I think the dynamic between the two of them keeps them both using the same fixtures, and not the speakers, as neither one of them has ever tried, so no scent to attract the other.

#2 was easy enough to train, just yelled "NO GODDAM IT!!" about 3 times when he got within 3 feet of either of them and that was it for him.  #1 is CONSTANTLY looking for food (despite weighing 15 lbs) and the Cornwalls are, even by his generous standards, totally inedible, and he has no interest in them.

The Cornwalls are connected to a modest Yamaha receiver (pretty much set for 'straight thru' and sources are an older Sony blu-ray (made when they still put all the damn jacks on them), a DirecTV Genie, and a DISH HDDVR.

I realize the Cornwalls should be hooked up to a really decent turntable, but that is down the road, hopefully in a few years and after a remodel for that part of the house.  They are probably not sonically immaculate, but I have some old cassettes with party mix tapes made by a dear friend who passed 30 years ago, and I'd like to resurrect a cassette deck and listen to them again.  I've got a decent JVC unit, not quite a Nakamichi, but it was affordable to me at the time, and it's not one of those dual cassette clusterfucks. probably should hook it up and see if it works.  It did 2 years ago, let a neighbor use it to copy some tapes her kids had made when they were little to something more modern.


It doesn't work anymore, (and no parts to fix it) but I've got a Toshiba PCM recorder and quite a few digital mix tapes I made from CDs back in the 80s.  LOL, I still have the CDs, I should just recreate them, but it would be fun to play the ones I made back then.  Those tapes do have an auxillary Hi-Fi audio track, and the Toshiba unit did them simultaneously on the same tape, but there's a quirk in how the Toshiba handled the audio on that side of the machine and the fade-outs and fade-ins aren't 'right' even if they are listenable.  And the Hi-Fi tracks, while analog, actually spec'd out pretty good.  The challenge playing them today is finding a VHS Hi-Fi VCR with either no, or defeatable auto-volume on playback.  I think I have a Mits that will do that, but it's not hooked up to anything these days.


I did take care when making the PCM recordings to 'peak scan' the CD tracks individually and adjust the record level accordingly to maximize the S/N ratio.  Never dreamt of course, where audio would be in 30 years; compression, little tiny (and tinny) speakers, and host of other oddities.  My goal then (and now) was to 'perfect' (within the funds I had available) the 'college dorm room sound' that represented what I was in to when my tastes in such things 'froze'.

LOL, compare the paucity of effort it takes a kid these days to fill up an Ipod with music from the internet, to the onerous ordeal I had to go through to make an 8 hour digitally copied mix tape in the late 80s.  Hell, I have some mix tapes made from actual vinyl too, but I never had a turntable that cost more than a few hundred bucks.

Those were the days . . . .

[ignoramus]

Yes, the old Nakamichi Dragon which I almost bought new for 4k was an engineering analogue marvel.
Now they live where all dragons go to die...

[Silver]

Do you consider certain genres repulsive opposed to others?

[robvalue]

Do you think there's anything to the idea that vinyl records have a "special quality" of sound, which in some way makes them superior?

[Alex K]

@Kosh

I have a pair of relatively low sensitivity custom made Dynaudio-equipped 2-way speakers and have driven them with a nice albeit obscure English solid state amp for many years (Magnum IA 170). They turned out to be too difficult though - they don't really open up with the 170 and I even got it to switch off with heavy material once. Now my parents have the 170 beautify their stereo. I use a Rotel RB-1572 and hence now have enough power to orbit my living room, which brings me to my question. What's your opinion on switching amps versus conventional solid state. I went with switching technology largely because the tech geek in me wanted to check it out, but I think the sound is flawless. You, having the polar opposite in terms of power amp philosophy in the Rotel lineup, must have an opinion on that

My first amp ever which I used with simple self-built speakers was an 80s Dual, in case you know that brand. My first real system to speak of consisted of the NAD310, a quirky small hybrid amp which I have mentioned elsewhere here because it has paired bipolar and field effect transistors, which is a lot of fun to listen to, and a Marantz CD 6something as the source. The speakers were a pimped DIY Isophon kit, before that a simple DIY Visaton kit. Nowadays the power amp is fed by an NAD 165BEE and that in turn by an obscure USB-soundcard and D/A converter. I have a big Thorens (the BEE has a good phono stage) but rarely use it nowadays.