Agree 100% . YOU HAVE THE BEST ADVISE!! People are so eger to chase for new gear, me included!! It is soooo wrong and I wish more of you really Audiophile Old'school guys would talk out to the community! I try also to STOP now my tuning, because very top system and need to focus again on music! Thanks a lot!!! Keep going. Your system what you own, shows already this is the most exiting one back in history and still many, many DIYer refer to those type of vintage drivers and Designs, best ever!
Best advice..yes, “we all have the I want it”..but 3 pieces of advice I give .. 1. Fix your listening room / environment. 2. Expand your musical selection..sometimes the ”audiophile” recordings are great sounding but MEH 😑 as far as music . 3. Trust your ears ..if it sounds good to you then it’s all that matters . As I enter my senior years ..enjoy the journey..because you just might miss it. Btw, Trip Trap is an awesome live recording 👍👍👍 Take care ☕️🔥🍕👍
I think there are two philosophies, and they go in the opposite direction. 1) You have those who chases clean, precise and reviling sound, these people do often run into the problem with bad recordings. 2) Those who are going for a system that sounds pleasant, they don't go away for coloring their sound, as long they enjoy the music.
There is a lot of hype out there, people are always looking for the next best thing. I've had my system for 20 years, Infinity Interlude and they make music sound like music. The only change i have made was to upgrade my Pre-amp because I wanted HDMI. The Marantz my sons bought me for my 60th birthday used. So for $350 i got a good improvement in sound.
A few of life's harder lessons and a short story... 1) Newer does not mean better. A lot of new design and equipment versioning these days is simply change for the sake of change, trying to stimulate an inflation worn market. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. 2) Most audiophile purchases are the result of insecurity. Manufactures of high priced ordinary things are often equally engaged in teaching you to distrust your existing systems as a means to get you to buy their products... their very expensive products. 3) Just because you heard something doesn't mean it's real. That first blush "It sounds so much better" tends to wear off very quickly as you relax your focus and return to casual listening. Most often the result is that your system sounds just like your system, sending you off on another quest for better. Take the next step and ask "Why?" you heard what you heard. 4) Price is NOT a marker of quality. I recently had the experience of having a high end classic Marantz unit in my system for a test run. Then when I put my trusty little $100 chip-amp (TPA3255) back in, it beat the Marantz into total submission. The operating guideline is that "As cheap audio is getting better, better audio is getting cheaper" ... don't ditch on lower priced equipment until you've actually tried it. 5) Don't listen to the guy who stands to make money from you. Salesmakers, reviewers, factory reps, etc. all stand to plump up their paycheques by selling you worthless stuff... they are the last people who will tell you the truth about your purchases. 6) Don't learn electronics from manufacturer's websites. I've been in the trade for over 40 years at this point and I've never seen such wildly fantastic explanations of ordinary things as I find on manufacturer's websites. The cable guys are far and away the worst. If you want the truth and some real information get signed into a college or university accredited course. 7) Always do the free stuff first Most often small tweaks in room setup, speaker placement, cable routing, etc. will do more to improve your system than any amount of hyper expensive cables or new electronics ever will. And now a little story for you... I had a client who was deeply into music and kept a pretty good system. One day I get a call about a hum problem from is gear. (??What changed??) When I got to the door I could hear the hum before entering the house. His system was in the basement. So as I went through his system I spotted a bunch of new, very exotic looking cables, and decided to try replacing them one by one. As I worked the hum diminished a bit with each cable I replaced. Finally when I took out the last one, the hum was gone and his system was sounding first rate again. The upshot... I had a fully grown man, sitting in his listening chair with $2,000 of cables in his lap, crying. Literally crying. Because he knew right then and there that he'd been taken down a pretty deep rabbit hole by a salsemaker he'd decided to trust. In that moment, years of questions descended upon this poor guy and it got the better of him. I felt so sorry for him I waved my labour charges and only billed him for the $50.00 worth of Amzon Basics cables I had installed. Bottom line... Our beloved hobby has become so deeply permeated by shysterism, distrust and misinformation that, quite frankly, when someone calls me an "Audiophile" these days I feel insulted.
@@theempiricalaudiophile3729 Of course they are ... almost all RU-vid "reviews" are simply advertising... and... most often by people who's only involvement in our hobby is financial.
The speaker wire I use from Kimber is the all silver wire KCAG I think. Today the same wire and the same length will cost about $8000 and that's just for the speaker wire. Today there is no way I would spend that much money just for speaker wire.
In this day and age it is highly recommended that you purchase a mic that works with REW, with this low cost measurement equipment you can prove or disprove you claims.
My next video is going to be on specifications and measuring equipment. I think you'll find it very interesting that no matter what; using your ears is the best way to buy stereo equipment not by looking at a piece of measuring equipment.
Yeah I am going to try an r2r ladder DAC...but will it really be better than the Mytek DAC+.. ? Well I just NEED to find out...lol. Venus II---come to papa...ha
Can you record some music, so we can get an idea how your Valencias sound? If you have an iPhone a senheisser ambeo omni directional mics for $50 sound good, but even a phone mic would be better than nothing.
@@theempiricalaudiophile3729 What do you think of the line magnetic 812 which is based on your speaker. Here's a sample ... Alpha Audio TH on YT has some good examples.
Hi they said that about power cords and fuses wouldnt make a difference. some say snake oil . but in my system i can hear the difference money well spent,
Some of these audiophile people go overboard and become snobs . I love music probably listen to more music than anyone and I design and build speakers and I like big powerful speakers but honestly Amazon has cables for $40 I can't remember the name but they are good as any cables for what someone can actually hear and my speakers have the same drivers as a $30000 speaker i saw exept i used the ten inch and they used 8 and mine are mdf covered with solid oak with a 3rd order crossover using Jantzen capsitors and inductors and that only cost me $800 because I designed and built it myself and its just as good if not better than that $30000 speaker so don't fall in that rabbit hole that's why I don't call myself an audiophile even though most of my free time is spent listening to music and designing and building speakers and I made some nice big powerful speakers. That can compare to anything and as far as monoblicks im happy with emotiva xpa they are just as good as really expensive one's and I don't like those bigger speakers like he is talking about that look like robots. If anyone actually sat down to listen to my reference speakers and saw the craftsmanship they would want a,pair.
I myself do not understand why some audiophiles become snobs. But I've only run across a few of them. But I know if you go on forums it becomes for worse with the snobs.
To be honest I don't think your ears (or the combination of ears and brain) are the last word. There's definitely an audio placebo effect. If you really want to be empirical you have to do a double blind comparison, or see a big enough change on a spectrum analyser. Failing that you can rely on theory and show mathematically that the change in signal is bigger than the noise and capabilities of human perception. Copper cables with decent connectors already exceed all possible requirements.
Anything I say on my channel is subjective, but with 50 years experience, I give you exactly what I hear. Whether or not you believe me or not, that doesn't matter. Like any other RU-vid channel or anybody from the absolute sound or stereophile magazine/s All the reviews are subjective, but they will even tell you doing a double blind test is not the way to rate stereo equipment and this has been going on ever since stereophile & Absolute Sound have been in existence. Of course, if you think this is the way to rate stereo equipment, then you should start a RU-vid channel that does exactly that. My next video is actually going to explain about specs of stereo, equipment, and how you still must rely on your ears not the specifications to tell you if something sounds good or bad. Statements that copper cables with decent connectors, already exceed all possible requirements is something that is debatable because: Why is it that so many people use silver cables and why hasn't the ugly truth of Silver not being any better than copper cables has been settled by now? If you would like to write more about the subject, I'd be more than happy to address it on my RU-vid channel if you would like? drklnovak@gmail.com
“You ruined it” that’s drama! What’s your philosophy? Do nothing so no mistakes? Don’t kill the fun in experimenting. There is always margin to improve and many platforms to buy and sell used stuff to eventually get rid off “mistakes”. Easy.
Have you ever heard any class d amps that you liked? Also could you comment on expensive vs. inexpensive speaker cables?.... And by the way, I think "Skunkie" is not a girl but a transvestite. Hope that doesn't burst your bubble.
THe French brand Audiophonics makes a nice Class D amp --bruno putzy -e purify based module. Much less coin than the NAD entry level or Mc entry level Class D. I use it to drive the woofers of my small sonusfabers. Works a charm.
I used to own a Carver class D amp, and I personally did not care for it. But I know people like JEFF Rowland makes a class D amp that's supposed to sound good.
