altruistic.lemon said:
Can be distilled down to:
Transparency is the aim. Mix and match can't do it and is a con. With transparency comes enjoyment of the music not the HiFi and that's the most important. Classical musicians know best because they can judge transparency. The future is active. You can't trust salesmen and mac will never do it again. Not sure how he chose his HiFi, though, you can't buy B&O over the internet so presumably he went into a dealer and spoke to a salesman at some point.
Might have missed some nuances, but that's the gist.
Heheh... almost..lol
"Transparency is the aim"
- well, to the source, yes - nothing added, nothing taken away - that closest approach to the original sound thing again.
If a system is NOT transparent to the source, then, where I want to hear the subtle nuance of tonal/timbral signature between a Bosendorfer, Steinway, Kawai and Yamaha pianos, or an Olds or King Trumpet, or a Silbermann or Caville Coll organ, a 'warm' 'intense' 'impressive' 'exciting' 'foot tapping' rendition of the music means nothing if it makes the aforesaid instruments sound like some sort of generic hash. Ever heard a 'foot tapping' 'tune playing' 'Flat Earth' or 'PRat" Silbermann organ? I think not. Such terms don't exisit in music. Again, the HiFi system is a tool to reproduce the art; nothing more and nothing less.
"Mix and match can't do it and is a con"
- Mix and match most certainly can do it, but how? Where do you find a retailer who will setup blind, carefully matched levels for an AB comparison if endeavouring to match components, let alone an ABX test, and what is the reference under such situations? Other favoured kit perhaps? And who is doing the guiding? - otherwise well meaning enthusiasts who are nonetheless amateurs. So no, it's not a con, but it is the blind leading the blind IMHO, and a very non-professional way of trying to achieve both an objective result.
" With transparency comes enjoyment of the music not the HiFi and that's the most important."
- Transparency to the source is one of the most important things IMV - that reproduction as against interpreter role of the HiFi again - and after all, isn't the raison de etre of the HiFi to listen to the music?
"Classical musicians know best because they can judge transparency"
- I'd say the people who know best are the highly trained and qualified professional engineers working in the field - people like Floyd Toole (retired), Sean Olive, Dr. David Moulton, Dr. Geoff Martin etc. - at least one of these engineers is also a qualified classical musician with a bachelor of music degree in organ performance. Classical musicians are not engineers, and niether are the retail staff trying to assemble a satisfactory result from a plethora of individual parts, like cooking up a cake recipe. Classical musicians are probably in a better position to judge the accuray of acoustic instruments as regards tonal timbre, and spatial perspectives as heard in real life, but otherwise, professional engineers such as I've mentiioned undoubtedly know best IMV, and it's where I'd go for professional and peer reviewed advice.
"The future is active"
- For those who put music above fiddling and faffing about with gear, and want a plug and play result that will on technical grounds, get them very close to the original sound with no mixing and matching by amateurs needed - absolutely. Also, separates, mixing and matching with passive speakers seems to be the province of baby boomers, and electronics hobbyists building PC's etc; I dont' see much evidence of Gen Y wanting to emulate the example of their Grandfathers and/or fathers in terms of system building - and they are the future after all. As such, the market will decide.
"You can't trust salesmen and mac will never do it again."
- I've worked in the industry as a salesman, and not all salespeople are charlatans, or conmen etc - some have exceptionally high standards of ethics - I'd like to think I did when I worked in the industry. However, the fact remains, I am not an qualified electrical or audio engineer, therefore I'm a well meaning amateur at best; accordingly, when it comes to spending a great deal of money on kit, I'd rather go with a fully conceived, designed, engineered and executed system built from go to whoa by the most highly qualified, tertiary trained experts available. Same with buying a car, or needing to visit a doctor - when I'm sick, I don't visit those practicising homeopathy....
"Not sure how he chose his HiFi, though, you can't buy B&O over the internet so presumably he went into a dealer and spoke to a salesman at some point."
- I've been an admirer of B&O pretty much since I first came across them in the early 80's. I always admired their designs, particularly the aesthetics, but had no need to buy, as I already had a good system at the time. In my later Naim 'era' I dismissed them as sound systems for the rich and ignorant, that no serious audiphile would touch. I remember having a very casual listen to the Beolab 5's when they first came out, and thought they had no-where near the foot tapping 'PRaT' of my then Naim system, and ignored them accordingly.
But then I had some alarming experiences. The Harmon Kardon 'Baubbles' that came supplied with my first iMac, could match my Naim/SBL system for PRaT, foot tappy tunes and involvement. Nothing like the scale and such of course, but still.....it was not just a shock, but a huge suprise.
Finding that a cheap Denon AV receiver could better a Naim AV2 + amps when it came to precision of steering, resolution of fine detail as regards foley effects on movies, and did it for a tenth of the cost.
I ended up purchasing some Sony ES components to add on to my Naim system for AV purposes in preference to the Naim AV solution, on performance and cost grounds. Believing the Naim to be inherently superior (it was NAIM after all, as against a 'mere' Sony) I owned it for six months, using it as an add on to the Naim kit for AV purposes, until I fatefully decided one day to separate it out from the Naim system and listen to it on it's own, using the Naim SBL speakers.
And that as they say, was the beginning of the end.
I did matched volume level AB's to within 1.0db (arguably not good enough, but as close as I could manage with an SPL level meter) and also some blind ABs with the assistance of a friend. I listened - aghast - over many months, both in short A/B's and in longer periods lasting weeks, and then swapping around, and always, overall it was the Sony that won the day. So after about a year of just sitting there, more or less unused, I sold all the Naim off - and lost a lot of money, - because to buy Naim new in Australia equals approx. 3.5 times the UK price by the time you factor in all the duties, charges, distributor and retail markup, and yet to sell, the UK ebay market sets the global price. Ultimately, though, I was very happy to be rid of it - it was very good quality, and good sound, but IME there is so much nastiness and argy bargy, plus audio foo attached to the brand, I want no truck with it, so was happy to see the back of it.
Some years have passed, my Sony kit doesn't have HDMI, and I've been wanted to change out the SLB's for some time, plus get rid of some remaining Mana Acoustic tables (more or less the 'remains' of my Naim system). Whilst visiting a friend who is a professor of music interstate, I visited a B&O emporium, and found an exceptionally helpful salesperson, who was a fellow musician (brass player) who had also had a lot of experience in owning and selling HiFi. This time, I had a very comprehensive demo of the Lab 5's, and was completely blown away - easily the best, as in closest aproach to the original sound, HiFi that I had heard to date, and ultimately the Lab 5's supplanted my previous 'dream' or 'hero' speaker, the B&W 801.
Since then, I've visited a number of different B&O stores. Here in Australia, they are not franchised, and they dont' sell alongside other kit in general HiFi stores (albeit that is changing with the BeoPlay sub brand) but are all owned and managed by B&O - so you are dealing with the factory direct, effectively. The staff can be variable in experience - some have degrees in interior design, others in electronics etc - I found a dealership where the manager has had 30+ years in selling high end HiFi, as well as owning many very expensive high end audio systems, and is very much a music and hiFi buff. He has 3 pairs of Lab 5's in his home with a projector - a VERY tidy sum of money + committment to do that.
The selling environment in a B&O store is nothing like mainstream HiFi. There are no 'deals', there is no pressure to sell, there is no pseudo science technobabble, there is no audiophile snobbery - just impeccable service and extensive knowledge - they are all very well trained.
I've heard the Lab 5's many times now, and they are still one of the best (as in the closest approach to the original sound) speaker systems that I've ever heard, and the Lab 9's are an arguably scaled down version of them. By heard, I'm referrring to available high end speakers, such as B&W 800D's, Quad 57's, 63's & 989's, Tannoy Westminster Royals, Magneplanars, Apogee Scintilas, Klipschorns etc - but I haven't heard true exotica such as Steinway-Lyngdorf or MBL Radialstrahlers for example.
My short list came down to ADM 40's plus two subs; B&W803D's and some hybrid Nakamichi-Whise Electrostatics, and the B&O Beloab 9's when seeking a new system. When I bought my SBL's, the shortlist was Linn Isobariks, the SBL's and some Dynaudio Contour 1.8's Mk 111's. To get to that point, I literally tried just about every speaker/amp combination in the shop - the SBL's were especially brought in from the distributor as an demo pair for me to hear - excellent service, albeit the dealership has since gone out of business.
In the case of the Beolab 9's I made one visit to the store, and chatted for a couple of hours about my possible options, with the very experienced and also 'ex' audiophile store manager I've mentioned. I arranged an late afternoon/out of hours demo with my own music and some bluray video excerpts.
The demo took around 3 hours - I was more or less left to my own devices, my queries being answered when I asked them. There was no salesman hovering, tapping his foot out of time to the music (I love it when Linn/Naim salesman did that - it just showed they were musically clueless) or whispering sweet nothings in my ear - just solid, ethical and totally honest service at the highest levels - exactly what I would expect and hope for.
I had heard and seen enough, so I more or less committed myself then and there, and went back a couple of days later with a bank cheque and ordered them. A very different purchasing experience to my previous major HiFi purchase, and at a level no Hifi emporium I've even visited has been able to match.
So that's how I bought them, and yes, I did visit a dealer, but as I've tried to outline, the buying experience, and advice was and is light years away from anything I've experienced in the audiophile world, in a vastly better and more professional way.
I apologise about my lengthy posts; ideally I should edit them, but that takes even more time of which I don't have a great deal to spend, so they pretty much come written as I think them and unedited.
I also write at length to try and avoid ambiguity or mis-understanding with what I'm trying to convey.
Ultimately though, I somewhat doubt as if these forums are quite the right place for me, at least in terms of spending a lot of time hanging out, as mixing and matching and the whole electronics hobby side of the kit seems to be the rasion de etre for most being here, which is not really me I'm afraid, and when someone finds my posts to be either so banal or disinteresting as to laugh at them and me, it's probably best that I stop writing - I don't want to bore people, or waste their or my time to be honest - and theres' other places I hang out on in greater depth on the interwebz.
So, sorry that my writing is so lengthy - I've tried to respond in-depth, but will try and master the art of the drive by one liner for my future posts as I may make them from time to time.
Thanks for your thoughts and comments - I hope my reply explains mine a little more clearly.
Kind regards
JMac
, how do they do that :?
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram