Complete Hi-Fi Upgrade Advice

[steve_1979]

This is getting a bit silly now. I'm going to bow out of this one.

 

[tino]

I just had a closer look at the Wadia Intuition 01, and it doesn't have HDMI inputs. It is I²S via a HDMI-cable (like PS Audio and W4S do), so a little less versatile after all...

Second drawback: some like the design of their free router better.

I guess that's a start for a critical, balanced advise. :cheers:

I missed that it was I2S over a HDMI connector. Well spotted.

Subjective quote (albeit from a dealer) ...

"I have just plugged it in to a pair of Amatis and Wadia S7i and I have to be honest I think it is stunning, the price is not cheap at £6995 but then again it depends on your requirements. I will let it burn in for a few days and update you all about how it gets on."

Good luck to the OP in finding a system that suits.

 

[Craig M.]

Spiny Norman, do you have a trade status you should be disclosing?

 

[Craig M.]

I haven't heard the newer ADM9RSS or ADM40 but these are reportedly an improvement over the old ADM9T's. Very clear, neutral and detailed.

I have heard the 40s and 9rss and Steve is correct, they are an improvement. His description of the ADMs sound is also correct. Why does any mention of AVI stick in your craw so much (while we're on a bird theme)?

 

[BenLaw]

Spiny Norman, do you have a trade status you should be disclosing?

Does he? Wouldn't surprise me, I don't anyone else quite so fixated.

 

[John Duncan]

Spiny Norman, do you have a trade status you should be disclosing?

Does he? Wouldn't surprise me, I don't anyone else quite so fixated.

Inclined to agree (though have no idea, his IP address/location gives no clues), but find him no more fixated (on either side of the fence) than some others I could mention.

 

[BenLaw]

Spiny Norman, do you have a trade status you should be disclosing?

Does he? Wouldn't surprise me, I don't anyone else quite so fixated.

Inclined to agree (though have no idea, his IP address/location gives no clues), but find him no more fixated (on either side of the fence) than some others I could mention.

He stands above the likes of AL and relocated in that I believe every single one of his few posts is an anti-pro-AVI post (ie he responds to a proponent of AVI rather than criticising the product itself). I have no idea of his views on any other piece of equipment.

 

[Craig M.]

Spiny Norman, do you have a trade status you should be disclosing?

Does he? Wouldn't surprise me, I don't anyone else quite so fixated.

I know someone who thinks he does. Fixated is probably the right word, I should imagine every post he's ever made is trying to discredit anyone who recommends AVI.

Edit: crossed posts.

 

[John Duncan]

I know someone who thinks he does.

Oh go on, do share...

Fixated is probably the right word, I should imagine every post he's ever made is trying to discredit anyone who recommends AVI.

Not quite, but close.

 

[BenLaw]

And does this person have a specific theory about the spiny ones true identity?

 

[BenLaw]

I know someone who thinks he does.

Oh go on, do share...

Fixated is probably the right word, I should imagine every post he's ever made is trying to discredit anyone who recommends AVI.

Not quite, but close.

I had in my mind there might be one about something else. Whst else has he posted on?

 

[Craig M.]

And does this person have a specific theory about the spiny ones true identity?

Yes. I don't think it is fair to share on here though, it could be wrong, and even if it isn't I wouldn't feel comfortable posting it. It's not something that directly concerns me. You could probably find out for yourself though, but I don't think JD could...

 

[lindsayt]

What are the bad points or compromises or relatively less good areas, inparticular sonically, of each item that you've recommended?

Being glossy black, my speakers show the dust and for some, this flicks the OCD cleanliness switch and could get some people twitching.

Small children can pull off the AVI badge on the front grills.

Being front ported, it is wise to not leave off the grills with the same badge picking small children running around the house, as crayons and cheerios probably do nothing to the sound quality.

Maximum distance between speakers is 5m due to the supplied interconnect, not sure if that's a limitation to most though.

erm, that's it. No other downsides I can think of inparticular or especially regarding the sound quality, they are the best I've heard outside of a studio, but then I've not heard these in a studio.

Thank you Overdose. Your answer illustrates what I was talking about perfectly.

 

[lindsayt]

Hectors Jam, the one piece of advice I would give you in your search for the hi-fi that's right to you is to ask everyone that makes a recommendation on what you should buy about the good points as well as the bad points of what they're recommending.

Genelec 8260A - Ugly looks that only a mother could love.

AVI ADM9RSS - Only available in gloss black or white and there's no display. They also need a subwoofer to make them full range.

AVI ADM40 - 'Only' goes down to 40Hz and no gloss black or white (OK I'm nit picking here trying to think of any negatives for these).

Adam Audio Tensor - A bit big for most rooms.

Thank-you Steve. Another good illustration.

Apart from the lack of bass extension for the ADM9RSS, do they have any other sonic areas that are not as good as other amp speaker combinations? And with the sub-woofer how does the bass then compare to others?

For the ADM40's you say that they only go down to 40hz. Do you know how many dbs down they are at 40hz? And how do they sound for bass extension compared to speakers that are 0 to 2 dbs down at 20hz? And do they have any other sonic areas that are not as good as other amp speaker combinations?

Same questions for the 8260A's and Tensors?

 

[lindsayt]

Now let's see what sort of answers we get. And of course we can do our own listening tests to decide if we agree with the answers or not.

This is an interesting way of looking at it, but very often, so called "sonic weaknesses" are subjective....the only way to find this out is to listen. It is imo all too easy to get bogged down in the technical strengths and weaknesses, that one can forget to concentrate on the sound......and the only way to know what sounds really good (in terms of your personal taste), is to listen to a lot of alternatives.

Also into this mix comes room acoustics and speaker set up.

CDPs have the weakness that they are trying to read a spinning disc in real time, which also adds electromechanical interference and will have maintenance issues.

All Streamers are not created equal, so gapless playback, dropouts and and handling all resolutions / formats, can't be taken for granted.

TTs have set up problems, are susceptible to feedback and play vinyl which has quality issues

Class A wastes half it's power as heat.

Valves need replacing, and often don't have the power and bass power / impact / control of SS.

One of Active speakers strengths (all in one) can also be their weakness, depending on your viewpoint.

All passive speaker design is a compromise, whether infinite baffle, ported or TL.

When I've attended bake-offs / comparative demos with non-heavily-biased participants the sonic strengths and weakness of different equipment has not been subjective. They've been easy enough to hear for everyone there. There is generally complete agreement on the relative strengths and weaknesess.

Where subjectivity sometimes comes into it is in personal tastes in music and in how they most want their hi-fi to sound in deciding each persons overall winners in terms of sonic strengths and weaknesses. Also subjectivity happens when the overall best sounding equipment is the most expensive and whether it's worth the money or not for any individual.

 

[altruistic.lemon]

He stands above the likes of AL and relocated in that I believe every single one of his few posts is an anti-pro-AVI post (ie he responds to a proponent of AVI rather than criticising the product itself). I have no idea of his views on any other piece of equipment.

At least he doesn't resort to ad hominems as you do, bl.

More at fault are those who habe extremely close connections to AVI whoe deliberately shill the product to thr point where some have started to brlieve their spurious claims. Why it is permitted I don't know, since at least one of the ratpack is The ventriloquist Ashley's dummy and a couple of the identities seem to be the same person.

No point asking anything about speakers any more, as if your budget is less than £500 they recommend 2nd hand, Anything up to £2000 gets the baby Adms, and anything up to £50000 gets the adm 40s. Doesn't matter if you already have gear, flog it, or whether your room size would dwarf the Albert Hall, the answer is always AVI. Even active speakers aren't the answer, as only AVI are ever recommended by the acolytes.

All this is deliberately being done by some of the same people who regularly attack WHF staff members and forum members on their own forum. Or gloat over what the impact will be if they post a review. Personally, I thought this forum was a lot better before this concentrated shilling campaign started. God knows what newcomers think, since all they ever get is a constant stream of advertorials about one manufacturer.

Obviously not all who post about AVI are to blame. you can usually pick them because they post about other matters and products. This is now a liberal forum, but perhaps it is time to develop a policy to stop those who are taking advantage of that new freedom.

 

[steve_1979]

Hectors Jam, the one piece of advice I would give you in your search for the hi-fi that's right to you is to ask everyone that makes a recommendation on what you should buy about the good points as well as the bad points of what they're recommending.

Genelec 8260A - Ugly looks that only a mother could love.

AVI ADM9RSS - Only available in gloss black or white and there's no display. They also need a subwoofer to make them full range.

AVI ADM40 - 'Only' goes down to 40Hz and no gloss black or white (OK I'm nit picking here trying to think of any negatives for these).

Adam Audio Tensor - A bit big for most rooms.

Thank-you Steve. Another good illustration.

Apart from the lack of bass extension for the ADM9RSS, do they have any other sonic areas that are not as good as other amp speaker combinations? And with the sub-woofer how does the bass then compare to others?

For the ADM40's you say that they only go down to 40hz. Do you know how many dbs down they are at 40hz? And how do they sound for bass extension compared to speakers that are 0 to 2 dbs down at 20hz? And do they have any other sonic areas that are not as good as other amp speaker combinations?

Same questions for the 8260A's and Tensors?

I think that all of the really good speakers that I've heard excel right across the frequency range and have no noticeable bad points in any area. These include models from Genelec, Adam, AVI, ATC and Quested.

You also ask about the quality of the AVI subwoofer. I think that it integrates perfectly and sounds exellent. It's easily as good as the the bass from the other speakers that I mentioned above but I wouldn't say that it was noticeably any better or worse than them though. But it's hard to tell because I heard them all in different places and on different occasions.

Regarding your question about the ADM40's - I don't think I've ever heard a subwoofer that's -2dB at 20Hz and I have no idea how many dB down the ADM40's are at 40Hz. You'd probably be better off asking Ashley James that question. Or maybe someone here who owns the ADM40's could answer it for you.

 

[JMacMan]

He stands above the likes of AL and relocated in that I believe every single one of his few posts is an anti-pro-AVI post (ie he responds to a proponent of AVI rather than criticising the product itself). I have no idea of his views on any other piece of equipment.

At least he doesn't resort to ad hominems as you do, bl.

More at fault are those who habe extremely close connections to AVI whoe deliberately shill the product to thr point where some have started to brlieve their spurious claims. Why it is permitted I don't know, since at least one of the ratpack is The ventriloquist Ashley's dummy and a couple of the identities seem to be the same person.

No point asking anything about speakers any more, as if your budget is less than £500 they recommend 2nd hand, Anything up to £2000 gets the baby Adms, and anything up to £50000 gets the adm 40s. Doesn't matter if you already have gear, flog it, or whether your room size would dwarf the Albert Hall, the answer is always AVI. Even active speakers aren't the answer, as only AVI are ever recommended by the acolytes.

All this is deliberately being done by some of the same people who regularly attack WHF staff members and forum members on their own forum. Or gloat over what the impact will be if they post a review. Personally, I thought this forum was a lot better before this concentrated shilling campaign started. God knows what newcomers think, since all they ever get is a constant stream of advertorials about one manufacturer.

Obviously not all who post about AVI are to blame. you can usually pick them because they post about other matters and products. This is now a liberal forum, but perhaps it is time to develop a policy to stop those who are taking advantage of that new freedom.

I can see where you're coming from, in that certain aspects of some AVI owners enthusiasm and desire to share that enthusiasm with others, reminds me of the 'Flat Earth' "You're nobody without a Naim" years, where anything that wasn't Naim was more or less politely (and at times very impolitely) dismissed, whereas anything that WAS Naim, was just the bestest evaah, and the perfect fit for everyone, under all circumstances.

Similarly, if you couldn't afford new Naim, then buy second hand Naim. If you have a limited budget, buy an entry level Naim Nait. If you have a bigger budget, buy a spearate Naim pre-power combo, and then work your way up to a fully multi-amped, active setup.

But, there was only ever one faith, and it was Naim. You could have all the other separate, passive systems you liked; UK sourced, or large American rigs, even fully active Meridians, or possibly electrostatics, be they Quads, or panels such as apogee, Martin Logan etc, but at the end of the day, nothing was ever better than Naim.

And, if you couldn't appreciate that, or didn't 'believe' it, then you were clearly either a troll, deaf, dumb, or needed to be taught how to listen.

Indeed, as the advertisement plainly spelled out - you were simply a nobody without a Naim.

I lived through, and personally experienced this attitude of the Naim fanboy, and found it extremely distasteful and insulting.

Of course, they were never trying to sell anything, and only being enthusiastic about their product, but nonetheless there are many of us who lived through that era who have long and sometimes very unpleasant memories of that time, and do not easily forget.

At the end of the day, where fanboys of a brand gather, things can quickly tip over into almost a lord of the flies mentality, of an 'us' and 'them' and 'we' are right, and 'they' are wrong.

It's more to do with human psychology and a need to validate ones consumer choices, in many respects, and like similar arguments over other consumer goods, such as cameras, cars etc, people just simply need to chill out, relax, and learn to appreciate that not everyone is going to share your interests and consumer choices in life, and develop an mutually respectful attitude of live and let live IMHO.

JB :cheers:

 

[BenLaw]

He stands above the likes of AL and relocated in that I believe every single one of his few posts is an anti-pro-AVI post (ie he responds to a proponent of AVI rather than criticising the product itself). I have no idea of his views on any other piece of equipment.

At least he doesn't resort to ad hominems as you do, bl.

That's pretty unfair. I'm not shy to engage in an argument on its merits. Perhaps if spiny Norman had an argument then I would engage in it but he doesn't.

I agree the AVI thing is tiresome. It is, however, hard to define as I get just as tired by people recommending Linn whatever the request on source, or kef whatever the request on speakers. And your crusade is equally tiresome, you need to find a better way.

 

[Overdose]

Thank you Overdose. Your answer illustrates what I was talking about perfectly.

It simply illustrates the high quality of the speakers and shows that for me, they are ideal.

You really should stop over analysing things, it can't be good for the soul and must be quite frustrating.

 

[Pete68]

I read these forums daily and the constant advertising of AVI by certain members has done the brand more harm than good in my opinion.

 

[CnoEvil]

When I've attended bake-offs / comparative demos with non-heavily-biased participants the sonic strengths and weakness of different equipment has not been subjective. They've been easy enough to hear for everyone there. There is generally complete agreement on the relative strengths and weaknesess.

Where subjectivity sometimes comes into it is in personal tastes in music and in how they most want their hi-fi to sound in deciding each persons overall winners in terms of sonic strengths and weaknesses. Also subjectivity happens when the overall best sounding equipment is the most expensive and whether it's worth the money or not for any individual.

I may not have made myself clear what I meant by "sonic weakness".......it is where you don't like the sound that the system produces (hence the subjective bit), and for me it often is to do with the mid and treble.

I have heard a number of respected brands that I don't really like eg. Linn, Naim, Cyrus and Moon amps, Chord in general, and Triangle speakers....they all have strengths, but I look elsewhere if I want to enjoy my music.

If you do a bake-off with similarish kit (sonically), then it is easier to pick a winner.

 

[matt49]

I can see where you're coming from, in that certain aspects of some AVI owners enthusiasm and desire to share that enthusiasm with others, reminds me of the 'Flat Earth' "You're nobody without a Naim" years, where anything that wasn't Naim was more or less politely (and at times very impolitely) dismissed, whereas anything that WAS Naim, was just the bestest evaah, and the perfect fit for everyone, under all circumstances.

Similarly, if you couldn't afford new Naim, then buy second hand Naim. If you have a limited budget, buy an entry level Naim Nait. If you have a bigger budget, buy a spearate Naim pre-power combo, and then work your way up to a fully multi-amped, active setup.

But, there was only ever one faith, and it was Naim. You could have all the other separate, passive systems you liked; UK sourced, or large American rigs, even fully active Meridians, or possibly electrostatics, be they Quads, or panels such as apogee, Martin Logan etc, but at the end of the day, nothing was ever better than Naim.

And, if you couldn't appreciate that, or didn't 'believe' it, then you were clearly either a troll, deaf, dumb, or needed to be taught how to listen.

Indeed, as the advertisement plainly spelled out - you were simply a nobody without a Naim.

I lived through, and personally experienced this attitude of the Naim fanboy, and found it extremely distasteful and insulting.

Of course, they were never trying to sell anything, and only being enthusiastic about their product, but nonetheless there are many of us who lived through that era who have long and sometimes very unpleasant memories of that time, and do not easily forget.

At the end of the day, where fanboys of a brand gather, things can quickly tip over into almost a lord of the flies mentality, of an 'us' and 'them' and 'we' are right, and 'they' are wrong.

It's more to do with human psychology and a need to validate ones consumer choices, in many respects, and like similar arguments over other consumer goods, such as cameras, cars etc, people just simply need to chill out, relax, and learn to appreciate that not everyone is going to share your interests and consumer choices in life, and develop an mutually respectful attitude of live and let live IMHO.

JB :cheers:

JB,

thanks for the excellent post, which nicely sums up my feelings on the matter and I'm sure the feelings of many others on this forum.

Matt

 

[lindsayt]

Thank you Overdose. Your answer illustrates what I was talking about perfectly.

It simply illustrates the high quality of the speakers and shows that for me, they are ideal.

You really should stop over analysing things, it can't be good for the soul and must be quite frustrating.

Overdose, let me put it this way, what's more likely: that the AVI speakers you recommended way back on the first page of this thread really are equally as good as or better than all other amp and speaker combinations in all sonic respects or that you don't have enough experience in amp and speaker combinations to be able to detect and describe the sonic shortcomings in the AVI speakers or that you have some vested interest in never mentioning any of these shortcomings?

And as for this comment "You really should stop over analysing things, it can't be good for the soul and must be quite frustrating." I find that quite trollish on your part. It's a comment made to provoke a reaction from me.

 

[Overdose]

Overdose, let me put it this way, what's more likely: that the AVI speakers you recommended way back on the first page of this thread really are equally as good as or better than all other amp and speaker combinations in all sonic respects or that you don't have enough experience in amp and speaker combinations to be able to detect and describe the sonic shortcomings in the AVI speakers or that you have some vested interest in never mentioning any of these shortcomings?

If you read the OPs first post and my reply to it, you would see that the recomendation was perfectly valid and reasonable. At no point have I ever stated anywhere or at any time that the ADM9s are the 'best ever'. They most likely are not the best speakers ever (and I'm not sure how you could ever quantify that), but you'd most likely need to go some way to improve upon them. As for shortcomings, I have found none, but then in your experience of listening to them, perhaps you could tell us what you find to be lacking that other similar boxed speakers don't, ie comparing apples to apples.

The fact remains though that they are superb, but don't just take my word for it (or the vast majority of people who have heard them), have a listen yourself.

Irrespective, it is this bizarre insistence on trying to find fault with ADM speakers that I find obsessive. Why not simply give your own advice to the OP on your own particular solutions, it's not as if someones trying to take the food off of your table is it?