Future of HiFi

WishTree

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Below are my opinions and I want to know what you guys think

HiFi industry, like most others, is manufacturer driven. More push than pull. Thanks to Internet, people with similar hobbies can interact to share and grow the hobby. Can this be used to shift the push to pull? If so, then what is that we want?

Like some of us, when I discover a manufacturer, then I get easily smitten with. It happened with B&W very many years ago, then Proac, then Pathos followed by Anthony Gallo (may be several in between like Devialet, Vivid Audio) and now B&O. More often than not, they have a design philiosophy a house sound which translates into all the products that they produce.

The more I look back, the more it confirms the school of thought that I subscribe to. Speakers are the key. Don't get me wrong here. Amplifiers, pre amplifiers, Source, DAC all are important but speakers are the key (If it is a 2 lock system, then the other key is the room!)

Now coming back to the topic of thread, what is it that I want the HiFi industry to transcend to

1. More all-in-one quality systems which can be run in stereo mode directly or as individual. Imagine the ability to set up two B&W A7 as left and right speakers which gives the advantage of physical seperation of L&R

2. More active speakers networked or non networked but atleast digital inputs built-in at all price levels. Imagine Zero one or Beloab 5, at each and every price range. This category is for people (read it as us) who know that they have space fo two speakers seperately from the beginning itself.

3. Quality Room correction built into the set up. Audyssey XT32 is so easily avaiable in many AVRs. However when it comes to 2 channel, some how the idea is to have pure / direct and people have to manually correct the room, speakers position etc etc which I find primitive (might be more effective and does not work so easliy when you change home every few years) Give a defeat switch to take the set up to Pure / direct more or release two versions.

4. Not all people who are into HiFi are ONLY traditional shaped box lovers or can they veto on what goes into living room. Aesthetics are important.

5. Naturally, all 2 channel should have easy ability to be integrated into a surround set up (for those that is needed)

6. Digital sources need to be looked completely different. UI is very important. If not same but proportionally large amount of effort should go in here as this is what people get to see.

....Feels Better! What do you think we should be getting?
 

matt49

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I agree with almost al of this, but I'd take issue with your point 3.

Digital room correction is a good thing (it's one of the reasons why I bought the Devialet), but physical room treatment, far from being primitive, is often the better approach technically. After all, if you need room correction, that's because you have a problem with your room, not with your equipment. Better to treat the room than the equipment. For instance, if you have a problem with resonance, digital room correction will allow you to tone down the precise frequency at which it happens, but that's at the cost of losing musical information. Likewise, if you suffer from flutter echoes, digital room correction won't really help.

Matt
 

cheeseboy

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am waiting to see if anybody dare do amp/speaker modeling, just like you get in the music world... Would be interesting and pretty neat if you could press a button so say sudden get a class A sound with certain speaker models for certain music, press a button again and then get a tube amp or similar for other music. I'm aware this type of talk is herecy round these parts, but works well for the music industry, in fact, people would probably be quite surprised just how commonly it's used nowadays in the studio. I always find it slightly ironic when somebody spends massive amounts of cash to get that "natural" sound from the music, when in fact the sound is in fact anyting but natural and will usually at least have some reverb, compression and eq on it to make it sound like what people think natural sounds like :)
 

Frank Harvey

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matt49 said:
I agree with almost al of this, but I'd take issue with your point 3.

Digital room correction is a good thing (it's one of the reasons why I bought the Devialet), but physical room treatment, far from being primitive, is often the better approach technically. After all, if you need room correction, that's because you have a problem with your room, not with your equipment. Better to treat the room than the equipment. For instance, if you have a problem with resonance, digital room correction will allow you to tone down the precise frequency at which it happens, but that's at the cost of losing musical information. Likewise, if you suffer from flutter echoes, digital room correction won't really help.

Matt

I agree. The whole point of a hi-fi system is to get the music from the source to the speakers without messing with it - if you start using digital room correction (which depending on the system, may or may not need converting to digital first), you're messing with the signal, and as you say, using the system to correct for other problem areas. I appreciate that for many it is easier and more acceptable to use room EQ rather than treat rooms though. I've not used any room EQ for about three years now.
 

DocG

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So we need room correction on top of, not instead of room treatment. Even then it's very worthwhile IMO. For most people, room treatment (and e.g. speaker positioning) is not limited by the physical frontiers of the concept but by the social acceptance of the impact on their living space. So DSP can be a very elegant part in the acceptable compromise... Consider me a fan. :)
 

chebby

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cheeseboy said:
am waiting to see if anybody dare do amp/speaker modeling, just like you get in the music world... Would be interesting and pretty neat if you could press a button so say sudden get a class A sound with certain speaker models for certain music, press a button again and then get a tube amp or similar for other music. I'm aware this type of talk is herecy round these parts, but works well for the music industry, in fact, people would probably be quite surprised just how commonly it's used nowadays in the studio. I always find it slightly ironic when somebody spends massive amounts of cash to get that "natural" sound from the music, when in fact the sound is in fact anyting but natural and will usually at least have some reverb, compression and eq on it to make it sound like what people think natural sounds like :)

I remember the old Yamaha amps that have dual class capability. you'd turn the amp off, switch it to class A, switch back on and your 100 wpc class A/B amp was now a 20wpc genuine class A amp.

Along with a progressive loudness function (that reduced the effect as the volume was turned up) and the usual tone controls, it made for a lot of flexibility. The Yamaha amps were very well respected for their sound quality too.

However, the 1970s / 1980s hi-fi press were 'gulled' into that whole hair-shirt / minimalist / flat-Earth philosophy that consigned such beautifully made Japanese equipment to the 'sin bin' for twenty years or more in favour of stuff that looked like it was made in a shed! (Stuff made by companies who claimed the inferiority of CD players for over a decade mainly because they didn't know how to make one themselves.)

I would like to see more digital tone controls and emulation modes and room correction programs built into systems.
 

matt49

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David@FrankHarvey said:
matt49 said:
I agree with almost al of this, but I'd take issue with your point 3.

Digital room correction is a good thing (it's one of the reasons why I bought the Devialet), but physical room treatment, far from being primitive, is often the better approach technically. After all, if you need room correction, that's because you have a problem with your room, not with your equipment. Better to treat the room than the equipment. For instance, if you have a problem with resonance, digital room correction will allow you to tone down the precise frequency at which it happens, but that's at the cost of losing musical information. Likewise, if you suffer from flutter echoes, digital room correction won't really help.

Matt

I agree. The whole point of a hi-fi system is to get the music from the source to the speakers without messing with it - if you start using digital room correction (which depending on the system, may or may not need converting to digital first), you're messing with the signal, and as you say, using the system to correct for other problem areas. I appreciate that for many it is easier and more acceptable to use room EQ rather than treat rooms though. I've not used any room EQ for about three years now.

Yes, but there's messing and there's messing. I currently have the tone control on my Dev set to take a little bit of top end off. This doesn't add anything to the signal path, since the signal goes through the DSP anyway. If this is 'messing', then it's messing in the least invasive and damaging manner possible. Digital EQ seems to me a thoroughly good thing, though I still think that for some room problems physical acoustic treatment is technically better.

Matt
 

Frank Harvey

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matt49 said:
Yes, but there's messing and there's messing. I currently have the tone control on my Dev set to take a little bit of top end off. This doesn't add anything to the signal path, since the signal goes through the DSP anyway. If this is 'messing', then it's messing in the least invasive and damaging manner possible. Digital EQ seems to me a thoroughly good thing, though I still think that for some room problems physical acoustic treatment is technically better.

Matt

Yeah, when I said "messing", I was referring to damaging it, rather than messing with tone controls. I have no issue with tone controls as long as they don't degrade anything, and agree that people should be free to use these controls to help suit their tastes - with reason though. It's all very well people turning bass up full, but when they start complaining their speakers pop, or that they keep blowing drive units... :)
 

WishTree

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Native_bon said:
There you go!

http://www.acousticfrontiers.com/whats-new/2011/5/13/two-channel-amplifiers-with-bass-management-and-room-correct.html

:) This brought smile to me! I actually owned both of them.

I had three of the HK990 and all of them had defects :( Then I gave up. It is a brilliant product if it did not puff into smoke.

Classe CP-800 was good but agan eq was not automatic (no mic).
 

Native_bon

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WishTree said:
Native_bon said:
There you go!

http://www.acousticfrontiers.com/whats-new/2011/5/13/two-channel-amplifiers-with-bass-management-and-room-correct.html

:) This brought smile to me! I actually owned both of them.

I had three of the HK990 and all of them had defects :( Then I gave up. It is a brilliant product if it did not puff into smoke.

Classe CP-800 was good but agan eq was not automatic (no mic).
So you owned two systems that were faulty which just happen to have what you want but did not mention it in your original post.. :quest:
 

WishTree

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David@FrankHarvey said:
I appreciate that for many it is easier and more acceptable to use room EQ rather than treat rooms though. I've not used any room EQ for about three years now.

For the past year and half, I too have used a set up with no EQ and it still is one of the nice set ups that I had. Though the gear that I used in the set up was good, but the best part was that the room was brilliant. I am not too sure what all factors went in, but the room had all the walls including floor and ceiling done with almost 2 cms thick Plaster of Paris on top of cemented wall as well as there are thick curtains all around and the flooring was PVC.

If I have to choose, then I would say give me that room and normal equipment compared to a bad room and great equipment!

But it it is not always that one exercises the choice of the great room as there are several other factors. Given some life style choices, it is not so easy to treat a room when we are going to be there for an year or so. And I am hoping that is where the equipment will come in to play to compensate some of the defeciencies if not everything. Even better with a switch to turn this off :)
 

WishTree

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Native_bon said:
So you owned two systems that were faulty which just happen to have what you want but did not mention it in your original post.. :quest:

I am not sure I got what you are saying.

To be clear I am hoping / expecting future HiFi to have more like Beolab 5 or Zero One at various price points with built-in automatic room correction. Not seperate boxes like HK990 or CP-800. Though my current set up is still not ideal as I could not find the equivalent of Beolab 5 or Zero One at my price / aesthetics point!

BTW, what do you want / expect from the future HiFi industry?!
 

WishTree

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matt49 said:
Yes, but there's messing and there's messing.

Agreed!

From the artist/group to the loudspeaker/ear in our room there is a lot can get messed up. We are always focussed on the second half of this link (where probably we think we have more control to not mess it up) as we do not have no control on the first half of the link.

Again, some times (actually many times) I forget the hobby (alteast to me) is to create joy of music listening even if it is at the cost of compromising maximum possible accuracy. From that view, I am still pro to the argument of having automated room EQ (with a defeat button) but again as they say horses for courses!!
 

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