Hifi logic gone wrong........

[sibelius7]

This is an example of the screwed up (or truthful?) conclusions you can come to from reading too many forums.

It all started one day whilst trying to work out if Bi-wiring is of any value.

Argument 1 " For a single Amp, Bi-wiring is completely pointless. Better off just spending a little more on single runs of speaker cable"

Ok, fine, i'll just buy some more expensive speaker cable?

Argument 2 "Double blind tests show there is no perceivable difference between expensive cable and some £2pm CAT5 cable"

Oh, maybe not them. Ok, i'll buy 10m of some cheap cable and have done with it.

Argument 3 "You should be spending about 10% of your systems value on cables"

Errrrrr, so my system should only be worth £200.00?

Argument 4 "Spend as much as you can on speakers"

With a £200 total budget? That's going to be tricky.....

Argument 5 "There are no perceivable differences between amps in a certain price range. Double blinds show no difference between a cheap Panasonic amp and a £6000.00 mono block power amp."

Great, http://www.cashconverters.co.uk/auction-item/312050/cambridge-audio-a1-integrated-amplifier £60 Cambridge Audio here I come.

£40 cd player, £100.00 speakers. Sorted.

I suddenly feel robbed of the near £1000.00 I've actually spent.....

 

[drummerman]

What is your point?

 

[Anonymous]

OR.....

You could flog your £1000 system for approx £600, donate half of that to charity, buy your £200 system and have £100 left a some CD's.

with the result that ..

a) you'd have that warm glow following a donation to charity

b) added to you music clollection

c) got a system you are convinced is delivering just as good quality as the previous one.

Sorted!

Serenity

 

[Alec]

But if your 1K was weighted in favour of your speakers...

Though I'm not sure all your scenarios really follow...

 

[idc]

Argument 6 (I think). Buy a system you like the sound of within your budget, making use of the superb second hand market the likes of ebay provides. Buy cables that are for audiophile applications, but are not silly money. So £20 should do it for interconnects and maybe a bit more on speaker cables depending on what length you need.

 

[6th.replicant]

sibelius7:
This is an example of the screwed up (or truthful?) conclusions you can come to from reading too many forums.

It all started one day whilst trying to work out if Bi-wiring is of any value.

Argument 1 "For a single Amp, Bi-wiring is completely pointless. Better off just spending a little more on single runs of speaker cable"...

"For a single Amp, Bi-wiring is completely pointless..." - IMHO, not 100% true. IME, there's a fundamental caveat: if an amp has four outlets per channel - as do Cyrus and Arcam's amps, for example - then bi-wiring makes a huge difference.

My Arcam A70 was a tad underwhelming when wired with conventional cable - QED Silver Anniv' - but when using bog-standard QED Original Bi-wire, with the A70's Sp1 and Sp2 selected simultaneously, the improvement was significant: better separation; deeper and more defined bass; sweeter treble etc, etc.

 

[Thaiman]

I am not sure what is the point of this thread, I suppose it,'s the same old "everything sound the same" debate? fed up with them thread, I mean how can you argue with those who, first - deaf! and secondly has no interest in this hobby, just posting here and there so they can have arguments with somebody that they never seen before. Sad but True.

 

[Dan Turner]

I would ask whether the OP has actually compared his £1k purchase to this £200 'theoretically just as good' system. If his system has been constructed with an ounce of consideration I'd wager it will absolutely kill the £200 one!

I say don't worry about all these theories, if you think your system sounds good then enjoy and stop worrying, if you think it doesn't then talk to your dealer and if you just chucked the system together without an ounce of consideration then what did you honestly expect?!

 

[Gusboll]

People go on forums for all sorts of different reasons, but to suggest that forums are misleading is a bit niaive; half a million posts are no substitue for the two sticky-out things on the side of your head.

 

[sibelius7]

Just to clarify why i posted this as there seems to be some confusion / anger at potential trolling.

It was more an exercise to work through some conclusions of the huge range of opinions you can find on Hifi forums. I recently decided to buy some new speaker cables( as the beginning of the post suggests) and i decided to try and make an 'informed' decision based on what others had to say. I've never been so confused in my life!

Forums certainly have a place but I completely agree with Gusboll that there is no substitute for a pair of ears!

Although the logic is flawed, I thought it'd be interesting to string a few ideas together to see where it would hypothetically lead you to.

Just to finish - the new cables and home-made jumpers did make a difference

.

 

[jaxwired]

sibelius7, you make a good point. The internet is full of wildly conflicting information and opinions on hifi. It's difficult for any new comer to make sense of it. The problem is that we have no universally accepted way to measure hifi sound quality.