There are a number of things people seem genuinely un-aware of when it comes to audio.
Hopefully this will clear some of that up right away.
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Cost - I'll start with the scariest thing first. I do not understand why people can spend $25 grand for their car without flinching, spend 6 grand on a flat TV, Spend several more thousands to turn it into a home theatre setup, yet if you tell them that amp they see on your floor costs $3,000 they nearly shit themselves. Why? I really do not know. I've seen surveys where it appears the "average" audiophile spends somewhere along the line of 12 to 22 thousand dollars on his system. Even that, while no chump change, is still less than the $24 grand car, and possibly half as much. Yet the general public views it as excessive and the practitioners crazy. However these people don't find owning a stereo from Circuit City obscene, or worse, a Bose wave radio (whos costs WAY exceed what it delivers). Yet, to get sound far superior to those choices, you don't even need to spend anywhere near 12 thousand dollars. You could put a system together of new and used gear that would come in under 2 grand which would be a marvel to you and would revolutionize your thinking on the entire thing. That also seems to be about the theoretical head, $2,000. You have to go in about that deep. That figures 4 parts (preamp, amp, cd player, speakers) at $400-500 a piece. (it can be 3 with an integrated amp instead but it will likely cost twice as much so it all evens out anyway) Four to five hundred for one thing is barely more than the average piece of crap at the superstore, and the gear I am talking about would slay that stuff. How can you complain about that? Plus once you get the bug and understand it, I won't have to talk you into spending money on it anymore.
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Records - Here's a news flash: Records Don't Suck. Since the dawn of the CD engineers have been trying to build a player that can make them sound as good as a record. This is true. Generally speaking, the BEST a cd will ever be made to sound is how the same thing would sound on vinyl. Now, nobody knows what the future holds as far as media goes, but for the forseeable future that's it. Vinyl sounds like the "real" thing because well, it IS the real thing. It only got noisy because you didn't clean it and take care of it right. (see my write up about that for more info) You can even check the lie by listening to CD's from the 80's against cd's from now. You'll find the ones from the 80's sound horrible in comparison to ones made now. (players from then are bad as well) But didn't they tell us all they were perfect back then? They sure did. Amazing how they keep managing to improve something that was supposedly perfect.
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SACD - The music industry has been trying to invent a medium to replace records with for years. (and they have yet to entirely succeed) These new formats impelled many people to go buy their collections all over again, which of course lined the industries pockets. Sadly for them, they hit a kind of brick wall with cd's. There will probably never be any other medium besides cd. (unless it goes to some microchip, then count me out) It may get smaller, (I hope not, as those 3 inch CD's are already a pain in the ass) but the concept won't change. However, for some years now even though you may be un-aware of it, the industry has been trying to get everyone on board with something called SACD. (that's SUPER AUDIO cd) They cost twice as much as a regular cd but they look like..... a regular cd. But guess what? This time the public apparently doesn't care and hasn't even seemed to notice and very few people even buy them. (That's also partly due to the fact that most people can't get what they want in the format) And what is SACD's sound goal? That's right, it supposedly sounds just like high quality vinyl. The crook of the matter is however that excellent quality can be had with many of todays better players and red book cd's (the standard issue, a "regular" cd) and I for once agree with the masses: Not this time. I'm not buying my cd collection over again for a 5% sound gain. I think SACD will become the norm in a very silent, very drug out way and your cd's will be playable till your dying day (and then some). Anticipating this lethargy, high end makers are introducing players that play both, and this dual technology will certainly filter down to the mass market level eventually, but no time soon.
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Tone Controls - There are none. I know, you're used to 5 million bells and whistles and lights, and perhaps an lcd screen. Well, turns out it's all crap. Good gear does not have tone controls because it doesn't need tone controls. You get a volume control, an input selector and (sometimes not even) a balance control. Why? First of all, the gear (for once) is doing it's job of reproducing the music right, so it doesn't need to be corrected. Secondly, every time the signal gets run thru something like that it gets degraded. So again, like in so many things in life, less is more. Don't be thrown by what looks like a lack of features. The features are built in. A perfect example is the lovely Jolida 502B integrated tube amp pictured below. Gorgeous looks, a power switch and 2 controls. Your gateway to sonic bliss.
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The "Fake" High End - This is an issue I have to tiptoe around somewhat. While it is true that gear made by Denon, NAD, Rotel etc... is much better than the type of crap they sell at the electronic superstores, it is not high end, and in fact you really don't need to spend hardly more money to get used high end gear that would put it to shame. I had a Conrad Johnson Sonographe SA250 amp once which was a giant killer, and I bought it used for about $500, a price it can still be had for. It would sonically murder any Denon or NAD amp. The little Jolida above (which is the Celica of the audio world as it gets modded to all hell) will transport you to a sound you never knew existed. (for around $1,800 new, 9 to 11 hundred used) I mean, if you heard this stuff that NAD amp would be out in the trash can in seconds. Now, as I said, it's better to own that gear than a Pioneer reciever but for nearly the same price you can go so much incrementally higher. Keep this in mind. On balance that gear is far closer to the crap end than it is to real high end sound.
And man created the vacuum tube, and it was good...
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Tubes - Tubes, or vacuum tubes, or thermionic valves if you're english, used to be an integral part of all electronics before transistors. (even in old record players) However, transistors came along and they were very small and very cheap. Soon the Japanese were using them to make cool little radios anyone could own for a few bucks. What's more, their portability meant you could take them anywhere. It was such a fad and frenzy of the "future" that it killed tubes off. But like the Phoenix tubes have again risen. This started about 25 years ago when people began to realize that while convenient, transistor gear sounded awful and companies like Conrad Johnson and Audio Research began making tubed gear again. Today there are many manufacturers who make tubed gear of every kind, even cd players. Why? While transistors are cheaper and more efficient at some things, tubes simply sound better mainly because they are true "valves", which means they allow the flow of electrons thru themselves freely. Transistors are not valves, they are switches. They cycle on and off at fantastic speeds which makes them seem "on" all the time, but they are not. Your ear doesn't hear it directly, but your brain does on a subconscious level. The edge you hear, or the tiring feeling you can get from all solid state (SS) gear is caused by this. Your brain is tired of dealing with a signal which is not natural. It tries to solve the problem by letting you know it's tired or annoyed. (the same effect can happen to people playing video games as they "pulse" too. You can't see it, but your brain does. So do cameras, which is why tv screens are always flickering when filmed. The transistors in the camera and the TV are not in sync, so their cycling reveals dead spots) The sound of tubes is often termed "liquid", "warm" or "lush". Hearing tubed gear for the first time will change your outlook forever. It's like spending your whole life on the planet of ape men and turning a corner one day to see Raquel Welch in a loincloth.
Yeah, it's that good. -
Women Don't Give A Damn - My previous sexist comparison segues right into this point, which appears to be true, and I don't know why. Nearly 100% of all people who consider themselves audiophiles are men. I have yet to meet one who was a woman. My wife, while she enjoys our stereo, could care less about having it as she enjoys music in the car as much apparently (and perhaps more) and I know the car stereo sounds awful. I even asked her. "I die tomorrow, that (pointing at my gear) gets sold in the first week, right?" She replied affirmatively. A low rise dress sandal in off white with a cute leather strap on sale for $5 means far more to her than audio heaven ever will. Well, what are you going to do with them? I'm leaving the rig to my kid. Oh crap, she's going to be a woman one day too....
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Home Theater - Or HT, is the work of the devil. It is my belief manufacturers are only plumbing this depth because there is a TON of money to be made by duping you into thinking you need 20 pairs of crap (or even non crap) speakers to watch a movie on a 93" screen. Why? Corporate labels killed pop music so we no longer have a pop culture. With it dead and gone home hi-fi started dying shortly thereafter. (Buy a stereo? To listen to what?) So the electronics companies needed your cash somehow and HT is the "cool toy" they invented to take it from you. It's a whole new industry and even high end companies have to pander to it to survive. Frankly, I have never liked it and for me at least what comes out of the TV is fine because I have always felt cinema was about the image, not the soundtrack and maybe movies wouldn't actually suck anymore if everyone felt that way. (It puts too much emphasis on the sound and takes my attention away from the film. I really don't enjoy it) I can see that others might like it and that's certainly OK, but it would please me to see people invest half the effort they do to HT on a good 2 channel stereo. I'll take listening to my stereo to watching TV any day. What I'll NEVER understand though is 5 channel stereo. The only people who could appeciate that is a bassoonist from the 8th row who is used to people all around him playing instruments. Me, I sit in FRONT of the band. Leave multi channel stereo where it belongs, in hell.
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Cables - It might surprise people to know that audiophiles anguish over their choice of speaker cables and interconnects more than they do what preamp to buy. What's more, almost no high end stuff comes with a plug anymore, just an IEC socket and you have to buy your own plug. (Some of which can cost as much as $1,000 or more. Yes, a grand just for the plug.) Does any of it matter? It does, and it doesn't. What it really is is a case of matching the sonic character of your gear to the cables, not so much that they are better or worse. One thing might be great on your rig but sound awful on your friends gear. What really matters is you can often get the same or better sound for 1/10 the price usually. I use interconnects made by Signal Cable which is a "home" company and the cables were made by the owner himself and cost me $75 each and they are better than any cable I've yet used or heard. So yes, what you buy matters, but shop wisely. You need not spend a fortune for good stuff. And remember, while argued over it is generally believed all wires burn a memory path so if they are or are not marked (most are), always use them in one direction only and always.
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Tweaks - This is the religion of many audiophiles. When they finally get the gear they've dreamed of, they still feel the need to fiddle and squeeze every drop of performance out. For every tweak that does really work, there are 10 others which are voodoo. There are so many of such varied and incredible natures, that any work on the subject would have to go in the sci-fi section. The oddest part is, a lot of people will spends thousands of dollars chasing this rainbow and will do the most incredible things. Among them are wiping (or spraying) various fluids on your interconnects, not letting your speaker cables touch the floor (the cheap tweak is raising them with dixie cups, but special risers are now made) putting hackey sacks under your gear to act as vibration absorbers, buying special recepticles for the wall, buying things that "clean" your electricity, and even quantum purifiers. Does any of it work? Surprisingly yes, but the yields are often based on how much of a problem existed beforehand, and how much your gear can resolve anyway. For that reason alone sometimes you may not see a change as there was no problem to change. Worry about this business when you have everything else taken care of, and are more audio savy.
But lets discuss one. Raising the cables for instance. Why would anyone do this? Cables touching the floor are actually more prone to absorb RFI (radio frequency interference) and static charges. If they run across a rug, and you walk across that rug, you generate static, do you not? They, touching the rug, absorb that charge as well. Then you're trying to run a signal, which is electrical, thru a static electric charge which shouldn't be there. The result is it does effect the signal quality. So does absorbing RFI. If you've ever thought your stereo sounded better at night, you're not nuts, it does. There is far less cell phone and RFI activity at night, as well as less demand on the power grid. It all combines to a cleaner signal for your stereo. Who knew? So doing this is odd, but it yields good results. (not instantly, but you will notice it over a few days)
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Break In - All electronics require break in, especially the better stuff. Nothing will sound right brand new, even cables, and many times they might sound sort of awful. The engineers who designed them base their performance on what they'll sound like broken in, not new. CD players can be broken in by simply turning them on, inserting a disc and hitting repeat and play. Nothing else needs to be on. (there are even special discs you can buy) Improvement comes in about 75 hours, full break in between 200-300 hours. Preamps and amps are the same way but I don't advise that for them. Just use them for a good long period when you can (4-6 hours at a time, longer if possible) If you can do 5 hours a day for 5 days in the week you'll be well along after 1 month, and good to go after 2. Cables tend to break in faster, 20-50 hours for interconnects, 50-75 for cables. After that they should be approaching their final sound, and will only get better over time. One advantage of buying used gear is that this is all or mostly done by the time you own it. Finally, never leave tube gear, or any gear, on all the time. This practice kills electronics. It's OK for a few days to break a new player in, but permanently on is asking for a problem.
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Speakers - What you must keep in mind here is that speakers are a window to what has gone before. In other words, they are the lens thru which you view your equipment. Great speakers will not make poor gear sound good. They will make it sound awful, which is what it is. The effect is not as pronounced in reverse but it will soon become apparent the speaker is choking on the detail the gear is trying to feed it, and disaster is probably not far away. To understand them better, lets look at the 3 kinds of speaker types or categories:
 | | Monitors, (commonly called bookshelf speakers) are small and need stands if they are used in a 2 channel setup and not actually on "bookshelves" and are for those who don't have the room for a traditional setup. The biggest drawback to them tends to be a lack of bass and rather small soundstage, neither of which is a surprise. In a nutshell many monitors trade one thing off for another. You'll have to decide what it is you can most live without, then find the monitor that best matches that criteria. However there are a lot of nicely balanced ones at good prices anymore and they are a great way to start out. Some however cost more than many full range models, and in my mind don't support their price tags. The PSB B25 shown here is a great example of an excellent sounding speaker at a super price. (Under $500 at the time of this writing)
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 | | Full Range is any floor standing large monitor which can have anywhere from 1 to 100 or more drivers. They may look different or untypical (such as the Aerius 10T pictured) but the theory is the same. The advantage to them is if made correctly (and don't assume anything is) you'll get a good chunk of the audio spectrum, well presented, with a big soundstage. Nothing effects the final sound as much as speakers do, so bright equipment can be toned down with a rounded sounding speaker, dull gear can be lightened with a bright one. (this is not a recommendation, but it is a fact). Generally, you get a bigger, fuller, more engaging sound the larger you go. Be warned, there is a law of diminishing returns and the room the stereo is in will be the final arbiter of how big a speaker it will handle before the sound starts degrading because the speaker is overloading the room. Also, driver size is not as important as it once was. Modern designs with drivers as small as 4.5" produce surprising amounts of bass, with excellent control and good punch. |
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Planars, which are apparently still a mystery to the general public even though they have been around many years round out the list. They are di-pole designs which mean the sound radiates out the front and back while playing. This happens because their drivers are mylar sheets, not traditional "cones". They can be made three basic ways, Planar magnetic, electrostatic and a third odd man design using all metal "ribbons" whos drivers are metal foil folded like a ribbon which are caused to vibrate. (The technology is often seen used for tweeter elements in cabinet speakers, and planar magnetic types as well)
While ribbons are different, the other two have some things in common. First of all, since their drivers are clear sheets of mylar you can see thru them. Since the sound radiates out both sides of the panels equally, it allows for stunning 3d imaging when set up correctly. However while they both use a mylar driver, they move them in very different ways.
Electrostatics are the oldest of planar designs, and are made by a number of manufacturers such as Sound Lab, Innersound and the most well known (but not necessarily best) brand, Martin Logan. They work by sandwiching a mylar panel (think a sheet of saran wrap) between 2 "stators". These stators get highly charged with opposing charges and the mylar in between them, which has an electrically-conductive substance applied to it, is "plucked" by these opposite charges like unseen fingers, enabling sound to be made.
Stats have a midrange to die for, and are unequalled in this area. Many of them suffer bass problems however, and an inability to play loudly. I was never fond of them because they failed at presenting a cohesive music performance, but those made my Sound Lab are perhpas the most cutting edge of all made and are supposed to be incredible. It is my hope to audition a pair one day.
The planar magnetic type were invented by a guy named Jim Winey in the 60's who was smart enough to patent and produce them. Called Magnepans, this loudspeaker line would eventually become the largest selling high end speaker of all time, even though you probably have never seen or heard of one. They also use a mylar panel but it is not as fine as the one used by stats, and it gets moved by magnetic fields not high voltage charges. Magnepan is the only company who produces them, as they will not allow the patent to expire, nor will they license it. Except for the very small model, they tend to not suffer a lack of bass that stats do.
So what's the difference in sound between maggies and electrostatics? Stats have always had a problem making bass, and many makers resort to including a traditional bass driver with them. (the reason their cabinets get deeper at the bottom) The problem is the mylar driver is so much faster it is nearly impossible to get them to stay in sync. This phase problem causes tedium for many people. Stats can also be very bright with the wrong gear (and sometimes with the right, too) and some have had trouble playing loudly. Sound Lab makes stats that incorporate no traditional cone drivers. They avoided the problem by instead of the entire panel being one driver, it is broken up into dozens of smaller electrostatic panels. By assigning specific frequencies to each section they are able to play with more ease. I would very much like to hear a pair.
Stats do probably have the best midrange on the planet however. Shockingly beautiful with the right material. Stock Maggies are slightly more rounded (a quality some prefer) and have the second best midrange on the planet after stats. (both kill regular speakers in this regard however) Maggies also have no cone drivers, although the top model does sport a ribbon tweeter. Maggies can make good bass if set up properly, and in fact it's quite accurate and soon becomes your preferred "norm". Both speakers do reqire a room tailored to their unique natures to get full measure from them. In other words, the room is for them, they don't share well.
Maggies also get tweaked a lot because the company makes them "affordable". That means there was room for improvement and some owners do it on their own, and even cottage industries like mine have sprung up to fill this need. A modded maggie (especially one of mine) is a thing to see and hear.
This is what I turn the white ironing boad looking thing above into.
For all their strengths stock maggies and stats have a few flaws. Both are guilty of a thing called "beaming". If you look at a cone on a regular speaker, it's essentially a V, and sound comes off it in all directions so it has a large "sweet spot". Planars send the sound out in a nearly straight line, and if you stand up while listening, it can often sound like a blanket got thrown over it. The whole top end often simply vanishes. (like being underwater where the water is music and you put your head above the surface) This problem can be treated with room tuning and some setup experience and modding lessens this impact a lot, but the sweet spot always remains the best place. People deal with this slight drawback because what these speakers do otherwise they do SO well.
So, how do they compare to regular cabinet speaker "monitors"? Simply put, cabinet speakers tend to be what is called "analytical". The sounds are very precise, but they achieve this often at a lack of naturalness and they don't have a live quality or "air" to them. Planars do bring a sense of air and naturalness box speakers cannot equal but Magenpans do it at a cost of some of that analytical ability. Stats by comparison have the analytical ability box speakers do, but they lack the cohesion and uniform sound magnepans have. (they call it "musicality") What is obvious is that like anything, you make your trade offs and you pays your money. Done right, you will be very happy however and it's simply a matter of auditioning what you can and deciding what sound it is you like.
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