wonderfulelectric wrote:

I might not be the authority in luxury... But I am quite a firm believer in it. I think it reduces waste and the increased likelihood that the workers getting paid well comforts me too.

Well - just because it is 'luxury' -or just expensive, doesn't nescessarily mean that the workers are 'paid well'.
A lot of 'luxury' brands are actually manufactured in China, India, Indonesia or other low cost countries, just to maximize profits...

How about some well known 'american' jeans -manufactured in China along with other 'no name' jeans that cost one tenth or less in the stores.
-or the iPhones...made in China...👍

So much for the 'workers getting payed well'...

butch1 wrote:

I would go with the bollocks.

Anyone here remember when Joly of Joly loudspeaker "fame" (or infamy) was haunting the Usenet audio forums? Wonderfulelectric gives me a strong sense of deja moo* for Joly.

* déjà moo - the strange feeling you've seen this BS before.

Well, WonderfulElectric isn't all off the map with his comments, and there is quite a lot in high-end audio that isn't rubbish, but I personally appreciate the integrity with which B&O has gone about finding ways to deliver very credible and natural sounding playback, without resorting to audiophool mumbo-jumbo.

When I was doing projects for B&O, we asked about the audiophile predilection for wrist-caliber speaker wire costing tens of thousands of dollars, and why B&O wasn't capitalizing on this willingness to shell out for passive components.
"It wouldn't be truthful," was the simple answer we got. And then the head of audio revealed that they would often get queries from manufacturers of more expensive wire who wanted to collaborate with B&O, "to improve playback." Some had been invited to demonstrate the superiority of their products by picking it out in blind tests at B&O's facility, with no one managing do do so to date.

A lot of high-enders haven't understood the significant benefit of sending a line-level signal direct to the loudspeaker, for processing there, compared to the traditional audiophile signal chain.
And most curious of all, in high-end audio, breaking the signal chain up into as many stages as is possible, before the signal reaches the transducer that converts signal into sound, makes perfect sense, in spite of being illogical and obviously a way of increasing the required spend for a system.

Still, without high-end audio I would miss out on a lot of good laughs - and some good products, as long as one knows how to navigate the strange claims being made at times.

Audiophiles.  😂

I recently had a Mcintosh Men220 at home to demo.  It's a 2 channel room correction system.  I have a system in my living room where placing acoustic panels, bass traps, etc is not ideal. The room is an acoustical nightmare with hardwood floors and floor to ceiling windows without treatments.  The Men220 was unbelievable, the sound completely transformed and my living room system sounded truly hi end with nice, tight bass and spacious soundstage. 

Now I have to credit my local audio dealer because they first had me demo a DAC which is far cheaper in the hopes that it would improve my sound.  It didn't make a lick of difference. 

In any case, I went to a well known audiophile forum to ask about the Mcintosh's competitors.  The Mcintosh is 4500 USD and there are 2 channel alternatives that are much cheaper. 

So what do these imbeciles have to say?  Well, most frown upon room correction in general because it upsets the "purity" of the signal.  They mention extra ADA conversions and other such nonsense forgetting that most of what they listen to has likely been through thousands of such conversions in the studio.

They talk about swapping cables, changing preamps, changing DACS, adding tubes, moving components, changing speakers, changing amps, and other ridiculous crap.  Purity of the signal my ass.  These are the same people who will use an upsampling CD player, pass the signal to a preamp, then pass it along to an upsampling DAC, then to some distortion ridden tube amp and then finally to their speakers.  They are so full of ****.

beoinbuff wrote:

forgetting that most of what they listen to has likely been through thousands of such conversions in the studio.

Although I agree completely with the rest of your post, this sentence isn't quite true. When it has arrived digitally, I don't make it analogue, and then record that to digital again.  Especially not "thousands" of times.  With that said, and if I did, it would happen with 24 bit resolution on the digital end, so not the same problem as with a 16 bit cd/flac (or whatever) track.

As for purity, you're so right I could cry. Going through tube amps and usually ending up using passive speakers is not exactly "pure".

As for bass-traps, I prefer to do without them, if I can otherwise fix the problem (at home). I really don't want my home look like a studio.

Electrified,

I stand corrected re studio DA conversions.  I'm glad you agree with the other parts, though

I definitely agree, the speaker, the room, and their interaction are where most problems occur. The high end crowd by and large obsess over minutiae while ignoring the elephant that is the room. Signal purity! Whata hoot, but it's the same mentality that eschews tone controls and will spend lots of time listening to music they may not really like much because it's so well recorded. That's one thing I really enjoyed about the Beosound 9000 when I got it, remote control of tone controls that seemed to be smartly designed to allow small but significant improvements to real world recordings. CD mastered a bit bright? One click down on treble fixes most of them. 

DSP room correction and multichannel audio are the areas where real improvement will come from, not another wire or tweako amp topology. But these are also areas where most of the audiophile favored small cottage industry types of firms will have little chance of doing, it'll be the larger firms many of them seem to love to hate. 

Puncher wrote:

wonderfulelectric wrote:

What I am trying to say is that if B&O took my advices way back when..... it might not have been too late. I suggested finishes other than flashy aluminum way before they introduced the Lab5s.

As the Lab 5's were introduced in 2003 that would make it "way before" you were ~15 years old!! That's either very, very impressive or complete and utter bollocks!

Puncher wrote:

 

wonderfulelectric wrote:

What I am trying to say is that if B&O took my advices way back when..... it might not have been too late. I suggested finishes other than flashy aluminum way before they introduced the Lab5s.

As the Lab 5's were introduced in 2003 that would make it "way before" you were ~15 years old!! That's either very, very impressive or complete and utter bollocks!

Ewww.... I was just revisiting this post to see whether you guys would "leave" "my posts" alone.... Yes I posted my suggestions way before Lab5s were introduced in their IDEA land/ forum when they had it then... Do they still have it now?.... I remember B&O celebrating an anniversary of sorts around the time when I bought my own first B&O product  ( the hook earphones). And I remember purchasing the Beosound 2 that wasn't compatible with the AIFF files I have on my mac so I converted my files into WAV. How many years ago was that? OMG I was 16 cos I remember bringing it to school to show it off. lol...  I found out about www.nacsound.it and thought they looked fantastic and thought that speakers can be ceramic or even resin as used in the original Apple Hifi to great effect both acoustically and aesthetically so I suggested other materials than just those aluminum used in the column range.Back then there was another brand from Denmark that was making columnar aluminum loudspeakers with designs akin to the Lab8000s so.... I thought it was a good idea to introduce designs that are not so widely imitated.... Funny thing I remember the moderator from B&O's forum actually responded by saying that the feedbacks will be taken into consideration etc... Way back when I was 8 when my mom had a Beosound 2300 with matching lab2500s later the lab 6000s then 9000s with 8000s and Beosound 1..... I grew up with B&O in a way. 

And Electrified I have never dismissed you not knowing anything about sound etc.... So what's with the defensiveness? Why so personal? So I presume you are the authority in accurate music production? And why is your argument against people being 'audiophiles" surround only in areas pertaining "passive driven loudspeakers" and "cables". Why do professionals mainly require balanced amplification/termination/ cabling then? BTW as of now no B&O active speakers I know accept balanced inputs. It is the most cost effective way to shield signal from interference and yet... 

So I know nothing? Well thanks for that implication.... because I am sure you know what "nothing" also means. 

What's with the attacks? They are unbelievable... And Electrified... Again many not  all audiophiles can simply be dismissed as believers in " snake oil" most of them active drive their loudspeakers in full digital mode with DSP etc.You might not be way off about how some audiophiles prefer the euphony of tube amps and passive loudspeakers but not all are....

I remember following the thread of one audiophile's venture to find the right system for him... He contemplated between the Lab5s and B&W 800 diamonds back and forth even went for extended auditions but he went for the B&Ws with Classe amplification instead. And yes B&W's midrange is depressed and voiced in a certain way and so are the Lab5s... The treble is obviously hot and the dispersion characteristic will not work for many rooms. In the previous posts It's like you were trying to implicate that all audiophiles are into passive speakers?huh? I know tons who are into active loudspeakers who consider themselves as audiophiles too.

We are in obviously in different wavelengths. 

What I like in the audiophile forum is that they are open to suggestions and are even aware to their own individual preferences that might be away from the absolute reference which non and I should repeat non of the B&O active loudspeakers represent. And I am not saying nobody should not like B&O loudspeakers just because they are not references. I own quite a bit of B&O gear FYI and I am certain that most of them are very voiced and have a smiley response and yet do possess their own charms. 

I am sure that it is because you guys felt so sure of yourself and that was why you started with the "attacks". 

And Butch1. You don't have the Klimax 350p you claimed in another thread but instead you have the 242s so..... I am sure you can extrapolate what I am trying to put across from here. 

beoinbuff wrote:

Audiophiles.  😂

I recently had a Mcintosh Men220 at home to demo.  It's a 2 channel room correction system.  I have a system in my living room where placing acoustic panels, bass traps, etc is not ideal. The room is an acoustical nightmare with hardwood floors and floor to ceiling windows without treatments.  The Men220 was unbelievable, the sound completely transformed and my living room system sounded truly hi end with nice, tight bass and spacious soundstage. 

Now I have to credit my local audio dealer because they first had me demo a DAC which is far cheaper in the hopes that it would improve my sound.  It didn't make a lick of difference. 

In any case, I went to a well known audiophile forum to ask about the Mcintosh's competitors.  The Mcintosh is 4500 USD and there are 2 channel alternatives that are much cheaper. 

So what do these imbeciles have to say?  Well, most frown upon room correction in general because it upsets the "purity" of the signal.  They mention extra ADA conversions and other such nonsense forgetting that most of what they listen to has likely been through thousands of such conversions in the studio.

They talk about swapping cables, changing preamps, changing DACS, adding tubes, moving components, changing speakers, changing amps, and other ridiculous crap.  Purity of the signal my ass.  These are the same people who will use an upsampling CD player, pass the signal to a preamp, then pass it along to an upsampling DAC, then to some distortion ridden tube amp and then finally to their speakers.  They are so full of ****.

DSP is all the rage nowadays. Check out Dspeaker. But you have a point - I still have my reservations on converting my signal from D/A back to Digital and then back to analog again. I know the losses might be very minimal and with digital crossover the gains might be more than the losses but I have too much anxiety for that. I was planning on purchasing active loudspeakers from Salagar (a company now defunct) but because Salagar only accepts analogue inputs and do DSP internally it was definitely a no go for me so I went with ATCs instead. 

So beoinbuff do you mainly have analogue sources? I don't so I'd rather go for DSP prior to D/A conversion. I have not found an automated purely digital in and out processor as of yet , most of them throw in D/A and A/D which are features I do not require and so far only 24bit/96khz output only . And the DsPeaker only offers correction up to 500hz I think? Do you know of any component that function only as an automated room DSP? 

To each his own... Some are purist and some admittedly are not.... They would post in forums saying out loud that they prefer inserting and extra stage of tube pre-amplification for some added distortion in between their high end D/A and power amplifiers. 

I am more of the purist type thus direct from DAC to active loudspeaker. According to the designer of the TotalDac who I asked the question why he limited his digital crossover to a maximum 18db (extremely gentle) crossovers instead of the steep 48db - 68db slope that most digital crossover modules are capable of doing ( I was planning of building a custom pair os DSP speakers based on TAD drivers which are used in the studios) he mentioned about digital ringing.... the steeper the filter the more the ringing which made sense since he is all about minimizing that in his DAC. It's a little off topic but apparently maybe sometimes active crossovers combined with DSP room correction is abetter way to go. And that is actually the design that the Lab5s are based upon. I used to think that the Lab5s used digital crossovers like Meridian loudspeakers but I was wrong. 

So just in case if anybody is wondering I did not go ahead and built the TAD based active speakers. I am way too much an amateur to execute own active crossovers etc...... And one TAD compression driver might cost as much as $4500 and that is excluding the required horn! Too major for an amateur to take on. So Electrified if you are an expert like you claimed I bet you can easily  aid me in the design or perhaps it is too lowly a project with too lowly a person for you?