Let the buyer beware. Before you spend your hard earned cash on expensive new equipment I beseech you to try out the kit first using a well recorded CD or vinyl LP and trust the judgement of your own ears. Select a recording of music which you know has a wide dynamic range and does not have any harmonic distortion; one that is bright an clear. Select music that you know well.
Economics and the laws of diminishing returns.
For some reason "high end" audio equipment is not selling very well, so a completely new turntable, amplifier, loudspeaker or DAC will cost a lot of money even if it is no good. The unit costs of design, engineering, testing and manufacturing are very high. There is also the cost of marketing and selling the product and convincing you that the new piece of equipment is worth buying even if it is no good at all or little better than a much cheaper competitor.
If an equipment producer can only sell his equipment to hundreds of people then the unit cost or price of the equipment must be far greater than if he can sell the equipment to thousands or even millions of people.
This is a law of economics which is not just limited to HIFI, the same applies to cars, wine, cosmetics and washing powder. A product which is very expensive is not necessarily better than a cheaper one. I have studied wine and I have tasted some of the top brand names and I can assure you that a £300 bottle of Bordeaux does not taste substantially better than a lesser known cousin costing £20, provided that the £20 bottle comes from a good producer.
The economics of selling any product are dependent upon supply and demand and also the psychology of the participants in the market. Mercedes cars are prestigious and they would probably not sell as well if they were priced in the same range as a Ford. People expect the Mercedes marque to be expensive and they are wary if the price is reduced.
All suppliers of equipment need to convince the potential buyer that their product is superior. They do this in a number of ways such as by becoming a very well know brand name which is associated with quality. Some times they are selling a dream but often the dream becomes an expensive reality when you finally wake up.
They also use fear or concern. The use of fear or concern is clearly demonstrated in the sale of inter-connect cables. The enthusiast is concerned that he gets the best quality signal. There is really not much difference between a good quality cable at £30 pounds and one costing many £100's. There is no real proof that oxygenated copper performs better than non-oxygenated copper. The supplier just wants you to believe it.The same reasoning applies to USB cables etc.
The same applies to special stands, different types of isolation devices or turntable mats. If you are buying a £2,000 turntable you should expect the producer to have tested the isolation feet and the turntable mat and to provide you with equipment which is up to scratch.
There is also the factor of pride of ownership. My grandfather used to be a miner and on a shelf at home I have got a real miner's lamp which has been used down the mines. You cannot read a book for long from the light it produces but the lamp brings back nostalgic memories and pride of ownership. It looks so good and it is so well made and tough.
I have alluded to the law of diminishing returns. Good standard consumer equipment can produce a really good sound and modern manufacturing techniques are improving all the time. It is now difficult to achieve really noticeable improvements at your ears without spending enormous sums of money. This is probably one of the reasons why "high end" equipment sales are falling. The buyers are finding it increasing difficult to notice differences between very expensive kit and good consumer level equipment.
The following forum shows how much some buyers agonise over this. What starts of as a sensible thread soon gets round to enthusiasts agonising more and more about the merits and demerits of equipment. Why not let your own ears be the judge?
http://www.whathifi.com/forum/hi-fi/law-of-diminishing-returns-upgrading-from-budget-level-to-high-end-hi-fi-components-syte
Or try this.
I shall leave you to decide who is in the real world. So buyer beware!
http://londonjazzcollector.wordpress.com/for-audiophiles/zen-and-the-art-of-hifi-maintenance/
Digital Music
Since the CD was introduced, in the early 80s, there have been enormous strides in the quality of sound reproduction.
A CD holds the information to reproduce music in digital format because it does not store a sound wave. It is analogous to a music manuscript. The information on a CD needs a computer to process the information into a sound wave. This processor is called a digital to analog converter or DAC.
When music is recorded by a digital tape recorder an analog to digital the converter is used or ADC. The quality of the ADC and the DAC dictate the quality of the sound of the music that you hear at your ears.
CD digital format files hold the information as 16 bit and 44.1 khz files.
The bit depth determines the dynamic range of the music in decibels at a rate of 6 decibels per bit, so a CD has a dynamic range of 96 decibels.
44.1khz is the sample rate of 44,100 cycles per second and by mathematical formulation 44.1 khz files can reproduce music up to a frequency of 22.05 khz. It does this almost perfectly and this is a fact proven both mathematically and with hearing tests.
An orchestra can, but rarely does, produce a dynamic range of 80 decibels from the quietest note of a triangle to every instrument being played at full volume. A pop group rarely manages a dynamic range of 24 decibels.
Human ears cannot hear a sound above 20 khz. As you get older the frequency response of your ears diminishes considerably.
The top note on a piano has a frequency below 5 khz. The human voice rarely gets above 2 khz. Granted that there are harmonics which are higher but any harmonic above 15 khz is rarely heard by an adult.
A CD system is capable of reproducing all the sounds of music without harmonic distortion and within the frequencies that you can hear. It can also reproduce the full dynamic range that you can hear.
A CD is therefore an exceptionally good medium for reproducing stereo HIFI sound.
But bits and bytes and mathematical formulas can lead to confusion and even falsehood. So called "HIRES"
digital files record and store the music as 24 bit 96khz (24/96) files or even 24 bit 192 khz (24/192) files.
This is OK for the recording studio but really has no use for sound reproduction in the home. A 24/192 system is capable of playing the sounds of a greater horseshoe bat at the same volume levels as a jumbo jet taking off in your living room. This is a preposterous notion so there is no place for 24/192 in the living room.
The only peer reviewed scientific tests that have have been performed have shown that with all other things being equal human beings cannot tell the difference between "HIRES" music sound reproduction and CD quality.
My own tests confirm this in a non-scientific way. I have converted 24/96 music files to CD quality. I cannot tell the difference on playback and neither can my wife or friends.
It is possible that a 24/192 or a 24/96 music file could have been mastered better than a CD quality file and therefore could sound better to your ears. Equally, a CD quality file could have been mastered better than a "HIRES" file and sound better. The file structure makes no difference. 16/44.1 files are of good enough quality for sound reproduction in the home.
So buyer beware, when you are offered a super duper network streamer that can play 24/192 music files or even 32/384 files for what appears to be an exorbitant price; you are paying a lot of money for extra capability which is in fact redundant.
I am sticking to a well mastered CD that can bring John Fahey or a full orchestra into my living room.
This site explains it all and it is factually correct. Make sure you are not taken for a digital ride.
http://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
Analog Music - Audio Cassettes
I listen to audio cassettes a lot in the car. If you use a high quality tape they sound great and the tape hiss is hardly noticeable. They do not reproduce the music as good as a CD but the sound is perfectly acceptable for me. When the tapes stretch and become unplayable you can make a new one from a CD.
I have still got a very high quality cassette player from the 1980's which sounds great.
You can still buy cassette tape players and recorders which sound very good. They are not so much in demand and because there is very little "hype" written about them they are good value for money.
Why not try it, some of my friends used to archive their LPs on cassette tape to preserve the vinyl and these cassettes sounded almost as good as the LPs themselves.
Analog Music - Vinyl LPs and Singles
I still like to listen to LPs and Singles every now and then but albeit on a humble turntable. Virtually all of my music is from a digital source or a CD and I have converted all of my remaining LPs and audio cassettes to digital. I hardly notice any deterioration in sound quality when I digitise the music and I can remove tape hiss and snap crackle and pop in Audacity.
It is fun to spin a record and an LP sounds fantastic in its own way. Why is this?
The LP is a recording medium which is more flawed than CD and this is a fact. For me, the slight flaws and harmonic distortion render a pleasing sound to the music; especially if it is a 1960s pop record .
It is not possible to transcribe the sound wave onto a metal master exactly. The act of pressing the record also introduces errors. Play back of the record introduces artifacts from dust,scratches and static electricity. Records are easy to damage and a heavily scratched record or a warped one might be unplayable.
There is also rumble from the motor which can sometimes be heard . The mere act of using a needle in a groove creates friction and this energy is converted into sound.
Records also wear out and each time you play them they deteriorate. At the moment I am listening to a 1950s LP that has become worn out and the music is being distorted slightly. Costly equipment cannot correct or improve the performance of this record.
An LP record cannot equal the dynamic range of a CD or the full frequency range of a CD without harmonic distortion. Then there is also wow and flutter to contend with on cheaper turntables.
With all these problems, I am amazed at how good records can sound sometimes.
However, it is no wonder that many classical music lovers prefer CD. I include myself in this category.
But, I love listening to LPs for pop music and some types of jazz such as Billy Eckstine and Sarah Vaughan. I like the actual act of putting a record on a deck and watching it spin but this has got nothing to do with sonic performance.
Consider this: it is very expensive to eliminate all the errors . You require a heavy deck to reduce vibration, some decks are equipped with stroboscopes to ensure that the discs spin at the correct speed. You can use special tone arms to improve tracking. You can also control the tracking weight of the cartridge and use anti-skating devices to improve needle performance.
In the seventies everyone had a turntable and most of the improvements to turntable performance originated in this decade. The belt drive almost eliminated the rumble caused by idler wheels and the cartridges improved enormously. Every enthusiast could compare the performance of a deck. During this time we were all "tweakers" but I cannot remember noticing much difference when adjusting tracking weights or anti-skate devices. Quartz controlled electronics have helped improve turntable speed performance during recent years.
There is so much emotion generated surrounding the performance of LPs and vinyl. Enthusiasts seem unable to accept that CD quality digital has had the potential to improve performance. Many vinyl enthusiasts are therefore prepared to spend enormous sums of money to achieve a technical perfection which is not possible because of the inbuilt limitations of the format.
A £3,000 tone arm looks great but will it perform 30 times better than a £100 pound one? I doubt this very much; the performance improvement could be almost inaudible or it could even be worse and audible. If you have got £3,000 to spare and lying around in your back pocket then go ahead especially if it makes you feel better. But do you want to save up all your hard earned cash for a dubious improvement?
Also, consider this: some turntable manufacturers are returning to idler or rim driven platters. This technology was used for 1960s decks and it was fundamentally flawed. It introduced rumble into the equation and this is why belt driven and direct drive turntables sound so much better. Why spend thousands for this sort of technology?
Even a humble consumer turntable performs so much better than than 1960s model and consumer technology is rapidly catching up with "High End " performance.
Consider this too: the newly remastered Beatles LPs have been produced from 24/192 digital sources which are only really of CD quality. If LP technology could somehow be made perfect then the best sound reproduction would only give you the sound quality of a digital source. Do you really want to spend a fortune to hear a Beatles CD reproduced on an LP?
Of course, LP sound reproduction is not perfect so listeners will be hearing the music with a slight harmonic distortion which sounds pleasant.
I am sticking to the CD versions which sound just as good if not better than any LP of the Beatles that I have ever heard including my own.
There is increasing interest in turntables for the sake of nostalgia and making digital archives, so buyer beware and trust your own ears. Even a more humble turntable can sound good and make acceptable digital copies of your old records. Remember the limitations of the LP format itself; some of which cannot be corrected no matter what the quality or the cost of equipment that you are using.
An LP is a piece of plastic costing pence to make and it is a very low cost source of music. So is CD, audio cassette and digital download for that matter. So why does the replay equipment have to be so expensive?
It is really worth reading this below; they sound like honest traders to me.
http://www.fwhifi.co.uk/
HIFI Magazines
HIFI magazines have very limited circulation and most of the British ones are not even read by 30,000 people. They need advertising revenue just as much as any other publication. They also have to write something interesting about the products that they feature. HIFI magazines are part of selling the dream.
It would be very boring if they always said that one form of expensive equipment sounded the same as another. But if we are talking about exceptional quality kit then the sound reproduction should sound almost exactly the same as the original. This is what HIFI is all about, surely? If two forms of equipment sound substantially different then there must be something wrong with one or both of them.
The magazines do not seem to have recognised that 24/192 digital performance is no better than 16/44.1 with all other things being equal. The claims for "HIRES" performance should be critically examined rather than assuming that it must be better.
Enough said, so read these articles which are two of the best articles about HIFI that I have read.
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/10-01-06/
http://ethanwiner.com/myths.html
Also watch this and see and hear how your ears and judgement can be fooled by the power of suggestion. This is why double blind peer reviewed scientific tests are so important.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYTlN6wjcvQ
So caveat emptor , buyer beware! Happy listening and spend wisely.
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