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What Matters and What is Nonsense

I’ve been an audiophile for approximately 50 years. In my college days, I used to hang around the factory of a very well regarded speaker manufacturer where I learned a lot from the owners. When I started with audio it was a technical hobby. You were expected to know something about electronics and acoustics. Listening was important, but understanding why something sounded good or not so good was just as important. No one in 1968 would have known what you were talking about if you said you had tweaked your system and it sounded so much better. But if you talked about constant power output with frequency, or pleasing second-order harmonic distortion versus jarring odd-order harmonics in amplification, you were part of the tribe.

Starting in the 1980s, a lot of pseudo scientific nonsense started appearing. Power cords were important. One meter interconnects made a big difference. Using a green magic marker on the edge of a CD was amazing. Putting isolation dampers under a CD transport lifted the veil on the music. Ugh. This stuff still make my eyes roll, even after all these years.

So I have decided to impart years and years of hard won knowledge to today’s hobbists who might be interested in reality. This is my list of the steps in the audio reproduction chain, and the relative importance of each step. My ranking of relative importance includes a big dose of cost/benefit ratio. At this point in the evolution of audio, I am assuming digital recording and reproduction.

Item / Importance to the sound on a scale of 1-10 / Cost benefit ratio

  • The room the recording was made in / 8 / Nothing you can do about it
  • The microphones and setup used in the recording / 8 / nothing you can do about it.
  • The equalization and mixing of the recording / 10 / Nothing you can do about it
  • The technology used for the recording (analog, digital, sample rate, etc.) / 5 / nothing you can do about it.
  • The format of the consumer recording (vinyl, CD, DSD, etc.) 44.1 - 16 really is good enough / 3 / moderate CB ratio
  • The playback device i.e. cartridge or DAC / 5 / can be a horribe CB ratio - do this almost last
  • The electronics - preamp and amp / 4 / the amount of money wasted on $5,000 preamps and amps is amazing.
  • Low leve interconnects / 2 / save your money, folks
  • Speaker cables / 3 / another place to save your money
  • Speakers / 10 / very very high cost to benefit ratio. Spend your money here.
  • Listening room / 9 / an excellent place to put your money. DSPs have revolutionized audio reproduction
In summary, buy the best speakers you can afford, and invest in something like Dirac Live or learn how to use REW and buy a MiniDSP HD to implement the filters. Almost everything else is a gross waste of money.
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almarg
9,670 posts
 
Regarding the relative importance and cost/benefit ratio of speakers vs. upstream components, I believe that the following factors involving listener preferences and requirements have tended to be under-emphasized in past discussions involving that question, and are also significant contributors to the divergence of viewpoints that is commonly seen in discussions of that question:

1)For a given level of quality, the cost of a speaker tends to be dramatically affected by the maximum volume capability it can cleanly generate, and by the deep bass extension it can provide. Both of those factors affect cabinet size, of course, which in turn also affects cost. And listener preferences and requirements regarding those factors tend to vary widely.

2)For a given level of quality and a given class of operation (A, AB, or D), the cost of amplification tends to vary dramatically depending on how much power the amp must be able to provide, and on how challenging a load impedance it must be able to deal with.

Personally, I listen to a lot of well engineered classical symphonic recordings having very wide dynamic range, and consequently an amp/speaker combination that cannot cleanly produce 105 db peaks at my 12 foot listening distance would be a non-starter. And I prefer speakers that do not require me to use separate subwoofers, in part because they would clutter up my listening room which is also my living room. And I prefer speakers having highish sensitivity and benign impedance characteristics, so that as high a percentage as possible of my amplifier dollars can go toward quality rather than toward watts and drive capability. That all adds up to speakers being the most expensive component in my system, by a considerable margin. For others having different preferences and requirements, it could very understandably be a different story.

Regards,
-- Al
prof
3,479 posts
 
rbstehno,

Your point about synergy is certainly well taken. The idea obviously makes sense.

On the other hand, the end of your post seems to imply the common audiophile idea that if you are spending big bucks on speakers (and amps) then one should expect to spend significant money on cabling.

I and others have found that to not be the case.

As I mentioned in my system description: I have high end speakers (Thiel flagship 3.7, MBL Radialstrahler, etc) yet I haven’t spent a cent on "upgrading" any stock cables to audiophile AC cables, and my speaker cable cost a mere $1.20 a foot. Yet I find my system holds up no problem against those with tens of thousands of dollars in cabling and power conditioning.

And I could probably have spent only .60 cents a foot to get the next higher (thinner) AWG version, and could have realized the same sound.


mickeyb
585 posts
 
Speakers, amp and preamp. In that order. 
I don’t buy into crazy expensive cable or interconnects also. The original recording his hugely important as well. Can’t put lipstick on a pig. 
craigl59
307 posts
 
Al:
Agree completely with your approach and, also, listen largely to dense orchestral feeds. Have been able to achieve your two conditions with (highly efficient) Tekton Double Impact speakers and A/AB Emotiva mono blocks. The combined price for both is only about $6k. When coupled with an excellent orchestral feed the speakers disappear nicely and you can spend your time listening to sections and their timbral qualities.
What speakers have you settled on? Have found it is difficult to step up from the Emotive mono blocks because other Class A amps are so much more expensive.
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hifiman5
1,832 posts
 
@prof  @mickeyb   I do not doubt the veracity of your posts regarding cabling not being an important contributor to your system's sound.  My experience involves that spending judiciously on upgraded cables does make a real difference to the overall sound of my system.  When I upgraded my speakers in the summer of 2016, Johnny Rutan told me that I might have issues with the very large gauge AQ Earth series speaker cables with the new speakers.  I had all but forgotten about his brief comment until about 5 months in or so with the new speakers the bass seemed on the heavy, slower side relative to the rest of the frequency spectrum.  It was then that I began to research the vast array of cable offerings looking for the right fit for my system.  When I found them, the heaviness was gone and the treble and soundscape opened up. Interestingly, they were considerably less expensive than the AQ's.

Have you experimented with fancy cables?  If so, did you hear any differences worth noting?  I'm just curious to hear about experiences that differ from mine.

Thanks!
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