why a 75 dollar blue ray smokes all 2k CD players and any turntable???

Vinyl sounds superior in many ways. I don’t know about anyone else, but I can hear the difference. I will give up my turntables when I’m dead. Like Tom from better records says, a cd will never ever have that "tubey magic" of a good vinyl pressing, not verbatim, but you get the point. If you have no idea what you are doing then yes, your vinyl will sound like crap. Concerning speakers, there are many many great sounding speakers available today, both inexpensive and expensive. No one speaker is going to appeal to everyone. That’s what makes the hobby fun. Concerning cd players, I’ll leave the blu ray player, an oppo 203 by the way, to its purpose built duties, playing my dvd and 4k DVDs within my dedicated theater set up. Personally I like using a cd transport with my choice of dac.

Grannyring said:
  "If you folks believe that, then you have not actually done the listening tests. In addition, why would you even be interested in this site or even this hobby/passion?"

There were many other good rebuttals to the OP's post, but I think this pretty much says it all...   

@robjerman,

’ +1 djones51 and cd318! Watch out for the mob carrying flaming torches!’


Yes, no doubt! I’d better rush to the tower and lock myself away fully armed alongside those other persistent troublemakers such as that notorious @kenjit.

However since most of this mob have a vested business interest in promoting high - end (ie high-priced boutique gear as opposed to high performance audio equipment) their opinions can hardly be unbiased.

Nothing said in the reply that the OP received has yet been refuted, just spurious counter claims.

The myriad defences to any perceived threat to their business interests may include any of these following deflection tactics:


Everyone’s ears are different. All rooms are different. Buy what you like.

You haven’t heard that particular piece of equipment, I have and I know it’s better so everyone else should buy it too.

It costs a lot more so it must be a lot better. You’d better buy it to be sure.

It’s a subjective and fun hobby - so keep spending.

Blind listening tests are flawed. All of them. They cannot be trusted.
Listen to me instead and buy product X (of which I just happen to luckily have in stock).

We don’t understand the mechanics or psychology of listening so we should not make defining judgements. So once again keep buying, you may get lucky.
Who knows? Who cares? (I don’t).

Look here, Stereopile / Hi-Fi What?? have posted a great review of this product I just happen to sell.
So what are you waiting for, go buy it?

Etc etc

-------

Without wishing to cast grave doubts upon the integrity of those who post here, it’s the experienced enthusiast/ consumer / user reviews and opinions that I’m mostly interested in.

Some professional reviewers do seem to operate as part of the advertising wing of the industry and unfortunately some posters here feel that forums are are a viable (and economic) means of free advertising.

Instead the rest of us can learn, share and learn some more whilst hopefully benefitting ourselves in the savings of time and money. Not to mention avoiding the all too many scams that plague this industry.

For sure these scams/business interests should never be dismissed too lightly. Let’s not forget that Noel Lee (Monster Inc) has managed to establish a near billion dollar company from selling cables.

Thankfully he doesn’t feel the need to post on here just how superior his cables really are.

If he did, we might just ask him to demonstrate it.

Why is spending/buying frowned upon around here? Spending feeds others' families. Without buying, frequently useless, items like hi-fi stores close, factory workers get laid off, etc. Buy it, if you can. It is a hobby after all. An excuse for wasting money. So what if you get reamed from time to time? Why be proud of the hobby and then be against spending money on it?

Back to cables.

I'm not against spending money lord knows I've spent plenty on gear. I like the hobby, I would like to see more people interested and in my opinion the way forward is with companies and designs that are looking to the future not the past. In my opinion, and before some get their panties in a wad it's only my opinion, the future isn't mega $$ cables and $5000 CD transports but self contained active speakers that need no more than an ethernet connection or a control box. There are old established and new cutting edge companies in Europe barging down this path. I have to agree with cd318 it's as if when I post my opinions people think I'm attacking them, sorry to deflate their ego but I don't care what they say I'm more interested in hopefully getting some to start looking and better yet listening to some of these new companies and technologies.