Do NOT Blow Your Entire Budget on Two Channel Audio
Yes, two channel audio is here, and is not going away. However, object based audio is delightful, widely available on Tidal and Apple Music, and should be in the listening room of every music lover on the planet, not just "audiophiles. If you plan to be a music fan a year from now start building your object based audio system today. You will need:
1) A receiver/processor capable of Dolby Atmos.
2) A subscription to Tidal or Apple music.
3) A Firestick, ATV, or Nvidia Shield.
4) A minimum of 7 timber matched speakers and a subwoofer.
Once you experienced stereo would you ever go back to only mono? No, you would build a system capable of either mono or stereo. Now that object based audio has arrived do the same thing. Build a system capable of mono, stereo, AND object based audio. When Elton John heard Rocket Man in an object based format for the first time why did he demand to convert his entire catalog to Atmos? If you don’t know, then you need to go listen to Rocket Man in a good Atmos setup ASAP.
So, take your budget, DIVERSIFY, and get a good Atmos capable receiver or processor. Object based audio is NOT last decades surround sound or home theater. It is for MUSIC first, if you need a recommendation on how to allocate your budget feel free to post a question. Most importantly, you don’t NEED two systems, one for music and one for movies. A good object based audio system can play two channel music just fine. A two channel system on the other hand can’t play object based audio without a proper processor or receiver.
Greg Penny talks mixing Rocket Man in Atmos.
https://youtu.be/ggzfcUKDqdo?feature=shared
@facten My point was what was stated in the article that @kota1 linked earlier in this thread. I use an Amazon FireTV Cube because the FireTV Stick does not support Dolby Atmos played back via Amazon Music. My A/V Preamp is an Onkyo PR-SC5530 https://www.intl.onkyo.com/products/av_components/av_separates/pr-sc5530/index.html It may be a bit long in the teeth but supports all the formats.
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Amazon’s latest FireTV Stick supports Atmos Music playback,: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08MQZXN1X/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I use an Onkyo RZ630 9 channel in the mancave, very happy with it. I got it at a great price too. Your system looks amazing, are those Klipsch speakers? How did you get that rack into the wall? Thanks |
There are LOTS of affordable products that perform right on the edge of the most expensive esoteric units. By affordable, I mean what most working adults are willing to pay if the sound is worth the price. That means a used Sony table radio for some. A used Yamaha receiver and a pair of Elac or Warfdales for others. It may mean a lot more. Careful used shopping can of course pay off. If I were to define the minimum of what I consider true high end sound excluding prestige or hearing damage level playback, I might suggest: Audiolab 6000 integrated, Sonas Faber Luminna IIs, SMSL Do300 DAC, Monoprice sub. Some kind of streamer, Wiim or what ever that thing is. Cables form Monoprice, Amazon etc. I venture that is 99.9% of what is possible. That last .1% is a real bugger. Real, but hard. That is still several thousand dollars which is a lot of real money to most of us, but it is actually high fidelity. Is the IOTA or similar as smooth sounding as the Autiolab? Or spend a bit more for a Hegel? You hit the diminishing returns real fast. Mojo or Aries DAC worth it? How far short is a JDS Atom amp from the most exotic headphones amp? Not much. Is a $9000 preamp any better sounding than $109? I would not bet on it. Prettier. Nicer feel. More inputs. Maybe your choice of masking distortion. But not more neutral. I do sort of miss the masking of my Nakamichi preamp with it's tone controls. Nostalgia maybe. Unfortunately prestige, looks, and ego drive the high end market. Usually you do get great sound. Some of it real, much of it placebo. Both making you happy. Hopefully you get reliability. Want a lifetime amp? Buy a Mac or Bryston. Billet aluminum cases don't sound any better. Braid over a power cord does not improve imaging. VU meters are eye candy only. No amount of user end electronics can make the source better. They can only degrade it. Some degradation is considered to be "musical". Some is not. Some is a tradeoff we are willing to make not to get a different defect. Personal preference. Yea, I would put a set of $50,000 speakers on a RadioShack receiver and the next best dollar spent would probably be better speakers, it there actually are any. |
Very wise and interesting post indeed thanks for the reading...
You forgot one thing, and it is not a criticism from me just a rare fact and possibility you did forgot to mention ... Some products of the past were some flagship among the best in the world...They created a sound experience of their own and were never redesigned again as it was... My AKG K340 is exactly the case... When optimized it beat most headphone save the very costlier top ...It cost me 100 bucks... I wrote a review of 30 pages about it ... 😊 My amplifier a Sansui alpha from 35 years ago in a lesser degree is a product of high quality even with today standards and he cost me 300 bucks.... I tried last week to upgrade it with one of the best contemporary amplifier for headphone for my K340 a very well reviewed one ... It was a disaster for me ...I returned it...The Sansui alpha is not obsolete in this coupling at all even from the headphone out...This speak a lot about his design quality...I must say to give justice to the "upgrading" amplier brand that the K340 is probably one of the most hard headphones to drive well...Too picky and not only hungry...If they are not fede well you loose his potential S.Q. AKG was a microphones designer they created this hybrid as they created their TOP microphones line , and anyway headphone are reverse microphone or the opposite... No other company after that ever bother to create a son complex and costly design for headphone...This is what a Top russian headphone designer said to me... Coupling the two, the Sansui alpha and the K340 give me audiophile top experience for peanuts... Anyway i never listened anything better by a good margin... On almost all acoustic counts.. Then.... Price tag is a deception most of the times as the UNIQUE indication of S.Q. quality because material design quality is one thing but sound quality is not linearly related to it the way most people imagine .......Material design quality matter for sure but it is not synonym of sound quality... It is not an absolute essential unique indication for audiophile experience conditions which implied synergy between chosen gear FIRST and SECOND acoustic, mechanical and electrical precise well embeddings of the system parts into one another and also in the room/house/ specific ears relation and grid... Use a low cost flagship of the past and embed it well and the result may be as in my case top audiophile experience... Because a MINIMAL quality treshold of sound experience quality exist objectively and subjectively...
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Audiolab 6000 integrated I use the DTS Play-Fi ecosystem and see the companion streamer from Audiolab the 6000N is on sale for around 50% off. I don’t need a streamer, I am using a Paradigm Link (with ARC room correction) because I have Paradigm speakers. Do you think the Audiolab 6000N streamer would be a WOW? Monoprice sub. I just added a third sub to my system, a Monoprice Slim 12 incher that I wall mounted in the back of my room, you can see the pic in my virtual system. Incredible bass from a slim unit and under $200! I wanted to have a sub up near my height speakers. Unfortunately prestige, looks, and ego drive the high end market. I asked a dealer about upgrading from my current processor, he is a straight shooter. He said you can upgrade features if I go up a level in the same brand but the SQ will be about the same. No amount of user end electronics can make the source better That’s why atmos music has helped my system, sometimes the remix can sound better than a mix from back in the day. See this box set from the Beach Boys: The collection boasts 24 new mixes including two first-time stereo mixes, plus 22 new-and-improved stereo mixes, which in some cases feature the latest in digital stereo extraction technology, allowing for the team to separate the original mono backing tracks for the first time. |
