Now a testimony from someone way more competent and knowledgeable than me by far, far margin ... I must keep my pride then i used the word "margin" instead of ocean apart 😁...
But observe that he does not even spoke about my obsession embeddings electrical, mechanical and acoustical controls at all nor about their i9mpact as i did... he spoke about the actual gear market quality at low price nowadays from his educated perspective :
The underlining is mine ... 😊
Now imagine buying the low cost gear recommended by M. Malitz here and imagine that instead of just plugging them on the wall and listening you try to embed them mechanically electrically and acoustically in a rightfull way as i did ?
If you do as i did you really can called your low cost system if not TOP maximal acoustical satisfaction threshold probably you can as i did for mine called it a minimal acoustical satisfaction threshold level reached ... And trust me it is if not enough it is almost enough ... 😉😊
Is there other people in audiogon with satisfying low cost system ? please spoke and explain why to us this is so ....I take "low cost" in a relative meaning way, if you go from a 100,000 bucks system downsizing to a 20,000 bucks one with no great loss of S.Q. your testimonies will be useful for all too... Low cost here means as a ratio between S.Q. and Price...
There are bargains out there. But the last people you want to turn to for advice are people on this forum bragging they’re in the music production business. Imagine a famous producer or engineer coming to this forum! I don’t come here for advice. I came here primarily to promote my brand. But with handmade amplifiers from $3000-$32,000 and $20,000 Loudspeakers and $3000 subs, I quickly realized I was in the wrong place but I also realized there were a lot of people like you who needed some help. Since I had a little extra time, I decided to stick around and offer some advice. Because I’m a published writer as well, I’m about to minimize my relationship with this forum. I have to pay more attention to my business. So, regarding prosound people:
Their industry has given us so much great music, yet with poor sound, that most could be classified as garbage, and it could be argued more than any other consumer product in history. I have thousands of albums. I have a separate room to store them in. Probably barely 200 are of refernce quality. That’s an embarrassment. Here’s why:
As a working musician and a person involved in pro-sound products from JBL to Genelec to BASF to Maxell, 17 years representing Yamaha and 20 years representing Sennheiser, representing over a dozen record labels, plus dealing with hundreds and hundreds of consumer resellers for fifty years. Here’s what I discovered:
in the professional world, a true professional Producer or engineer working full-time, cannot possibly audition hundreds of loudspeakers. No time. An audiophile , conversely, can audition a dozen outstanding products in a day. Because it’s their hobby, they do an immense amount of research. The reviewers are well-known and consistent.
when we wanted to sell monitors, if we’re even permitted to, we would demonstrate the product properly because we are professionals. We pick the material and control the demonstration and it always sounds good. Many prosound production monitors sound great. But I’ve been in speaker factories all over the world and every company I’ve been involved with, pro or consumer, aspires to excellence. and they were all pleased about their excellent specifications. and yet they all sounded different from each other.
I’ve seen everything from gigantic anechoic chambers to mainframes doing Numbercrunching, from patented woofer cone manufacturing techniques to the first prototyping machines for building drivers one at a time for analysis. But it’s an inexact science. In the final analysis, all these products should be tuned by ear. Flat frequency response could be nearly meaningless. Most of the specifications are in fact meaningless to the average consumer. there are different measuring techniques and there’s no legal accountability. I could say anything I want about the speakers we manufacture.
i’ve given you some background so you know I’m not trying to justify a purchase that I had made. That’s a very common scenario on all forums.
i’m going to keep this simple I’ll mention some products from companies I worked with who terminated my company so I am disinclined to give them any false props.
I’ve never been an employee of these companies but rather an independent contractor, Always under contract and usually for a limited period of time, typically 2 to 5 years. here we go:
Most talked about product in the last several years has been the loudspeakers from ANDREW JONES design. although he has done some fairly expensive high-end studio quality products, I think his greatest accomplishment was bringing inexpensive Loudspeakers to the market that punch way above their weight. I don’t mean they played loudly. I mean they played music the way it should be played.
Pioneers consumer division had about three of his models but pioneers future is uncertain and he is no longer involved with that company. He produced Loudspeakers for Elac that were simply remarkable From $200 a pair to $500 a pair. The $500 model was so good that when we auditioned the samples, my son and I looked at each other and laughed and said we could actually use these for the rest of our lives. Understand that our main system is well in the six figures. So that’s quite a statement.
it’s possible that those products jumpstarted a response from popular brands like Polk and Klipsch introducing some really good sounding product well under $1000 a pair. Bring a CD of music you’re familiar with and visit some audiophile salons who put their reputation on the line and listen to their budget products. Do not go to the big box stores for Loudspeakers. Although some of the brands I mentioned are now expanding into those areas so that’s OK.
Yamaha decided to get back into the audiophile end of the business. Understand that the only thing driving the industry is surroundsound receivers. Remarkably, Yamaha introduced eight integrated amplifiers. They all sound good. They start about $250 retail.
The British take their turntables very seriously. Rega is a huge player at the entry level. You will also find inexpensive wonderful turn tables from Music Hall, MoFi, Dual And others. You can do this under $500 including the photo cartridge.
Buy a Blu-ray player that does streaming and buy a subscription for $25 to Tidal— millions of songs and albums in full bandwidth, matching or exceeding CD performance. You can buy a Blu-ray player like this for $150 and it’ll sound great. CDs are now over. I don’t worry if you have some because you can play them on the Blu-ray player. You’ll find there are far less CD players available now.
so, in the final analysis, check out audiophile oriented forums and look for the bargain articles in magazines like absolute sound and Stereophile. If you’re in great Britain, you’re in great shape because they have a lot of bargains reviewed by credible people.
Forget about going to the big box Guitar store and buying a pair of cheap powered monitors. You will not be able to do meaningful comparisons in the store with material you’ve brought along. They will have a limited selection. And by the way they can sound very good but you’ll have little opportunity to compare the product to the competition. Your sales person will be a minimum wage child.»
https://www.quora.com/Is-there-such-a-thing-as-affordable-audiophile-grade-audio-equipment