Enough is Enough


I've been looking at changing my DAC. I was considering Lampizator, Playback Designs, and Ideon. Recently a dealer basically told me(with the exception of my subwoofer and music server) my system sucks. He went on to say, I should sell my amps, preamp, DAC, speakers, and start all over! I've owned several different speakers, amplifiers, and DACs. I've attended shows and several different dealers show rooms. In fact, I directly compared one of the amplifiers the dealer recommended to a Rowland 625 S2 amplifier and preferred the 625 S2. I didn't build my system in a vacuum. I determined what I wanted to spend, listened and purchase what I preferred. I've been in sales and submit it would have been better to recommend a DAC that would improve my system. So now I say, maybe enough is enough; because no matter what I have some dealer will tell me it's crap and I have to start over. 

ricred1

Dealers even the honest one cannot say the truth because they ignore it themselves in most case.

What matters in a market where there is gear pieces at all price of very good design as in the actual market it is not buying an upgrade piece, it is first and last :

---Synergy first,

---Embeddings mechanical and electrical and especially of acoustical controls of the working system pieces /room.

Before buying anything to upgrade...

If you say that to a customer displeased with his system/room and who want to upgrade ,will he buy a new piece ?

It is why i discover this truth alone , pieces by pieces after experiments with a system/room...

I verified it 2 times in 2 completely different room and system...

Gear matter way less than basic mechanical,electrical and acoustical, especially acoustical knowledge...

System price means almost nothing nowadays , save extreme case as low cost one and very costly one  and in some cases not all the time. my low cost system will make many 10 or 15 times more costlier one  shame.

Acoustics ( and basic knowledge) rules audio. Period.

cool

 

mahgister,

I agree with your comments regarding the room. I'm working on improving my room acoustics and HT system. 

Congratulations for your room upgrade for sure!

You will be amazed ...

 

The problem when i spoke about acoustics knowledge is people think merely about the room...

But i spoke about conceptual basic acoustics applied even on speakers design...not about room panels.. I used "a mechanical room equalizer" made of many tubes of various proportion located at the right spot...

I modified my speakers which punch way above their price...With tubular set of various tubes extending from the inside to 3 feet outside in some case. I use tube to focuss the tweeter wave... etc

Acoustics and psycho-acoustics is about understanding what is going between brain/ears/speakers/room...

Audio is acoustic mainly not about consumers spending money on " better" gear... We cannot know what is worst or better nor what is optimal in a non controlled speakers/room for specific ears/brain...

 

 

mahgister,

I agree with your comments regarding the room. I’m working on improving my room acoustics and HT system.

 

 
 

 

 

How can i became glad with 100 bucks speakers i used to hate and put aside for 12 years?

Because i used acoustics basic to improve them ...

Now they reach their optimal level which is unknown to most people owning them as i was for 12 years..

I only used them again when i had no other choice in my last house...

But now i was ready after hundred of acoustics experiments in my first dedicated room...

You can think that i am deaf...

if you own very costly speakers know that i dont claim that my low cost speakers beat yours...

I only claim that you dont know what your costly speakers are capable of in a non controlled room with non controlled gear...

Before upgrading learn how to embed optimally what you already own and be surprized...

I had 1/2 dozen hi end dealers in around a big city I lived in. A bunch of us were part of an audio club that met 1 or 2 times a month listening to people’s setup as well as finding new artists/groups. On many occasions, at 10pm on my way home, I would stop off a this large record/cd new/used dealer and would buy a handful of discs/albums of new people we just listened to. 1 hi end dealer told 1 of our club members to get out of his shop because the owner said you’re not going to buy anything anyway. We all stopped shopping there. Pretty rude.

The room is the most important piece of the audio puzzle, that includes sizing the room and treating it. When building a couple custom houses, I built a room within a room to get the right golden size which was a big expense. The room will not perform miracles, a Sony/pioneer system will still sound like a Sony/pioneer, but a well thought out room will allow you to get the best sound quality your components will allow, where a bad room, your $100k system might sound like a Sony/pioneer system. 

Then after the room, its system synergy. This can be speaker/amp pairing, preamp/amp pairing, and then cable pairing. For example, when you see B&W speakers at the dealer or at a show, most of the time you will see them teamed up with warmer sounding amps from McIntosh or Classe. Or you wouldn’t buy a 5 watt SET amp with 83 db speakers.