YMMV - a friend and I listened to a 250 K set up at an audio show and it sounded like crap. Could have been due to set up or the gear itself but it sure didn't encourage any sales that day. Well, except among that not insignificant portion f the audiophile market that instantly praise the great sound when they are told what something costs - there are a lot of them out there.
??? What Is The MOST Expensive System You Ever Heard ??? What Was Your Opinion ???
So yesterday I stopped by the dealer who sold me my Harbeth speakers..I was invited into the "BIG System" room where he had finally got everything set up & dialed in on the nearly 1 MILLION $ MBL system(price after tax,delivery & set up)..
Everything,& I mean EVERYTHING,from the thick cables,to the amps & pre to the turntable to the 6’ tall speakers was FREAKING HUGE!
As I settled into the sweet spot he dropped the needle on a freshly wet cleaned & vacuumed heavy pressing of "Kind of Blue" the VERY first sound that greeted me was a horrible THUMP as the needle hit the groove!
I spent the next 10 minutes or so listening intently..Never in my life did I imagine imaging & staging like those big MBL Omni directional speakers threw out!Every single inch of that room where the recording was made was laid out in micro detail,you could hear feet shuffling around & tell as horns were swung up & down or side to side..As far as those aspects of the demo were concerned it was very impressive..However I didn’t hear that anything unique about the natural warmth & "more"organic tone always spewed about vinyl,plus the tics & pops from the record were pretty annoying & thinking about what I heard as I made the nearly 2 hour drive home I didn’t recall ever having that melt into the presentation feeling of relaxation I value when listening to music..On the contrary,I did recall a constant barrage of individual aspects of the performance that were highly noticeable but IMO there was never a unification of what I heard & sometimes the performance came off as a little mechanical & hard...
When I got home & settled in,I qued up the SACD copy of the same album on my Elite multi disc player..The imaging & staging of my meager little system shouldn’t even be called imaging & staging compared to that MBL system..Micro detail was pretty much non existent when compared as well..But the music was relaxing,it didn’t beg to be dissected & analyzed,only enjoyed..Oh & 1 VERY important difference was that while the tape hiss of the original recording was clearly present & evident,there was absolutely no THUMP when the song started & ZERO pops or tics from that needle following roughly cut grooves in vinyl!
All in all,the experience makes me appreciate what I have even more..
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I’ve heard some great systems at my local audiophiles club — I suppose the most expensive was likely a member’s setup featuring a full stack of CH Precision amplification, but hey, I don’t ask — the most memorable experience came at a local dealer. I was wrapping up the purchase of a pair of Magnepans when I heard a jazz combo down the hall. I wandered over and there, in a room-size niche, was a pair of Wilson Alexia speakers playing an LP on a Linn TT. I forget the amp — maybe Audio Research, the dealer in Dallas carried several top brands. I was starting to regret my speaker pick until I approached the speakers and saw the price — I think they were $55K at the time, going on 10 years ago. So I just backed away and sat down to enjoy. The dealer clearly had this setup dialed in. Part of the reason I remember it so well is that it was one of my first encounters with what a finely tuned system can do. |
@jfuquay I've had this happen several times at shows. It's always a well treated room. You can hear how good it sounds all the way down the hall. |
early 1983, at definitive audio in seattle- a pair of magnaplanar tympani IVs [mebbe they were threes, it was a long time ago] powered by some dorm-room-fridge-sized monoblock class A amps, a linear-tracking turntable with a granite base. don't remember any other brand names. the room was acoustically treated like a studio. they played a direct-disc recording of a large organ in a large cathedral. I remember the surface noise on the record seemed to float like a cloud about 3-4 feet in front of the speakers themselves. the sound occupied 180+ degrees of the room around me. it felt like I was transported to that cathedral where the recording was done. the aural picture was only missing the back hall, like I stuck my head into the recording venue, as though through a window. the sound [aside from surface noise] was utterly natural. |
I’ve heard three systems that were roughly $1M (or more) all in at dealers where they were not fighting show conditions. Wilson with Burmester electronics Wilson, D’Agonstino preamp/amp and DCS Varese MBL Extremes MK II and MBL electronics The MBL was the only system that wowed me. It was truly spectacular - not more so in resolution but in presenting music more like I hear it in real life. The others were revealing but not more musically satisfying than my own system. I came away grateful for what i have. And I don’t need a monstrous room dedicated to monstrous gear that i don’t care to look at to enjoy it. Of course, i know that some would look at my system and wonder what i spent and why I lack common sense so i suppose it’s all perspective and relative. |
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