Back in the day, when people wore flared collars on their shirts, when Joan Collins was never seen without her shoulder pads, when dinosaurs turntables roamed the pages of What Hifi.
It was the view that the source was key component of your Hifi.
What comes through the window (your source component) is what is excreted out from your speaker.
Rubbish in is rubbish out
Back then, there was so much emphasis on your turntable as this was likely to be the primary source component.
Nowadays the message is rather diluted.
It appears to have shifted away to the amplifier and speakers.
Trying to avoid answering my own question, digital sourced medium isn't so critical as setting up as it is with vinyl but now that we have a renaissance, more people getting into vinyl.
Should we start going back to the basic principles, what goes in is what goes out?
Your thoughts on this please 🙂
My thoughts for what they're worth, which is probably very little are as follows. They're based on the experience of going through quite a few different components in the last decade or so.
For the record (not vinyl record), I only listen to CDs and I don't wear headphones, ever.
My conclusions;
The source certainly is important. I have been through several CD players and some, I found unsatisfactory, giving what to me sounded dull, lifeless and sterile. Others gave warmth, depth detail and what isn't easy to put into words, but highly satisfying to the next component in the system.
Integrated Amplifiers I have been through a few, all Marantz and while they didn't make such a vast difference, they did nevertheless make a discernible difference. The current one is undoubtedly better at rendering what's fed to it than the previous ones. It cost much more and it's Class D. To my ears what it feeds to the speakers is an excellent rendering of what's fed to it.
Speakers. Again, I've been through a few sets, all stand mounts. I found out, so far that I don't particularly like rear ported speakers much, they're too fussy about placement. I don't like very large speakers, they're generally not neutral enough for my taste. And I've noticed that large drivers have trouble with the speed and punch. Small speakers, for me are too piercing on the treble and lack presence and depth. For stand mounts speakers, I think medium sized is my preference, although few can comfortably go below around 40 Herz and even that's low by today's standards.
I think I would like to try some floor standers with spikes, so the speaker box isn't resting on the floor. In my experience, a speaker that sits directly on the floor leads to bass bloating issues. The floor standers I want to try, will be tower type with speakers no bigger than about six and a half inches, and the box will be no taller than about one meter, because any bigger than that, looks too big and imposing in the room I use which is a little under fifty cubic meters.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram