[Closed] My Hi-Fi is better than yours. FACT.

Its not a hifi. and they aren't speakers.

and look at the shit box tape deck with the phono leads coming out of it. Real quality set up.

Unless you're talking about the ghetto blaster...

My headphones are better than that.

Can you do tape to tape on that Panasonic?
Ace.
🙂

I'd have to try the speakers the other way round too.

All that expensive equipment for David (I've been tango'ed cheap as chips) Dickinson and you....what a waste!
I bet they let you play with the shit little double cassette player on the right, don't they?
Ps. Em says "Give us a job Fam!"

The crappy tape deck is so as we can hear what it'll sound like on Arse FM.

We'll have to let Em come in one day and have a nosey around 🙂

You need to balance the sound out with a candle on the left too.

Amateurs.

lol, it's the tire logos all over again!

What do you think "Hi-Fi" means, exactly?

Be careful what you agree to Hoopsie. She's currently trying to find cheap studio time for Wheatus of Teenage Dirt Bag nearly fame

are you talking about the twin tape - awesome 😆

Dunno, what do you think it means?
🙂

Seriously, I'm just off to the local HiFi emporium.
I've had a lamp rewired.

They've got a Nakamichi deck for sale.
Fate, innit?

[img] [/img]

That's a lovely hi-fi setup. As far as hi-fis go, quite expensive, I suspect. I agree it's better than mine.
(Is that Josh Homme?)

(Not ^^ that, the one on the screen)

Can you do tape to tape on that Panasonic?

Hi-speed dubbing's where it's at grandad!

Yeah but does it have dynamic bass boost? I used to have a Walkman that had dynamic bass boost.........and Dolby sumatorother!!

DezB - that is indeed JH 🙂

ads - yep, it's got a .1 Genelec sub for a bass boost as part of our 5.1 surround setup.

Nice but ill keep my DM604 S3's thanks 😉

My ears have taken to much abuse for me to realistically get to finicky about clarity. The weight, range and definition on them is just staggering and my amp really doesnt do them justice.

Ofc if money was no object... 😛

ads - yep, it's got a .1 Genelec sub for a bass boost as part of our 5.1 surround setup.

Whoosh

My head

I don't care what it cost, I'd really hesitate to call a studio mixing desk set-up a 'hifi'; that's what you use to play the finished product from hours spent tweaking the channels on that desk.
As for the tape deck, I can see the point of using it to see what it sounds like on FM, I believe Brian Eno used to do a similar thing, but isn't that just going for the lowest common denominator? Isn't that what the whole 'Loudness Wars' thing is about?
Laying on loads of compression to make each track stand out on shitty little phone speakers so that da yoof can irritate the bejaysus out of everyone else by walking around holding the phone playing loud, highly-distorted rubbish?
I want the greatest dynamic range from the music I buy, not the smallest.

I want the greatest dynamic range from the music I buy, not the smallest.

Anyway, no that's not hifi and oh, these are speakers:

[img] [/img]

We were discussing this at work this week: The problem in the real world is that the dynamic range of most live music is HUGE. Very few home systems can manage that without the quiet parts being far too quiet to sound good (partly noise floor, partly background noise, partly Fletcher-Munson issues). And applying compression to a stereo mix (assuming no compression on the individual channels when recording or mixing) will not work well enough.

And even if we had systems with that kind of dynamic range I'm not sure how well people's ears would cope in the long term.

Nice Barefoot speakers! I'd be interested to hear a pair vs the ATCs (whose factory I visited last year and found fascinating...)

Actually dynamic range is almost non-existent in pop and rock I suppose. But it makes all the difference in classical - especially and perhaps counter-intuitively in small scale choral work.

I visited ATC years ago. Are the home made coil winding machines still there?

looks like 2 center speakers the wrong way round 😕

Oh dear, I'm assuming someone will pipe up now saying how classical music has a massive dynamic range (which obviously it does) and sounds amazing on their £££££ turntable?

Re the cassette deck - if you question it you don't understand how and to what end most music is mastered.

So, will it make my Metallica album sound any better?

The Barefoots? That's pretty traditional for a two woofer layout.

Is that Josh Homme?

Is that Josh Homme?

[IMG] [/IMG]

dre Beats Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooom just sayin 😉

Yes, I've always been of the opinion that music should be recorded with the largest dynamic range possible and supplied to the buyer with the largest dynamic range possible given the media used. It would then be trivial to include compression on the user's system to make it sound as excellent or shitty as desired.

DAB was supposed to work like that - no compression until the end units, but that didn't happen.

Rusty Spanner - Member
Dunno, what do you think it means?

A HiFi system is built with the intention of delivering to your ears, a fully accurate as possible representation of the entirety of the source content (contained in/on CD/download file/vinyl disc) as possible, preferably in a musical way and with the added bonus of three-d presentation in the listening space.

In other words, with "high fidelity" to the source content.

therealhoops's mixing desk and little speakers will not do that.

Simples.

I thought that was the whole point of monitor speakers, to produce the most accurate representation of the source signal.

Wheras HiFi aims to produce something along a spectrum between faithful and enjoyable, and may [url= http://singletrackworld.com/forum/profile/deviant ]deviate[/url] in the name of enjoyment [ie valve amps].

The idea that accuracy relies on the speakers is a very old fashioned 1970's concept.

The most important piece of equipment is whatever translates the signal in the first place to pass it on down the chain - CD player, turntable cartridge/arm/turntable or DAC.

Once information is lost, it cannot be replaced no matter how many "graphic equalizers" or other such gizmos are included.

I auditioned three different makes of speakers when I built up my system. One was good at musicality but had no stereo presentation to speak of, another was clinically accurate with instrument placement but completely un-musical and the pair that I decided on could do both things beautifully...

The idea that accuracy relies on the speakers is a very old fashioned 1970's concept.

I auditioned three different makes of speakers when I built up my system. One was good at musicality but had no stereo presentation to speak of, another was clinically accurate with instrument placement but completely un-musical and the pair that I decided on could do both things beautifully...

Okaaay.

The most important piece of equipment is whatever translates the signal in the first place to pass it on down the chain - CD player, turntable cartridge/arm/turntable or DAC.

Yeah, but we're not living in the 1970's so we're about talking wide and fast data from that desk/source.

It is true that we are indeed, not living in the seventies, but the principle still applies.

Okaaay.

Que?

EDIT: Oh I see, you think the two statements are in conflict? No - the amount of information delivered to the speakers for them to work with is still there. Don't confuse presentation with content.

OK. I'm not really confusing them. But yes, your points looked a little contradictory.

Perhaps "accuracy" wasn't the most appropriate word. What I mean is "totality of information" from the source to the speakers. The way this is relayed by the speakers of course will differ, but what has been lost in the chain, has been lost, therefore the speakers are not the most important item of equipment in this regard.

Sorry if that was unclear

Of course, it's also better to have your cables pointing in the right direction, separated from the floor by small pylons made from irradiated zirconium each on it's own hydrated yak-hair base and screened from the environment by a tube of genuine papyrus sourced from the reed beds along the Nile delta...

Not forgetting the photograph of a black labrador on the coffee table.

speakers are not the most important item of equipment in this regard

I completely disagree with this.

Amplifiers, DACs, cables, all of that stuff is science, it is measurable, it is possible to do side by side comparisons and evaluate far beyond the range of human hearing what the performance will be like from the numbers alone.

Speakers on the other hand are the direct interface to the ears and as such, are completely subjective. As long as all of your other kit is beyond a certain standard, speakers have the potential to make a far larger difference to the quality of a Hifi.

That's kind of strange. Apart from saying you don't agree with me, you seem to be agreeing with me.

This must be the dark side of the moon. 😯

The amount of distortion in a speaker is far more than in any other component in the chain.

The speakers, the room, and positioning/interaction of the speakers in the room represent the most important aspect of the system, which you could also combine with the positioning/interaction of the listener with the room as well.

That's why you often have near field monitoring in a studio, to reduce the room factor.

A hi fidelity system, pretty much by definition, just reproduces the signal it has been fed with hi fidelity.

If the signal in was well miked etc, then the the speaker system should be able to reproduce an 'image', if it wasn't but the speakers manage to synthesis one up anyway, then that is not hi-fidelity, although it might be pleasing to the ear.

Studio monitors are often built for studio conditions and so are not necessarily suited for home use, for example Harbeth balance their M40s for their normal use which will be high up on a stand. In a home room they will be much closer to the floor and so they will interact with the floor differently and sound bass heavy.

All the marketing/review spiel about imaging, musicality etc can be broken down to measurable things such a polar response, transient response, distortion spectra and so on. There is nothing magical about speakers, they're just harder to measure than purely electronic components. The subjectivity comes from the fact that most speakers are more flawed in one of the four dominant aspects of sound reproduction than the other three, and it's that aspect which dominates the colouration. Get all of those aspects equally good and it's no longer subjective.

Those Barefoot monitors are not "little speakers" in the sense of their ability. They each have dual side-mounted force cancelling woofers with high volume displacement which allows comparable performance to the 15" ATCs.