You have a great system there, those MF amps are monsters=)
I did build my IPLs from kits, I've built a few speakers over the years, and got fed up of sawdust everywhere......so buying the pre-cut cabinets was a sensible idea.
Here is a work in progress pic of them
I no longer use them, I bought some Yamaha Ns1000m speakers a while ago and they are much better in the mid and treble, and the bass is MUCH faster and tuneful. The IPLs have a lot of very deep warm rich bass, but its not as well defined as the big sealed box bass from the yams.
I also built the World Designs preamp 3 and phono3 kits a while ago, and they are absolutely wonderful, especially with a few tweaky bits-posh caps and resistors.
Upgraded the internals of my amp too- blackgates, audionote copper paper in oil caps, tantalum resistors etc.
WD pre almost built
Glasshouse amp upskirt with its knickers off while being poked with a hot iron..
If you scroll all the way down, there's a picture of him and his wife, which somehow explains why he needs to find the joy of his life in a six million home theatre...
I like to have decent speakers and a more or less decent amp. But that's about it. It doesn't matter to me if i play a CD with my DVD-Player, or with the xbox, etc. Nor do i care much about some fancy speaker cables (a normal thick enough speaker cable will do just fine) and all that stuff made to empty your wallet.
My brother has some really good speakers and a nice amp and CD player. One speaker alone costs more than my entire audio/video system at home (standard hi-fi components). I can definately hear a big difference, even if my speakers are not really bad ones. The most significant difference is when you listen to music not very loud. You don't even have to turn up the volume very much, since it doesn't need a lot of volume to already sound very nice.
IMO, regardless of the room setup (which really makes the biggest difference, i agree), better speakers WILL sound better... a better amp will sound better than the weaker one... blabla. It's not all just fancy stuff... good equipment actually does sound better usually. However, if you are sitting in a room that is terrible when it comes to accoustics, it'll remain like that, even with expensive stuff.
I don't think I'm an audiophile, but I require good sound quality to enjoy music. And also high bitrate music files or CDs. For portability I have a Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro 80ohm. For my stereo I have two Klipsch RF-62 speakers and a cheap, but effective, 12" active subwoofer with freq. cut at 40Hz, so it's really only active in movies. My amp is a NAD, 4-5 years old. Can't remember the model right now, but it's a 5.2 surround amp (5x50w) bridged to 2x100w stereo.
This 2.1 system is not very expensive, but the value for money is incredible. NAD+Klipsch is a great combination for both movies, games and all sorts of music, from eletronic to metal and classical. Put a 40" Samsung M86 LCD in the middle of the speakers, and a racing seat with G25 right in front of the screen and you have my cockpit.
What do you define as shit music? Do you mean shit music as in something really shitty from a musical point of view? Or do you mean shitty as in "a very shitty recording"... quality wise?
I have quite a few oldschool CD's where i think the recording quality isn't all that great (like you previously mentioned about the 16 bit sample stuff). However, i think i have a good taste in music and don't listen to shit music.
Haha! Pink Floyd...
You will possibly offend a few people with that statement.
I don't think it's shitty music. It's nice i suppose... but i don't listen to it anymore really. It was more suitable when i was 16, had long hair and used to smoke as much pot as possible every other evening with my friends...
I think you have a point however. I can perfectly imagine that there are lots of people with an uber-expensive setup who are using it only to play stuff you would usually only listen to in your worst nightmares.
edit: In case you didn't deserve sarcasm, my real answer is that it depends on your needs. But I assumed it was a semi-joke since you said a €5 soundcard. €50 will probably get you somwhere. Soundblaster Audigy and X-Fi cards are good.
My girlfriend and I finally settled on a Marantz amplifier (PM6002) and CD player (CD6002), and some very nice B&W (685) bookshelf speakers. I'm excited because it's been years since I've had any kind of decent stereo.
When I was younger I used to scour the op shops when they had speakers for sale (these days its rare to find stereo stuff in op shops because of new laws(?) regarding resale of secondhand electrical stuff). Because I wasn't exactly versed in electronics/audio engineering my test was to simply pick up a speaker and if it felt heavy enough, I'd take it home to see how it actually sounded (very scientific I know). I went through tons of speakers, and finally settled on a beautiful pair of lovingly built no name speakers that I'd bought for $10. Most op shops back then didn't know how to price electrical stuff and I liked to imagine I'd snagged a real bargain. My amp at the time was a "cheap" second hand B&O from the 70's, with very unique 'bulldozer' track controls- you'd slide the tracks up or down the vertical length of the amplifier, the left side track controlled the volume and on the other side was the tuner for radio. It was a bizarre thing, I really loved it to bits.
Maybe if you turn of all the sound processing crap those cards have, but even then i'm not sure if those cards are really good. I'm not talking about voodoo stuff, but measurable electrical characteristics. As far as i know you can't turn off the internal 44.1Khz > 48Khz upsampling on the Audigy cards.
All the X-Fi settings and crystalizer stuff are turned off by default on my X-Fi Extreme-something. I run an optical cable from the soundcard to my amp and it sounds OK, in my opinion. I play FLAC-files with Winamp. But I'm no expert on signal processing really. I'm not sure of the advantages/disadvantages 44kHz and 48kHz have over each other, or 88kHz or whatever.
A worthwhile tip though, for those who play music on their stereo with their pc as source. Use your amp when you want to play loud, and let it do the work. Don't juice out full power from your sound card. I usually have a low fixed volume setting on my PC and adjust the final result as I please on my amp. Because a €800 dedicated amp is probably of better quality than your €80 sound card.
there is only one brand of amp i would choose, Arcam.
They are very expensive, (i think their entry level solo mini hi fi unit is about £600) but also very very good and well worth the money.
When i worked on site as a labourer we did a big job at the factory where they are made and they let me and one of the other lads into the testing room one quiet friday afternoon and showed us what they are like. I have never heard such crisp and clear sound, ever!
Speaker choice is also obviously a factor, but the amps themselves are of such quality nothing comes close IMO.
They had 4 or 5 other brands of amplifier in a similar price bracket for comparison purposes in a magazine a few months ago, and the sound guy used the same set of speakers, same cd, and same track for testing. The arcam unit blew everything else away.
I upgraded to an Arcam amp a few months ago (an A32 integrated if you're interested), it is indeed a nice piece of kit, especially when a little over half price on ebay. I'd imagine I'm really getting held back by my speakers now. No spare cash though...
Is that it? Mine is wired with telephone cord
and ph33r my amplifier: Philips 22rh741
I don't use it at all, I couldn't care less about sound quality. I still use the dirt cheap stereo speakerset that came with my pentium 1 pc. It has massive 3 inch drivers.
What speakers are you running with that bob? From what i was told by the sound guys there they recommend either mission or wharfedale speakers for most of their amps for the best possible sound quality.
I was thinking something a little more exotic than those brands. In fact, my last speakers were Missions, and the ones before that Wharfedales, so I feel a bit 'been there, done that' about them (admittedly both were at the bottom end of their respective scales).
Thanks, I like them though I acknowlege that they might be a tad "warm" for some peoples taste. though I don't hear it myself. Can't beat Pure Class A in my opinion nothing gets close to the transparency. The power amp is a bit of a beast physically, weighs in at around 20-30kg. I call it my Borg cube.
Nice work.
I did rebuild my horn speakers using the same drive units in to a self designed TL design. It worked ok, but it was clear that it wasn't properly tuned and the bass/mid drive unit had the wrong properties as well. The bass was actually very dry and too low in level though it was obviously well extended.
