More 'Audiophile' bullsh*t

[dudleybloke]

spikey123 said:

Yeah, right, coat hangers arent insulated, so do you get many amps blowing from being shorted out?

he uses the plastic ones.

[spikey123]

Plastic is an insulator, so no conduction there

[dudleybloke]

its called the picard principal, discovered by borgman in the early '90s which, in laymans terms, means resistance is futile.

Edited by dudleybloke on Sunday 6th April 01:55

[Truffles]

mikey77 said:

I went into our new local (town in SW France) 'crack converters' shop the other day and came out with a pair of mint Mission 760i bookshelf speakers. Took 'em home, put 'em on the mantelpiece, hooked 'em up with a bit of spare 5 amp twin, carefully ignoring the opportunity for bi-wiring, and found they sound an absolute treat - to my ageing ears. Price: €6.99 with a 3-month guarantee.
Result!

I hooked up a pair of those decades ago to a Musical Fidelity A270 power amp. I have to say they sounded absolutely great. I'm convinced that at the time (1990s?) those sort of speakers were mainly being used with under-powered amps.

[spikey123]

Strange how folks like Russ Andrews make £100s from specialist interconnects and speaker cable. Wire is wire....isn't it?As with HDMI cables, if you get the 0 and 1s what possible difference can any cable make?
Now, once again...I have a 1992 Pioneer PDS901 cd player..ages old yet plays everything. So why?? did my Cyrus CD8SE2, Rega Apollo and Naim 5CD2 refuse some cds? Loads of expensive cd players that,,,well cant play cds, how hard can it be?

[TonyRPH]

spikey123 said:

Strange how folks like Russ Andrews make £100s from specialist interconnects and speaker cable. Wire is wire....isn't it?As with HDMI cables, if you get the 0 and 1s what possible difference can any cable make?
Now, once again...I have a 1992 Pioneer PDS901 cd player..ages old yet plays everything. So why?? did my Cyrus CD8SE2, Rega Apollo and Naim 5CD2 refuse some cds? Loads of expensive cd players that,,,well cant play cds, how hard can it be?

AFAIK, the Cyrus uses custom firmware to control the mechanism, and I seem to recall there were quite a few issues with the earlier models, resulting in returns to the factory for firmware upgrades. One problem was scratching CDs quite badly too.

Perhaps they are trying too hard.

I have an old Sony CDP-227ESD - and that reads almost anything, and very fast too. I also have a couple of old Kenwood players, and they too still play well.

IMHO, most of the British kit is grossly overrated.

You only have to look on Ebay to see how many faulty (British) players there are... Much of it seems to be built in China these days though.

But then so are so many other brands.

[krunchkin]

interesting piece here for our Audiophile chums on this thread to dissect...

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/05/...

[gizlaroc]

krunchkin said:

interesting piece here for our Audiophile chums on this thread to dissect...

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/05/...

The guy is a tt, he should have done his homework a bit more.

[Zod]

jmorgan said:

Yeah but you have to check that the run with the lay lines or you get ghosting. Real ghosting..... wooooooo

I love the fact that they sell a packet of four rubber bands for £4.95.

[alock]

krunchkin said:

interesting piece here for our Audiophile chums on this thread to dissect...

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/05/...

Slightly off topic, but there's no visible causal human signal in any global climate data either and yet the Guardian love that bandwagon. A hypocrite at the Guardian, now there's a surprise?

[PPPPPP]

krunchkin said:

interesting piece here for our Audiophile chums on this thread to dissect...

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/05/...

The best of the best "Ipod" for the well heeled.

http://www.astellnkern.com

[The_Burg]

TonyRPH said:

spikey123 said:

Strange how folks like Russ Andrews make £100s from specialist interconnects and speaker cable. Wire is wire....isn't it?As with HDMI cables, if you get the 0 and 1s what possible difference can any cable make?
Now, once again...I have a 1992 Pioneer PDS901 cd player..ages old yet plays everything. So why?? did my Cyrus CD8SE2, Rega Apollo and Naim 5CD2 refuse some cds? Loads of expensive cd players that,,,well cant play cds, how hard can it be?

AFAIK, the Cyrus uses custom firmware to control the mechanism, and I seem to recall there were quite a few issues with the earlier models, resulting in returns to the factory for firmware upgrades. One problem was scratching CDs quite badly too.

Perhaps they are trying too hard.

I have an old Sony CDP-227ESD - and that reads almost anything, and very fast too. I also have a couple of old Kenwood players, and they too still play well.

IMHO, most of the British kit is grossly overrated.

You only have to look on Ebay to see how many faulty (British) players there are... Much of it seems to be built in China these days though.

But then so are so many other brands.

The old Pioneer PDS901 has a proper engineered transport, with a proper turntable and way an absolute ton compared to most. Most others are plastic mouldings and drives that pinch the disk in the middle not support it.
Mine must be 20 years old. Never missed a beat, sadly rarely used these days. I can't honestly tell the difference from my media PC using the same DAC. (Getting older though i guess).

[spikey123]

My Pioneer PDS901 was built in 1992. I had it, I gave it to my dad, he gave it to my son and i am now borrowing it whilst my new Naim CD5i 2 is being looked at due to the fact that suddenly the sound went distorted and the cd began to jump. Apparently it is behaving impeccably in the shop, typical, I just know it is going to give me heartache. I should have stayed with the Pioneer. Funny how some old kit lasts and lasts and yet new stuff fails real soon. Oh, latest beef is with Bose. I have some of their QC3 noise cancelling headphones and after 4 years, most of which time they sat in their case, the plastic is cracking and falling apart. Bose like Cyrus don't sell spare parts, so I need to strip off the lead, cushions and battery and pay £126 for an exchange unit. That, folks, is £126 for a plastic headband...incredible!!
As I said before, Cyrus in their wisdom lol, decided not to use a tried and tested mechanism, or even a robust one and designed a loading mechanism that was flakey and unreliable. Then slowing down the disc to enable the crappy system to read it, meant that even a weeny scratch gave the cd player palpitations

[spikey123]

The_Burg said:

The old Pioneer PDS901 has a proper engineered transport, with a proper turntable and way an absolute ton compared to most. Most others are plastic mouldings and drives that pinch the disk in the middle not support it.
Mine must be 20 years old. Never missed a beat, sadly rarely used these days. I can't honestly tell the difference from my media PC using the same DAC. (Getting older though i guess).

Do you think that the Legato link made any positive difference? I believe that using the optical output on the Pioneer bypassed the Legato circuitry. I think it is a very lively player and as you said built to such a tremendous standard. They are really heavy and solid.

[Crackie]

How much influence the mechanism makes to CD players is open to debate. Some CD transports certainly had better reputations than others, the die cast Philips swing arms seemed to be the best in the eighties, the Pioneer turntables and Teac VRDS appeared to move the game on in the 90s and 00s until DVD mechs found favour. I have a couple of old Technics CD players, from the early 90s, which both use Philips mechs and IMHO they deliver 97% of the performance of the Wadia I use most of the time. The Wadia is a decade newer, uses the Pioneer turntable mech, and cost fifteen and eighteen times more than the Technics machines respectively. The law of diminishing returns has always applied to CD players but the Wadia is a very good player which makes the Technics players performance remarkable.

Edited by Crackie on Tuesday 8th April 17:17

[TonyRPH]

spikey123 said:

Do you think that the Legato link made any positive difference? I believe that using the optical output on the Pioneer bypassed the Legato circuitry. I think it is a very lively player and as you said built to such a tremendous standard. They are really heavy and solid.

I have an old Stereophile magazine with an article about Legato, and how it potentially breached Wadia patents.

I'll scan it for you if you want to read it. There is some analysis of a Pioneer player from the time (not a 901 IIRC), but the similarities between the Wadia and Pioneer were interesting.

Here's a bit of info

Edited by TonyRPH on Tuesday 8th April 19:34

[spikey123]

Yes I read that article, Marlene doesn't like the sound of the Pioneer. It was variable depending on the recording quality of the source. Good sounded very good, very good sounded amazing, but poor didn't sound better.

[spikey123]

Soooo, do the Pioneer legato players sound anything like the Wadia players? Folks seem divided

[TheRainMaker]

cornet said:

Don't forget your Carbonised Bamboo Panda Feet http://www.highendcable.co.uk/Panda%20feet%20at%20...

wtf

[Sparky137]

TheRainMaker said:

cornet said:

Don't forget your Carbonised Bamboo Panda Feet http://www.highendcable.co.uk/Panda%20feet%20at%20...

wtf

That has GOT to be a pi$$ take!!