Is Hi-Fi dead

[R6VED]

Yup dead to me. I have x5 SONOS 1's around the house and plan another couple soon. We listen to music everyday now as it is so easy to have anything playing within 20 seconds of thinking about it with Spotify.

I have taken my still functioning but ancient Technics amp anf floor standing speakers to the tip in the last week as they havent been used in about 4 years.

[Mark-C]

Depends what I’m doing ...

If I want some music on whilst I faff around with other stuff then it’s Sonus etc ...

If I want an indulgent evening then it’s LP12/Naim/Spendor. ... the latter are newish but the rest just gets regularly serviced and still sounds good to me.

My daughter (26) has just bought her first turntable so there is a small market out there and the rise in vinyl sales makes me happy

I still buy a lot of vinyl and it mostly comes with codes to allow downloads of MP3 equivalents so I get the best of both

[F3RNY7]

I've just gone from a TV speaker only setup (and music through the MacBook) to an AVR plus 3.0 speaker setup.

Perfect compromise for me, an incredible upgrade for film over TV speakers and music (AirPlayed to the AVR from Spotify on my iPhone) sounds incredible to me.

No doubt this set up would make a proper hifi enthusiast come out in a cold sweat, but for me it's the best music has ever sounded, having had a string of crappy CD players as a kid and essentially been listening to music only in the car or through a laptop for as long as I can remember!

I love the idea of having a big system made up of seperates but in the space I have, the wall mounted 3.0 setup and the AVR fits my needs perfectly.

[kenny.R400]

Full circle for me, gave up on hifi a while back but now I'm back with a vengeance collecting it, probably 25 amps, 10 sets of speakers and various sources.......I love it again.

And why is that? Simply because of the quality of streaming on sites like Tidal. Run pure FLAC through a decent DAC and into a good vintage system, whether it be Naim, Japanese or another it's a case for me of the new technology complimenting the old.

No more faffing with Vinyl or CDs and the worlds your oyster for choice of hi-res music of all genres and eras. Having said that I do still have turntables and cdps which are always nice to set up again once in a while.

[sparkyhx]

kenny.R400 said:

Full circle for me, gave up on hifi a while back but now I'm back with a vengeance collecting it, probably 25 amps, 10 sets of speakers and various sources.......I love it again.

And why is that? Simply because of the quality of streaming on sites like Tidal. Run pure FLAC through a decent DAC and into a good vintage system, whether it be Naim, Japanese or another it's a case for me of the new technology complimenting the old.

No more faffing with Vinyl or CDs and the worlds your oyster for choice of hi-res music of all genres and eras. Having said that I do still have turntables and cdps which are always nice to set up again once in a while.

Pretty much same for me but wanted remote on the amp. Volume on streamed/ripped music varies, so line level input from the Connect into an amp can be problematic. - not too bad if listening to whole albums, but if shuffling or having playlists the variance can be too great to listen at one volume.

[The_Burg]

R6VED said:

I have taken my still functioning but ancient Technics amp anf floor standing speakers to the tip in the last week as they havent been used in about 4 years.

Could you not have offered the on here?
Or donated to a charity shop, seems a shame and could have given someone a start on the hifi route.
Many folks interest started from being given old kit.

[Digger]

Or the thriving avforums classifieds.

[Madness60]

Like many others it seems I have abandoned the best of my Hi-fi in favour of ease of use. I had a Linn system with Monitor Audio floor standers. I loved it, I liked spending the time reading reviews of different kit, booking in to a good dealer and spending the morning and most of the afternoon trying, refining and then deciding to spend a decent wedge. Mrs Madness didn't mind it as the finish of the speakers matched some oak furniture and I sat back to enjoy the listening experience.

Then I had kids.....

Suddenly there is no time for the listening experience. Speakers become targets for little fingers and the kit sits there unused.

I decided a couple of years ago that I would accept a rebalance of musical priorities. I would accept 90% of the performance for a much easier and practical use. So out went the Linn (always good resale values) and in came a selection of Sonos. Best listening is using the Connect:Amp with the MA speakers and the rest of the house now has a 5, a 3 and 2 x 1s scattered around. Most of my music is stored on a NAS drive in lossless and I also pay for a streaming service. Instant music when I or the kids want it. I now find that I enjoy music far more often than I did before and maybe 1% of the time I miss out on that perfect listening experience but to be honest I would not go back.

Hi Fi may be changing not dying but I'm happy with my compromise so I can enjoy the music.

[gizlaroc]

HiFi is making a come back if anything.

I know loads of people who were into their HiFi and sold it all and got into AV, but they all seem to be coming back.

I have swapped my surround system for a nice simple stereo system again, I have a pair of Meridian DSP speakers being fed with a Sonos Connect on one input playing Tidal and my own stuff, and everything else routed through the TV into the other input on the DSP speakers.

They are neater and better than anything else I have owned. Best I had before that was Meridian Pre and Transport, Levinson Dac, Classé Power amp and Dunlavy speakers with a Rel Stentor. The DSP speakers beat that by some margin.

I did have the Meridian Pre as well for the room correction, but I preferred the sound direct to the DSP speakers so just sold it.

I love it because it is so easy and simple to use, Tidal has helped get the most out of it, I have Spotify too, but the quality just isn't there to have it as anything but background music, with Tidal it also sounds superb as well as makes finding new stuff so simple.

I reckon music is being played at least 8 hours a day again with this simple set up....

[Mermaid]

gizlaroc said:

I have swapped my surround system for a nice simple stereo system again, I have a pair of Meridian DSP speakers being fed with a Sonos Connect on one input playing Tidal and my own stuff, and everything else routed through the TV into the other input on the DSP speakers.

They are neater and better than anything else I have owned. Best I had before that was Meridian Pre and Transport, Levinson Dac, Classé Power amp and Dunlavy speakers with a Rel Stentor. The DSP speakers beat that by some margin.

I

Do you miss the sub?

[Disastrous]

I have iTunes etc for playing songs and a turntable and decent speakers for listening to music.

Two different things IMO and I don't especially cross the two over.

I mildly hate the concept of playlists and as a musician, the thought of agonising for hours over track listings and ordering of your album only to have someone come along and put it on shuffle or just download the singles makes me a bit sad.

I find that records make me listen to an album as a body of work and I frequently disover an appreciation for less obvious tracks after several listens.

That said, for me, it's not background noise. I pour a drink, sit down and listen to a record. If I want 'background noise' whilst doing something else then yeah, digital is fine I suppose. Convenient anyway.

Wouldn't confuse the two though, and have no desire to get rid of one in favour of the other.

[gizlaroc]

R8VXF said:

The audiophiles on here should start looking into converting their flac to MQA. Get a meridian DAC and my god it sounds good. So much depth to the sound and should soon be available converted from studio masters for even better sound.

You can't convert to MQA. MQA files are coded at source, they are authenticated from masters.

However, after hearing them I am seriously looking forward to them, hence why I signed up to Tidal.

These are quite long, but worth watching...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_wxRGiBoJg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5o6XHVK2HA

[gizlaroc]

Well that rather spoils the whole point of what MQA was meant to stand for.

Meridian said:

With MQA, we go all the way back to the original master recording and capture it completely. Every detail, every
tiny drop of emotion, is authentically reproduced.
Which means, for the first time in the history of recorded music, you’re really hearing the artist’s performance.

What FLAC files are you encoding?



Edit: Or are you saying you are encoding files where you know the origin, what it was recorded using etc.?

Edited by gizlaroc on Wednesday 10th June 22:17

[gizlaroc]

Mermaid said:

Do you miss the sub?

No, not at all.

I had swapped the Rel for the Meridian DSP Sub in my last set up, but in stereo mode I used to use DIRECT which bypassed it.

[gizlaroc]

R8VXF said:

MQA can re-encode any flac and improve it, though we are supplied the flacs by the labels anyway. Works better if we have the masters though. If you play an mqa, it will indicate whether it was encoded from the master or whether it was encoded from another source. This data is saved within the mqa file.

But surely that is just a way of shrinking the file size rather than Authenticating it is from a master the artist has approved?

[TheExcession]

gizlaroc said:

You can't convert to MQA. MQA files are coded at source, they are authenticated from masters.

However, after hearing them I am seriously looking forward to them, hence why I signed up to Tidal.

These are quite long, but worth watching...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_wxRGiBoJg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5o6XHVK2HA

Enjoyed those very much, thanks.

[TonyRPH]

R8VXF said:

MQA can re-encode any flac and improve it, though we are supplied the flacs by the labels anyway. Works better if we have the masters though. If you play an mqa, it will indicate whether it was encoded from the master or whether it was encoded from another source. This data is saved within the mqa file.

I'm interested to know how re-encoding can improve a file (ultimately the sound?).

That's almost like saying that re-encoding an mp3 to flac is going to improve it - it cannot (not in my own experience anyway).

You can't put back what isn't there, and even re-sampling is unlikely to improve it.

So how does MQA actually improve it?

[gizlaroc]

TonyRPH said:

I'm interested to know how re-encoding can improve a file (ultimately the sound?).

That's almost like saying that re-encoding an mp3 to flac is going to improve it - it cannot (not in my own experience anyway).

You can't put back what isn't there, and even re-sampling is unlikely to improve it.

So how does MQA actually improve it?

I have been thinking about this a little more.


The problem with most digital files is the smearing of time, MQA is not adding anything at all, it is removing the time smearing, so it could actually clean up stuff that is already recored.

I know when Meridian released their apodising filters everyone laughed, but 10 years later just about every decent digital player has apodising, it works, it can really clean up old digital recordings.

It is well worth watching those videos, it is very clever stuff, and a doff of the cap to Bob Stuart at Meridian for admitting he got it wrong when he said above 96k was not worth it, higher sampling rates are needed to get the timing right, and this is what MQA does, it gets the timing right and once that is right you can fold it all back to a smaller file again with no loss.

Edited by gizlaroc on Thursday 11th June 15:02

[R8VXF]

This article explains what MQA is doing in a nice simple manner: http://www.stereophile.com/content/ive-heard-futur...

And this review is from FLAC encoded to MQA and mirrors my listening experience, Enter Sandman in particular: http://www.stereophile.com/content/meridians-mqa-o...

[TonyRPH]

There are some very interesting comments on the Stereophile site.

I'm trying to remember where I've seen a similar technique to this before, where an unused / unuseable area of the signal was used in this way, but my memory is failing me.