Best sound quality ever..........

[Crackie]

What's the best sounding Hi-Fi system you've ever heard ? Clearly 'best' is a subjective opinion but I'm interested to know if any patterns show up in any answers.

Do sealed speakers appear more than reflex designs ?
Are active systems preferred to passive ?
Are valve amps preferred to solid state. Class A, AB, switching amps class D/T ?
Horn speakers, electrostatics, ribbons, transmission lines ?
Anyone think that vinyl is best ?

Over to you.....

Edited by Crackie on Saturday 13th January 09:28

[Crackie]

Thanks for the replies so far.....

[Crackie]

RedLeicester said:

TonyRPH said:

But none of the above responses answer the OPs questions?

Cough, ahem:

RedLeicester said:

Depends on the room.

Crackie said:

<snip>
Do sealed speakers appear more than reflex designs ?
Are active systems preferred to passive ?
Are valve amps preferred to solid state. Class A, AB, switching amps class D/T ?
Horn speakers, electrostatics, ribbons, transmission lines ?
Anyone think that vinyl is best ?
<snip>

All willy waving, technology quoting and just lacks for brand name dropping to complete the set. There is no golden single solution.

I was hoping that the room's contribution would be discussed; the room's influence is huge. The speakers, their position in relation to room boundaries & the location of the listener are also critical.

I agree there is no single solution or answer to such a subjective question and also agree that there can be a lot of Freudian willy waving in Hi-Fi but other people might not be quite so cynical as your post above and hopefully the thread will not be about 'mine is bigger/better than yours' and brand name dropping. I'm hoping it might help to identify some common factors which influence 'The Best' perceived sound quality.

Were listening rooms acoustically treated ?
Was a dedicated listening room being used ?
Was mains treatment or mains regeneration being used ?
These factors have nothing to do with ego and name dropping

The room is by far the biggest factor imho, Gizlaroc alluded to using the room correction on his Meridians, several other posters have mentioned the room too. Clearly the room contribution is a major factor understood by many if not all.

Edited by Crackie on Friday 3rd October 07:49

[Crackie]

OldSkoolRS said:

I was particularly impressed with a system that takes into account the room, using a propriety system called 'room perfect'. The speakers were taller than me (not hard, but I think they're over 6 feet tall). It really sounded like the musicians and singers were live in the room with us, very clear and rich sounding, but neither shrill nor boomy on the bass...just right.

Unfortunately I neither have the space or the budget to buy this system:

http://www.steinwaylyngdorf.com/products/model-d-s...

I believe the set up is something like £180,000 (maybe more).

I've been impressed with the Room Perfect demos I've heard, so much so that I plan to add something similar to my setup at some point soon; possibly a DEQX or DIRAC processor. There are some interesting reviews about DEQX's demo using an $80.00 dollar pair of Tandy horn loaded evacuation speakers.

http://www.deqx.com/

http://www.minidsp.com/products/dirac-series/ddrc-...

[Crackie]

OldSkoolRS said:

I'm pretty sure Lyngdorf would say that DEQX or DIRAC isn't quite the same as room perfect, but I don't know enough about any of them to comment myself. Only that room perfect measures at various points in the room to build up a profile of the room's response somehow, different to Audessey XT32 that I'm more familar with.

I've also heard a Lyngdorf stereo (plus sub pre out) amp that has room perfect for around the £2k mark, which some have suggested using as part of an AV set up where the Lyngdorf is used for 2.1 music. I heard it with the same MK speakers I have (MP150) and a smaller MK sub (X10) and it was pretty good considering the bare room it was set up in.

http://lyngdorf.com/products/amplifiers/tdai-2170/...

DIRAC, DEQX and Lyngdorf all take different approaches but they are all able to make significant improvements to room response at low frequencies. The DEQX is also able to correct the response of individual drive units in the nearfield before integrating their output. DIRAC uses measurements from multiple mic positions and then employs IIR and FIR filters to correct the impulse. Meridian's approach is to concentrate their correction to the region below the room's Schroeder frequency. REW http://www.roomeqwizard.com/ is a sophisticated piece of software which, like Meridian's correction, is designed to limit the influence of room modes. I believe REW only corrects below 200Hz and Meridian 250Hz. REW is free too........

Edited by Crackie on Thursday 2nd October 10:52

[Crackie]

probedb said:

TonyRPH said:

But none of the above responses answer the OPs questions?

It's because it's not a straightforward answer and it will depend on the environment and the end user.

Agreed it is not a straightforward answer but I'm just curious to hear opinions about the elite systems that people have heard/used. Do any common traits appear in these highest performing systems ? For example, whilst many have said the room is an important factor, there is little agreement about speakers, Ribbons and electrostatics have been mentioned but so far there are more who have felt speakers with conventional enclosures achieved the best sound for them.

Hopefully others will share their thoughts on the various components and room conditions in their 'Best' systems; we may even find some kind of consensus. Every day is a school day........

Edited by Crackie on Thursday 2nd October 23:22

[Crackie]

OldSkoolRS said:

Crackie said:

REW http://www.roomeqwizard.com/ is a sophisticated piece of software which, like Meridian's correction, is designed to limit the influence of room modes. I believe REW only corrects below 200Hz and Meridian 250Hz. REW is free too........

I used REW to set up my DIY subs (a pair of 1500 watt sealed 15" cubes) but it doesn't 'correct' as such, just gives you the information to help you do that yourself with manual EQ (or maybe tweaking some delays/crossoversettings). There is a room simulation section which helped me choose the best starting positions for the pair of subs (the other speakers being fixed as they are wall mounted MK MP150). Then there is the measuring section which sends out test tones from my laptop to my amp and the result is measured by a USB mic I bought for the job.

I also found it useful to measure the combined sub/speaker response to select the optimum crossover and sub delay setting as in my case Audyssey/XT32 doesn't optimise the combined response as it only measures the speakers/sub individually.

REW creates the 'mirror' biquad filters needed to correct the room flaws but you do need hardware to host and carry out the DSP functions. REW now have a tie up with MiniDSP for this http://www.minidsp.com/applications/auto-eq-with-r...
I use one of miniDSPs 4x10 digital active crossovers at home and use it for room correction too.

[Crackie]

Esseesse said:

open baffle/electrostatics have something about them

+1.

Edited by Crackie on Saturday 4th October 20:39

[Crackie]

DavidJG said:

Crackie said:

+1.

Edited by Crackie on Saturday 4th October 20:39

Agreed - I spent many hours in listening rooms to find my speakers. At a realistic price point, I couldn't find anything to beat a set of Martin Logan electrostatic hybrids. I've had them over 10 years now - I've yet to find anything that comes close in terms of clarity and responsiveness, apart from newer electrostatics. The only downside is that you need a fairly heavyweight power amp to drive them. Their impedance curve on mine is nasty, dipping as low as 1.1Ohm at certain frequencies.

It is very difficult to engineer 'conventional' cabinets which do not compromise a speakers output in some way or another; radiation from cabinet panels, edge diffraction, baffle step, internal resonances, internal standing waves etc. Companies such B&W, Wilson Audio, Rockport, Magico, Avalon, Vivid Audio engineer these problems away but it is a very costly exercise; open baffle designs do not suffer these issues to anything like the same degree. All imho of course.