The $3K all in exercize.

[yincr]

Audio_Elf: I think there is a place for both "real" experiences and also theoretical discussions / thought exercises.

 

 

Yes, that would be ideal. But not what I have been reading lately in this forum.

[Possum Jenkins]

Or you can leave that up to the DAC.

 

So the question I have is: Can $2450 in electronics get a $560 speaker to outperform $2200 speakers with $700 of electronics.

 

And therein lies the rub...What theory will pick the winner there?

[Audio_ELF]

Or you can leave that up to the DAC.

 

So the question I have is: Can $2450 in electronics get a $560 speaker to outperform $2200 speakers with $700 of electronics.

Yes and no ... I would say some $560 speakers with $2450 of electronics might sound better than other $2200 speakers with $700 electronics but that doesn't mean the $2200 speakers with $2450 of electronics would sound better. In fact $1500 speakers with $1500 electronics might sound better than both of them!

[徐中銳]

Because I study my friend's work, last month, he was demonstrating the NA8005 and SA8005 with :

 

However :

[wgscott]

Since those passively bi-amped speakers are $4K, how is it that this is a $3K system?

[esldude]

Or you can leave that up to the DAC.

 

So the question I have is: Can $2450 in electronics get a $560 speaker to outperform $2200 speakers with $700 of electronics.

 

While I am not in the position of putting together such a system currently, I put forth my suggestion because it is my experience of multiple products that a number of very inexpensive DACs are much better than they get credit for being. While that isn't saying more expensive DACs aren't better the difference is very small. I do currently have the opinion you should put as much budget into speakers as possible. Room treatment might come next if your listening room is dedicated for that purpose. It isn't hard to get everything working to a high level of quality and speakers are where big differences exist. That is where money gets the most benefit unless you buy poorly designed speakers of course.

 

So I do feel if you pick wisely on speakers (my choice was active so I really was spending on matching amps and speakers), that lesser speakers can't be brought up to par by better upstream components. Of course there are all sorts of other considerations.

 

A good case in point, is I seriously considered choosing the LS50's that Eloise did. I am somewhat familiar with them. They are largely to my liking. I chose differently for two reasons. I feel you need more amp than it might seem to get their best, and I feel they really need a little help from a woofer. But when I have heard them I didn't get to experiment in placement. In a different room or place in the room I might manage without a woofer.

 

So this question can never be definitively answered, and yet it is fun to think about and instructive to see how various people solve the problem. While you do get the benefit of people's direct experience somewhat indirectly.

[Audio_ELF]

A good case in point, is I seriously considered choosing the LS50's that Eloise did. I am somewhat familiar with them. They are largely to my liking. I chose differently for two reasons. I feel you need more amp than it might seem to get their best, and I feel they really need a little help from a woofer. But when I have heard them I didn't get to experiment in placement. In a different room or place in the room I might manage without a woofer.

My thinking over the LS50 is they are a good example of a speaker which works fine with a "price matched" amplifier, but sounds great with an "over priced" amplifier.

 

One thing you also have to take into consideration over costs is the sales mechanism. Yes pro-audio equipment is cheaper than audiophile, but you tend to have to make the decisions yourself rather than with audiophile (please note I'm using "pro-audio" and "audiophile" as short hands really and there is a lot of cross over) the equipment is only part of the service - a good dealer will help with demo's (in store and at home), putting together a whole system; installation, etc. Now for many people that service is unimportant and if its unimportant to you then you can get 90%+ of the way to a £3,000 audiophile amp with a £300 Crown Drive Core PA amp. For many people however the secondary characteristics are also important (as I commented in a recent thread) - the appearance, the UI / control, etc. and they tend to be more "user friendly" with audiophile equipment than pro-audio.

[Blake]

Dynaudio X14A

 

Elac S10 Subwoofer

 

"Flavor of the Month" sub $300 DAC (buy it used, DAC's are constantly changing and retain very little value and deemed worthless now if they don't do 1M sample rate DSD, park your car, do the dishes etc., iFi, Meridian, Yamamoto YDA-02, LH Labs, Sh*t, whatever)

 

Speaker Stands?

 

Blue Jeans Cable speaker cables and interconnects

 

Regen

 

usb cable (buy used at a fire sale price here on CA, where nothing sells unless it is 80% off ).

 

Get Better Sound DVD

[plissken]

With the i7 you can run sophisticated filtering and in effect change DACs without paying for new hardware.

 

What player are you using and can export the filter. I've a collection of different CPU'sh around here and interested in doing a bit of benchmarking.

[Jud]

Or you can leave that up to the DAC.

 

So the question I have is: Can $2450 in electronics get a $560 speaker to outperform $2200 speakers with $700 of electronics.

 

I've heard both. There were the ELACs at RMAF; and years ago I owned Vandersteen 2Ci speakers (now 2Ce Signature, around $2500), with an NAD receiver and a Philips CD player that together cost around $500. The system with the ELACs unquestionably sounded better, mostly because that NAD receiver, well thought of at the time (and since) was very evidently not capable of getting the Vandersteens to do their best. That to me will be the primary problem with configuring a system on a $3000 budget with $2300 speakers: finding amplification that will do justice to those speakers. (Powered speakers are one way to attack this, but are there good full range ones available within the budget?)

 

Frankly, before I heard the ELACs there is no way I'd have budgeted so little for speakers in a system like this. But Andrew Jones is a smart man who gave me that luxury. (Bruno Putzeys too - his Hypex modules have made very high end amplification available at very reasonable prices.)

[Audio_ELF]

I've heard both. There were the ELACs at RMAF; [...] The system with the ELACs unquestionably sounded better, [...] That to me will be the primary problem with configuring a system on a $3000 budget with $2300 speakers: finding amplification that will do justice to those speakers. (Powered speakers are one way to attack this, but are there good full range ones available within the budget?)

 

Frankly, before I heard the ELACs there is no way I'd have budgeted so little for speakers in a system like this. But Andrew Jones is a smart man who gave me that luxury. (Bruno Putzeys too - his Hypex modules have made very high end amplification available at very reasonable prices.)

I suppose the question is if the ELACs would have sounded as good with only $1000 or even $500 of carefully selected electronics and what a balanced $1500 / $1500 split would have been like.

 

As for powered speakers ... well partly that skews the situation as in the speakers what % of the cost is for the speakers and what for the electronics. Interestingly this is partly possible to see with ATC as some of their speakers are available in passive and active version - for example ATC SCM40 are £3,275 and the ATC SCM40a are £6,280; SCM50 £8,700, SCM50A £11,600; SCM100 £10,100, SCM100A 13,000.

[Melvin]

Based on my own experience:

 

Magnepan MMGs - $600

Schiit Bifrost Multibit - $600

Mac mini - $500

Odyssey Cyclops - $1100

 

Leaving $200 for wire. Add a sub or 2 for a few more bucks and you've got a killer system.

 

The Maggies need a good amp and the Khartago-based "integrated" suits them perfectly.

[Jud]

I suppose the question is if the ELACs would have sounded as good with only $1000 or even $500 of carefully selected electronics and what a balanced $1500 / $1500 split would have been like.

 

As for powered speakers ... well partly that skews the situation as in the speakers what % of the cost is for the speakers and what for the electronics. Interestingly this is partly possible to see with ATC as some of their speakers are available in passive and active version - for example ATC SCM40 are £3,275 and the ATC SCM40a are £6,280; SCM50 £8,700, SCM50A £11,600; SCM100 £10,100, SCM100A 13,000.

 

There is a lot of interesting math you can do with these things. I'm hard pressed to think of speakers whose value for money is multiples of the ELACs or the MMGs (nice choice, Melvin) for ~$1500. I love the Vandersteen 2Ce Signatures for just over $2500 and *do* think they're worth multiples of these others, but as I mentioned I haven't heard a $500 amp that will make them sound as good as a $1500 amp will make the ELACs sound. I think you have to jump to around $1000 or slightly over for an amp that will get there, which blows through the $3000 total budget. So I think it's the particular price points for speakers and the lack of something really good and close to full range at the $1000 level (the KEFs just about do it - can add a sub, though I'm not big on what a single sub does to arrival times) that dictates choices with a $3000 budget. As you mentioned, when the total goes up, the balance can change. For DACs there are what I consider very good choices at $150, $200, $400, $500, $600, $850, $1000, $1250, $2300 and up, so there's a lot of room to mix and match for many different budget levels.

[Jud]

What player are you using and can export the filter. I've a collection of different CPU'sh around here and interested in doing a bit of benchmarking.

 

There are several different paths you can take, though to take full advantage you want a DAC that can take DSD input, ideally DSD128 and/or higher, or at least 352.8/384KHz PCM. (That's part of the reason I chose the iDSD Micro.)

 

If I recall you're running Windows and Linux machines, or do you also have Macs? Assuming Windows/Linux, probably the preferred way to check out filters if you've got a sufficiently robust CPU is to run HQPlayer, which has a selection of different well designed filters, modulators and dither so you can see how/if each affects the sound. Another possibility is to convert offline with Audiophile Inventory, which allows you to use a less robust CPU at the price of some time and convenience. It has two filtering options, linear phase and minimum phase. JRiver I believe does conversions as well (inline, offline or both, I'm not sure), but I've never used it. If you want to try high end stuff using your own parameters on one of the best pieces of filtering software available, there's iZotope RX 5 with its included sample rate converter (PCM only, IIRC). Linux, of course, has SoX where you can play around using your own parameters. There you can get help from excellent discussions of filters/parameters by people creating filters for the Soekris DAC.

 

If you have a robust CPU and a lot of memory and care to see what incredibly detailed and specific program and OS tweaking can do over and above a unique filter, there is XXHighEnd. It's not to everyone's taste - I've likened all the settings it makes available to walking into the cockpit of a 747. But it is mighty interesting to see what if any effect may result from something like tuning the amount of a music file that can be saved into memory before being dumped to the player.

[plissken]

There are several different paths you can take, though to take full advantage you want a DAC that can take DSD input, ideally DSD128 and/or higher, or at least 352.8/384KHz PCM. (That's part of the reason I chose the iDSD Micro.)

 

If I recall you're running Windows and Linux machines, or do you also have Macs? Assuming Windows/Linux, probably the preferred way to check out filters if you've got a sufficiently robust CPU is to run HQPlayer, which has a selection of different well designed filters, modulators and dither so you can see how/if each affects the sound. Another possibility is to convert offline with Audiophile Inventory, which allows you to use a less robust CPU at the price of some time and convenience. It has two filtering options, linear phase and minimum phase. JRiver I believe does conversions as well (inline, offline or both, I'm not sure), but I've never used it. If you want to try high end stuff using your own parameters on one of the best pieces of filtering software available, there's iZotope RX 5 with its included sample rate converter (PCM only, IIRC). Linux, of course, has SoX where you can play around using your own parameters. There you can get help from excellent discussions of filters/parameters by people creating filters for the Soekris DAC.

 

If you have a robust CPU and a lot of memory and care to see what incredibly detailed and specific program and OS tweaking can do over and above a unique filter, there is XXHighEnd. It's not to everyone's taste - I've likened all the settings it makes available to walking into the cockpit of a 747. But it is mighty interesting to see what if any effect may result from something like tuning the amount of a music file that can be saved into memory before being dumped to the player.

 

I have Mac.Win.Linux and even an old as400 What I am asking is if you could tell me what you are using software wise and export and send me a filter config that you specifically using

[Jud]

Tomorrow I can link to a post with filter configurations I and others use in Audirvana Plus. As you would expect, filters designed by professionals work better than what I've come up with. The HQPlayer filters and modulators work better than mine for inline conversion. My preference is to convert files offline to DSD128 using Audiophile Inventory's linear phase filter and play them back through Audirvana Plus.

[esldude]

Anyone wanting a simpler way to try filters could also use the Sox plug-in for Foobar. It allows you to choose any mixture between minimum phase and linear phase as well as the width of the transition band. It isn't as advanced as something like HQPlayer.

[esldude]

Based on my own experience:

 

Magnepan MMGs - $600

Schiit Bifrost Multibit - $600

Mac mini - $500

Odyssey Cyclops - $1100

 

Leaving $200 for wire. Add a sub or 2 for a few more bucks and you've got a killer system.

 

The Maggies need a good amp and the Khartago-based "integrated" suits them perfectly.

 

This is a more balanced variation on allocating money in the different components, and would be a pretty darn nice system if you have the right kind of space for panels. Of course I am a sucker for panel speakers myself anyway.

[firedog]

Or you can leave that up to the DAC.

 

So the question I have is: Can $2450 in electronics get a $560 speaker to outperform $2200 speakers with $700 of electronics.

 

I'm sure there are setups where both are true.

[plissken]

I'm sure there are setups where both are true.

 

My experience is, and something I would put money on, is that the setup with more $$ and the same amount of care and auditioning spent on speakers will always yield the better result.

 

One of the reasons for this, given speakers is the designer usually has something that is in the same flavor of the $5-600 speaker but way up channel.

[bluesman]

I found out the hard way that under-power kills you when it is played at low volume.

...and it kills speakers when cranked to its limit. Far more damage is done trying to make underpowered amps play loudly than driving speakers with amps that can exceed rated power limits.

[Teresa]

This thread reflects what Computeraudiophile has become. Many moons before, this was a place, where people came to share real experiences about audio, but now, instead of "REAL" experiences, threads are full of theories and speculations about how things should be, and people who are brave enough to share their experiences, must prove that they are not hallucinating.

 

Great post and how true.

 

I believe in listen and let listen. I listen to music for enjoyment and never criticize how anyone else enjoy's music, even if it's on 8-track cartridges. If they are enjoying music who I am or anyone else to criticize or to make anyone prove why the way they enjoy music is right or wrong?

 

I vote we get back to sharing real experiences with computer audio.

[plissken]

Based on my own experience:

 

Magnepan MMGs - $600

Schiit Bifrost Multibit - $600

Mac mini - $500

Odyssey Cyclops - $1100

 

Leaving $200 for wire. Add a sub or 2 for a few more bucks and you've got a killer system.

 

The Maggies need a good amp and the Khartago-based "integrated" suits them perfectly.

 

Magnepan .7 $1400

Bass module $800

 

Crown XLS Drive Core 1500 $270

 

Emotiva Stealth DAC DC-1 $399

 

Dell Latitude 2100 $99

 

$200 left over for IC's, Jriver with JRemote.

[Melvin]

Magnepan .7 $1400

Bass module $800

 

Crown XLS Drive Core 1500 $270

 

Emotiva Stealth DAC DC-1 $399

 

Dell Latitude 2100 $99

 

$200 left over for IC's, Jriver with JRemote.

 

This looks fantastic! Love this thread BTW and am hoping more chime in with real-world experience in particular.

[plissken]

This looks fantastic! Love this thread BTW and am hoping more chime in with real-world experience in particular.

 

The maggies are great speakers but you have to have an amp that is good with reactive loads. Both the Crown and Odyssey will do that. ATI is another amp I have time with that will do the trick.

 

The Crown is a bargain. It's a neutral and transparent amp. It's also something that you can upgrade from if you feel the need when more funds allow with out losing a lot due to depreciation.

 

Thank Jud. The thread was his idea.