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Backing Away from Stereophile Class A

After taking a break from chasing the audiophile dream for a few years, I jumped back into the game about a year ago and began to try whatever I could afford. This is what I've learned:

1.) My enjoyment of classical music on CD diminished as my system improved in accuracy, revealing the limitations of the digitally recorded source material. This seemed to be especially true when it came to speakers.

2.) Even fabulous speakers sound mediocre in a difficult room. In fact, room-matching may account for as much as half of the perceived quality of sound, at least in my experience. Bigger and more expensive speakers were not necessarily better.

3.) A good tube preamp sounds better than a good solid state preamp. At their best, tubes offer the illusion of neutrality while adding life to otherwise sterile-sounding digital recordings.

4.) The cheapest CD player made by Wadia sounds at least 90% as good as $6600 worth of separates.

5.) In any given system, a less expensive DAC may actually sound better than a Stereophile Class A-rated DAC of similar vintage.

6.) An expensive amplifier turns out to be a good investment after all.

If I were advising someone looking to spend about $5K on a good used CD-based system, I would recommend the following basic components to start with:

a Wadia 23 CD player
Audio Research LS-15 remote-controlled tube preamp
Mark Levinson No. 27 amplifier
Magnepan 2.7 QR planar speakers

Add decent balanced cabling between the Wadia and the preamp, and between the preamp and amp, and you have a very musical system that satisfies without being fatiguing.

With kind regards,
Ag insider logo xs@2xmark_hubbard

Showing 1 response by pmi_guy

pmi_guy
72 posts
 
Moving to really high end audio is like moving from a Corvette to a Ferrari, a bit more performance but much harder tuning.

I second the thoughts of Judit. I try to find components that offer both sweetness and detail. I better go listen to Quads now.

The Stereophile Class rankings are not blanket recommendations but they are a good start, as are the recommendations here on Audiogon. One problem with Stereophile is that the recommendations only cover what's been recently reviewed, which tends to be recent releases by well-known manufacturers.

By far the best advice I've picked up from Audiogon is to decide what level to build your system to and keep to that level. The first limitation is the budget. Don't buy fabulous speakers if the budget dictates that the rest of the system can't be to that level. The second limitation starts with the room. Don't try to put a fabulous system in a difficult room. The third limitation is your time. A fabulous system takes a lot of time to tweak, just like the Ferrari. The fourth limitation is the cost/benefit ratio. A fabulously detailed system may mean that many recordings are no longer as enjoyable.

In the end it's the enjoyment that matters.
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