Speakers 10 years old or older that can compete with todays best,
I attend High End Audio Shows whenever I get a chance. I also regularly visit several of my local High End Audio parlors, so I get to hear quite a few different speaker brands all the time. And these speakers are also at various price points. Of course, the new speakers with their current technology sound totally incredible. However, I strongly feel that my beloved Revel Salon 2 speakers, which have been around for over ten years, still sound just as good or even better than the vast majority of the newer speakers that I get a chance to hear or audition in todays market. And that goes for speakers at, or well above the Salon 2s price point. I feel that my Revel Salon 2 speakers (especially for the money) are so incredibly outstanding compared to the current speaker offerings of today, that I will probably never part with them. Are there others who feel that your beloved older speakers compare favorably with todays, newfangled, shinny-penny, obscenely expensive models?
@mijostyn The discussion about whether a digital step in vinyl is audible or not is an old one. IME, I always prefer the 'purity' of a AAA source vs. a digital source. Digital has come a long way, but IME--and IMHO, it just is not quite there yet. YMMV.
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@mijostyn -- I use a digital source only, my DAC/preamp sports a lossless digital volume control (i.e.: no effective loss of bits at lower volumes; it's also the preferred volume control option over JRiver MC31's internal digital ditto), and a digital crossover for active config - I'm not a stranger to digital, I'd say. Implementing the digital XO-settings has been done with the aid of measurements and countless hours of listening tests, so in a sense this has been done in the analogue domain, certainly without DRC, and that's how I prefer it as of now. There's hardly an automation to this approach that can bypass a range of manual factors in setting the filter values (i.e.: by ear and experimentation), and these would come in handy with an eventual correction in both the amplitude and time domain, say, with FIR-filters. As I've said already, this will come down the road. |
@phusis There is no such thing as a "lossless" digital volume control. Some units may revert to an analog volume control. But, even the best digital volume controls lose bits as the volume goes down. It is just that the really fast processors do not lose enough bits to affect sound quality. Down the road? I have been tuning my system one Hz at a time for 25 years. Let's say I measure my system and see a 3 dB dip in the left channel at a specific frequency say 358 Hz. I can select 358 Hz and increase it 3 dB. I can also adjust the Q of the filter matching what I see on the measurement exactly. |
@daveyf , I record rare, out of print records to my hard drive all the time. The people who bring these records over are other audiophiles. Not a single person can reliably identify the recording vs the real record. I can go back and forth between analog and digital RIAA correction. This one is close. Most people cannot tell the difference. I notice an improvement in imaging on the digital side. A few others describe similar improvements. IMHO the people who prefer analog have uncontrollable expectation bias. There are evils used frequently in digital recordings like extreme dynamic compression which is very unfortunate. This is not the fault of digital, and there are many digital sources that are not compressed. IMHE it can go either way. Some analog records are better than their digital counterparts and vice versa. I think my own system is the best residential system I have ever heard, but I designed it to be that way and it is certainly not others cup of tea. This is not to say there are not improvements to be had. There are. I am sure it can be even better and I know where specific problems are that need to be addressed. Going back to analog is not on the list and never will be. Forgetting about digital vs analog sources, there are things you can do in the digital domain that are impossible to do in the analog domain either entirely or without unacceptable distortion. Crossovers are one example, correction of group delays and adjustment of amplitude are others. |
@mijostyn I think we will have to agree to disagree. |
