Hindsight after 45 years
Forty-five years as an audiophile chasing a state of audio reproduction, commonly referred to as audio nirvana, where music sounds indistinguishable from a live performance.
Forty-five years of being a student and practitioner of all things audiophillia.
Forty-five years of careful research and implementation.
Forty-years trying to achieve maximum fidelity, detail, and emotional impact.
Forty-five years of purchasing and rotating some really nice well regarded high fidelity equipment.
In hindsight, I wish I had taken a different path. I wish I had gone the pro audio route.
I live in Nashville; Music City. Where on any given day there are several different live performances within one city block and more all over the city. This is my reference.
Being a gear junky, I pay attention. Never have I seen a single piece of hifi used on stage. I see guitar amps, pa speakers, and eq’s.
Even bars and clubs play recorded music on pro audio equipment into large house speakers and the energy is fantastic even at lower volumes.
I’m not saying pro audio is better than hifi, there are many factors. It’s all subjective, relative, and dependent upon individual’s preferences and expectations.
Pro audio has come a long way in the last forty-five years, which may be why I didn’t find it practical for me years ago.
I’m just saying, if I were to start over now, I would go pro audio.
I’ve had a few pro pieces in my systems over the years. The best was a FireWire DAC around 15 years back. It’s all about system matching. I distrust anyone that is dogmatic, such as analog always beats digital, tubes always beat solid state, or pro always beats consumer audio. It depends upon so many variables. I also listen almost exclusively to classical, and I could care less what a bar in Nashville uses |
@mahler123 +1 - Agree about 'always', and also 'never'. |
Lab grupen from Germany is super dead quiet.more and more pro audio is using Pascal and other class d to make it light fit in racks transport around.just had my carver pt 2400 refreshed by nelion audio class h most likely 3 kw mono amp reduced fan speed quiet. When I went to see foreigner last year 6 crown 12000 amps drove it all. My crown 3500 is driving my irs v towers base.fine for that.there is a use for pro audio amps in home hifi.class d is driving alot of home speaker base my legacy,pbn montana,mcintosh 2kw base towers,definitive tech,golden ear ect.lets you use more efficient amp in mid/tweet and no base emi rf feedback to mid / tweet amp as it's separated. Pro audio is of age. Enjoy the music and theexperiments. |
When audiophiles think about pro gear, they are thinking about barrelbottom rough house plastic cabinet touring equipment that run at 500 dollars a pop, or some of the clinical studio monitors. That’s not the class equipment one should look at (They are meant for a specific application). If you want to enjoy music, you would look at the installation grade stuff, that get installed in certain types of venues where someone really cares how it sounds. These are the pro speakers i bought that i’d put up against anyone’s rig at any price. TAD designed these rather unique speakers...(Pioneer XY-3B) @ approx 12k/pair. I also have a regular pair of TADs, but, i seem to enjoy music more on the pioneer horns. I am able to enjoy all kinds of genres with these speakers.
This ’synergy’ horn from Danley with a very unique array of drivers, high level engineering.... Price varies depending on how you get it, I got it used. https://www.danleysoundlabs.com/products/sh60/
Electro-voice EVF-D series from Mike O’Niell, i have one of the wide dispersion models. You can get it for around 6k/pair. If Mike designed something for audiophiles with a nice cabinet finish, price may become 200k (just sayin).
WAF tips: Take the ugly metal grills off, and WAF will go up a lot. If you want a nice polished finish on the cabinet, take the cabinet to some guy in town and get the finish/color you want (if you don’t know how to do it yourself). Sound quality? No compromise. Sky can be the limit on price with pro gear as well...For example, Meyer Bluehorns could run you 80k or more....and whatever else is out there... But, i just retired, i may never buy anything again, except cds.
The weak link with pro gear is the amps, i.e., very high powered class D to hit extreme SPL levels that compromise fidelity. If you listening at home at a reasonable 95 db and under, put it on your audiophile amps and dacs, and they will shine. A Schiit Bifrost and a pair of Schiit Tyr monoblocks should be more than enough... In fact, they are designed to ’also’ sound good even at extreme SPL levels (levels where all home audio speakers fell to dust). When you don’t stress them out that much and keep the SPLs at 95, 90db and under, you will hear a kind of fidelity that’s hard to find....holographia, visceral slam, dynamics, all of it for days. You would need decent subwoofers, of couse. You put a high quality recording on them, it shines....You put a trash quality recording on them, they still shine...i.e. none of the...."might sound good 3 minutes before midnight on a blue moon night after your rub it down with unicorn horn dust, hiny and some jinglebell cable" requirements for "high end" audiophile speakers. You will no longer be restricted to running 3 records on repeat for the whole year. It can kill all the neurosis and let you enjoy music of different kinds. Hope that helps.
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We should distinguish between Pro Audio and Studio Audio. Stage gear is generally not well suited for home audio due to noise and distortion. But studio gear is a different matter. I have studio monitors (ATC SCM50, JBL 4311) and a Bryston 3B Cubed Pro model in my system that outshine most Audiophile components. I also have a studio quality equalizer (White Instruments) that adds no noise or distortion. Consider that all the decisions the artist, producer, and engineer make are based on that studio gear. That's the sound they want you to hear.
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