Please add one speaker first way of life from me. Thank you,
Rafael
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I liked Milan and would love to visit Nice.
Hi fi is a conundrum of personal preferences and choices.
Well another 4 days spent at our renovated holiday home with the new extension with a modest recently service chrome bumper 42+110 amps with some budget speakers and CD player have reinforced my opinions of the room plus speaker importance. The classic little amps are real crackers. Love them. With good acoustics and a working room+speaker interface plus decent mains. Yes here I have a single spur from a separate consumer unit with a klangmodul fuse.
I have concluded that this is more coherent musically than my big system which is obviously not here.
Obviously the relaxed environment also plays a role.
The next unknown is how will the big system sound here.
This also demonstrates that common sense should prevail before spending silly money on upgrades in places where it works sub-standard.
Right now my source is more expensive than the rest of my setup put together. Case in point my sw1x DAC 3 balanced with upgrades is well over 13k. My Olive setup costs considerably less than 10k. And would you believe in the interim I am using budget Bowers & wilkins 685 speakers with a poked in tweeter on the right channel. And yet this is the best sound I’ve ever achieved in my room and I’ve owned the 552DR.
Source first? ABSOLUTELY, but there are other key points to make sure of. Acquiring a speaker that suits your taste and room and an equably suitable sound profile from the amplification.
Second for me is without doubt the preamp. It really is the heart of the system.
And final point, system setup is more important than I could have ever imagined. Naim philosophy is absolutely spot on. Rigid stands whether for equipment or speakers. I also have an affinity to standmount speakers on open frame metal stands. No floorstanding speaker I’ve heard thus far can match the cohesive sound I get from this type of speaker setup.
To follow on from my last post. If the preamp is the heart of the system, the source is surely the brain. It makes sense of all the music. That’s the best explanation I have.
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hmmmmmm. Interesting feedback. You mean you haven’t heard cohesive sound better than standmount speakers on open metal frame stands…?
So in summary the complete system including the room and a decent mains supply have to work together as one. I’m not saying that source first is unimportant. The best source in the world and/or the best amps in the wrong environment is obviously not what people should be aiming at. The fact is that there are people that go down that route, including myself and end up with something that for sure is good, but not the best it could be.
Naim SL2 in the wrong room being a good example.
My simple system in the holiday house has that (And I hate this word) synergy where it is just ahead of the big system in our appartment.
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Interesting…the counter argument to a source-first approach seems to envisage a hypothetical implementation of first rate source and poor speakers. Not going to happen, find a more realistic counter argument.
Yes just my personal preference. I get a more focused sound from this type of setup which I prefer to the larger scale and more dynamic output that a larger speaker brings. My electronics provide enough dynamic output for my taste. Standmount speakers disappear far more effectively than floorstanders. The open metal frame stands have served me better than mass loaded ones which take away some of the excitement and leading edge definition for a slightly more weighty sound.
Also like I have mentioned, the speaker is very much room dependant. As my room is very small a floorstander just doesn’t work for me. Not to say this is the only room I have had experience with.
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I would also add that a speaker too small just doesn’t work for me either. Something around the size of the Harbeth 30, B&w 805 region. It’s a good balance between decent dynamics and a relatively fast, punchy and a more focused sound.
I know this is the naughty boy’s step for me, but the primary source is the CD/film/record/cassette/quality of download - is the money better spent on top quality recordings or top quality equipment ?
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There is no such counter argument @jlewis at least not from me. I think is is clear that the top systems are not just plug and play. There is no doubt that the better source out performs a lesser source. Balance as in all things in life should not be neglected and that means everything has to work together and that includes the speaker room interface
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Good point with good music that has attention to detail in the recording process is also part of the whole…
That said a superior recording of bad music is not going to get those goose bumps appearing is it
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…agreed.
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Reading through some of the comments in this thread and I think it’s worth calling out that source first requires a strict comparison in the same room on the same day and with all equipment warmed up.
It’s about a one-to-one comparison of two approaches. Listen to the setup based on source first and compare to a setup based on another approach. Both systems need to be properly setup as source first relates to musical attributes not sonic ones. If you want deeper bass or a wider soundstage then that’s not what source first is promising.
Doing one upgrade and then months later upgrading speakers and saying, ‘the speakers made more difference than any previous source upgrade’ is not a source first comparison. Same for listening to separate systems in separate rooms.
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That may be the argument presented by some. However in the same way a counter argument to a non-source-first approach seems to envisage a hypothetical implementation of first rate speakers and poor source. I don’t think anyone arguing that source-first is not the best way has suggested such.
How do you consider a system with 20k source, 30 k electronics and 1k speakers? It was commented positively here by some.
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I don’t think these spending ratios are much help. Price doesn’t always equate to musical performance. For example, what if the most musically engaging source uses new technology that betters more expensive digital sources for much less money?
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Without knowing what it sounds like I can’t really make a meaningful comment. Whether I’d like the sound at all I simply don’t know (what speakers are they?) The monetary value of the speaker assuming that’s today’s new cost doesn’t suggest to me that it’s likely to be as competent as some, so I’d be surprised if I heard it and felt it to be a value for money value for money in terms of sound quality compared to a system with better speakers even with significantly less costly amp and source - but as I indicated, without knowing what it sounds like, or at least knowing more about the speakers in particular, this is just speculation. I do know some people enjoy listening to systems that I find lacking in some way, so the fact of positive comments by some people is of no relevance to whether I would like, unless, perhaps, I knew their tastes in music presentation, and know that their emotional triggers from music are the same as mine.
Cetainly… sorry I misunderstood your earlier message to mean you preferred stand mounts over floorstanders in general because the former sounded better and more cohesive but you’d meant this in the context of the size of your room. I love both small and large speakers - each brings different things to the table. Again just brings to mind the speaker-room relation coming first into play.