What's the best-sounding system you've ever heard?

Yes must have been those. They were quite impressive sounding - used with the Statement demo a few years ago.

I want to hear Boulder some day too.

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2 things stand out about your post to me:

  1. the room, or lack thereof is likely the most important audible component.

  2. the situation (in your case a garden party) affects how we hear and remember listening experiences.

I really appreciate hifi - but all my favorite listening experiences have been about #2, not the equipment.

Sorry if this post is slightly off-topic.

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You are right with #1: the equipment was pretty capable, and speakers extremely good, but it was the lack of room effects that let the speakers perform unhindered.

I don’t feel that #2 had any bearing - hearing the fantastic sound and appreciating it happened many hours before the party, and the day is more memorable for that than the party in the evening.

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While the situation can well influence our experience, the thread’s intent is to discuss the hardware.

One could start a thread about ‘great settings in which you’ve enjoyed hi fi music reproduction.’ Feel free!

Funny you should say that. I always found that big SO dem room never really made the Briks sound that good. I bought their ex dem walnut DMS Briks and they sounded much better at home. Kans on the other hand sounded wonderful there. Active Briks are a different proposition altogether, much cleaner and faster.

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Well, as OP I can say that I’m interested in anything which makes people believe that they heard the best reproduced sound.

Not just the hardware.

That’s why I mentioned 3 things:

  • Where was it (the best-sounding system)?
  • Who owned it?
  • What were the main components?

I agree with marketshify that the situation (e.g. before a garden party) affects how we hear and remember listening experiences.

In the case he’s talking about the actual acoustics were radically changed by moving the hifi outdoors - as well as making the change easy to remember, and changing the mood of the listener.

[That story reminded me of 1980 when my parents went for 2 weeks to Japan and left me in charge of their house. I immediately put my speakers out in the garden and listened to Gimme Shelter at high volume in the sunshine under the tall trees with a cup of tea.

Bliss!

And the system sounded very different due to the lack of reflections.]

In the end, many things change how good a system sounds, including:

  • The quality of the set up - attention to detail
  • Room acoustics and soundwave reflections
  • Social situation
  • Listener’s mood
  • Listener’s hearing system
  • Hardware - listener’s preference, design and build quality, and whether the bits work well together
  • Electrical environment e.g. dedicated radial
  • How much you like the music that’s playing at that moment
  • Whether you’re sober or tipsy, or have had a nice bit of cake!
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Maybe Constellation audio too.

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That’s so very true!

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Heathrow show years ago, was just in one of the open areas, had JM Labs Grand Utopias, powered by Boulder, not sure what the source was, playing Karen Carpenter, was jaw dropping.

With Naim, the CDS debut evening at Soundwaves in Holbury, playing Delicate Sound of Thunder.

Mine too was at a Heathrow show many years ago.

Room (a big one) filled with huge T+A boxes and some Dalek like omni-directional speakers, I forget what they were.

Awsomely marvellous.

That’s the thing, or problem, about HiFi : seeking live like music.

Hoping any HiFi system is, or will be, capable of live like music is chasing rainbows.

I played classical guitar for… a long time. But rarely listen to it. It simply doesn’t sound like guitar. It sounds like recorded guitar.

Recorded and live music are two different things.
I enjoy both.

Indeed, and a well mastered studio recording might well be preferable. Can you imagine having the entire Berlin Philarmonic or a rock band playing live in your living room? It would be unbearable.

That makes me think of my local pub the Grayston Unity, which proudly claims to be the smallest licensed performing venue in the country, capacity 18 or 12 if the band has a drummer.

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Now capacity of 1.8 socially-distanced people including the band and the audience!

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Coming at this from a slightly different angle:
Which system had the biggest impact on me?

LP12 >> Valve pre >> Active XO >> 2xValve Power >> 15" Tannoy DCs

After forty years who knows how good it was objectively. It certainly kicked off a bloody expensive habit!

The first proper HiFi I had heard, playing ‘Bat Out of Hell’. Been a reference album for me ever since. Never heard it as well as I THINK I did on that occasion.

M

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Or as Paul Benson once put it in Hi Fi Answers: I don’t want the musicians to be in the room with me. I want to be in the room with the musicians.

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In my experience the room is the greatest single limitation with most hifi system implementations, and a lesser system in a perfect room (or no room) could well sound better than a top system in an untreated domestic living room, at least as long as the speakers are capabke of performing in free space. I would love to hear my present system that way, as I anticipate another level, given the increase in naturalness and detail from improvements to my system in the intervening 16 years.

Attention to detail, whether cabling or mains supply etc may indeed improve further - I mentioned the nondescript speaker cabling - but I am unlikely ever to find out more in that regard with open air playing. Fine positioning in a large open space is unlikely to be of any relevance, though I certainly agree can be very critical in a room.

In my outdoor experience, as already indicated the social aspect played no part, as it was just normal family in the garden, and we looked at each other stunned and amazed as the first track started. That was more pleasurable than the party that followed later, and definitely memorable on its own. We were four adults, so all with different ears, hearing, perceptions and expectations - but we all reacted the same

Mood certainly can affect how we hear and remember music, though in my particular best sound ever case, mood was mainly one of “let’s get this done and make sure everything is ready” than any anticipatory excitement - and completely taken aback when the music started. And at that time completely sober, and no cake - We hadn’t even had lunch yet.

Type of music - well with my best case I can only comment on the music I played, which certainly included several different things as I wanted to explore this new phenomenon, so would have included rock, classical and prog. Of course I don’t know how things we didn’t play would have sounded.

So yes, in a room many of these factors may be of the greatest significance - but take away the room and you may exceed the effect of all others. (And as I hinted, applying all factors optimally in the absence of room may be quite some thing - perhaps true audio nirvana?!..)

over the years…

the demos by Absolute Sounds at hifi shows.
many years ago: Sondek, Audio Research pre, Krell Power and Apogee Scintillas
more recently , Magico speakers driven by some US “Muscle Amps” - perhaps D’Agostinos?

Statement into Grand F’Uglys. in fact even 500 into Grand F’Uglys ain’t bad, especially when they ditch the plinky plinky stuff and wind them up with Sweet Child In Time!

there was also the old dCS ÂŁ25K, four box, CDP (Verdi +et al ?) driving those speakers that look like Daleks with a beach ball in the middle (MBL ?).

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There have been a number

B&W Nautilus powered by two Stereo Michi amps, last year in Blackrock, Dublin
Naim Statement amp
Meridian DSP8000SE ‘Ruby Anniversary’ Editions
Some huge Wilson speakers in Sound by Singer show rooms in NYC
Bob Stewart of Meridian, demonstrating the 200 & 600 Series

However, the system that has the lasting memory was

Top Floor studio Listening Room, Manchester, circa 1990
Voyd Reference Turntable (3 Motors & Reference PSU) setup by Guy Sargeant
Helius tonearm, with Silver wiring, but wired for an active Audionote IO cartridge, so 6 wires to the cartridge - https://www.audionote.co.uk/io-ltd
Audionote Silver cabling to Silver Step-up transformers
Audio Innovations valve Pre-Amp with a set of Audio Innovations 2nd valve monoblocks into a pair of Snell floorstanders.
One of the records played was “Friday Night in San Francisco“, Philips pressing (Peter Qvortrup insisted it was the best pressing)

This has been one of my reference recordings since, and now on 45rpm Impex, which is way better than the Philips and the CBS Half Speed Master.