In this video, we explain the weakest link in your hifi setup and why that is the case. #audiophile #hifi #amplifier #speakers #subwoofer #turntable #DAC
Honestly, I prefer the distance. There are too many TH-camrs with the mic right against their mouths, and you can hear every drop of saliva. Plus there's often no room ambiance, so it has that creepy "sensory deprivation chamber" effect.
I always thought the weakest link was the one sitting in the chair chasing that dream sound with multiple equipment swaps instead of enjoying the mucic.
You bring up some great points here. Speakers always fascinated me because they're basically just electricity going through wires and making paper or other material vibrate in a way that produces all these sounds. It's old simple technology that has remained relatively unchanged to this day, yet is somehow able to reproduce beautiful blissful music. Speakers are magic.
Currently running the audio craftsmen lavals through 400 hours of prince, purple rain. As only true audiophiles know the secret to the song lies within the dynamic range of the hi hats. It unlocks some kind of magical power that Tom from audio craftsmen locked away for only true audiophiles to enjoy…
speakers are the voice of the system. often the quality can be checked , somewhat, by simply looking at the robustness of the supporting construction of the basket. to underscore the message presented here, there are two Scandinavian driver manufacturers that were started by doctors doing medical research, who had to build their own high quality drivers to do their investigations because nothing available was accurate enough for their work. A couple of fine towers with "medical grade " custom drivers keeps me happy, although they were a little expensive for me at the time.
The main problem with the argument is that we are not dealing with the sound of the instrument any more once we transduce it into an electrical analogue. It's a complete artifice from the microphone onwards. it's gone from a mechanical disturbance mediated by the air as pressure variations to variations in current in a series of electrical devices. Its not soundwaves it has become electromagnetic disturbances. The conversion back to pressure waves is dependent on how well the original transduction that happened was achieved, it's an approximation at best. The electromagnetic signal loses energy and gains distortion as it passes through the system. The loudspeaker conpletes the story by taking the (now very approxinate) analogue and converting it into pressure waves that carry a slice of a resemblance to the pressure waves that addressed the microphone at the start. The accuracy is not there unless you aee hearing the performance in person. The speaker is good enough, Our brains do a kot of heavy lifting recreating from memory and experience what the performance should sound like. Speakers only need to be good enough and some do a better good enough than others.
what one considers to be good enough really depends on how far one chooses to chase the illusion of a past musical event. clearly a driver capable of more accuracy than another from the same signal is going to sound better .
As I replied to someone else: True, BUT.... Good speakers will allow you to get the best you can, from your source. The source of the source is immaterial. 😁✌🖖
@@zapa1pnteven when they are doing a good job, they are still at a remove from what the source is producing. The equipment chain that does the least damage will give the most acceptable results.
The only fly in the ointment with the "spend as much as possible on speakers" audio advice, is that non computer equalization is relatively costly. Only recently with wiim has it got affordable. Other than that, the advice is sound. The old adge of source first has thankfully gone by the wayside.
Treat the listener not the room . ok, do your best on the externals as in speakers , gear , room etc but before during and after that, refine the listener above all else . everyone on this thread has experienced that on some days and with the same equipment and music , it just sounds better . that has 100% todo with the quality/refinement of the listeners mind , body and emotions . some of us may remember as far back as the fifties and sixties when we were children and teens and how completely thrilled we were while listening to our favorite music on very very bad quality equipment . Why did it sound so good? Because the listener was in a heightened state . this heightened sensitivity is increasingly ignored with age , hence the emphasis on speakers and gear. Audiophiles are generally oldish men with money that have focused too long on the external world to bring satisfaction when all that time they could have tapped into unlimited levels of subjective refinement and sensitivity . How does one regain and increase this internal sensitivity ? well let's just say there are as many ways to do that as there are speakers in the world.
Audio listener refinement comes through the audio listener's experience. If one never experiences better audio reproduction, he will never find what he has been missing and so, become a more refined listener. 😁✌🖖
The best speakers I've found after 2 decades are ribbon tweeters (AMT, planar) instead of dome. I have the GoldenEar BRX and I use 2 sealed subwoofers for full range. source=Apple Music lossless
A really bad pair of speakers will make any chain of audio components sound worse. A really good pair of speakers will make any chain of audio components sound better. So yes, I completely agree. The speakers are the most critical component of any hi-fi system. That and the speaker to room interface.
Based upon my extensive years of childhood experience as a mediocre piano player, Dynaudio (esp. Evoke 10 and Contour 20i from the current range), are far and away the masters of loudspeaker design. As they can make piano best sound like a piano, rather than sound like shattering glass such as all too many other brands.
The Sony cccsscs5 speaker has a bronze super tweeter to play cymbals, tweeter made of lab grown vocal chords from Adele and Sting, goat hide drivers for producing authentic drums, and the midrange is a composite made from a little piece of every instrument so it can reproduce guitars, orchestras, everything. That is what composite means. I have a $50,000 transmitter tube amp, with a $50k turntable, silver wire speaker cables, and a bespoke streamer, serial number 1, driving my perfect Sony speakers. So ha! You are again wrong!
If you were to upgrade those speakers, to something real (not toys), for far less than you have already spent, you would see how right he is. Yes, I know your post was a great exaggeration, nevertheless.... 😁✌🖖
Actually its a chicken and egg question. Speakers depend on everything connected to it and vice versa. Then add to this the biggest influence, your room acoustics. Now you can see the tip of the iceberg.
Last I checked, $$$$ don't make the sound better...just more expensive...For example, a pair of LRS+ Speakers with a great amp and pre-amp and a di-pole subwoofer heard at AXPONA sounded better to myself and friend (who is an accomplished musician) than those $4 million Horn Speakers at AXPONA...
If you build up sufficient ear wax, that can become your new weakest link! If that fails, move your entire system into the toilet room and that room becomes your new weakest link.
There’s one more weak link: the room. Maybe not quite as important as the speakers, but it’s way more important than the non-speaker components. Before you upgrade your WiiM streamer or Aiyima amp, take a look at doing something about your bare walls.
@@scientificaudiophile yeah, should have clarified, when I said “you” I was directing that statement at audiophiles in general. I would never presume that our dear leader the Scientific Audiophile would ever leave his room untreated.
@@scientificaudiophile: Even in an untreated room, the expensive system will sound better than a POS. The room Will limit it, just like your speakers will limit your system, but still....... 😁✌🖖
So trashing everyone that Listens to The Cheapaudioman is you being your best. Your persona of an old crumudgeon ranting to us lesser folk while fondling your stuffed whatever, doesn't exactly exude credibility on any subject.
Speaker diaphragms aim to reduce resonances and harmonics. Instruments aim to use resonance and harmonics. That's how material X can sound like instruments made from y. Attach a voice coil to a brass cymbal and everything will sound like a brass cymbal lol
First I might write a book on a chess match I had, through the mail with a guy from France many years ago. My comment from a comment section beneath a Chess video is setting all kind of records, with many thousands of views..Back in the 1970s, before the internet, before home computers, before cheap long distance phone calls, the best way to communicate to someone far away without spending a fortune, was to put a stamp on an envelope and mail a letter. The guy from France would mail me his chess move, then I would mail him my chess move etc. ad infinitum. Each move we made took about a month for the other side to receive it, and respond back with their move. It took over 17 years to complete one chess game, and who knows how many hundreds or thousands of dollars in intercontinental postage stamps. I thought I was nearing checkmate about 9 years into the match, but my opponent from France came up with an ingenious move, and the game went 17 years plus I think 8 months on top of that
The powered monitor systems with DSP are excellent values to get superior sound by matching the amplification to the different drivers... And if you spend $1800 a pair for those, you get serious HiFi...
. In whatever form they are purchased, choose the best drivers. Most of the cost in expensive speakers is elbow grease to shine lacquered, rare, hardwood veneers & polished aluminum trim rings. The drivers cost diddly-squat. Acid Jazz. Funk & Brass 🔈🔉🔊 BTW, There are product lines like James B Lansing's commercial home theatre speakers. Nothing fancy at all. They're built for performance only. Bang for the buck.
I agree , the drivers are like a motor in a car, the key to performance. Not so sure about the JBL home theatre suggestion. Although a favorite brand, at one time they had separate lines for audio systems and home theater, saying the requirements were different between the two activities. Which doesn't matter to me, I'm not buying two separate systems.
@@richardelliott8352 . Lol, an Elliott talkin' drivers, motors & cars. Go CHASE Elliott!👍 I ran stock cars for a decade. My numbers were 94 & 11... just like Awesome Bill from Dawsomville. Lol, now back to hifi. It's a lot safer. Peace. Acid Jazz, Funk & Brass 🔈🔉🔊
I disagree, it's about synergy, not about budget. What I do agree about is that the speakers are still the component with the most distortion and deviation from ideal
We would be living under Woke Marxist rulers pretending that the Earth will self-destruct if you don't all switch to wind turbine energy and eating crickets within 25 years.... oh wait!
Especially with Yamaha amps. I am so surprised he poo poo'd them. I've been meaning to stream Bish from Bandcamp. Her organ may be way too much for the Sony. Metallica plays well. Bishs organ probably crushes Hetfields tone. Just don't let Metallica mix Bish. Actually, that would be a great collab - B/M....
Thank you very much for this post. But you should know as the Scientific Audiophile, the most important weakness of a hi-fi system is: thinking it's a hobby.
I believe the weakest is the dude running the recording studio. Telling the engineer " make it sound like " Not only harmonics but the attack , decay and sustain.
There are so many weak links in the music reproduction it is impossible to say any one of them is the weakest. But in my 60 years of this insane hobby I have to say the weakest link is the listener. Just ask my wife.
Great explanation, and will help a lot of newbs. I’m curious if you ever visit audio shows. Would love to see you do something like a ‘five best speakers for under $2grand” or talk about the systems that impressed you the most. etc
Someday I’ll get back out to audio shows. I hate “best under” or any “best” because I’ve heard but a sliver of what is available. I will try to do more comparisons though. Thanks for the suggestions.
So true. This is why I prefer large full range electrostatics with a diaphragm lighter than the air it displaces. Not perfect, but a realism no cone/box speaker can match.
Most audiophiles try to avoid planars and electrostats. Maybe it's kind of a challenge or a game, trying to get detail and speed from a dynamic speaker that can really compete or come close to competing with electrostats. I do feel I have achieved that with dynamic speakers. Not that a side by side comparison wouldn't show a good electrostat being slightly mre detailed and speedy, but in our estimation that little extra in those ways is not so musically significant. Anything so subtle that only an electrostat would reveal, is not likely to be a musically significant detail. More of a trivial detail. Once you reach a certain detail level, there are more inportant things to worry about. Like instrumental body, which dynamic speakers excel at, dynamics, bass slam and maybe just a slight wood coloration, which a lot of audiophiles would have to admit that they like. Wood is a very musical sound, which is why many instruments are made of wood, or employ wood in their construction. We'lll take those things. over a slight bit more snap and detail. Electrostats have too naked a sound for many people. Maybe if you had a whole housefull of perfect recordings, without audible imperfections. We don't need something to do a magnifying glass job on those flaws, just for a tiny bit more trivial detail.
@@sidesup8286 horses for courses, complicated symphonic music favors one kind of system, jazz , rock , folk, the simple stuff, benefits from more dynamics. ,
Here's a thought...instead of stressing (obsessing) over the price of your gear, try relaxing and enjoy the angelic sounds of music and the wonderful emotions they bring forth...I have a perfectly wonderful system that puts out the most beautiful and glorious music that I just sit here shaking my head in awe at the beauty I'm hearing...and nothing in my system cost my more than $300 and my speakers range from $150-$250 and I have no doubt I get more joy from my gear than you do from stressing about paying the most you can for a piece of gear...in case don't realize it you are striving for perfection that doesn't exist my friend...
@@scientificaudiophile It means hear the glorious joy no matter how much money you can afford to invest in gear...I'm 71 yrs of age and most of that time I spent reaching for better sounds from my gear...today it's different...even 'affordable' gear can bring one to tears of joy...🤯😎
the microphone is definitely the weakest link in your system. 😂
Honestly, I prefer the distance. There are too many TH-camrs with the mic right against their mouths, and you can hear every drop of saliva. Plus there's often no room ambiance, so it has that creepy "sensory deprivation chamber" effect.
@@JWD1992 The sound of somebody talking across the room in my headphones isn't great for me, but to each their own.
The left pan is not so great though :) @@JWD1992
At first, I thought the horrible sound was his demonstration of his point. I expected the sound to suddenly improve as his "punch line."
indeed haha. Although I have heard worse on here
I always thought the weakest link was the one sitting in the chair chasing that dream sound with multiple equipment swaps instead of enjoying the mucic.
You bring up some great points here. Speakers always fascinated me because they're basically just electricity going through wires and making paper or other material vibrate in a way that produces all these sounds. It's old simple technology that has remained relatively unchanged to this day, yet is somehow able to reproduce beautiful blissful music. Speakers are magic.
Good afternoon ☕️
The weakest link in my case is the fragile link between my bank account and my ego.😄
Cheers 🥂
Currently running the audio craftsmen lavals through 400 hours of prince, purple rain. As only true audiophiles know the secret to the song lies within the dynamic range of the hi hats. It unlocks some kind of magical power that Tom from audio craftsmen locked away for only true audiophiles to enjoy…
What color did you get?
speakers are the voice of the system. often the quality can be checked , somewhat, by simply looking at the robustness of the supporting construction of the basket.
to underscore the message presented here, there are two Scandinavian driver manufacturers that were started by doctors doing medical research, who had to build their own high quality drivers to do their investigations because nothing available was accurate enough for their work.
A couple of fine towers with "medical grade " custom drivers keeps me happy, although they were a little expensive for me at the time.
I spent $4000 on my amp and $3000 on my Magnepan LRS+. Sometimes the speakers are great value. NZ dollars.
Wow shipping to New Zealand must be really expensive if you paid 3,000 for the LRS+?
@@robsandler1818 The NZ dollar is not as strong as the US dollar. It also comes with the improved stand as default.
Hifi lover in Hawke’s Bay.
The main problem with the argument is that we are not dealing with the sound of the instrument any more once we transduce it into an electrical analogue. It's a complete artifice from the microphone onwards. it's gone from a mechanical disturbance mediated by the air as pressure variations to variations in current in a series of electrical devices. Its not soundwaves it has become electromagnetic disturbances. The conversion back to pressure waves is dependent on how well the original transduction that happened was achieved, it's an approximation at best. The electromagnetic signal loses energy and gains distortion as it passes through the system. The loudspeaker conpletes the story by taking the (now very approxinate) analogue and converting it into pressure waves that carry a slice of a resemblance to the pressure waves that addressed the microphone at the start. The accuracy is not there unless you aee hearing the performance in person. The speaker is good enough, Our brains do a kot of heavy lifting recreating from memory and experience what the performance should sound like. Speakers only need to be good enough and some do a better good enough than others.
what one considers to be good enough really depends on how far one chooses to chase the illusion of a past musical event. clearly a driver capable of more accuracy than another from the same signal is going to sound better .
As I replied to someone else:
True, BUT.... Good speakers will allow you to
get the best you can, from your source.
The source of the source is immaterial. 😁✌🖖
@@richardelliott8352 absolutely, but the speaker is the last in a long line of losses.
@@zapa1pnteven when they are doing a good job, they are still at a remove from what the source is producing. The equipment chain that does the least damage will give the most acceptable results.
OK, I get the chicken graphic and how it ties in with the word "plucking", but you missed a golden opportunity with the word "vibrate."
The only fly in the ointment with the "spend as much as possible on speakers" audio advice, is that non computer equalization is relatively costly. Only recently with wiim has it got affordable. Other than that, the advice is sound. The old adge of source first has thankfully gone by the wayside.
PEQ is coming through more products. I think the Chinese made products are pushing the envelope.
Helmholtz seems agitated today. The nap was insufficient.
His salmon was slightly overcooked today.
Treat the listener not the room . ok, do your best on the externals as in speakers , gear , room etc but before during and after that, refine the listener above all else .
everyone on this thread has experienced that on some days and with the same equipment and music , it just sounds better . that has 100% todo with the quality/refinement of the listeners mind , body and emotions .
some of us may remember as far back as the fifties and sixties when we were children and teens and how completely thrilled we were while listening to our favorite music on very very bad quality equipment .
Why did it sound so good? Because the listener was in a heightened state . this heightened sensitivity is increasingly ignored with age , hence the emphasis on speakers and gear.
Audiophiles are generally oldish men with money that have focused too long on the external world to bring satisfaction when all that time they could have tapped into unlimited levels of subjective refinement and sensitivity .
How does one regain and increase this internal sensitivity ? well let's just say there are as many ways to do that as there are speakers in the world.
many people do not understand that human hearing is a completely subjective process of the mind, which sells a lot of very expensive speaker cables.
Yep, that's why I do this in my video: th-cam.com/video/0VNU01shFTM/w-d-xo.html
Audio listener refinement comes through the
audio listener's experience.
If one never experiences better audio reproduction,
he will never find what he has been missing and
so, become a more refined listener. 😁✌🖖
@@richardelliott8352: You need to go back to your fish.
OMG , that's not even remotely what i was referring to . 😳
My tweeter are made out of metal, does that mean they can faithfully reproduce a cymbal 🤣
That’s the only thing they can reproduce, 😃
@@scientificaudiophile Good
The weakest link is always the listener. Thats why more is spent on marketing than R&D.
The best speakers I've found after 2 decades are ribbon tweeters (AMT, planar) instead of dome.
I have the GoldenEar BRX and I use 2 sealed subwoofers for full range.
source=Apple Music lossless
those are great speakers!
A really bad pair of speakers will make any chain of audio components sound worse.
A really good pair of speakers will make any chain of audio components sound better.
So yes, I completely agree. The speakers are the most critical component of any hi-fi system.
That and the speaker to room interface.
Amen
at least this time the video is perfect...
Based upon my extensive years of childhood experience as a mediocre piano player, Dynaudio (esp. Evoke 10 and Contour 20i from the current range), are far and away the masters of loudspeaker design. As they can make piano best sound like a piano, rather than sound like shattering glass such as all too many other brands.
Keep plucking, vibrate at different frequencies...that's WAF!
The Sony cccsscs5 speaker has a bronze super tweeter to play cymbals, tweeter made of lab grown vocal chords from Adele and Sting, goat hide drivers for producing authentic drums, and the midrange is a composite made from a little piece of every instrument so it can reproduce guitars, orchestras, everything. That is what composite means. I have a $50,000 transmitter tube amp, with a $50k turntable, silver wire speaker cables, and a bespoke streamer, serial number 1, driving my perfect Sony speakers. So ha! You are again wrong!
I learn something new every day!
If you were to upgrade those speakers, to something
real (not toys), for far less than you have already spent,
you would see how right he is. Yes, I know your post
was a great exaggeration, nevertheless.... 😁✌🖖
Actually its a chicken and egg question. Speakers depend on everything connected to it and vice versa.
Then add to this the biggest influence, your room acoustics. Now you can see the tip of the iceberg.
Last I checked, $$$$ don't make the sound better...just more expensive...For example, a pair of LRS+ Speakers with a great amp and pre-amp and a di-pole subwoofer heard at AXPONA sounded better to myself and friend (who is an accomplished musician) than those $4 million Horn Speakers at AXPONA...
Yes, knowing half the battle 😊
If you build up sufficient ear wax, that can become your new weakest link! If that fails, move your entire system into the toilet room and that room becomes your new weakest link.
A speaker cannot improve on the signal it's provided with, a quality source is more important!
true
Yep, if streaming use a lossless source like Apple Music.
Don't cripple your sound quality with compressed Spotify
True, BUT.... Good speakers will allow you to
get the best you can, from your source. 😁✌🖖
Your brain?
4th baby mama has a lock box 📦
Up pops a Barbie Doll will'n to shill 😮
Clarisys Audio R&D $10k 🔊
Industry will be on it's heals 😊
There’s one more weak link: the room. Maybe not quite as important as the speakers, but it’s way more important than the non-speaker components.
Before you upgrade your WiiM streamer or Aiyima amp, take a look at doing something about your bare walls.
I do have a treated room and agree. Not sure why so few have $25,000+ systems in an untreated room.
@@scientificaudiophile yeah, should have clarified, when I said “you” I was directing that statement at audiophiles in general. I would never presume that our dear leader the Scientific Audiophile would ever leave his room untreated.
@@scientificaudiophile: Even in an untreated room, the expensive
system will sound better than a POS. The room Will limit it, just like
your speakers will limit your system, but still....... 😁✌🖖
Pluck me. Good advise.
You pitch the video to people who know almost nothing
Helmholtz said I should go after the CheapAudioMan subscriber base.
So trashing everyone that Listens to The Cheapaudioman is you being your best. Your persona of an old crumudgeon ranting to us lesser folk while fondling your stuffed whatever, doesn't exactly exude credibility on any subject.
@@SpinnerPaddlefootMan, you just missed Everything.
No doubt, you think grounding your equipment is a bad thing.
Love the SA, but if you're doing a video on sounds weakest link, don't start by having all the audio coming out of my rear left speaker 😁👍
I thought something was wrong with my headset lol.
It always amazed me how a speaker could make all those very different sounds at different volumes as well as it does, even with multiple cones.
Some of the oldest and best advice in audio. And, some of the most unpopular for economic reasons :-) Thanks!
Many things could be the weakest link or your limitation. Your wife and neighbors who would like you to play your music quieter and less often are a limitation. Your room acoustics are a limitation. Your bank account could be a limitation. Tweeters often are not made of paper anymore. Which makes it even more amazing. How in the world can a copper tweeter sound like brass cymbals? Or how can an aluminum midrange sound like a steel guitar? Almost a miracle.
I once blew a paper tweeter and a replacement wasn't availabe, so I bought one vintage Infinity Emit tweeter. I think it works with a stretched piece of foil inside that vibrates & emits the sound. The right speaker still had its original paper cone An audiophile acquaintance for a short while would bring his dog over. When we listened to music, the dog would always sit itself down on the floor near the "left" speaker with the Infinity tweeter replacement. We wondered why and then realized that unlike the cone tweeter of the other speaker, the Infinity tweeter went all the way up to 32 khz. Dogs can hear frequencies way higher than humans. So we did an experiment; we put the Infinity tweeter speaker in the right channel speaker and the regular paper tweeter in the left speaker. The Dog still preferred sitting in front of the left speaker. Theory not validated. A puzzler. Maybe the acoustics on the left (south side) of the room was better. We thought of hiring a brick mason to pull the warm fireplace out of the wall and repositioning it on the north side of the room. But that would be too much time and money. The dog for some reason continued to prefer to sit near the left channel (south side) of the room, where the fireplace full of burning logs was. A real mystery to this day. Ironically after many years of great service the circa 1980s Emit tweeter caught on fire playing a Russian conductors version of The Nutcracker. Is a tweeter on fire a weak link or a limitation? It can be!
That Sony speaker you talked about is a speaker design Sony had way back in the 1980s. It was called the Sony SS-H 3500. What looks like a very small speaker with a midrange is actually your usual midrange/woofer combo design, with a tweeter (not a midrange driver) in the middle and a super tweeter on top.
My findings on the above were based on this Associated Equipment: .....Soundesign model 21VX6 combination turntable/ 8 track player/ receiver; the turntable sitting on top, of course.
Heathcliff SM 34B one way speakers. The grills don't come off, but with your fingers it feels like a driver and a port hole. Could be a two way, but I doubt it for that price.
Vintage MIT $5,000 Speaker cables (bought used).
And a Clarinette by Radio Shack Equalizer. The Heathcliff speakers are a division of Clarinette which was a division of Radio Shack, which was a division of Tandy Inc.© (and could still be). Just kidding of course. Great video!
Speaker diaphragms aim to reduce resonances and harmonics.
Instruments aim to use resonance and harmonics.
That's how material X can sound like instruments made from y.
Attach a voice coil to a brass cymbal and everything will sound like a brass cymbal lol
Dude, write a book.
First I might write a book on a chess match I had, through the mail with a guy from France many years ago. My comment from a comment section beneath a Chess video is setting all kind of records, with many thousands of views..Back in the 1970s, before the internet, before home computers, before cheap long distance phone calls, the best way to communicate to someone far away without spending a fortune, was to put a stamp on an envelope and mail a letter. The guy from France would mail me his chess move, then I would mail him my chess move etc. ad infinitum. Each move we made took about a month for the other side to receive it, and respond back with their move. It took over 17 years to complete one chess game, and who knows how many hundreds or thousands of dollars in intercontinental postage stamps. I thought I was nearing checkmate about 9 years into the match, but my opponent from France came up with an ingenious move, and the game went 17 years plus I think 8 months on top of that
@@sidesup8286 : OMG!!! Another draft.
The powered monitor systems with DSP are excellent values to get superior sound by matching the amplification to the different drivers... And if you spend $1800 a pair for those, you get serious HiFi...
if streaming use a lossless source like Apple Music.
Don't cripple your sound quality with compressed Spotify
Easy. Buy the most expensive coaxial cable and your Bish will sound like heaven's choir.
Very true!
By far the weakest link in any system is the room acoustics. Without extensive room acoustic treatment you are wasting your time and effort.
Agreed. Low cost speakers will sound better in a treated room than high cost in an untreated room.
. In whatever form they are purchased, choose the best drivers. Most of the cost in expensive speakers is elbow grease to shine lacquered, rare, hardwood veneers & polished aluminum trim rings. The drivers cost diddly-squat.
Acid Jazz. Funk & Brass 🔈🔉🔊
BTW,
There are product lines like James B Lansing's commercial home theatre speakers. Nothing fancy at all. They're built for performance only. Bang for the buck.
I agree , the drivers are like a motor in a car, the key to performance. Not so sure about the JBL home theatre suggestion. Although a favorite brand, at one time they had separate lines for audio systems and home theater, saying the requirements were different between the two activities. Which doesn't matter to me, I'm not buying two separate systems.
@@richardelliott8352 .
Lol, an Elliott talkin' drivers, motors & cars. Go CHASE Elliott!👍 I ran stock cars for a decade. My numbers were 94 & 11... just like Awesome Bill from Dawsomville. Lol, now back to hifi. It's a lot safer. Peace.
Acid Jazz, Funk & Brass 🔈🔉🔊
Yeah while the highend cabinets are really nice, you're paying for furniture making, not more performance.
Love the analogy, cymbal to cone
Hilariously informative (but like Helmholtz, I already know it all). 😁 Btw, at what frequency does Helmholtz resonate?
47 hZ
I disagree, it's about synergy, not about budget.
What I do agree about is that the speakers are still the component with the most distortion and deviation from ideal
Brilliant!
Hardly anyone talks about harmonics, and yet without them...where would we be?
We would be living under Woke Marxist rulers pretending that the Earth will self-destruct if you don't all switch to wind turbine energy and eating crickets within 25 years.... oh wait!
"Timbre" is the word my Dad used when he built valve/tube amp to describe tone differences in musical instruments.
You have to stop making these videos man rich guys will stop upgrading and wont be able to buy gear at a discount.
Yeah.
That's my opinion, as well.
You should have made this video three years ago.
Literally your clothes are the main factor. I mean who listens to music naked?
I watched this high and not high. You know which was more entertaining.
Yes… 50% of your budget should go to just speakers…..
Yes! The speakers........
ASR folks love listening to test tones lol
The Sony SSC-S5 speakers are awesome. Paid $125 for the pair and they sound great in my office system.
Especially with Yamaha amps. I am so surprised he poo poo'd them. I've been meaning to stream Bish from Bandcamp. Her organ may be way too much for the Sony. Metallica plays well. Bishs organ probably crushes Hetfields tone. Just don't let Metallica mix Bish. Actually, that would be a great collab - B/M....
Glad you like them.
Thank you very much for this post. But you should know as the Scientific Audiophile, the most important weakness of a hi-fi system is: thinking it's a hobby.
Absolutely!
Next time pls have a real cat in hands
Helmholtz is a real 🐱
I believe the weakest is the dude running the recording studio.
Telling the engineer " make it sound like "
Not only harmonics but the attack , decay and sustain.
Agreed
But, with good speakers, you will be able
to experience just how bad that recording is.
While someone, with bad speakers, thinks
it sounds fine. 😁✌🖖
There are so many weak links in the music reproduction it is impossible to say any one of them is the weakest. But in my 60 years of this insane hobby I have to say the weakest link is the listener. Just ask my wife.
Yep, that's why I do this in my video: th-cam.com/video/0VNU01shFTM/w-d-xo.html
Great explanation, and will help a lot of newbs. I’m curious if you ever visit audio shows. Would love to see you do something like a ‘five best speakers for under $2grand” or talk about the systems that impressed you the most. etc
Someday I’ll get back out to audio shows. I hate “best under” or any “best” because I’ve heard but a sliver of what is available. I will try to do more comparisons though. Thanks for the suggestions.
So true. This is why I prefer large full range electrostatics with a diaphragm lighter than the air it displaces. Not perfect, but a realism no cone/box speaker can match.
Most audiophiles try to avoid planars and electrostats. Maybe it's kind of a challenge or a game, trying to get detail and speed from a dynamic speaker that can really compete or come close to competing with electrostats. I do feel I have achieved that with dynamic speakers. Not that a side by side comparison wouldn't show a good electrostat being slightly mre detailed and speedy, but in our estimation that little extra in those ways is not so musically significant. Anything so subtle that only an electrostat would reveal, is not likely to be a musically significant detail. More of a trivial detail. Once you reach a certain detail level, there are more inportant things to worry about. Like instrumental body, which dynamic speakers excel at, dynamics, bass slam and maybe just a slight wood coloration, which a lot of audiophiles would have to admit that they like. Wood is a very musical sound, which is why many instruments are made of wood, or employ wood in their construction. We'lll take those things. over a slight bit more snap and detail.
Electrostats have too naked a sound for many people. Maybe if you had a whole housefull of perfect recordings, without audible imperfections. We don't need something to do a magnifying glass job on those flaws, just for a tiny bit more trivial detail.
@@sidesup8286 horses for courses, complicated symphonic music favors one kind of system, jazz , rock , folk, the simple stuff, benefits from more dynamics. ,
Here's a thought...instead of stressing (obsessing) over the price of your gear, try relaxing and enjoy the angelic sounds of music and the wonderful emotions they bring forth...I have a perfectly wonderful system that puts out the most beautiful and glorious music that I just sit here shaking my head in awe at the beauty I'm hearing...and nothing in my system cost my more than $300 and my speakers range from $150-$250 and I have no doubt I get more joy from my gear than you do from stressing about paying the most you can for a piece of gear...in case don't realize it you are striving for perfection that doesn't exist my friend...
Relax and enjoy? These are strange words to me. What do they mean?
@@scientificaudiophile It means hear the glorious joy no matter how much money you can afford to invest in gear...I'm 71 yrs of age and most of that time I spent reaching for better sounds from my gear...today it's different...even 'affordable' gear can bring one to tears of joy...🤯😎
How dare you accuse other reviewers of getting paid: shilling. You sound guilty to me!
I shill therefore I am.
Filming yourself from a distance. Keeping those choppers far away from focus. Good man 👍
Thanks 👍
My, aren't you an insulting ass. 👆
@@scientificaudiophile: You are far too kind, to a complete ass. 😁✌🖖