Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

On a sort of acoustic witchcraft level I have my desktop speakers close to the edge of my screen tweeters pointing over my shoulder. This kind of extends the edge of the speaker across the screen which acts as a kind of waveguide extension to the speaker face.

I found it helped with imaging. For the level of toe in you really need to check the manufacturers spec. Some tweeters will want to be pointing over your shoulders.

Interesting, makes sense. Amazingly.
@Airhead so did your explanation. Thanks. Interesting tips on the placement of the desktop speakers too. Will have a play around. Currently the sound field is almost like having closed back headphones. Not much space or soundstage present.

Where can I get some cheap but not rubbish looking speaker stands?

Are those little smsl amps any good or would I be better off buying a powered pair for listening on my desk while wfh?

The "UNDOK" app is actually not so bad and by and large, the set up works.

Ruark haven't responded to my feedback email.

I'm a fan of the smsl amps. I have 3.

Which one or are they all about the same?

SA36 is 36 Watts
SA50 is 50 watts

The newly upgrade SMSL Q5 Pro is based on the famous Q5 Amplifier, it combines a top of the line DAC with a 45watt per channel stereo amplifier. A sampling rate of 24bit/192 kHz, a multitude of inputs, and insulated speaker binding posts make the Q5 a quality piece of audiophile equipment. Features: SMSL Q5 PRO pure digital amplifier adapt pure digital amplification technology, including audio mode optical fiber, coaxial, computer USB, analog input. Suitable for computer,LCD TV,top box,digital box,blue ray and HD-DVD equipment. There must be a one mode from various input mode to meet your demand.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/363059962342

This listing is much cheaper, but are these worth faking?

I'm looking for some next level headphones. I'd like to be able to switch between the monitors and headphones without too much difference in tone. Not sure it's really possible. I've never heard really accurate headphones.

Eventually building new boxes for my Tannoys - considering putting them on the floor / low plinths and angling the baffles so that the tweeters point at ear level, Klipsch style. This would be instead of making them with vertical baffles and designing some ~200mm stands.

Mainly for aesthetics, to reduce their height in the room. Also the non-parallel baffle and back of cabinet would probably help reduce internal reflections a wee bit. Thoughts? Listing position is pretty set for now so I’m happy to commit to an angle, can always shim them in future anyway.

tl:dr - tweeters level with ears firing parallel to floor or below ear level firing up at ears?

A lot of people report the soundstage sounding like it’s round their knees with the low plinths, they definitely look cool though. I’ve never used mine like that, mine are on a platform with the top horn just below my earholes.

They'd still be quite tall anyway. Having actually modelled it, even on the 200mm stands they need 2.5º. Going down to 100mm stands / plinths I need 5º. Trapezoid looks wack. Quite like square box just tilted back, but it means we can't put anything on top of them. Currently they're plant stands x speakers. Maybe tilted front & back with horizontal / parallel top and bottom.

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Design development so far... measure 400 times, cut once.

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Back to tbe car audio. I got a pioneer mvhs420bt and focal access 165. For 200 quid it's good. Obviously a lot of sound deadening in doors and ply baffles helps. Already thinking I need amplification beyond just the hu! Ha

My home-made stands have a bit of tilt built in as I had a pair of stands for smaller speakers that also have a tilt and I liked that. I have a few half baked theories about why which I won't share for fear of embarrassing myself :)

I still manage to use the tops of the speakers for some objects but a plant pot might be a bit too much.

PMC are doing the trapezoid boxes at the moment. I don't like the look so much. I like the last one on your list but I don't know anything about the inside of the boxes and what implications that shape has.

I thought that parallel lines/panels when it comes to box design was bad due to something like standing waves or something... this is 15yo information retrieved from the corners of my memory. So i like the 3rd one :-)

Like you I think the last option (second image) is best. Kind of reduces the visual and physical intrusion into the room. Parallel opposite sides aren't ideal, but I think acute / obtuse angles are better than 90º. Anything is better than a rectangular box basically!

Yup, non-parallel top and bottom are best, but look a bit shit imo.

Ok so short review of the Kef LS50s. For context I also own a pair of R300s, I know the Kef house sound and so have a good point of reference to compare.

Physically these are not bookshelf speakers. They need to be mounted on decent (heavy) stands and placed carefully. The flexible rear firing port works best when the speaker is reasonably close to a wall. My room is 4m x 7m with lots of reflection.

The good:
Extremely precise, these are more detailed than anything else I’ve heard, even in the price bracket above. Voicing and soundstage are equally impressive. Most impressively they’re fast, there’s none of that hang you get with cheaper drivers which can muddy the sound of complex, dynamic tracks.

The so-so
If anything they’re slightly too clinical. I think this is because of their main drawback which is that they lack any meaningful delivery in the mid and upper bass range. Instead there’s a slight boom in the lower bass range which doesn’t feel all that controlled. I guess this is the design of the port; for most people this won’t be an issue but coming from the additional 6.5” driver in the R300s I notice it considerably.

Summary
Superb speakers and an absolute steal at £500 s/h. Would probably need to spend >£2k used to step up in quality and my ears aren’t good enough to justify that. I’ll definitely keep them for a small / medium room set up. Need to be paired with a good musical sub and port bungs to round off the drop off below 200Hz. Otherwise £600 gets you a pair of used R300s which IMO are far better all rounders, especially for a bigger room. Don’t bother with either unless you’re spending good money on decent stands and you’ve got an amp that’s capable of keeping up. For me the biggest learning here was how much benefit a heavy, solid stand brings to a standmount speaker.

JL Audio amps are great value. Get a 3 channel (or bridgeable 4 channel) so you can add a sub later. Cars need loads of DSP / EQ but it’s worth taking the time to do so. When I fitted my car van stereo I was really disappointed until I dialled it in properly.

My dream as a young adult was to own a JL Audio amp. And rockford fostgate. Those were the premium brands in SA.

Help oh gurus. I have a Macbook pro which I want to wifi music through to a 1970s Cambridge audio amp. Amp has RCA inputs. What is the sensible, simple solution. I'm a little confused but hoping there is a little gizmo that does it.

What is the sensible, simple solution

The simplest wireless solution is going to be Bluetooth rather than WiFi.

Premium branded product: https://www.logitech.com/en-gb/product/bluetooth-audio-adapter?crid=1548

Plenty of Chinese knock-offs and alternatives on the usual retail platforms if you want to spend less than £30

There are DLNA WiFi client devices with phono outputs, but you have to make your laptop into a media server, which seems like more trouble than it's worth. If you actually wanted high quality audio, you'd connect with a USB wire to a decent DAC to provide the analogue input to your amplifier.

Grateful as ever @gbj_tester I ordered the logitech.

Cheera will keep that in mind