Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

Unfortunately I'm too old to have any friends at uni but too young to have kids there!

turntable finally arrived today - the shop offered me a higher spec model at a significantly reduced price due to the wait/inconvenience so ended up with the planar 6 instead of 3. giving it its first spin round the block now with gene clark's "no other". bliss

Setup hifi in my new place, spent an hour trying to figure out why the fuck it sounded so shit before realising because we have no wifi/network here yet I was just using spotify free over usb for testing from my phone, and that maxes out at very low streaming quality.

Does anyone have any experience with any of the LS3/5 variants?

Particularly the Falcon Audio's or the Graham Audio Chartwell?

Or even LS3/5 inspired speakers from Harbeth or Spendor?

My LS7Ts are supposed to be in the same ‘English sound’ area as the LS3/5s but nothing like as expensive. They image wonderfully, that’s the strong suit, also voices and acoustic instruments sound eerily realistic. What they don’t have is much drive, presence or punch, there’s something frustratingly recessed about them overall. They do start sounding fun at about 90dB but below that they’re just a bit polite.

They all look reassuringly expensive :)

I've never listened to them, probably because I got into the transmission line style of PMC and they were from the previous era.

They seem likely to perform well if they are matched in size to the room and positioned well. I like neutral presentation, from everything I've heard about this design that's what it is all about.

People here in Los Angeles and around the U.S. seem to have huge levels of upgrade-itis.

I'm basically looking at sub $2k stuff (thank you U.S. stimulus check) and have found all of the above for sub $2k in 9/10 condition or even brand new.

Turns out I'm going to listen to the LS3/5 from Graham Audio later today, some ProAC Tablette's, as well as some Focal 806/826's and also some Fyne Audio stuff. Price varies from $900-2000 but I've finally been given the go ahead to get something bigger and this'll be a keep for a very long time purchase.

My next step would be active ATC's and I'm not sure I'll ever need to do it. I might build a little amp for my new kitchen Ropieee which should arrive tomorrow. I have 4 little combinations I'm trying to try and find a combination I like.

I tend to keep my gear a longtime, there's always some other need comes up and you have a little amp and speakers to do the job in a cupboard somewhere!

I only really have need for one HiFi so will be selling my B&Ws and replace them with whatever I buy.

Didn't end up listening to any of the above in the end. Had no idea how tiny LS3/5a is. I demoed some Totem Sky Towers though, along with some other stuff, and wowowweewa. I think the Totems are the ones. They're absolutely sublime. S u b l i m e.

Pretty sure this has been covered multiple times, but:

I want a cheap device (with digital and analogue line level outputs) that will let me listen to Spotify using spotify connect - and one that will support "HiFi" / lossless when its available...

Do you have a iPhone, iPad or Mac? Stream to an Airport Express (A1392 version) via Airplay, has a combined optical/analogue out. £40 at Cex https://uk.webuy.com/product-detail?id=snetappapexa1392&categoryName=wireless-routers&superCatName=computing&title=apple-airport-n-express-base-%28a1392%29

Edit to the above. Found a really good deal on returnable LS50 Meta's. Gonna give these a whirl before pulling the trigger on the Totem's. The $800 difference is substantial.

Interested in how you get on, the LS50 metas are on my radar for a new vinyl system.

The LS50's have certainly been dominating that space for a while.

Must be a bit frustrating if you buy a pair and they come with an incremental improvement that you just can't resist a couple of years later.

Built and installed my kitchen ropieee yesterday. I've made myself wait for it but I shouldn't have. I realise they add up in price if you want a lot of endpoints but it's a great way of doing it.

I really liked the ls50s from memory when I demoed them. A lot. But powering them was always a concern. Apparently the metas are far less picky and have ironed out most of the issues that people had with them.

The totems were lovely but, from a value perspective, I am questioning a huge vertically integrated company like kef versus a very small company like totem. You're definitely paying extra for made in Canada, smaller economies of scale etc.

@Airhead I think this is the first major update to the passive ls50 in 8 years. I know there have been limited editions but they've all fundamentally been the same I believe....?

love my ls50s, would love some blue metas

Time flies when you get old! I'm in that place where I can afford speakers for life but it's not such a great value proposition as it was 30 years ago :)

I admit to not following the development carefully. I guess the wireless came along after the active and were then updated so it seemed to the casual observer that this model was getting regular refreshes.

Anyone using Roon only for a single endpoint? Trying to figure out if it's worth the expense purely for it's UI because that's all I really feel like I'm gaining currently. Currently using it with a Chromecast > TV > TOSLINK to integrated amp and it works nicely.

One thing that is already surprising is not being able to sort Tidal playlists by date created but you can in Tidal. Very annoying. That alone could be a deal breaker... I have over 1000 playlists and I tend to listen to the most recent ones most regularly.

Probably considered quite old fashioned but I'm going to be running some wires for projector and surround sound as part of a renovation. Can anyone recommend be a nice but not too pricey speaker cable and/or euro-module face plates?

Time flies when you get old! I'm in that place where I can afford speakers for life but it's not such a great value proposition as it was 30 years ago :)

Perhaps a timeshare system for aging audiophiles could be in order?

Seems like the people who are happiest with it end up with an NUC or nucleus running the core and have at least a few endpoints. A portable battery powered dac for headphones, main system and bedroom/kitchen could possibly be the most popular combination based on what I've seen on the forum.

I have 8 permanent endpoints at the moment. It took me a while to figure out if I liked Roon and what kind of endpoints I wanted to use. I really like the Ropieee endpoints, so combinations especially hardwired to the network.

I think that's called inheritance!

I've already given up on it. Maybe prematurely. Maybe not. No sorting playlists by date is a huge dealbreaker for me. I just don't understand how they have such terrible playlist sort criteria. By song count? By length? Who cares about those!?

Also, it couldn't find my Chromecast when Tidal itself could which was irritating. It also did something weird where it would say 'This song is not available in Tidal.'

E.g. it would play the first track of an album, skip track two and three, but play four and the above error would appear.

I'd go to Tidal and the whole album is there and listenable... Was more frustrating than enjoyable.

I used this stuff https://www.studiospares.com/europa-speaker-cable-225mm-per-m_548320.htm and the 1.5mm version.

Seems like good quality for the price but it's not the prettiest or the smallest so I'd only use it if you can hide it away.

Thanks, look like it'll do the job. The job will be vastly easier if it's done right first time, so something verified is reassuring/

I honestly think you're getting a lot of value for money with these KEF's. They're insanely well made, hold their resale value if you want to sell them and they're doing some great things for albums I have listened to a hundred times (through pretty decent speakers or good headphones).

I wanted speakers that would disappear, that is, if I close my eyes I can't tell where the speakers are located and they're nailing it. With some older recordings from The Beatles, it's kind of obvious just because of how they were recorded (stereo was in it's infancy etc), but with more modern recordings there's just a wall of sound and the sound stage is incredibly wide with spectacular detail retrieval.

Carole King's Tapestry sounds incredible. I feel like I'm in the recording studio. I've only had a couple of hours with them so far, so I'm not going to gush too much. But yeah. So far I have zero regrets.