Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

And they be tiny tiny lil guys and I don't think Velocio wants nearfield

https://buchardtaudio.com/collections/all

these are meant to be good, like the home demo/send them back if you dont like them sales method.

These are a relative bargain.. The thread craftsman could surely work around them.

https://www.hifiwigwam.com/forum/topic/155885-fs-tannoy-prestige-sterling-se-loudspeakers/

Linn 109 speakers?

https://www.linn.co.uk/uk/speakers/majik-109

Width 192 mm
Height 327 mm
Depth 256 mm

Front ported, any finish you like.

@Fatberg @cornelius_blackfoot
Glad I didn't get rid of my cds as got lots of not for resale/promos. My seven year old daughter now loves to go through the whole process of putting one on and has discovered some great music digging through the collection, although my partner did go mad at me for not vetting them a bit and hearing dead prez let's get free blasting from her room.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do with them once ripped. I’ll probably keep the albums I like and sell all the tat and promos. Not that I’ll get much for them..

This, it’s not just the beefy stands that are going to compromise the sound but the shelving and the closeness to the wall and everything else in the vicinity.
but hey this forum was started for people riding fixed track bikes on the street which is an idiotic pursuit.

i’m presuming you are not even facing them and they will also at the wrong height?

I shall indeed be placing them on the top shelf, well... one on the top shelf, and the other halfway down) and pointed at the side walls to reflect the sound back in as I read on a forum that this was best... and it's OK to have rear ports as the books will soak it up.

Alternatively I understand that to get the best noise possible I need to buy special cables at only £500 p/m.

More seriously... there is nothing inherent in speakers on bookshelves that will detract from the sound so long as there's no rear ports, the tweeters are mostly ear level, they're spaced reasonably wide apart, and they're not fully packed in by the books.

The soundstaging may suffer a bit, but I don't have a single armchair in which I listen to music... I listen to music everywhere in the room, I listen to music when playing the PS5, or when reading. I even listen to music when the TV is on. I listen to music sometimes just to listen to music, relaxing stretched out on a sofa (oh no! changing the height of my ears!!). I'm listening to music right now as I'm working. I listen to music perhaps 8-10 hours of every day.

It's because I listen to music so much that I think of everything that I own that the thing I won't regret spending money on are nice speakers (and whatever sends music to them).

It's highly pragmatic though, I move around, I move from room to room (oh no! different unmatched speakers in different spaces!!), I shift furniture constantly, and there will be cats to knock things over as they jump on them. I just enjoy music constantly, always in love with music. In theory it all needs to be perfect, in practise it just needs to be good enough. I'll up the quality of the speakers to offset the positioning on shelves.

There is nothing for me that makes my heart sing or emotions come alive like music does.

So yeah... speakers on a bookshelf. It could be the end of the world, or it could just mean that my heart sings in new ways in another space in the house - I'm betting on the latter.

Any rare jungle in there? 🤔😁

The shelf is likely to produce a strong resonant frequency in the audio range, with minimal damping from the brackets/support. Loading it up with books will help but I would try to isolate speakers from the wood if possible. Speaker quality can’t compensate for physical effects!
Of course it will be basically fine for listening whatever you do but if you’re spending big money there are gains to be had for minimal effort.

Brick wall behind, shelves that float on the metal side supports, no sides to the shelves, and isoacoustic stands / pucks under them. It's going to be fine.

Surrounding with books is fine, good even as you're effectively extending the baffle, but as DH says, try and get them on their own brackets directly fixed to the wall behind, otherwise you'll be vibrating everything on the shelves.

Not that I can see. Most of the jungle stuff I had was vinyl, and I gave that away years ago.
Never had a record player, never needed the vinyl..

“Alternatively I understand that to get the best noise possible I need to buy special cables at only £500 p/m.”

a moot point unless you have a synergistic research mains fuse fitted....

Sounds like you just need some Sonoses (Sonosii?) scattered around.

And mono blocks.. always mono blocks.. with separate power supplies.

I dunno man, all the Sonos stuff I've heard sounds terrible... In the way that it plays the music but conveys nothing of its soul. Very dynamically flat.

Dali Spektor 2?

Every now and then I half look for cheapish bookshelf speakers that can go against the wall.

Mainly for my shed or some future hypothetical, but achievable space.

Also have the Wharfedale d310 saved. They're bottom ported(?) I think. Idk if that means they must sit on something? - wall mounted is one of my requirements.

Do they need to be new, Dave? The tannoy system series fit the bill. I've had the 800s and the 1000 and they were very good

Yeah. Utter trash, them.

This is fair enough. Sounds like you know exactly what you want - I still just worry about resonance being on shelving, regardless of books. I am much the same, but I guess I at least still have a sitting position that is in the sweet spot. Do I always sit in it? No, but I at least can if I want to. I just remember the absolutely HUGE difference in sound when placed on a piece of furniture (with isolation pads) versus dedicated stands. It also meant frequencies didn't travel into the floor which they did previously. That was mostly important due to living in an apartment though.

I just like the idea of the endpoint of Velocio's search for perfection being buying a load of Sonos.

sonos + one audiophile room = optimal solution imo. (optimal solution for most folks is just a bunch of sonos probably)

The end of my quest may well be just another pair of PSI Audio monitors hooked up to a DAC and a ChromeCast Audio.

I start by thinking what I would like to achieve, and then work through what the market has to offer. I've not really found what I want (though I'm yet to audition those Tannoy Eatons), but what I love most are on my desk sounding superlative, lively and revealing.

My default here is just to buy what I know... but I will exhaustively search first in case I discover something that is better for what I want.

I was lucky (if you like HiFi) as my first job was for Sevenoaks HiFi and then later a super high-end shop selling all sorts of expensive toys from Krell amps to the B&W speakers that adorn many a mastering studio. I even got to do some product training at Mission and Meridian. The experience of going inside an anechoic chamber is still with me 28 years later.

Eight years after the Mission Cyrus visit, I went to university to study Music Technology and converted from audiophile to sound engineer. The two have vastly different approaches but the latter is less rife with snake oil, but both can lead you down a rabbit hole. The Mission training got me interested in acoustics as well as speaker design and placement, which led to the idea of studying it in more detail.

With all the experience of working with HiFi, it is easy for me to scour eBay and Reverb for second-hand separates and speakers, yet I don’t as I see no value in it. There is one glaring flaw with the audiophile world that keeps me away, acoustics. In the pro-audio world, far-field listening (monitoring) is the preserve of a room that has been built from the ground up (control room) with soffit mounted speakers in a room designed to steer reflected sound away from the main listening area. And as the rooms are usually bigger than a typical domestic space, RT60 is factored into the equation too. The other pro-audio environment is the mastering suite, which may not be built from the ground up but is selected based on the ratio of its dimensions and then treated after determining the optimum listening position within the room.

Then we have the semi-pro environment, which is more common nowadays as more engineers work from home. In these environments, near-field monitors are usually chosen due to room size and its non-acoustic specific shape. Usually some treatment is applied, although not always. If a bigger domestic room is chosen – and budget allows – mid-field monitors are chosen and coupled with a decent amount of acoustic treatment.

What has this got to do with HiFi and this thread? Listening experience; however, we should divide this into two categories. Listening to music is the activity, and enjoying music in the background while doing other activities. I do both almost every day. The way the vast majority of people approach HiFi is only really useful for the latter. Far-field listening in an untreated domestic space or moving around with music in the background lacks an enormous amount of detail. That is not a problem as you don’t need the fully immersive experience to enjoy music while doing other things. What I take issue with is the value proposition of buying expensive HiFi for this, it’s incredibly wasteful. And it makes sense that Velocio may end up settling for a fairly humble system.

What about those who want to have the full audiophile experience? To remove the veil and hear what the engineer has really done. To close one’s eyes and fully immerse oneself in the music and only the music for a moment. It can be an incredible experience, but to achieve it you need to step into the pro-audio mindset for a moment. And before you do that, consider the possibility that you can have two systems, so you can have the best of both worlds. Although, depending on your environment, you may only need one. And sadly, for some you may not wish to break from the audiophile status quo of positioning – you may not be able to. But once you have heard it, you cannot unhear it.

25kg limit on a shelf, speaker and books is going to be above that?
i was going to buy String but the shelves i looked at in a shop display had started to sag so went tomado in the end. you could always get some brackets made so they are attached to the wall and float above the shelf if that starts to happen.