Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

I've sprung for the VM95e. I've had AT before and liked the brightness. Was never enamoured with the Bias 2 in any case

Made the mistake of joining the UK audiophile FB group. absolute madness in there.

"It was like a veil was lifted in front of my speakers....even my OH,who isn't into hifi agreed"

"Vinyl sounds better than digital"

"Except for the rough cut of Barbara Ann, the Beach Boys sucked"

"My £1000 power cable to my CD player really brings out the highs. "

"Unless you have a dedicated mains spur running directly from the grid you're wasting your time...."

"The chang sung golden emperor XC312985/2 valves sound better than the Tepco General Electric 8487563 Valves"

In general though I'm truly surprised by the number of people fully invested in thousands of dollars of cables between every piece.

3...2...1 til dammit joins this thread.

To each their own I guess, but yeah, totally crazy.. I think I said upthread, but the shop I got my B&W's from sells Wilson stuff that costs upwards of $100k. He tried to get me to buy wire that cost more than half the price of my speakers and did cost more than my humble Onkyo A-9150 (which at $350 is a total bargain). Insanity. Imagine spending the same on interconnects and power cables. And for what? Mad mad mad.

@rogan - which amp are you using with your LS50s?

Sony ta av480. Sure it's not audiophile but it packs more than enough punch

The worst of all are boutique digital cables. At least with the analog stuff there is a plausible argument (even if it is actually bollocks).

But expensive digital cables actually give you 1's and 0's.

The cheap ones give you 0.99999999999's and 0.00000000001's.

I'm as guilty of it as anyone else,

My current system took a couple of years to piece together, I had the power amp stashed under my bed for a year until I could afford the pre-amp to go with it,
I'd read for years about it's legendary status and I'd wanted one from seeing them at hifi shows as a kid, but above all else I wanted one because of how it looks, to my eyes it is one of the most beautiful aesthetic objects I've ever seen,
When I finally got it up and running I was a bit underwhelmed, so asked around the brand forum for advice, the majority was to swap out the expensive speaker cable and use the companies own cheaper cable,

Sure enough it was "as if a veil had been lifted in front of the music" everything came into focus and it really does sound magnificent,

But then again, I spent £250 on a glass optical cable for my streamer and can't tell the difference between the £20 I had before it.

Enjoy what you have, don't get too caught up listening to the system and trying to analyse it.

use the companies own cheaper cable,

ANd that's what I'm sure some people would call 'component synergy'. Ha.

It’s the sort of thing in this picture that is the silliest - thousands previously spent on large equipment for a tiny, acoustically sub-optimal room and just dropped another £500+ on a power supply, with zero consideration given to treatment that would actually make a quantifiable difference.

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I'm sure it took much careful calibration to position the Saturn V rocket just right.

You could say the same thing about people spending thousands on bikes, when none of that make a 'quantifiable difference'.
I'd rather rip him for his love of Thunderbirds and obvious union jack rug.

It is rather in the vein of using an expensive lightweight aero bike to only ever play/ride Zwift on a phone... Upgrading the wheels might change how you feel about the machine but an actual (and significantly cheaper) improvement to your experience would be to use a bigger screen.

Never mind that in the proper environment (ie outside) weight and aerodynamics are quantifiable and the result (time over distance) is measurable and comparable.

Perhaps, but the difference in speed with a fancy aero bike is small compared with a cheap bike and spending the balance on structured training, coaching, and optimal nutrition.

Who wants egg crates and mattresses glues to the wall in a living room?

Acoustically active tapestries are where it's at.

#bayeuxandwilkins

Agreed - a scientifically justified program of improvement over just splashing cash, is less silly.

If you’ve already ruined the aesthetics with an enormous stereo dominating proceedings, what’s the problem?