The On-Topic, OFF-TOPIC Thread

I don’t think they’re listening much at all …

I mean, why bother … when you can just imagine what you want to be there and have it magically manifest itself?

I’m not even an audio-objectivist, even if I do value measurements.

But when others tell me the differences are “night and day”, and yet I can’t hear any difference at all, even sighted, I will look at the measurements. And if I find no differences there either, then I am inclined to think that, well, there’s not actually a difference.

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For those that are determined to try and engage me on things privately, that should be in the public threads …

No, I do not hate Topping.

I DO have a visceral, negative, response to the name.

Whomever does their visual design and UX desperately needs to stop using 4 fonts on the their front panels, and learn how HMI is best affected. Focus groups are a thing; IF you care.

Then … I’m not particularly interested in paying US prices for Chinese products.

And they’re at entirely the opposite end of the market in which I care about.

Beyond that, they’re perfectly competent, if entirely un-interesting to me, things.

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There’s no excuse for having a gerund as a name. Just go with the bloody noun. Imagine if Schiit were Schiiting? (Then again, in this case the noun doesn’t work, either).

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Some iPhone pics of my office as set up now:

This is just to see if I like having music in my office Rectilinear XI speakers I had around, and the above-referenced Onkyo integrated that was also laying around. The Sansui is at repair/refurb.

Will comment on the Zen in the appropriate section.

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Why oh why did you have to mention Border Patrol (here and here)? So sad. This company is close enough for me to “drop in”…and they have some pretty tube amps. I have no idea how they sound, nor are any prices shown on their website. Their speakers are $6.6K to $20K.



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That came together nicely.

Thank you, but those speakers are so 1988 like avocado, harvest gold, or coppertone appliances are 1966.

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On music libraries … or at least the storage for same …

Late last year, I changed my local storage solution and moved everything on to the, then-new, Synology DS1821+ units. This was prompted by the macOS “Big Sur” update totally breaking access to the simple DAS Drobo units I was using for my music library.

I used them because they were really the only good DAS option, and that had implications for cloud-backup of my library.

And its quite a large library …

50TB at present (all legal) … and, yes, now probably larger than I can listen to once-through in the remaining time I have on this rock …

Anyway, I got around the cloud backup issues, moved everything to a pair of DS1821+ units (one of which is just a time-delayed backup of the other), and off we went. No issues. Much more flexible. NAS vs. DAS, but not really a big issues anymore.

I moved.

A few days after setting everything back up in the new place I got a “Volume Crashed” error on one of the Synology units. A reboot and a “repair” later, and it was fine again, for a couple of months.

Next power-down that volume kept crashing. It’d repair, but crash again within the hour. Drives were fine (I moved them to the 2nd unit and they had no issues there, something you can’t do easily with other systems).

A quick call to Synology (whose service group is, ironically, about 15 minutes from where I used to live in Seattle), and it was apparent that the 4 right-most slots of my unit were dying. A few minutes later I had an advance RMA setup.

New unit arrived a few days later … DOA. No biggie, this happens with service units. Another quick call and I had a brand-new (not repair-stock) unit on its way. Another couple of days for that to arrive (Synology covered expedited shipping), and I was back in business.

Moving the volumes (and extra ram and twin SSD caches) to the new unit took about 5 minutes on the hardware side, and about 10 on the software (just updating the new DS1821+ to the latest version of DSM) … incredibly simple, no hassle, no loss of data …

This is probably the simplest recovery I’ve ever gone through (personally or from a global IT perspective). And easily the best hardware support I’ve experienced; absolutely on par with the PAID (and expensive) 2-hour support I’ve had for enterprise IT stuff.

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Magnepan .7 on production hold :sob:

Well about 2 weeks after pulling the trigger on an order, I get email from Overture that Magnepan is having supply chain issues and have for now ceased production on the .7. So I’m faced with some choices. Maybe I can fit a 1.7i in the same space…

However it takes a bigger space in my wallet.
So do the wall mounted Martin Logans, plus they don’t go below 60hz in the specs, so I guess that means some sort of sub is required. Not a good formula for something that you want to have sounding good at low volumes. I’d bet that the Maggie bass panel would work well with them, although they seem to use a 6 inch woofer for what bass they do produce.

The Overture guy suggested a visit.

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Replying to myself again. But this time on purpose. 90 minute drive (with spouse in tow) to Wilmington DE to the Overture store. Wife was shocked, shocked at the size of the Magnepan 3.7i and it’s ease of access to cat claws. That choice for home speakers has been nixed.

Spent the most time listening for something in my office. They had a pair of Maggie LRS to listen to, so I did.

They sounded a bit thin - not surprising for a $695 loss leader. Added the smaller than I had expected bass panel and it wasn’t too bad.
image

The .7 will be in production again, and I think I will just wait a while to see what it the wait is like. Listened to a couple of bookshelf speakers that did not sound bad and looked much more modern than the Rectilinear XI. Some Paradigm - I think the Founder’s series, about $2K per pair, And some B&W at a bit more.

There was a pair of Magnepan 1.7,s but they are just too tall for my office. That was disappointing.

Highlight of the day was thinking about something for the home. Both Barbara and I thoroughly enjoyed the traditional looking Harbeth Super HL5 Plus XD. The finish was a beautiful rosewood. This may be on the short list when we fix up the house a bit.

There were headphones, but I have what I want in Grado, and wasn’t going to spend time with the Focals.
We were so impressed with the Harbeth, that if I can’t get the Maggies in a reasonable time, I just might stretch to their smallest speaker for my office choice. It’s a big shoebox size, but hits all the right aspirational notes, $3.2K in rosewood.

It’s funny how that price level freaks me out in headphones, but not [so much] with speakers.

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Paging @Roark

Harbeth sighting!

They may be a bit futuristic looking, but the kef ls50s are a renowned bargain for a reason. Also come in colors with matching stands for bonus good looks.

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Only @Roark? I think you’d have to add @Pharmaboy @JTS @cspersel @Lars @Richard @Wisawa and @JonL to the Harbeth fans. I particular since @cspersel mentioned them here as sounding good at low volume.

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Yes indeed - they do what they do so very well when matched with the right gear!!

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Yes I am quite the Harbeth fan, especially matched up with Naim XS or Classic Series amps. I am a sucker for British HiFi, and sure for the price there are other options such as ProAc or PMC. The Harbeth speaks to me, and when I have the room set up properly it will be worth an investment.

Good luck with your speaker selection.

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They’re beauties. I had the standards for years, then the C7ES3s. In the end, I went back to the P3ESR XDs (small room, low ceiling-city-style basement). I’ve had them in for about a year and they continue to delight. While you don’t really need to, you can add a small REL sub for extension and staging if you’re craving a bit more low end - they are easy to integrate as the roll-off on the P3s is gentle and pretty linear.

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I visited an audio store with bookshelf speakers on display to compare the demo models to my recent impulse buy (ELAC Debut 2.0 B62). I’m deciding whether to pursue an upgrade sooner or later or not at all.

Long story short, mine hold their own very well. With the Bifrost 2 feeding a solid music amp, I put my speaker system performance in the HD-6XX technical ballpark. This is with an imperfect triangle in a tough room too. The ELAC’s treble is a bit rolled-off and they sound plasticy like a Sennheiser. They stage widely and well, and are respectable and competitive all around. Of course they need a subwoofer for the lowest octaves. This level of performance cost me $160 for the speakers plus isolation pads to eliminate resonances, and I replaced some old speaker cables too. Their average street price is closer to $250. The Bifrost 2 is worth more than the rest of the setup put together.

There’s a lot of value in mass market speakers today.

I demoed bookshelf speakers ranging from around $100 to $1,000 per pair, and would have listened to higher end stuff if they had it on display. But they didn’t. I liked the most expensive models (Focal and B&W), and learned that I don’t much like SVS, Revel, and mass-market Klipsch speakers. They were: boomy, boomy, and had a scratchy, screwed up mid-high range respectively. A Focal bookshelf and tower “approximated” the Clear’s performance and were definitely a step up from the ELAC. A high-end Focal tower “exceeded” them all, but I heard more detail and nuance with the Utopia.

Next speaker step for me: subwoofer – to be or not to be? A good one will surely cost more than the speakers and may cost more than a BF2. Still, I doubt it would be worthwhile to swap the ELACs for anything less than speakers in the $1,000 to $2,000 class. My DAC and amp swaps very strongly affected my overall performance.

Yes Maggies are decent with the right amount power. And yes they make wonderful cat climbs and scratching post. :grinning:

I do enjoy KEF and still have two pair. 201/2’s and K140 both are supported by a sub.

Harbeth you just can’t go wrong. I would love to own a pair of the 40.2, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon LOL

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Hi everyone

I have a DDJ-SX2 and was wondering if i can use it in any way to like get better sound quality or something, maybe by buying it an external device or something.

I’m actually new in this hifi world, just get the idea and wanna see if there’s something i can do with it.

I hope i’m posting in the right place since i’m also new to the forum.

For those that don’t visit IEM threads, don’t miss the Anterview…

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Asking here rather than add to the posts that have nothing to do with the DCA Stealth.

Are there any good Samaritans (@resolve, @antdroid, @Precogvision & other usual suspects) who would be willing to start an audio glossary on this site?

Maybe a short description of a term like ‘macrodynamics’, ‘microdynamics’ or ‘slam’, along with a song or two that will give us an example, e.g. listen to the bass line starting at 2:33.

It could be built up over time.

I’m way too ignorant to come up with descriptions, but could offer up my time as a guinea pig/beta tester to tell you if I understand the description.

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