What was it like ?

[mlsstl]

This is quite the thread. Snob lists about who knew who when; where baseball players might live; endless discussions about cars (with nary a word about the stereo systems in them); some bashing of elected politicians; 401k insults (can't say I've seen those before); allegations of bullying and carpetbaggery; repeated complaints from some that certain comments have nothing to do with audio when the complainer himself has repeatedly strayed far from the subject and so on. Why even JFK and Abraham Lincoln have been highlighted.

Wonder how long it'll be before Dr. Phil and Britany Spears gets discussed in depth...

[markw]

I will no longer read are respond to your post. I don't know who you are nor do I care.
Again the issue is audio , not me.

I will not make the same promise, as if yours are to be taken seriously. Didn't you say you were through with this site a week or so ago?

Don't give me any reason to respond and I won't. As I've said many times in the past, I can't resist a straight line.

And, I pretty much told you who I was and some of my experiences and exposure to this hobby in my first post in this thread. That's more than you ever did,

Simply put, you're lost in the past and couldn't keep up with the changes.

My mom was like that, I went crazy keeping her old drum type TV working in her later years because she couldn't adapt to sets with a remote control. Of course, she had dementia and could rattle off minute details about the 40's and 50's but nothing about more current times.

Remind you of anyone here?

[Rich-n-Texas]

Good Lord! Are you still at it Melvin?

OH! Did I just curse?

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Good Lord! Are you still at it Melvin?

OH! Did I just curse?

Yes you did, and I am going to worsh your mouth out for it. Red chicklet for you potty mouth!

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Most audiophiles do not live in the Bay area.

Not really sure this point is related to the overall discussion, but you are correct. Where do most of the audiophiles live is a big mystery since they do not all clutter together.

I am not aware of Dr. Toole , what is his background in audio?

This explains so much. You have no knowledge of a person that has profoundly changed the way speakers are made, how they are measured, and created the criteria based on listening test of thousands of people that defines what makes speakers sound good, and what makes them sound bad. He is also one of the foremost experts on small room acoustics and speaker/room interactivity, having written so many white papers on the subject that he could open his own public library. He has designed speakers back in the 60's as well as designed speakers today. And yes, his contribution to audio are much greater than both Lansing and Fisher.

Run of the mill means average , not high end. A Ferrari are Mercedes 500 is high end. A Corvette or Lexus is run of the mill.

Once again, you have made my point. To somebody other than you, a Lexus is high end, and so is a corvette. Either way, how one evalutes what is high end or not does not speak to quality, it just speaks to price of which the two have no correlation whatsoever.

Audio magazines serve as an aid in one making an informed decision.

Audio magazines also serve as a advertising platform for manufacturers. You give a bad review to a product, and you will never see said manufacturers dollars again. This creates a profound pressure to subjectively and postively review all the products advertised in order to save your revenue stream and magazine. Ask Richard Hardesty about the relationship as it relates to Widescreen Review. His honest, straight, and objective views based on science(rather than opinion) got him fired.

I would think that the reasons for the decline of the audiophiles is that we have today electronic shows not audio shows. There is very little interest in audio today.

The decline in audiophiles walks in line with the decline of high end in general. Too much snake oil, too many golden ears, too many statements that defy physics all refuted by science and DBT's. Does 3 meters of wire costing $10 dollars sound better than 3 meters costing $2,000? Measurements and DBT says no. Does a speaker that cost a mere $1,000 a pair sound as good as some costing $50,000? Absolutely. The value to performance of high end products is so out of skew it is almost a bad joke. The high end has become nothing more than the well heeled. No relevance to performance at all, but marketed to those who care about how much it cost rather than how good does it sound.

I am not aware of Rives Audio. Are you comparing Rives Audio with the McIntosh
clinics that traveled to every major city in America testing Macks as well as other amps free of charge for more than 35 years ? I am a midwesterner , the Bay area is 1800
miles away !

Rives audio is a company known world wide, not just in the bay area. Rives Audio is not even located in the Bay Area, it is located in the midwest. Isn't that where Iowa is?

Why buy Japanese audio equipment to begin with ? The Japanese does not have a history of building high end audio , are cars , maybe TV's.

Your ignorance is amusing. The Japanese have proven they can build anything they want. After all, they have created all of the audio and video formats for that last 37 years. As far as cars, I have no interest. Point a to point b is about all the interest I can muster. I have a hybrid SUV, and a two seat Hybrid Honda.

To answer your question about why buy Japanese equipment? Because when it comes to performance per dollar, they seem to do much better at equaling this out than companies like Wilson Audio, or some of the other high end british and American companies. Besides, the amps I chose came from onkyo high end product line(which would probably mean nothing to you) which had an excellent performance to value ratio. John curl stated that he would and could make these amps sound 50 times betterthan they did new. He made them 100 times better sounding.

Does John Curl have the research and development monies to compete with the major high end manufactures who build high end audio today ?

John is retired last I heard. However when he was at Parasound, he created the best sounding products that company has ever seen, and his latest amp designs were met with very high praise from the audiophile community(or what is left of them)

One of the main reason many of the older high end audio companies no longer exist is because of the lack of research and development money.

Or bad management. Engineers are not the most savvy of business people. They create components, not manage companies. You can design the best sounding speaker in the world, but if you cannot market it well, it will flop on the sales floor.

Objective are not as you see it , that is my opinion regarding the issue of comparing today's high end speakers to yesterday's high end speakers. I respect you position on the issue of audio , although I do not agree with much of it.
I will add finally there has been many improvements in electronic , not so with speakers.
Again that is my position.

Speakers are where the greatest improvement has come. From driver material to anechoic chambers to measuring devices have all made more speakers sound good today than they ever could back in the day. Back in the day there were a few VERY large speakers that sounded really good. Today, there are hundreds that sound as good if not better than the best of yesteryear. Toole has stated this many many times in his lectures.

Somewhere around when I was born you checked out of audio's advancing technological developments. This has led to a nostalgic ignorance of what is happening today. That is a shame, because so many advances have done much to turning speaker design more into a scientific thing, than the experiemental thing it was back in the day.

I like Drum and Bugle corps of the 70's. 80's, and early 90's. I do not like what it is today. That does not mean it is not good as it was back in the day, I just relate to the early period because I marched in the 80's. In every parameter under the sun(with the exception of entertainment value) Drum corps is way better today than when I marched. I acknowledge this, but it does not allow me to related to it any better. This is what has happened to you in audio. You love the equipment manufactured at a time when you were really loved audio. Then your mind just shut off when things happened to audio that you could not related to. The technology and quality marched forward, while your mind marked time.

[emaidel]

My, my, my! This thread is downright nasty!

So, naturally, I had to join in. M. Walker's credibility went out the window with me way back in one of his earlier threads when he referred to the AR-2ax and AR-3a with devout reverence. The 2ax was OK for its day (1965) and the 3a a big improvement over the 3 when it was introduced (1967), but speakers have come a long way baby since then.

[SlumpBuster]

Melvin lost all credibility when he slammed Japanese engineering and automobiles.

Melvin... you really, really, really need to get out more often. Alot has happened in the last fifty years.

BMW M3 vs. Honda Type R


Honda vs Porsche vs BMW: BMW loses it in the corner.


OH DAMN! The Honda pwnage just keeps on coming!


I can't resist just one more.




Melvins a troll. Or maybe the latest incarnation of lexipanaskies.

Edit: Why come embedded video isn't working?

[melvin walker]

Not really sure this point is related to the overall discussion, but you are correct. Where do most of the audiophiles live is a big mystery since they do not all clutter together.







This explains so much. You have no knowledge of a person that has profoundly changed the way speakers are made, how they are measured, and created the criteria based on listening test of thousands of people that defines what makes speakers sound good, and what makes them sound bad. He is also one of the foremost experts on small room acoustics and speaker/room interactivity, having written so many white papers on the subject that he could open his own public library. He has designed speakers back in the 60's as well as designed speakers today. And yes, his contribution to audio are much greater than both Lansing and Fisher.



Once again, you have made my point. To somebody other than you, a Lexus is high end, and so is a corvette. Either way, how one evalutes what is high end or not does not speak to quality, it just speaks to price of which the two have no correlation whatsoever.



Audio magazines also serve as a advertising platform for manufacturers. You give a bad review to a product, and you will never see said manufacturers dollars again. This creates a profound pressure to subjectively and postively review all the products advertised in order to save your revenue stream and magazine. Ask Richard Hardesty about the relationship as it relates to Widescreen Review. His honest, straight, and objective views based on science(rather than opinion) got him fired.



The decline in audiophiles walks in line with the decline of high end in general. Too much snake oil, too many golden ears, too many statements that defy physics all refuted by science and DBT's. Does 3 meters of wire costing $10 dollars sound better than 3 meters costing $2,000? Measurements and DBT says no. Does a speaker that cost a mere $1,000 a pair sound as good as some costing $50,000? Absolutely. The value to performance of high end products is so out of skew it is almost a bad joke. The high end has become nothing more than the well heeled. No relevance to performance at all, but marketed to those who care about how much it cost rather than how good does it sound.



Rives audio is a company known world wide, not just in the bay area. Rives Audio is not even located in the Bay Area, it is located in the midwest. Isn't that where Iowa is?



Your ignorance is amusing. The Japanese have proven they can build anything they want. After all, they have created all of the audio and video formats for that last 37 years. As far as cars, I have no interest. Point a to point b is about all the interest I can muster. I have a hybrid SUV, and a two seat Hybrid Honda.

To answer your question about why buy Japanese equipment? Because when it comes to performance per dollar, they seem to do much better at equaling this out than companies like Wilson Audio, or some of the other high end british and American companies. Besides, the amps I chose came from onkyo high end product line(which would probably mean nothing to you) which had an excellent performance to value ratio. John curl stated that he would and could make these amps sound 50 times betterthan they did new. He made them 100 times better sounding.



John is retired last I heard. However when he was at Parasound, he created the best sounding products that company has ever seen, and his latest amp designs were met with very high praise from the audiophile community(or what is left of them)



Or bad management. Engineers are not the most savvy of business people. They create components, not manage companies. You can design the best sounding speaker in the world, but if you cannot market it well, it will flop on the sales floor.



Speakers are where the greatest improvement has come. From driver material to anechoic chambers to measuring devices have all made more speakers sound good today than they ever could back in the day. Back in the day there were a few VERY large speakers that sounded really good. Today, there are hundreds that sound as good if not better than the best of yesteryear. Toole has stated this many many times in his lectures.

Somewhere around when I was born you checked out of audio's advancing technological developments. This has led to a nostalgic ignorance of what is happening today. That is a shame, because so many advances have done much to turning speaker design more into a scientific thing, than the experiemental thing it was back in the day.

I like Drum and Bugle corps of the 70's. 80's, and early 90's. I do not like what it is today. That does not mean it is not good as it was back in the day, I just relate to the early period because I marched in the 80's. In every parameter under the sun(with the exception of entertainment value) Drum corps is way better today than when I marched. I acknowledge this, but it does not allow me to related to it any better. This is what has happened to you in audio. You love the equipment manufactured at a time when you were really loved audio. Then your mind just shut off when things happened to audio that you could not related to. The technology and quality marched forward, while your mind marked time.

Excellent counterpoints. We can agree to disagree. It appears that as others you fall pray to analysis. You appear to also read minds.
I will cover only a few of your objections because there are so many.

Japanese produce excellent products , but not the best. An example: Nakamichi Dragon
an outstanding cassette recorder. Today the Revox B215 and the Tandberg 3014A are more revered by audiophiles than the Dragon , which requires more maintenance and appears to not have the longevity of the European cassettes which and generally has higher resale value.

As for as cars , the Japanese produce excellent cars , but again not the best. Lexus 400 series is excellent cars. Excellent value. The big Mercedes , BMW 's etc. are better performing cars. Not necessarily better values.

Again as I have said many times today's audio is in most cases superior to that produced
years ago with some exceptions. Speakers in my opinion. are that exception. We can agree to disagree on this one point.
Name calling and personal analysis is really not necessary. I respect your opinion and
has enjoyed the give and take discussion.

[JohnMichael]

Melvin lost all credibility when he slammed Japanese engineering and automobiles.

Melvins a troll. Or maybe the latest incarnation of lexipanaskies.

Melvin had me at speakers must be 12 feet apart.

No I checked his IP address because I thought he might be a reincarnation. He is uniquely new.

[E-Stat]

He made them 100 times better sounding.

Not sure that was the best example of Japanese engineering if JC could mod them to such a profound effect. Why not just start with JC-1s instead?

rw

[Rich-n-Texas]

Melvin had me at speakers must be 12 feet apart.

He had me at Mr Fisher & Mr. Marantz wiped his a$$!
DAMMIT!!! I cursed again!

No I checked his IP address because I thought he might be a reincarnation. He is uniquely new.

I thought he was Joe Bialek.

[GMichael]

What is this, the thread from hell?

[JohnMichael]

What is this, the thread from hell?

The thread from hell as it was fifty years ago. Modern fire and brimstone has not improved upon the fire and brimstone of 50 years ago.

[GMichael]

The thread from hell as it was fifty years ago. Modern fire and brimstone has not improved upon the fire and brimstone of 50 years ago.

So, you're saying that the Japanese fire & brimstone will never handle as good as the European fire & brimstone?

[JohnMichael]

So, you're saying that the Japanese fire & brimstone will never handle as good as the European fire & brimstone?

Please no personal analysis. I said what I said.

[Woochifer]

Geez, I guess that the ghost of Lex has reincarnated in yet another form! The appearance of this thread and Perv's suspension are once again coincidental, right?

Anyway, as others have pointed out, this topic is a recycled variation of pining for them good old days.

We've had arguments about this topic, but my response remains the same -- why the hell would anyone want to go back to the old days? The performance that you can get for the money, and the variety of audio gear available to consumers, is far greater today than 20, 30, or 40 or more years ago.

Rather than focusing on the high end to make that argument, all that anyone has to do is look at the quality of what's available in the affordable price points and compare that to what people were using before.

-A typical $200 bookshelf speaker from today will pretty much smoke the vast majority of comparably priced speakers in that price range that I listened to in the 70s and 80s. Superior frequency response, off-axis response, imaging, power handling, etc. In the 70s and 80s, you had a much bigger variation in speaker tonal characteristics than you get nowadays. But, that just simply means that you had that many more inaccurate and unlistenable speakers on the market back then than you do now.

-Consider that a mid-level receiver in the mid-70s cost around $600. Well, that same $600 is worth closer to $2,000 today. You think that a $2,000 two-channel integrated amp wouldn't significantly outperform that vintage receiver?

-For all the audiophile complaints about MP3 players, I would challenge them to live with any of the portable audio alternatives from the 70s and 80s. Ever listen to prerecorded cassettes (which BTW began outselling LPs two years before the CD was introduced)? 128k MP3 is a pristine audio oasis compared to that garbage!

-Consider that the majority of audio systems purchased in the 70s and 80s were compact all-in-one systems and record changers. Is that any different from today, where most consumers use mini systems and now iPod-connected setups? Here too, the audio performance of what's commonly available today is far superior to what the mass market was using 30 years ago.

-Back in the 70s and 80s, in order to hear discrete multichannel audio, you had to go to a movie theater and hope that they were playing a 4-track or 6-track magstriped print. Now, 5.1 audio is very easy to find. And with the new lossless audio formats and multichannel PCM, you can actually play soundtracks at the same resolution as the original masters. This is quite a leap from the old days when every home audio format entailed some signal loss or downsampling from the original master source.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Not sure that was the best example of Japanese engineering if JC could mod them to such a profound effect. Why not just start with JC-1s instead?

rw

Maybe JC is just plain brilliant and is able to take a very good design and make it better. He has done that with amps for too many years to remember.

I was not willing to purchase new amps when I already had very good ones. When I told him what amps I had, his response was "good design, good sound, but I can make it better". That is exactly what he did. One can only say his design philosophy is very different than the japanese.

[E-Stat]

Maybe JC is just plain brilliant and is able to take a very good design and make it better. He has done that with amps for too many years to remember.

I've admired his work for many years. I remember well the (first) JC-2 he designed for Mark Levinson back in the 70s. I've heard his statement JC-1 amps on Sound Lab speakers, While I wouldn't trade my VTLs for them, they are nevertheless very fine indeed.

Here again, that just didn't say much for Onkyo. Perhaps Accuphase would have been a better example.

rw

[Rich-n-Texas]

Yes you did, and I am going to worsh your mouth out for it. Red chicklet for you potty mouth!

Wellll... We're waaaaaiting...

(extra text)

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I've admired his work for many years. I remember well the (first) JC-2 he designed for Mark Levinson back in the 70s. I've heard his statement JC-1 amps on Sound Lab speakers, While I wouldn't trade my VTLs for them, they are nevertheless very fine indeed.

Here again, that just didn't say much for Onkyo. Perhaps Accuphase would have been a better example.

rw

I am not quite sure what you are alluding to concerning the Onkyos, but there was nothing WRONG with them in the first place. The amps sounded quite good, and were by Curls words well designed. All he did was take the amps apart and re-design it with his parts and to his standards. It just so happens that they sound better to me now not to mention some other performance benefits. He tooks a good amp and made it better. No bash on the orignal design or how it sounded in the first place, it just sounds better now. So no need to indirectly bash the Onkyos if that is what you are trying to do.

I do not own anything accuphase. So to use it in my example wouldn't mean much.

[Groundbeef]

Wouldn't it just be easier for Mr. Walker to hire out a Big Band to play at his leisure in his home? After all, you can't beat the sound of live music.

Plus Big Band is old, and he most likely was in his 20's when it was popular.

Then he could also hire out a tent and have a revival. Not too much swearing, but lots of fire and brimstone.

[Rich-n-Texas]

Yeah, if he can afford to own a BMW 850, surely he can hire his own band.

[Luvin Da Blues]

Ya but where is he gunna find a band that still uses 1930's era equipment???

[Groundbeef]

Ya but where is he gunna find a band that still uses 1930's era equipment???

The Good Lord always provides. Thats why he has a revival first. The instruments are forged on a furnace heated with fire and brimstone.

I must admit though, it most likely will be difficult to fit the entire band in the car. Even if its a BMW, you might have to put a player or 2 in the trunk. But it would still have the best sound!

[E-Stat]

I am not quite sure what you are alluding to concerning the Onkyos...

Trying to place your comments into perspective. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I seem to recall your position is that there is generally little sonic difference between most *modern* electronics and the high end offers little, if any value: "The high end has become nothing more than the well heeled. No relevance to performance at all, but marketed to those who care about how much it cost rather than how good does it sound."

So, with that perspective in mind, for YOU to say that Curl's mods made the Onks sound "100 times better", doesn't seem to speak very highly of the starting point. Indeed, everything is relative. Curl does excellent work, but then so do countless other talented designers. In that light, I think you'll find there are numerous other amplifiers that sound better than the stock Onkyos.

rw