hedgehog

The idea of an iPod, from Neil, might actually be quite good. I don't know a lot about iPods (I fall into the doubters camp) but I know that IRiver do a 40Gig portable that can rip directly from CD to a range of formats. It can also cope with WAV format if you don't want to lose quality.

If you were to pair that up with a set of decent active speakers you would have a nice system that is very tiny and that you can also use as a portable when it suits you.

In my view speakers maketh the system so your choice depends on your budget. There is a pro-audio company, for example, called Mackie who do active monitors that are said to sound excellent for home use but which are quite small and come in at just over the £1000 mark from what I recall. At the other end of the show I run a pair of old active Wharfedale Diamonds as PC speakers and they do fine for the (undemanding) job and cost me £40. If you have a lot of cash for speakers but want something quite small and good in a living space then look at Celtic Audio, John Watkinson is one of the few designers I'd put a lot of faith in at present.

Harry_Boy

Now that IS good.... Boothroyd Stuart have been making some fabulous kit for many years...

Me, I went for Musical Fidelity.

B&O are just overpriced, stylised complements to an Ikea living room....

Old_Fart

I had a Soundblaster mpeg player..hated it, seemed to take ages to create the mpegs, and then I didn't have a playlist so all the titles/albums were unnamed. No idea where the thing is now.
I love it whenever B&O or Bose are mentioned around hifi buffs....they always go off on a rant about price vs quality LOL
My friends B&O install was around £19k...it's better than anything I've ever heard...but then I've never gone out of my way to listen to anything 'special'
I reckon he;s a nutter...but he points at my driveway and calls touche.
Cman

corradoboy

So why did you go for Musical Fidelity then, Mr. Ikea ?

I certainly wouldn't put B&O in the category of Audiophile, on the other hand, Linn.... mmmmm!

ProperCharlie

my main "resistance" to mp3 etc isn't really based around sound quality (some people claim that i wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a good mp3 and cd in any case).

it's just that if i want a piece of music that i don't have, i start looking on ebay, amazon etc for an original album or cd. if i find it, i buy it. the idea of ripping all my cds and albums to mp3 or wav does have some appeal, but it would take so long that i doubt i will ever start.

Old_Fart

http://www.hi-fiworld.co.uk/hfw/revi...nektkivor.html
Saw that one Corradoboy whilst browsing..£12k LOL
I meant I wasn't willing to pay real money for a stereo..rather than expressing an opinion on B&O's quality
C

Old_Fart

LINN KNEKT KIVOR - £12,000
THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME
It's the company's most ambitious, innovative and far-reaching product to date. David Price tries out the Linn Knekt Kivor 'High Fidelity, High Capacity Hard Drive Audio Distribution System'.

INTRO
Linn calls this 'the ultimate source product for multi-zone and sophisticated single-user audio', and I think they might just have a point. Arguably the company's most interesting creation to date, the Knekt Kivor is (deep breath): a web-enabled, hard drive recording and playback 'audio distribution system' that stores almost 1400 hours of uncompressed music.

It also does the full multi-room thing, serving up to 16 users independently and simultaneously. In a Linn Knekt Intersekt system, access from up to 128 zones is via a Linn Knekt keypad, and by touchscreen or computer.

Each Knekt Kivor has four modules, the (a) 'Tunboks' hard disk music storage system, (b) 'PCI Musik Machine' soundcard, (c) 'Oktal' eight-way 24-bit DAC, and (d) 'Linnk' control interface.

(a) TUNBOKS
The heart of the Kivor - think of this £8,000 box of tricks as the transport. Within its sizeable case, the basic Tunboks contains two 76GB hard drives which give 248 hours of uncompressed music, or far more if you choose to compress. It doesn't stop there though, because you can add 76GB disc drive modules at £500 a time, up to a maximum of 11.

As well as working with the rest of the Kivor modules, the Tunboks can be used in any conventional music system with a stereo DAC, and can furnish up to 16 independent, low-jitter audio outputs. Music can be downloaded via either the built-in CD-ROM drive, or the digital audio input of the PCI Musik Machine soundcard.

When loading a CD, the Tunboks connects to the Internet and downloads the title, track, artist and music type and adds this information to its database. Linn says that the internal modem also makes possible remote diagnostics and future software upgrades.

How fricken cool is that?
C

DJ Dunk

iTrader: (5)

Do it all with an XBox MP3, Divx, images, internet radio . . . stream media from your PC or the net . . . oh it plays games too

OllyK

Guess they are SCSI then. £12K for some Linn kit - bargin!

logiclee

Yep, I've had all the arguments as well.

MP3 is fine for background music and bedroom stuff, but if your after something more forget it.

You would be hard pushed to tell the difference between a high quality MP3 through a good quality player to that of a CD on a budget system of say less than £500. Start dropping the bitrate though and MP3's sound harsh and brittle even on budget systems.

On equipment costing ten times that an MP3 of any quality shows up like a sore thumb. You can even tell copied CD's from the original.
Sometimes even tracks on Albums like "Now 82" are poor quality and sound compressed dynamicaly compared to the tracks on the artist's own album.

And we haven't even started on SCCD, DVD'A or DTS 96/24.

Lee

corradoboy

Some of those feature are in iTunes anyway. You can decide the level of MP3 compression, or import as AIIF, WAV, AAC or Apples own Lossless Encoder. Also, if you import a disc then go to File/Get Info (cmd I) while connected it will search Apples database to find track information. If someone else has supplied data for that disc (based on track timings) it will be downloaded. If no-one has, then you have the option of submitting such information if you enter it all.

ProperCharlie

Lee - i think that my cd player will play mp3s from cd. i've never tried as i don't have any mp3s. it would be interesting to test how noticeable the difference is. i'm still in the school of:

<spend 2 hours looking for *that* album among the piles>
<find something else>
<give up looking for the original record>
<forget what i came in here for>
<go get another beer>
<decide to contiune with the alphabetical filing system project another day>

logiclee

You forgot the.......

<Spend two hours looking for the CD, find the box and it's empty>

ProperCharlie

yeah - happened to me the other day: electricladyland

it'll probably be another 2 years before it turns up in the same box as some obscure van morrison album that the missus was nagging me to put on.

hedgehog

I think the root of some of this discussion is the convienience against quality equation. I have a stack of mp3 files on my computer and an mp3 player for listening to on the bus and they sound just fine under those circumstances and I enjoy the music.

Even the very highest possible quality of music recording is, in the end, just a compromise. I love Bosendorfer pianos, at least as a solo piano but accept the dominance of Steinway in the concerto, but the truth of the matter is that it's just not handy to have to carry one on the bus if I fancy some music, nor is it handy to have one in my front room even if I fancy some quality music. I did try it but Argerich was never free when I needed her.

No matter how good the recording it is always just a convenient way of lowering the quality of the music so it fits into the environment.

With this in mind, and not taking away from that fact that it can be useful to strive for quality where that is appropriate, I would say that everyone should take music in the form and format that suits them and enjoy it. Enjoyment is the only point of reference for music, quality is merely a means to the end.

ProperCharlie

hedgehog - absolutely agree. i personally like the sound of my hifi. surprisingly, that's why i bought it.


my mate has a bluthner grand in his front room. he likes the sound of that. afaik they both cost about the same (i think the piano was a bit more, but then he doesn't need any software for it). hearing a decent piano at close range certainly highlights the limitations of recorded music

logiclee

All very true,

You can't get near quality Live music and I'm not talking the sort that is played through a PA system.

I read a good setup guide once that said, stop fiddling with your system, stop spending money upgrading for the sake of it and spend your time and money buying and listening to Music.
You sometimes loose sight of what the kits for and start concentrating on the kit itself.

Cheers
Lee

Old_Fart

Agree totally, Watched some Gadget program the other day on Sky. Linn invited them up to test their entry level system (£1600 Classik) versus their 'Ultimate' (£97k), and played a tune from an Irish folksinger...who happened to be there to sing live as well. The reviewer listened to the 3 sources (Live, entry level and top end) and instantly identified which was which. Then went on to say the difference betwene the £1.6k and £97k was definitely noticeable, but was soo fine as to be worth to money only to people who were 60 times richer in the first place LOL
Rgds
C

corradoboy

Same is true of any interest. I have a friend with an STi8 who has poored many £ks into its tuning and styling, but rarely drives it on good challenging roads. He has expressed his envy that I (luckily, along with an interested partner) go out weekly just to drive and enjoy the car on roads which do it justice, yet my car is a humble WRX PPP with very few mods (and what mods there are are inexpensive).

I have known many people in similar situations. People with £4k sets of golf clubs who only played for one season, people with £2.5k mountain bikes that haven't been out of the garage since the 1st rains of an autumn several years ago. My only hi-fi nut friend however has spent years trying (and eventually overtaking) to acheive the sound of my system, which although not extremely expensive, was chosen wisely over several years (many years ago) to suit my ears and musical tastes. I have never succumbed to the upgrade route, choosing instead to simply enjoy what I have. Over the years my interest has moved more towards AV, but I have simply added suitable equipment to the existing set-up rather than start again. Purists may mock my choices, but they suit me, my taste, my ears and my budget.

Harry_Boy

And I can certainly vouch for Dave's discernment, especially with Hi fi. Oh, and cars as well.....