John, would surround sound perhaps from the new multi channel Av amps be more of a realistic experience, I mentioned Janine Elliot a while back and discribed her as "she" I do hope she is not a bloke, If so my apologies, By the way she or he reviews for HI FI News, a lot of experience there.
Mind you John there is a lot of lovley stuff out there very expensive though, such as "Electrocompaniet""Trilogy" "Belles" "Bryston" "Hovland "Lyngdorf"" etc etc. this high end stuff is beautifully made, but blow me it's an arm and a leg,
You could be right however I only have two ears so if the information/system creates the right sound pattern in the room I should hear it as surround, I have often heard sounds way beyond the speakers and sometimes behind so I think it is possible.
OK on your list of esoteric, I've been to the shows and heard many outrageously priced systems, but sadly never heard anything that really 'hits the buttons', maybe I'll try again next year.
Like you say beautifully made but sound wise not that brilliant, Hi Fi, it seems is one area where price always dictates performance, as it does in many other areas. However mass marketing to the world can skew many claimed improvements as simply scale of production can make a good item cheaper to buy. I wonder just how much better are celeb chef branded saucepans better than Tesco's ecomomy range???
John, without being a chef I wouldn't know, but I do know they like to cook with cast iron pots and pans, this keeps the pan at more constant temperature, and these are expensive. But the chef brands they sell in stores at astronomical prices are no better than a good named brand you can get anywhere.
Mick, or even a no-brand name like 'imperial or 'made in China' there are many cast iron pans out there for a fraction of the price and if suitably heavy will do the job as good as any.
I'm sure many out there are saying 'what the hell has this got to do with HiFi', well I believe similar principles apply. Looking at some of the major names in the mid price bracket, many of them have R&D budgets far beyond the cottage industry names, and sell in the tens of millions rather than thousands, so again economy of scale. Sony seem particularly good at this as not only are they regarded as better than most but are also available world wide. Samsung, particularly in the TV and printer markets. Speakers however I think are a different ball game and one where the cottage industry can make it's mark, relatively few speakers are available world wide, quite apart from the shipping/distribution costs, add to that the different expectations (sound wise) of counties. But more than anything a speaker cannot be produced on a completely automated production line, unlike the electronics.
To sum up then back in the 50/60s when amplifiers were basically hand built as were speakers, the costs are now completely different, sorry I am straying into another thread here.
I wonder, is the concept of point to point hand wireing a way of putting love and dedication into the build that will somehow be heard for ever more, maybe that is so.
When exactly was the peak of reproduction, was it late 70s, no we had all those horrible tranny amp distortions, or late 60s pre computer optimised design, or was it the 40s with new valves like the 300B, or is it now with new digital standards and class 'D' amplification, speakers that holographically depict the sound stage, HD TV and surround sound!
John & Mick, I've been reading your posts with interest. Some of the reproduction limitations and problems may go back to room acoustic (see above).I remember, back in the late 60's, when I went on a visit to (I think) a BBC sound lab, anyway, something to do with the beeb. They sat a group of us down and played us music, acting, and people moving around etc. with the speakers hidden behind curtains. The trick was to convince us the there were either far more speakers or that they were placed in different positions to the reality. The sounds seemed to come from a much wider and deeper sound stage than the position of the speakers when they were revealed. Not only that but the classical music did sound to my young ears as if I was in the concert hall, with the most subtle of notes and breaths being reproduced. Obviously, the equipment was BBC reference standard but the critical thing was that the room was totally dead; it seemed to swallow any noise you made, rather than merely having no echo at all, so you could hear exactly what was intended in the recording. Is this the answer to total involvement?
Good point Geoff, I have been banging on about room acoustics for many months now and whilst very few agree, those that do are committed to the notion. But the many who don't simply do not take it seriously and spend hours and £££s tweaking their systems to no real avail, and listening in a moderen trandy appartment with laminate floor and massive coffee table between seating and speakers, smart uncluttered walls, floor to ceiling windows etc. yes I love the look but acoustically far from ideal. What you heard at the BBC is exactly what I hoped Hi Fi could do for me and yes maybe the answer to total involvement!
As you said the first time, what we have to do is, normally, to balance a living area with a listening area. Unfortunately, very few of us have the benefit of the bottomless pocket to build a specific listening room, the sort I saw at the beeb and when I worked for Pye records many years ago - peg board tiling was the favoured walling material I seem to remember, the ones with the holes in. My problem now is that money is now more readily available but perfect hearing is a thing of the past (used to be able to hear the dog whistle at end of Sgt Pepper; those were the days!). Having experienced both the perfect acoustic at the beeb and the difference with my speakers in different parts of the room, and different listening positions, room colouration is a very important factor - you just have to ask the Albert Hall - how much time money and effort has gone into trying to stop the horrible echo and other acoustic problems over the years?
John, I suppose one company in question would be Leema Acoustics(rated highly) who are somewhere up a mountain in Wales, a small cottage industry I assume, so no chance of automated production lines, I would imagine components are all bought in with most of their range being hand built, which probably goes a long way towards their excelent products, more hands on with the soldering iron! a lot in common with "Thiel acoustics" America. 90% hand built and very beautiful.
Bill, it looks a lot better in black do you think? It looks so well made too, but what is it (a tape mixer?), lovley to see this old stuff still in beautiful condition, there must be hoards of stuff out there, It all looks so well made, Bill yours is 39 years old,( incredible ).In 1976 I purchased a Panasonic twin tape and combined record player with twin meters for each tape deck the record player had strobe lighting with the little knobbly bits on the platter (sorry about the knobbly bits) beautifuly housed in a wooden plinth with two two way speakers to match, a lovley sound as I remember, It's still somewhere around in the family still, pased down through various nephews and nieces,I wounder how much of this new gear will be around in 39 years time? anyhow very interesting Bill, Thanks.
By strange coincidence...as I wrote that last post I wondered exactly the same thing about long term reliability....(thoughts of unleaded solder crept unbidden into my mind! ) Even more surprisingly it still has all the original rubbers, drive belt etc It is battleship build quality for sure. The tray and eject mechanism is as solid and heavy as the turret of a Challenger Tank!
I agree, the black one does look very tidy.........This particular model of Nakamichi is a 2-head cassette deck and many of those rows of what resemble black push-buttons are actually preset potentiometers which allow optimisation for specific tape formulae?
What I should do next is transcribe all those old (now unobtainable in any format) pre-recorded Classical tapes to digital before the darn thing packs up altogether! ( )
Bill, I wonder what would have to be paid today for something of that build quality, say a cd player or such, it really makes one wonder does it not, I would say a good few grand, build quality like that is rare indeed, except in five grand plus products today, and also the design is excellent, I would quite happily go the extra mile to acquire that standard of build and of course sonics but I am afraid my partner Linda would not, I will have to go buy them one day when she is not looking, (I will be lucky!).
I think your instincts are correct about the 4 figure price ranges for CD players. There's no limit to how far they can go with chassis engineering (consider the Ayre monoblocs with solid NC machined one-piece aluminium casework+heatsinking which must boost the price massively.)
I believe they did a price comparison with the LP12 at the time...and this "small" Nakamichi was 20% more expensive than a Linn Sondek (!) In 2002 Hifi World did a review on an old used sample of the 600 and concluded it sounded more natural than a current CD-recorder (!)
Bill,I wonder if the ayre mono-blocks are a solid lump of aluminium to start of with, as they could be die-cast to the shape allowing a tolerance to be machined, this would be the most cost effective way of producing them. The Cyrus casing is cast to very close tolerances therefore dispelling the need for machining, although the casing is very lightweight as an end result, almost any thickness can be pressure die-cast to extremely close tolerances therefore allowing for cnc machining afterwards, this saves metal and scrappage, otherwise the machine shop would be knee deep in aluminium swarf, just a thought Bill, what do you reckon?.
Hacker were one of the makes of the 60s and 70s who's stuff had a quality feel to it and I seem to recall that they used a crest on the underside of the record player lids etc.
Bill,I wonder if the ayre mono-blocks are a solid lump of aluminium to start of with, as they could be die-cast to the shape allowing a tolerance to be machined, this would be the most cost effective way of producing them. The Cyrus casing is cast to very close tolerances therefore dispelling the need for machining, although the casing is very lightweight as an end result, almost any thickness can be pressure die-cast to extremely close tolerances therefore allowing for cnc machining afterwards, this saves metal and scrappage, otherwise the machine shop would be knee deep in aluminium swarf, just a thought Bill, what do you reckon?.
All the best Mick.
Hi Mick,
What you suggest is eminently sensible but I have the feeling they are daft enough to machine it from solid !
I remember back in the days when we had our own in-house machine shop they machined everything to a tolerance of half a thou accuracy until someone realised that for some parts this could be relaxed a little (!!)
All the best......take care........................Bill.
Bill, your quite right on tolerances that are observed in tool rooms, machine shops,etc etc, I used to think why? they could give you a bit of give and take, until you realise it keeps overall continuity in the products being produced whatever they may be, I remember developing tooling (press tooling) for German ford motor company, this was way back in the sixties, it was a very small insert that went into the gear box, the tolerances were to one tenth of a thou, it was difficult to make progression press tools for this component as one component had to fly off the tooling every second, sixty a minute or faster,of couse it's been a long long time ago and I got out of the game about 1976 so the mind is not so sharp these days, I developed with the help (in those days) of a pantograph this was a measurement instrument, which had a screen and microscope lens and very precise vernier calibrations, and that was about the only help I had to accomplish the task. (I think it was called a pantograph)?. Looking at the Dart-Zeal web site recently and the photographs thereof, It showed the inside of there new intergrated amp rated at 150 watts per channel, while it looked quite neat I was surprised to see it looked quite empty. now this thing costs £18,000 quid, they then go on to say somewhat in amasement that the casing is two milimetre thick (two millimetre wow!) Now for that money I would expect it to be milled out of a solid block of steel, also they make a big deal of the faceplate being machined from a fifteen millimetre piece of aluminium (alli for Gods sake), for that money I would want something a lot better than that, what do you think?
Interesting as all the banter has been, I really do wonder at what the sonic advantages might be. Am I led to believe that 'milled out of solid' should sound better than 'precision die cast' and is that better than 'stamped steel', I really wonder if the industry has lost it's way. Imagine if that thinking were applied to car making, we could have the 'fully milled' mini for a few thousand grand with no performance improvements, would that sell, I think not. Just what is it about Hi Fi that seems to dictate the more it costs the better it MUST be irrespective of how or why. Probably the answer is in history, when good engineering created better turntables and better carpentry created better speakers, but that is simply not true for amplifiers. John...
) Even more surprisingly it still has all the original rubbers, drive belt etc It is battleship build quality for sure. The tray and eject mechanism is as solid and heavy as the turret of a Challenger Tank! 
