What have you learned in your HIFI Journey

[ItsMe]

Somethings I learned

There is always a better AVR/speaker combination out there in the market, with latest gimmicks. Either you can be satisfied with what you have and enjoy the movie/music, or go on researching for the best you can upgrade to.

Crap source needs crap audio system to sound good and better audio source needs better sound system as well

A man's cave is everyone's dream, but building a convincing story which your wife will buy is the biggest challenge.

Better leave the room acoustics part to professionals, if you are not sure.

If you are not super rich, an easy way for a good stereo setup is to use the zone B feature of your AVR.

Netflix indeed delivers 5.1 sound + HD quality video

xbox 360/ps3 is a better option to check your surrounds, as you can turn your character accordingly in a DTS/Dolby supporting game to check individual speakers

How many ever HDMI inputs your AVR has, you will run out of free ports within few years

Two 1KVA UPSs can run whole a home theater (atleast mine) with an AVR, BR player and a PJ for several minutes. Helps when you have frequent power cuts

If your HT room is small, go for an AC as it get heated up very quickly

Invest in a real good couch which supports your leg as well. The feeling is awesome...

Setup your bar in the HT room itself, if possible. You dont know when you will feel like sympathizing with Piper Chapman along with few drinks. Make it your own world

Build a good AV rack. It gives you a professional feel as well as helps to hide all cables and other connectors.

Performance of your home theater depends 60% on your speakers and 40% on the AVR/connectors/source etc. Invest accordingly

Though everyone advice not to go for HTIB, many of us started the journey with an HTIB only

Always keep a list with possible upgrade options. You never know when that powerball will strike you with an additional $100M in your pocket

Dispose of unwanted AV components you probably are not going to use. It will not only get you some bucks , but will help someone who is dreaming to start HT with used ones

If you have a BD player, try to build a bluray collection and an open rack to arrange them nicely. It looks aesthetically great in an HT room and will act as a bass diffuser as well

Dont increase the volume beyond a medium range, when kids are around. Their ear drums will not be able to afford our low frequency adventures

3D movies in HT is great to watch for first few times, ok to watch for next couple of months and a pain to watch after that. Think before you invest in 3D

Best thing is to avoid piracy at any cost, but if you are not that broad minded, try to buy originals of movies atleast for one language which you watch - like movies from your mothertongue or hindi movies. Let the industry also benefit from our adventures.

Google for parental guide, before you pull in your kids to watch an English movie. There are good online advise which states what to expect in a movie from a rating perspective

Keep a count of number of movies you watched in your HT, if possible with your review comment. It shows you how your taste changes over a period of time

Dont let HT take away time which should be spending with your family. Give priority to it, and if needed cancel your HT time for your family

Always keep your HT room clean.

And last, but not the least. Do not comment in hifivision after couple of drinks. Your response may become longer than what you anticipate.

 

[MaSh]

I have learnt, that neighbors setup no matter how simple or complicated, always sounds better than mine.

 

[prem]

Mash, does that apply to only neighbour's system or to neighbour's wife too?

 

[shafic]

:lol:

Re: What have you learned in your HIFI Journey
Mash, does that apply to only neighbour's system or to neighbour's wife too?

 

[raghupb]

prem, shafic,
That is naughty. It is a biological condition called "long sight" when you reach a certain age. I have met FM MaSh, he is definitely not of that age

Jokes apart. What have I learned on my hifi journey?
Earbuds help!! Really

Cheers,
Raghu

 

[MaSh]

Mash, does that apply to only neighbour's system or to neighbour's wife too?

Ha ha ha only system. Another lesson: Never mingle in places where your own has access .

:lol:

Re: What have you learned in your HIFI Journey
Mash, does that apply to only neighbour's system or to neighbour's wife too?

:lol:

prem, shafic,
That is naughty. It is a biological condition called "long sight" when you reach a certain age. I have met FM MaSh, he is definitely not of that age

Jokes apart. What have I learned on my hifi journey?
Earbuds help!! Really

Cheers,
Raghu

He he he, getting there quite rapidly though :sad:.

Yes ear buds do help especially when doing night shifts.

Have spent so many nights tweaking the system, rewiring, but not able to test it properly till after morning the next day.

MaSh

 

[Nikhil]

Less is more ...

 

[srisaikat]

1. The aim of my Current setup is to reveal most details from any track with most easy sounding fashion.

2. Those excitement still matters but I faced a bitter fact for most of the time & for most of the gears that to gain something I had to loose something.

3. Believe me, I have some selected tracks to sound them right I did all the changes. But it always did not involve higher cost for me. Some gears I found sound superior though they were cheaper.

4. What ridiculed (fool is the right word) me when I use 6 sq.mm wired multi plug cum surge protector or 9 AWG power cable for my audio system where as just some part of the house have 4 sq.mm electric distribution wiring.

One morning little far from my house in a road side tea shop I found a very nice natural sounding system (some hindi tracks was playing). It was just a hand made Amplifier and speaker by a man worked nearby Electronics Shop.

So magic sound sometime happened by chance also, trying too hard do not guarantee for the dream sound. Right gears, right speakers, right tracks and right mental mode make that happen. It is the right synergy or harmony sometime I can feel, sometime I can't.

 

[soundbuff]

Some of the things I have learnt in the past quarter century and a bit:

1. Long time ago I loved music. Today it's the chase: licklips:
2. Never love your music system; pieces of kit are like 'ladies of the night', enjoy them and move on when you get bored. Especially, never get attached to a brand.
3. Audiophile will refer to their addiction as a 'hobby'. This is a blatant lie, for the most part it is an addiction, one kind of compulsive behaviour. For non-audiophiles our passion is completely idiotic in fact stupid. Accept it, live with it. There are worse obsessions.
4. Lie to your wife: Be honest in every other aspect of your relationship, but not in this; in any case she knows you are lying.
5. Money may not be everything, but it does buy you better equipment and in most cases better sound quality.
3. My overall philosophy of life is a very noble one: As Gandhi is said to have maintained 'The means are more important than the ends' Its all about the kit man, any one can listen to musichyeah:

On a gentler (self-congratulatory) note, I have also found, that audiophiles are basically decent and intelligent people with a very silly side to them. I have yet to meet a real bum. <Hang around with motorbike enthusiasts and you find some real scum> Audiophile dealers too more often than not have been very decent and kind to me, even from the days when as a penniless student I would just hang around listening to kit they knew I would never buy. Three cheers for them:clapping:. One last thing, I wish there were at least SOME women audiophiles around!

 

[heliumflight]

 

[heliumflight]

My learnings in the hifi journey are different from my system (for which there already is a thread as indicated in a post above me)

The things that I have learnt -

1. Audio without subs is sweet but after getting subs does one realize what was missing earlier.
2. Bass and treble controls are necessary evils.
3. Almost all the good songs / music is available in pathetic recordings but still sounds good.
4. However good my LPs may sound, pops and clicks do distract !
5. However nice HD files may be, the real pleasure is in watching the LP turn.
6. Digital sound is different from Analogue and comparing them is a waste of time.
7. SS amps perform the same as Tube amps at low volumes (I don't hear a difference)
8. Placing the speakers and listening chair properly is a necessity but I hardly sit in the sweet spot when enjoying music.
9. Cables may or may not make a difference but logical placing of cables does.
10. Buy a system that you enjoy and then stop reading audiophile magazines.

I now have a system that satisfies me after multiple upgrades. To me, every upgrade involved money except for one where I sold away a Linn DS (in favor of a Marantz DVD player and Musical Fidelity M1 Clic). Last upgrade was addition of subs that has made my system perfect to me.

 

[prateekatasniya]

Spend the half of your budget. And keep the other half for future upgrades.
Coz whatever you buy, u will wish to upgrade your system.

Thank God I'm married or else I would have spent all my savings thinking this is the last thing I need to buy ( for every component )

Cheaper speakers in Good acoustics would sound much much better than an expensive one in a untreated room.

Even after knowing that acoustics matter a lot we end up upgrading the system instead of the acoustics.

Setting up a subwoofer right is not that easy as it sounds on websites.

There no replacement for good quality music. Any room , any system cannot make really high quality ( 160 kbps)of SAAVN sound good.

Its really difficult to get lossless Hindi music.

Watching movies other than Bollywood is a must to use your HT.
coz we watch almost all Hindi movies in theatre.

Watching repeat movies on HT is boring but watching Nayak on Tata sky for the 100th time is so damn interesting

The people who generally don't prefer loud volumes at home are the ones who love to go to theatre and watch movies with extreme high volumes (with distortion.)

Who every says that we try to match theatre sound, have not got a proper demo or he goes only to IMAX.
I avoid watching Hollywood movies in theatres because theatres suck, there's hardly any bass felt in theatres( at least of Hyderabad).

Music might sound good without a sub.
But movies definitely need a sub.

Buying used equipment is a good idea.

 

[Vinod.R]

*Sometimes the best changes/tweaks are the ones which cost nothing.
*The best sounding set ups are not necessarily the most expensive or premium.
*The music/movie is more important than the high resolution format one is looking for.
*Most ugly looking systems perform well and the corollary is also mostly true.
*Do not believe everything a "superior" audiophile says about music/movies. The best judge are one's own ears.
*Do not believe in marketing hype. For usually, they are trying to sell something that is sitting on their shelves.
*Children do not know and do not care about formats. For them the content is everything. So welcome MP3 or even MP100 if so.
*Buy the best you can afford. Changing things are always more expensive.
*Buy things that you can live with for at least 10 years.
*NEVER NEVER invest too much money in players or formats. They depreciate the most very quickly. LP's seem to be the exception.

These are the ones that I could remember, shall add more if I think of anymore.

 

[rikhav]

I have learnt and keep on learning that even digital cables make a difference, good or bad
Just yesterday I witnessed high end usb cable performing absolutely brilliant and then not so brilliant in two different scenarios in same setup
In short cables do make a difference. Not necessary to be a big brand cable

 

[jls001]

This thread is very interesting as it is a distillation of what each of us have learned.

So what have I learned in my audio journey?

1/ the room really, truly matters. Some rooms are simply more conducive than others to better reproduction of higher quality audio.

2/ speaker placement is the second most important thing. Rule of one-third or one-fifth are good starting points but further tweaks are essential. Never trust your eyesight to judge distances. Always use measuring tape. Be anal with measurements --- 1 mm matters. In my room I've noticed that the mids become denser when speakers are placed at one-fifth of the room width (measured from side wall). Closer to side wall, it thins out. Also in general I've observed that greater distance from front wall (the wall behind the speakers), the more the illusion of image depth. Try it some time.

3/ Use sound dampening panels judiciously, and at the right locations. Using wrong material or placing them at the wrong location can kill the sound completely or partially. It's good to understand the frequency band or bands that is causing problems and use dampeners that attenuate this frequencies.

4/ besides absorption, diffusers are a big help in dispersing the concentration of audio energy in localised areas of the room. A good candidate is behind the audio rack.

5/ use absorption panels at the first reflection points. This is more true if you choose to push your speakers closer to the side walls than one-fifth the width of the room. At one-third it's probably redundant. Some people use a combo of absorption and diffusion at first reflection points.

6/ try unconventional room tuning devices. Not everything that does not have clear scientific explanation of its working should be dismissed as snake oil. I have tried Battery Ground Plane, Franck Tchang's Sugarcubes, Entreq power cable wraps, RF filtering at the binding posts of speakers and a friend uses Schumann Resonator to great effect in his audio room. But the tweak with the greatest efficacy is spruce cuboids invented by our very own Prem. Using these small cuboids I've been able to kick out two unsightly, home-made corner “bass traps”, tune the tonal balance for a neutral response (at least it sounds neutral to my ears), control the bass and allows me to play stupidly loud without ever loading the room (my ears give up long before the room does).

7/ cables matter but getting cables that are a good match to your system matters more. High priced, high end cables do improve sound (at least the majority of real high end cables that have passed through my room do sound good in my system). But if you're on a budget there is nothing to beat pro audio balanced cables (one can wire them as unbalanced too). I've been championing balanced pro audio cables on this forum and to this day I haven't found a good reason to abandon them. I continue to expend considerable energy and time finding ever better pro cables and the quest has been rewarding.

8/ if you're into vinyl playback please don't choose to remain ignorant about proper turntable setup because vinyl playback requires proactive optimisation to extract the best sound from a given system. To over simplify things it's really about some basic geometry and some basic mechanics and not some esoteric and mystical knowledge as some are inclined to believe. Outside of the playback chain itself I would consider a good record cleaning system an essential to extract the best sound from your records.

9/ DIY is a great hobby and can give you more than just decent sound. There is phenomenal learning and great savings in cost. Start with the simplest - DIY-ed ICs and speaker cables. It's worth the effort of learning how to solder.

10/ when tuning your setup, get an extra pair of ears to help assess your results and also give inputs. Don't obsess and be blinded over a few details, but look at the overall sound signature you want to achieve more holistically. Sound improvement is never a one time job. It is a gradual and continuing process, with each improvement being usually hard-fought.

11/ equipment footers work but there is nothing universal about them. One type of footer that works for one gear need not work for another. There is a time and place to use soft coupling. Ditto for hard coupling.

12/ go out and listen to other people's audio setups. Don't feel shy to go hear a setup much better than your own. It's the best way to attune your ears to what better sound sounds like. But remember that there is no such thing as the best sound. Everyone's sound is unique in their own ways due to the room, equipment chain, the owner's sonic preferences, and type of music he predominantly listens to.

 

[JayaRaa]

Very good points & observations. Cannot agree more about the going & listening to as many setups as possible, notably high end ones as that gives one a very good reference point.

This thread is very interesting as it is a distillation of what each of us have learned.

So what have I learned in my audio journey?

1/ the room really, truly matters. Some rooms are simply more conducive than others to better reproduction of higher quality audio.

2/ speaker placement is the second most important thing. Rule of one-third or one-fifth are good starting points but further tweaks are essential. Never trust your eyesight to judge distances. Always use measuring tape. Be anal with measurements --- 1 mm matters. In my room I've noticed that the mids become denser when speakers are placed at one-fifth of the room width (measured from side wall). Closer to side wall, it thins out. Also in general I've observed that greater distance from front wall (the wall behind the speakers), the more the illusion of image depth. Try it some time.

3/ Use sound dampening panels judiciously, and at the right locations. Using wrong material or placing them at the wrong location can kill the sound completely or partially. It's good to understand the frequency band or bands that is causing problems and use dampeners that attenuate this frequencies.

4/ besides absorption, diffusers are a big help in dispersing the concentration of audio energy in localised areas of the room. A good candidate is behind the audio rack.

5/ use absorption panels at the first reflection points. This is more true if you choose to push your speakers closer to the side walls than one-fifth the width of the room. At one-third it's probably redundant. Some people use a combo of absorption and diffusion at first reflection points.

6/ try unconventional room tuning devices. Not everything that does not have clear scientific explanation of its working should be dismissed as snake oil. I have tried Battery Ground Plane, Franck Tchang's Sugarcubes, Entreq power cable wraps, RF filtering at the binding posts of speakers and a friend uses Schumann Resonator to great effect in his audio room. But the tweak with the greatest efficacy is spruce cuboids invented by our very own Prem. Using these small cuboids I've been able to kick out two unsightly, home-made corner “bass traps”, tune the tonal balance for a neutral response (at least it sounds neutral to my ears), control the bass and allows me to play stupidly loud without ever loading the room (my ears give up long before the room does).

7/ cables matter but getting cables that are a good match to your system matters more. High priced, high end cables do improve sound (at least the majority of real high end cables that have passed through my room do sound good in my system). But if you're on a budget there is nothing to beat pro audio balanced cables (one can wire them as unbalanced too). I've been championing balanced pro audio cables on this forum and to this day I haven't found a good reason to abandon them. I continue to expend considerable energy and time finding ever better pro cables and the quest has been rewarding.

8/ if you're into vinyl playback please don't choose to remain ignorant about proper turntable setup because vinyl playback requires proactive optimisation to extract the best sound from a given system. To over simplify things it's really about some basic geometry and some basic mechanics and not some esoteric and mystical knowledge as some are inclined to believe. Outside of the playback chain itself I would consider a good record cleaning system an essential to extract the best sound from your records.

9/ DIY is a great hobby and can give you more than just decent sound. There is phenomenal learning and great savings in cost. Start with the simplest - DIY-ed ICs and speaker cables. It's worth the effort of learning how to solder.

10/ when tuning your setup, get an extra pair of ears to help assess your results and also give inputs. Don't obsess and be blinded over a few details, but look at the overall sound signature you want to achieve more holistically. Sound improvement is never a one time job. It is a gradual and continuing process, with each improvement being usually hard-fought.

11/ equipment footers work but there is nothing universal about them. One type of footer that works for one gear need not work for another. There is a time and place to use soft coupling. Ditto for hard coupling.

12/ go out and listen to other people's audio setups. Don't feel shy to go hear a setup much better than your own. It's the best way to attune your ears to what better sound sounds like. But remember that there is no such thing as the best sound. Everyone's sound is unique in their own ways due to the room, equipment chain, the owner's sonic preferences, and type of music he predominantly listens to.

 

[moktan]

The thing I have learned is hifi sound and music are two separate things though not mutually exclusive.
Experimentation with the gear will yield rich results and is a fascinating journey.
But educating oneself in appreciating the nuances of music is an even more fruitful endeavor*. It doesn't require significant outlay of funds but the returns are far greater. Today I listen to much of my music on my iPad- for obvious reasons.
So when it's the tinny speakers of this playback I focus on the music. With the other gear it could be the sound.
It's a happy state of things , this being able to focus on music with the one thing and on the sound of music with the other.

* For example, since I listen to jazz , THE JAZZ STANDARD, A GUIDE TO THE REPERTOIRE by Ted Gio on my Kindle was an immensely educative experience.