Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms vintage versus modern hifi

The thing about hifi that I find intriguing is that the better the sound your system produces, the more. you will want to listen to it and I think most people would accept that.
So a key question in hifi is "Why do I prefer 1 system's sound to another system's sound",
The answer lies in the fact that sound waves and your brain are actually the system and your kit is not the final arbiter. One of the most important concepts in hifi (at least in the area of high end hifi) is synergy, which is largely the difference in sound quality between systems.
Sorry for the quasi-philosophy but you will recognise this theme in my posts and it is my guide through the complexities of the hobby.
Heinz
If you walked into my house now it would be a step back in time for you :-)
I will give details of my kit a little later if the thread lasts

Peter
You are a vinyl man so we are soulmates already
I have only rudimentary streaming capabilities via my Mac, AppleTV and a DacMagic and am certainly a numpty on this subject. I do, however, take CD players seriously.
If you are into cabling atm then you must check out Duelund 16ga. Have a look at the far-reaching story behind this cable and get back to me if you have questions.
Guitar people should look into this story as it could answer questions like 'Why do old 50s and 60s Fenders, Gibsons, Gretch etc. sound. so much better than their modern counterparts?"
PS
It's £10/M and I use it on sound quality grounds.

Barry,

PM sent...

Duelund 16ga...£10.00 a meter. Yet one can pay £2.5k per meter for so called "top end" interconnects. Do I smell snake oil?

The problem with HiFi investments is the little improvement you notice after upgrading and the big loss of sound quality you recognize whenever you downgrade afterwards.

I don't want to create an imbalance here and leave room for other hifi enthusiasts, but I would like to post two more links. On the one hand a very detailed review about the Duelund cable. Thanks a lot, Barry. I didn't know it but I am very much looking forward to making some, for speakers and as interconnect. I know the effect from the guitar world.

http://positive-feedback.com/audio-...remium-tinned-copper-vintage-tone-cable/

My second link refers to Barry's statement that the sound of the source only forms a system when combined with the brain. It occurred to me how important the room also is, as many people know. 12 years ago I read a book about this by Floyd Toole, who some hifi enthusiasts might know, because he has done a great job in the AES. „Sound Reproduction“

http://www.aes.org/events/145/presenters/?ID=7712

Roy Delgado, then chief engineer at Klipsch, gave us the book tip when I attended an audio seminar in Hope AR in 2009.

I wanted to link the book title here, but there is a very positive surprise, because I discovered that the whole book is online as a pdf. You just have to wait a few seconds for it to load, very readable.

https://we.riseup.net/assets/443799...f+Loudspeakers+and+Rooms+Floyd+Toole.pdf

Here is my take on Duelund, originally sent to Peter
There are things about tinned copper cables that have only come to light in the last 10 years or so.
I have had a plethora of silly-expensive cables to try on my system and results, good or bad, were pretty random.
Then one eve a hifi buddy appeared on my doorstep with a 4M pair of Duelund 16ga interconnects he had just made up for me to try.
His words were “They need a 100hr run-in in but you will be surprised with the result”.
Well 100hrs requires some patience and at first they sounded like they could be good, but were frankly all over the place. But I persevered because I have known my buddy for a very long time and his judgements on hifi are usually spot on. After 30 or 40 hours they settled down and
started to sound good and kept improving daily until 100hrs or more had passed.
The end result surpassed my expectation by a long way and they are now permanently installed between my ARC SP10 preamp and my ARC D125 power amp. At first they seem to have a slightly ‘dark’ sound but after 10 mins you realise that the highs are not rolled off but there is just more articulate bass in the mix, which on my system is the cherry on the bun.
The story behind the resurgence of tinned copper is well worth reading about, and with the benefit of hindsight, should have been more obvious.
They really are better than many £1k+ cables and at £10 per meter you can afford to find out if I know what I am talking about or not!

With regard to speaker cables, the claims which are made for some types I have grave doubts. I can do no more than quote Peter Walker, HiFi Engineer and founder of the Acoustical Manufacturing Company.

"There are only two requirements a speaker cable should satisfy.
The first is that it should be long enough to reach between amplifier and speaker.
Then having done that, the only other requirement is, ideally, the colour of the insulation should match that of the surface on which it lays."

By the standards above, my Hi-Fi system is pretty 'mid range'... but every time I walk into a 'Hi-Fi shop and hear the latest and greatest products, I am very glad that I have never 'upgraded'!

And the money saved has gone into my car hobbies!

In 1988, I bought an Audiolab 8000A Amp, a pair of Celestion SL6'Si' monitor speakers and a Marantz CD65 SE CD player. I still have the amp and the speakers... the CD went years ago after it failed so I now have an early 2000's Arcam CD73 CD player. I have also taken advantage of the Audiolab's 2 speaker ability and run a set of bi-wired Monitor Audio 8 Gold speakers... A modest Rega-Planar 11 turntable and QED Gold cables produce, for me, a wonderful rich and balanced listening experience that I simply cannot 'hear' any value in changing!

I love playing Vinyl... Soooo smooth compared with CD and 'Apple' driven digitally sourced material!

And it all started with my Dad having a Valve 'Leak' amplifier with speakers... that he 'gave away' to a friend in the late 1970's because it was too hard to move house with!!! WTF!

I compare y system to my (for sale) 'Trad'! I don't want 'digital' CX platform sound! :>)

I had never seen the Duelund review linked by Heinz before but from my experience it is pretty much cock-on.

Many years ago I bought a pair of late 70’s Bose floor speakers at the end of day trading at a car boot sale for wait for it ....£1
which the seller could not get rid of because of the original colour being cream case and green mesh. These are very much in retro vogue now but the sound quality is superb along with my NAD system.