Slashdot Mirror

Bose had "sound-related inventions"? I thought they were just marketeers with crappy paper cone speakers.

psh, $200? You should go for the expensive stuff. And those are just the interconnects; speaker cables run you 50% more.

Good turntables/arms/stablilizers/needles are very expensive and are most certainly not toys.

The ones Froogle is listing for under $100 are, though.

For a great selection of new and used audiophile-grade equipment, try http://www.audiogon.com/.

For your average audio system I would agree that you won't hear much difference between the $10 cable and the $50 one; but once you've upgraded your sources and speakers, eventually your cables to factor in. Also, most Monster cables are crap that your average audiophile would never touch. But the audiophile community is very divided on the issue of cables. Most will agree that there is some noticeable difference between cables. If you do your homework you'll find that there's a wide range of technologies being employed. For example: Silver, Copper, Palladium, Carbon. Thin wire, thick wire. Ceramic connectors, plastic connectors, plated connectors, solid connectors, gold connectors, silver connectors, copper connectors. Teflon, cotton, foam, or air insulation. Also, Magnets, no shielding, heavy shielding, even cryogenic treatments. Yes, there's a lot of snake oil out there but you need to research and listen before drawing conclusions.

...every minute.

...every minute.

To be relevant to this post, he uses Nordost cables, which are hella expensive. Not only that, he uses a product called Cable Elevators. It keeps the speaker cable from touching the floor/carpet. It was named The Absolute Sound's Accessory of the Year. Only $160 for a set of 8!

http://audiogon.com/ is a great audiophile marketplace. Type "tubes" in the search bar to see other listings.

I can't believe the tech is 100yrs old. I knew it was old but 100. For those that say tubes are dated clearly havn't listened to "good" stereo equipment. Might I suggest Audiogon.

http://www.audiogon.com
These guys will have you buying tube equipment before long, but they know their stuff.
http://www.avsforum.com
Home Theater buffs with a tremendous amount of knowledge.
http://www.hometheaterforum.com
Similar to the above, but it's a slightly different crowd. It's hard to explain.

I've learned a wealth of information from these sites. You'll find that these guys are all talking about spending a lot more than your budget on their hardware, but they are the guys you want to ask about a $1500 system, because they're the ones critical enough to sift the wheat from the chaff, even though they might not buy the system themselves. (Obviously I'm stereotyping here. Many of the people on the forums are as strapped for cash as the next guy.) For equipment reviews, www.audioreview.com is good, and so is www.etown.com. Audioreview seems to have a good quantity of reviews and etown has good quality reviews. For buying equipment, if you are looking for used stuff, look at audioreview and audiogon before going to ebay, and you'll like what you find. I prefer dealing with people who know what they're selling when possible.

Anyway, good luck, and welcome to the "club"!

David Fay

P.S. FYI, my current setup:

Sony 1272 CRT projector (92" x 52" 16:9 home-made screen)
PC with DVD-ROM drive, SBLive! (SPDIF out), and PowerDVD 2.55
Pioneer Elite receiver (older one, no DTS)
B&W Nautilus 804 mains
Dual SVS 20-39 subwoofers with the Fidek 600W amp

I need to get surrounds and a center, but so far things are sounding and looking good! HTPC (home theater PC) is definitely the way to go if you can. There's nothing like watching a DVD in 1280x720@72Hz resolution on a projector.

61" Sony XBR300 TV

Lexcion DC-1 Preamp (rumor has it George Lucas had one of these things :) )

Parasound HCA-1206 power amp

Toshiba 5109 DVD player (has progressive out)

Sony DSS

Some damn SVHS VCR that I have yet to use

Citation 7000 series speakers

Now... all of that stuff retails for something on the wrong side of $30,000, but you'd be a fool to think I'd actually spend that much money on it. I picked up the power amp, preamp, and speakers all used, at an average of about 1/3 of retail pricing.

So... my whole hearted recommendation is spend some time looking at the used market! Also, stay away from the Good Guys, Circuit City, etc. These stores carry CRAP. Find a local high end dealer and talk to them. Usually their prices are movable and you can do some wheeling and dealing. Also, checkout auidoadvisor.com. They currently have what appears to be the deal of the century at the moment... A complete KEF (excellent speaker brand) 5.1 speaker system for $900.

Here's a short list of good brands to look for:

Electronics (receivers, preamps, amps, etc.)

NAD

Parasound

Some Denon/Yamaha

Anthem

Sherwood Newcastle (make sure it's NEWCASTLE!)

B&K

Adcom

Speakers:

B&W

Paradigm

PSB

KEF

NHT

Aerial

Energy

Boston Accoustics

Brands to stay away from:

Sony (some of the ES Stuff is okay)

BOSE (don't by it, no matter what)

sub $500 recievers from ANYONE (these things are just piles of junk)

Kenwood

Sherwood (non newcastle stuff)

Yamaha speakers

Cerwin Vega

JVC (their SVHS VCRs are the best, however)

Awia

Also, here are a few good links to used audio sites:

audioshopper.com
audiogon.com
jmsound.com
jeffsoundvalues.com

Hope that helps, and for what it's worth, I've spent a good amount of time these past few years learning about all of this crap and if you use the guide above you should get a perfectly good system. I've left out super high end brands, thinking most people not be interested, but if you are just ask.