One cool thing about the 2007 CES is that no matter how big TV screens get, how small portable devices become, or how compressed the bitstream is, there are those who only want the best sound for their music. Here are some nice setups that I wish I could afford to put in my house. The above device is a tube-driven (even the timing circuit!) CD player from PrimaLuna.
It’s nice to see that the art of making speakers hasn’t fallen by the wayside in the iPod era. There were Electrostatics from companies like Quad (#11) and King’s Audio (#6), traditional designs from firms like RBH (#7, with me) and Usher (#9), and more exotic offerings by companies such as German Physiks (#4) and MBL (#2).
On the component side you had things like a money-is-almost-no-object audio/video receiver from McIntosh (#1), massive turntables from ClearAudio (# 4 & 5), tube amplifiers, and even a battery-powered phono (No line noise) head amp from Sutherland Engineering (the one with the batteries in it, duh). A company called MSB unveiled a tweaked “audiophile” iPod interface (#2) called iLink that modifies the iPod to allow digital audio to be sent to the iLink and output via toslink optical, coaxial, or balanced AES/EBU format. Pioneer even had a demo (#8) showing high-end gear being driven by one of their Optical Digital Reference car units to demonstrate their new sound calibration technology.
12,
I’ll get to that too, OFTLO. I’ve got material for weeks. I’ll also improve how I refer to the photos so you know which depicts the devices I am talking about. For example, I’m posing with an RBH speaker in the picture above.
As for audiophile gear, I would agree that some audiophile products are snake oil. The rest range in value from truly excellent to incredibly over-priced, but functional.
I bet you track on minidisc sprayed with C-37.
And you are so right, mac has so much time working on high-end audio…oh wait, it never has!! or do you want to say ipod is not a consumer audio device?
I said it before, knowing that you compared apple lossless to uncompressed audio in the first place would have saved us a lot of time in this discussion. Enjoy your “audiophile” ipod.
Who cares about all this iPod debate? The real issue here is tubes. I mean come on — are there still some out there that think tubes are better than solid state?
That warmth you hear? It’s called distortion.
Oh I know — it’s fun to replace them when they wear out. And they are soooo efficient.
How about getting in the 20th century folks. It is — after all — the 21st.
Mike T
#14
Sorry man… Didn’t realize you’d take it personally… Did you design the iPod?
I’d rather talk religion and politics than audio any day. Islamic radicals are more forgiving than the average self-proclaimed audiophile.
I am thinking about the iPod the way an Apple product manager thinks about the iPod – as a consumer grade commodity – a 21st Century Walkman. These are cheap consumer electronics meant for a mainstream low-end user. And I know what is on most iPods because there is about 400 metric tons of marketing data that tells me. I have no more magical power than anyone else.
Oh, wait! I got it! They’re all wrong and you’re right! They just toss a couple 50-cent chips into a shoebox and sell it to us gullible fools for tens of thousands of dollars! Not you, though – you see right through their ploys!
I should have been more clear. I talk to 100 guys a day who are convinvced that they should buy $500 power cables or $3000 spools of wire. That is snake oil.
However, I do work for these guys… and any list of innovators in this field surely includes my boss’s name… Not that anyone should concern themselves with that except to say that I’m not just a guy reading a web site and spouting opinions. My job is to evangelize this stuff, but its mostly just remarkably expensive stuff for guys who hit the lucky in life lottery and don’t have to settle for a mere $10K home theater package.
Now if you are too personally invested in your audio opinions… Then I’m done. I don’t care. Audio is subjective, period and what sounds good to a listener is what sounds good. I won’t drink the kool aid. It’s all just speakers and amps and media players. Some of it is made for me. Some of it is made for professional basketball players.
And Alex… I appreciate what you do…
Keep it up.
ghoti-
So you built a studio at age 12, so what? Your so-called ‘accomplishments’ mean nothing in this debate, other than to try to build up your argument (but, alas, you fall face first into crap).
You’re taking a device meant to COMPRESS music and reverse/modify the process in order to get a bit better sound quality?
I guess you’re the same type of dope I used to sell $1000 monster cables to and $2000 power centers because YOU could hear the difference.
You know something – I always laughed at dopes like you when you walked out the door and made my pocket fatter.
16,
There are venues from hotel rooms to ballrooms at CES all over VEgas. Some of the pictures from the show are at parties.
#21 – You’re right, Smartalix. Many high-end ‘accessories’ are pure buncombe and humbug, that’s never been in doubt. Then there’s the ones of dubious sonic merit that their tinfoil-hat creators actually believe in (and which, once in a great while, actually do something to the sound – not always something good, necessarily). And a few, certainly less than 10%, probably less than 5%, that are sonically beneficial, to a greater or lesser degree.
But the high-end is ultimately about the most accurate music playback, cost-no-object. Unfortunately, there will always be those sheeple who don’t get it – hey, kids, we already know that spending $60,000 on a Burmester 969/970 CD transport and processor pair doesn’t produce 100 times better sound than a $600 Denon. That isn’t the point. The point is not what is the most cost-effective, it’s about what is BEST, even if we won’t ever buy such an extravagant component, because there always has to be a benchmark to compare everything else to.
Hard to get that across to Gen X and Gen XI, the champions of “whatever, d00d” mediocrity and indifference to intangible concepts like ‘excellence.’
Lauren…
I am a snob, therefore I help set the standard for excellence and I am Gen X…
You weren’t defending a Burmester Whatever The Hell 6000… You were defending an iPod.
iPod are cheap consumer widgets used for compressed audio… And that’s fine, cause when you listen while cruising a bike trail, or walking in a mall, or hooking it up to the factory installed sound system of your 2003 Dodge Durango, it won’t make any difference at all anyway.
The problem with audiophiles is that they don’t know the difference between objective and subjective… What’s worse, they brag for days on end about their 25 thousand dollar home theater system, but I never once hear them actually talk about a movie, unless it is to point out how well the subwoofer handled an effect.
Do audiophiles even like the art that the gear in intended to play… or do they just get hard ons for spending a lot of money on electronics?
Yes to the former, no to the latter.
For the record, my personal philosophy on technology is that it is useless without the human element. The most fancy gadget is indistinguishable from a rock without a mind to appreciate its functionality. That includes software and content.
pedro, amigo – It’s fun watching your comments decline from silly to loony to bizarre.
“I bet you track on minidisc sprayed with C-37.”
Huh?
“And you are so right, mac has so much time working on high-end audio…oh wait, it never has!! or do you want to say ipod is not a consumer audio device?”
HUH? Wha? I’ll go smoke some shrooms and come back. Maybe I’ll be able to decipher what you’re attempting to say…
“I said it before, knowing that you compared apple lossless to uncompressed audio in the first place would have saved us a lot of time in this discussion. Enjoy your “audiophile” ipod.”
HUH? WHA? I compared wha to wha? What I did do is inform you that there is zero audible difference between PCM and any lossless format. Is that difficult to grasp? At the digital output, when the exact same bits come out in the exact same order, they are – TA-DA! exactly the same! But you are saying that since those bits are coming from an Apple product, that they somehow sound different. Ya.
Here’s pedro’s “new math”:
1110010000101110 ≠ 1110010000101110
Brilliant.
#25 – Brian:
“So you built a studio at age 12, so what? Your so-called ‘accomplishments’ mean nothing in this debate, other than to try to build up your argument (but, alas, you fall face first into crap).”
So what? ‘What’ is: I have many years of deep involvement with music which you don’t. I play genuine, live, acoustic music and I know intimately what it sounds like. You don’t. I am a recording engineer who also has many years of experience that you don’t have in knowing what it takes to capture and preserve that music. You are not. I am an audiophile. You, OTOH – are not. Which your next ill-advised statement makes clear:
“You’re taking a device meant to COMPRESS music and reverse/modify the process in order to get a bit better sound quality?”
You and pedro need to have your meds reviewed. Unless you live on Bizarro-world, you have never seen a player (hint, hint) that compresses anything. Compression, sonny, is part of the encoding process which outputs the music files which are then loaded into a player. The player DECOMPRESSES the files for playback.
And what the fuck are you talking about anyway? The iPod mod is to bypass the consumer-grade analog output and output the bitstream. And if that bitstream is from an uncompressed 16/44.1 stereo file, then – listen carefully – there is no compression. There is no decompression. No ‘process’ is ‘modified.’ The parts that compromise fidelity are simply bypassed. For MUCH better sound quality. Apparently that’s too complicated for you to grasp.
“I guess you’re the same type of dope I used to sell $1000 monster cables to and $2000 power centers because YOU could hear the difference.”
I have always loved egocentric jackasses who project their own deficiences on others in order to maintain their self-esteem. Just because YOU can’t hear a difference doesn’t mean there isn’t one – or that I, or the next guy, can’t hear it.
Speaker cable and interconnects do make a difference, and yes, I can hear those differences. That doesn’t mean that most of these $$$$ wires made with 99.99999999999998%-pure Unobtanium, mined on Jupiter actually do what they claim – they don’t. Snake oil. But the bozos who think that a length of 18-gauge lamp cord is as good as anything else are just as dumb as the suckers you describe. They’re the same ones who, 22+ years ago were arrogantly proclaiming that the icepick-in-the-ears “sound” from CDs was, as the slogan went, “perfect sound forever.”
“You know something – I always laughed at dopes like you when you walked out the door and made my pocket fatter.”
Whatever you say, chum.
#28 – OFTLO:
You’re not talking about audiophiles there, you’re describing equipment freaks, who are only a subset of those who self-identify as ‘audiophiles.’ These are the guys who listen to some of the most mediocre music imaginable – and rarely if ever listen to a cut from beginning to end. Now, me – I love machines, always have. I have a gift for interfacing with them – but I never lose sight of the purpose for which the machine is made. But we have to tolerate the others, in no small part because it’s their fanaticism that pays the freight for high-end R&D. All too often, they’re equipment freaks because they have the money to indulge in it. If Krell or conrad-johnson or Audio Research or you-name-it ever stopped selling to them, they would fold rather quickly, since, demographically speaking, music lovers tend to skew to much lower income levels than the gadget freaks. I’ve never known too many musicians or other dedicated music lovers who could be considered well-off, probably because people who pursue beauty have comparatively less time to pursue money…
So please don’t judge all audiophiles by the gadgeteers.
Whose math is wrong?
Compressed=Uncompressed
Consumer(ipod)=Audiophile
Yeah, I got it, Clear as mud. You should complement that great audiophile add on with the nice belkin tunestudio. You won’t be needing recording studios no more because you’re recording to an ipod, what else could be better sounding than that?
ghoti-
You’re right…we should all bow to your infinite musical knowledge and finely tuned ear…that you and you alone can hear the difference between a $200 cable and a $1000 cable.
YOU are the very person that these audio companies cater too…the elitist snob who thinks there’s an audible difference (hint: there’s not) between high end cable and elite cables…between high end speakers and elite. Fools and their money are soon parted, and you, sir, are a fool.
Good day to you.
33,
Good cable is demonstrably better than cheap cable, the problem is there is a very steep asymptote from that point on in price/performance.
34-
There is no denying that…however, above a certain point, there is just no audible difference. People who point to specs and try to use them as proof have no idea. The human ear runs out of range a hell of a lot sooner than what can be measured.
Monster cable has made a killing in playing off the ‘keeping up with the joneses’ mentality that pervades high end audio. Noel Lee has a huge mansion and more cars than he knows what to do with from playing into this ridiculous emotion.
35,
Where is that point, in your opinion? $50? $100? $15? How much per meter would you pay for quality speaker wire? RCA cables?
How much would you pay for a bottle of cola-flavored sugar water? A bottle of just plain water? How much better is a $5 bottle of water from Fiji and one from your tap (through a filter if you must)?
Elitism exists in every area of interest, from cooking to quoits. Don’t be too hard on high-end audio, at least it employs a lot of American technology workers.
What we all should do, however, is try to discuss the issue with a little less vitriol.
#30, Lauren, I’ve been following you up until this point, but this is where you went from an intelligent discussion to the absurd.
So what? ‘What’ is: I have many years of deep involvement with music which you don’t. I play genuine, live, acoustic music and I know intimately what it sounds like. You don’t. I am a recording engineer who also has many years of experience that you don’t have in knowing what it takes to capture and preserve that music. You are not. I am an audiophile.
Right, SO WHAT ???
I played professionally when I was younger and produced a couple of albums out of our own pocket. I know what I enjoy and no one can tell me what I enjoy should sound like.
SO WHAT ???
I am now in my 50s. I don’t know of any musician over 25 who has hearing worth a shit. Every single one has experienced significant hearing loss.
SO WHAT ???
That doesn’t mean none of can hear or appreciate what we hear. What it does mean is that NONE of us can differentiate the subtleties you allude to. You know, those little subtleties lost in the compression / decompression.
SO WHAT ???
Buying these ultra high end audio systems are stupid. They aren’t the standard. They are the extreme. The difference may only be measured electronically, not audibly. It is the same as buying a $600,000 Bughatti or Ferrari. Very pretty to look at, even fun to drive. And more fun to boast about. But unless you have the requisite skill to drive one to the max and a place to do it, they are just wasted money.
At best your experience as a recording engineer qualifies you to discuss recording equipment and studios. It doesn’t qualify you to suggest what something should sound like. That, my friend, is the taste of the artist and producer, not the engineer.
” It is the same as buying a $600,000 Bughatti or Ferrari. ”
My point exactly.
Far from telling anyone else that my sonic preferences should be the benchmark for everyone else, you, Fusion, and my dear friend Brian miss the point completely.
BTW, the Bugatti Veyron is currently $1.4 megadollars US.
“There is no denying that…however, above a certain point, there is just no audible difference.”
Wrong, wrong, wrong, boyo. As I done tole ya, YOU think YOU are superior to everyone else. Since YOU can’t hear the difference, and since you are the center of the Universe, therefore there IS no difference. That, friends, is an example of egocentrism.
I once worked in a liquor store. Now, personally, I can’t discern the difference between a $20 bottle of wine and a $200 bottle. I am intelligent enough to know that other people, who have a far greater experience and knowledge of fine wines than do I, can taste the difference. Unlike you guys, I don’t take it as an affront to my ego: “You think you can taste something I can’t, so you must be crazy, ’cause if I can’t taste the difference, there IS no difference!” Piaget has taught us that, normally, children pass through the egocentric stage at around 9 or 10 years. Unfortunately, in some people, the attitude remains: “Everything in the world is determined by what I think.” So it is with Brian and Fusion.
“People who point to specs and try to use them as proof have no idea.”
Thank you, oh great one, for sharing that flash bulletin with us. Unfortunately, the war between the fools who mistakenly declare that “specs are everything” and their equally foolish counterparts who declare that “specs are totally irelevant to sound quality” started long before you were a twinkle in your respective daddies’ eyes. Been there, done that, got the T, &c, &c…
Audio is, like it or not, an imprecise mix of subjective judgments and objective measurements. I can consistently tell the difference between the sound of a Krell amp driving Wilson WATT/Puppys A/Bed with a Pass Labs amp. And I don’t really give a shit if you can or not. But when you project YOUR inability to tell the difference on ME, who has one Hell of a lot more time spent LEARNING to tell the difference, you’re full of shit.
“The human ear runs out of range a hell of a lot sooner than what can be measured.”
Another dopey assertion of untruth. Any psychoacoustician or audiologist could dispel that myth for you. Over the last 40 or so years, the industry has repeated encountered audible effects from equipment that they had no way to detect or measure. TIM, or transient intermodulation distortion, was an anomaly. Nobody could figure out why two amps with 0.0001% steady-state IM could sound so different, because everyone KNEW that that level of IM was undetectable by the human ears. People like you said the exact same thing you’re parroting now: “You can’t hear any differnce, the distortion is far below what the ear can detect.” That led to claims like “You can’t hear any difference between a Phase Linear amp and an Audio Research amp.” But when Matti Ottola of Philips Labs discovered TIM, the explanation was forthcoming, and the naysayers shut up.
Wise men learned from that, and many other such revelations that there are still things we can hear that we don’t yet know how to measure. You, however, are not experienced or wise. Your arguments were blown away decades ago. All the designers of fine high end gear use spectrum analyzers – AND their ears. And they, like myself, happen to know a little bit more about audio than you two.
“What it does mean is that NONE of us can differentiate the subtleties you allude to. You know, those little subtleties lost in the compression / decompression.”
There we are again. “>>I>I>I>I
My most abject and humble apologies, dear friends, for shipping off that last comment whilst omitting the thrilling conclusion, which follows hereinafter:
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There we are again. “>>I>I>I>I