The most overrated kit?

The more kit I listen to, the less I believe quality is in bespoke chips or algorithms, it is rather in the quality of the power supplies and other analog circuits... :guiness:

 

Oooh now let's see...

Meridian G08
MF Trivista
PT P3/P1a
Wavelength (forget the name)
EAD 8000
.........................................

To be fair, the Dac64 holds it's head up in that company, and is a good buy if you like what it does, but it isn't the only player in town even below it's list price.

For me, a £700 dac and a £1300 Turntable would give you longer lasting musical enjoyment

 

But my turntable doesn't have a digital out, how do I connect the DAC?



-- Ian

 

For passive speakers, very possibly true. Actives raise the bar much higher.

 

I am cynical I suppose, but I would VERY much like him to justify quite why the horns went from around £6-8000 in their first year, to £17000,then to £37,000.with not much time in between.

I have said this before, but for £3k or so, you could get ATCs, with 12" drivers and 350 watts of top quality mosfet amps 6 altogether, with active crossovers, now that's what I call value.

Indeed, when LV are charging £4k for the obx, and the ATC's are £6k new you really begin to question and wonder.

 

I'm detecting a parallel here with a favourite bit of kit of mine. Let's try it and see.

Also, don't forget that the Arcam RingDAC isn't (like 99% of DACs out there) just a bunch of off the shelf components (including off the shelf DAC chip) slung together. It's a totally proprietary <design> which has nothing to do with your common as muck Crystal, Cirrus, Wolfson, Burr Brown etc off the shelf chips.

Sounds about right.

Like software, that kind of hardware isn't developed for free

It cost Arcam a small fortune.

Still apparently true today. The new upsampling wonder toys may be smooth and clean but they appear not to have the life and involvement of the RingDAC players

 

You are probably right, my speakers cost just a bit more than that, (one has to pay for the beautifull wood), and I have not heard significantely better, different yes, more adequate to really big rooms yes, but not that much better sound at any price...

 

You guys need to hear Titian's speakers.

-- Ian

 

I recently saw a pair at Definitive Audio that somebody had traded in for a pair of Avatars

I think they might still be for sale if you look at the classifieds..

 

Most over-rated piece of kit?
I'd say the Michell Orbe :SLEEP:
For similar money, I think you can get significantly more exciting and musical decks (such as the Verdier, Clearaudio, VPI, Nottingham Analogue and Kuzma offerings).
Oh, and never heard a Mission speaker I didn't think was all boom'n'tizz..
And the Rogers LS3/5a. Beautiful sound if you like really really quiet music or Radio 4 voices but they're the exact opposite of Rockin'!

 

I dont think "bespoke components" means diddly, its more how the circuit is implemented. Some kit can be "off the shelf common as muck" components and sound very good.
Early Skoda's used their own parts - enough said me thinks

 

Is that why they used to win the F2 rally world champeenships every year almost without fail?
And don't any more since they became a cheap and well built volkswagen? (Although I don't think F2 exists any more - isn't it all WRC these days?)

 

Interesting post. I suppose that it depends on whether we are saying over rated by the manufacturer, forum members or hifi mags!

I think that most manufacturers over-hype. Some forum members overly hype or is that promote certain brands eg M and N and the same group of people (and others) overly dismiss a certain other manufacturer - MF. There is much more neutrality around most other brands.

I heard £40k worth of Meridien gear (DVD and amp) with B&W Nautilus 801s at Grahams with a mate - we went up stairs and listened to £5k worth of Naim and the Naim won hands down.

Most DVD players when used for CD replay.

Modern Linn equipment is so controlled it takes vibrato out of voices - a great trick which I would not have believed possible until I heard it for myself.

LP12, B&W Nautilus, Naim CD power supply (cannot remember name of it)

 

I suspect that in many instances people hear a piece of kit either in an unsypmathetic system or not set up properly. This bad experience inevitably hardens their opinion about said piece of kit. If the kit was well set up in a sympathetic system, I wonder if the same conclusions would be drawn?

(Except in my case of course where all of my opinions are correct )

 

I am sure they sound great and they probably are better than mine, not to mention the rest of the system, but until you hear mine, in his system I guess, you cannot be shure there is a significant difference...

 

That's true, but I've heard an awful lot of setups - some of them, like mine f'rinstance, are really good - but his is the only one that really does sound like an orchestra is in the room. I suspect that's down to his speakers and subs more than anything else.

-- Ian

 

I find sinergy, particularly the room, more important than any single element on the chain, except for a very weak link...

And Titian's entire system is very high level...

 

Dont take me wrong, not beeing worth the difference in cost doesnt mean that I wouldnt buy such a system if I could afford it, but then I would need a bigger house too, etc, etc... :MILD:

 

Hmm.....I was going to add the Arcam (actually dCS) RingDAC in my list of off the shelf components

AFAIK dCS developed it and then Arcam just licensed it from them in the form of a chip. OK, it's not quite as off the shelf as everything else out there but not quite as proprietary and unique as the Chord DAC algorithm (which is hardware or software, depending on how you look at it. FPGA are effectively "soft" hardware).

AFAIK also, the reason that Arcam dropped the dCS Ring DAC chips in favour of the Wolfsons was purely cost. dCS were just asking too much money for it.

Michael.

 

Didn't Chord just licence the technology from Rob Watts Michael?

Notreally "in house" IMO

Oh and good luck to Portugal in the coming weeks