Have your say & ask the experts

Hi Trevor.

Im not doubting you for one minute but are you
saying that your modded RS8s at around £850 will sound almost as good as a £9000 pair
of ART Emotions?

How much did the materials to do this cost? What sort of skills are required to do this?

Trevor, i am not gonna knock your RS8 as I never heard them but the standard Emotion is good but not great, the signature version though is properbly one of the best I have heard including few pair I have demo at home that cost twice the price (that's why i bought them).  I have been a modder myself, that's how I start off my hobby so good luck and enjoy.

Yes more money can buy you better quality, but it is not guaranteed. As others have said, synergy and can your livingroom take that high end system are more important than cost. Diminishing returns set in quickly and very much so over £1000 per item IMO.

Thaiman, As well I am in no way knocking the superb reports you have made on them, far from it. I have been amazed over the last 30 years how really good kit can be modded onto totally new levels.

Stuff like Quad, Rogers, Meridian, even Ken Ishiwata's Marantz M6 Signatures Mono block amps!

With the ART Emotions range the only difference in the thousand of pounds cost is in the cross overs and internal wiring, the component costs being about 20% of the retail prices!

The skills to build Cross over units I would say are reasonable, certainly above starting out levels, but it is not rocket science if you know your away around circuit layouts and more importantly the right components to use.
When the music starts to grab your attention (and not the Hi Fi) you know you are getting onto something special.IMHO

Bodfish:

ajharris:

Now let's just say I spend £10,000 on speakers, they will sound fantastic, if I spend £10,200, it will sound just the same.

But presumably only if you've just bought the exact same speakers and been charged an extra £200!

Greetings from the Pedants Corner (or is that Pedant's.....damn....)

 

I didn't mean it literally like that! 

What I can't understand is how people can spend large amounts of money of Hi-fi when there are millions of people starving, dieing from diseases caused by unsanatory conditions etc.

I don't think I could stomach having a £10,000 system sitting in a room...    

Why should you need to anyway?  Are people saying they can't enjoy listening to music unless it's a close-to-perfect reproduction? 

 

Captain Destructo:

What I can't understand is how people can spend large amounts of money of Hi-fi when there are millions of people starving, dieing from diseases caused by unsanatory conditions etc.

I don't think I could stomach having a £10,000 system sitting in a room...    

Why should you need to anyway?  Are people saying they can't enjoy listening to music unless it's a close-to-perfect reproduction? 

 

What has this got to do with music?

Captain Destructo:

What I can't understand is how people can spend large amounts of money of Hi-fi when there are millions of people starving, dieing from diseases caused by unsanatory conditions etc.

I don't think I could stomach having a £10,000 system sitting in a room...    

Why should you need to anyway?  Are people saying they can't enjoy listening to music unless it's a close-to-perfect reproduction? 

 

You are obviously waiting for someone to bite so lets pretend I'm your first fish of the day. The way I see it is this....I have worked damn hard for the money I get and if I choose to spend it on hifi, a fancy car or even the nightshift lady standing on a street corner.....I will. If I want to support charities and give it all away to some good cause, I will. What I dont need is someone making, pressurising or moralising me into making decisions. I am old enough and ugly enough to be able to do that for myself and thats exectly what I'm going to do. You obviously have very stongly held views and thats a good thing. Voltaire would be poud of you but like the previous poster said.....'whats this got to do with music?'

raym87:

Captain Destructo:

What I can't understand is how people can spend large amounts of money of Hi-fi when there are millions of people starving, dieing from diseases caused by unsanatory conditions etc.

You are obviously waiting for someone to bite so lets pretend I'm your first fish of the day. The way I see it is this....I have worked damn hard for the money I get and if I choose to spend it on hifi, a fancy car or even the nightshift lady standing on a street corner.....I will. If I want to support charities and give it all away to some good cause, I will. What I dont need is someone making, pressurising or moralising me into making decisions. I am old enough and ugly enough to be able to do that for myself and thats exectly what I'm going to do. You obviously have very stongly held views and thats a good thing. Voltaire would be poud of you but like the previous poster said.....'whats this got to do with music?'

I think the poster was referring to people that take the hobby to the extreme.  It's a powerful question and one that everyone should think about at least for a minute.  There is a lot of decadence in the (so called) wealthy contries and horrific poverty in the unwealthy countries. 

The problem is that even if you live a frugal and austere life, donating most income to 3rd world causes, your selflessness does little to impact the problem.  What is needed is for ALL people or at least most to give some reasonable portion of their earnings for 3rd world aid.  Hey, that's a great idea.  We could call it "taxes".  What a minute...never mind...

I think the majority of people would in fact donate the bulk of their income if that act would truly stamp out world hunger or 3rd world disease. 

jaxwired:

raym87:

Captain Destructo:

What I can't understand is how people can spend large amounts of money of Hi-fi when there are millions of people starving, dieing from diseases caused by unsanatory conditions etc.

You are obviously waiting for someone to bite so lets pretend I'm your first fish of the day. The way I see it is this....I have worked damn hard for the money I get and if I choose to spend it on hifi, a fancy car or even the nightshift lady standing on a street corner.....I will. If I want to support charities and give it all away to some good cause, I will. What I dont need is someone making, pressurising or moralising me into making decisions. I am old enough and ugly enough to be able to do that for myself and thats exectly what I'm going to do. You obviously have very stongly held views and thats a good thing. Voltaire would be poud of you but like the previous poster said.....'whats this got to do with music?'

I think the poster was referring to people that take the hobby to the extreme.  It's a powerful question and one that everyone should think about at least for a minute.  There is a lot of decadence in the (so called) wealthy contries and horrific poverty in the unwealthy countries. 

The problem is that even if you live a frugal and austere life, donating most income to 3rd world causes, your selflessness does little to impact the problem.  What is needed is for ALL people or at least most to give some reasonable portion of their earnings for 3rd world aid.  Hey, that's a great idea.  We could call it "taxes".  What a minute...never mind...

I think the majority of people would in fact donate the bulk of their income if that act would truly stamp out world hunger or 3rd world disease. 

How do we define "extreme"? For some people, £135K (the price of the most expensive speakers I've encountered on the net) is loose change, for others it's 10 yrs pay.  Either way, as someone else said, it's up to the individual to spend his cash however he likes.

 

As for donating the bulk of one's income, if you mean one person, then who gets to be the saviour? and if it's all of us, I doubt you'd find it a popular election platform. In the UK people never seem to vote in large numbers for parties that threaten (or promise, in some cases) to raise taxes, even if it is for "good" causes.

 

 

Back on topic. If a few £ worth of capacitors, a soldering iron and some knowhow is all it takes to transform some of the off-the-shelf speakers into something from another class, why don't the manufacturers of said speakers do it: I'm sure they'd recoup the outlay.

I think its a totally fair point. It seems to me there is a massive difference between loving music and wanting a sweet sounding hi fi, and some of the crazy stuff that goes on in persuit of the 'perfect sound' (which will never exist). I agree that having 10k worth of hi fi is a little perverse given the good that kind of money can do for others.

Spending money on hi fi is a selfish act at the end of the day. Nothing wrong with that in moderation, but spending thousands on music equipment is a little perverse in my opinion.

From another angle, I would be rather nervous to even use such expensive equipment. Imagine the cost of repairs, accidental damage, and what happens if someone caves your back door in and scarpers with your precious? Get insurance I hear you cry, but if the local kiddies hear that sweet sound coming out of your windows in the summer, they're gonna want to share your pleasure around amongst themselves.

Sounds like too much worry to me, I like to relax and enjoy my hi fi without being too uptight about it. Just my opinion of course, hehe...

Captain Destructo:

What I can't understand is how people can spend large amounts of money of Hi-fi when there are millions of people starving, dieing from diseases caused by unsanatory conditions etc.

Since some charities can be quite wasteful with administration costs and often get the logistics wrong and send inappropriate items, such as high heeled shoes to an earthquake relief effort, I prefer to cut out the middle man. I send money straight to the dictators and warlords.

Captain Destructo:

I don't think I could stomach having a £10,000 system sitting in a room...    

Why should you need to anyway?  Are people saying they can't enjoy listening to music unless it's a close-to-perfect reproduction? 

Same here, but for different reasons. The high end systems I have heard have all be hifi shops and so should be perferctly setup. But they have all sounded rubbish to me. I don't think I would ever get real enjoyment from such a system.

It is also surprising how many people there are who strive for perfect reproduction. I tried a bit rate comparison test recently and was glad I could not tell the difference. There were a number of others who announced the difference was clear and went on about 'artifices' in the music which 'ruined their enjoyment'. Comments were also made such as 'can you really not tell the difference?' as if I and another who admitted to not hearing anything, were in the wrong.

I am listening to my £15 amplifier as I type. It sounds brilliant, gives me great pleasure and as I said I am glad not to be a perfectionist. I see such people as type 1 audiophiles. I am a type 2 audiophile, I like the hifi, prefer the music and don't need to perfection.

 

Cidershed:

 

From another angle, I would be rather nervous to even use such expensive equipment. Imagine the cost of repairs, accidental damage, and what happens if someone caves your back door in and scarpers with your precious? Get insurance I hear you cry, but if the local kiddies hear that sweet sound coming out of your windows in the summer, they're gonna want to share your pleasure around amongst themselves.

 

The local kiddies will nick whatever you have, if they're that way inclined, be it £10K hifi or something costing 50p. It's unlikely they'll be fussy about the sound either before or once the've broken in. I had an expensive TT nicked (Transcriptors) but they left the Quad amp. They also nicked a bottle of cheap blended scotch and left the 3 bottles of single malt. I attribute the first to the belief that "it's shiny, it must be worth something (and the amp isn't so musn't be!)" , and the latter to the "I've seen Teachers in the shops - dunno what this other stuff is" .

 

Kids, eh?

On another forum for Cyrus users, a guy called shrink came up with the rule of thirds :

You need to pay 3 times as much to get a significantly better system.

 I like this and it fits with my personal experience -

My previous system with NAD CD player, Magnum IA70 amp and B&W 602S3 speakers cost about 1000 quid.

My present system cost about 3000 quid (excluding home cinema bits) and is significantly better.

To get a much system I would need to spend 9000 quid.

 This is not to say slightly better components, especially cables etc cannot improve a system.  Its just that you need to spend a lot more money to get a better system.

 

Cidershed:

Spending money on hi fi is a selfish act at the end of the day. Nothing wrong with that in moderation, but spending thousands on music equipment is a little perverse in my opinion.

Where would you draw the line......You could argue that all we need is one of Tesco's specials.....it plays music. Anything else could be argued as being over the top.