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Vintage Asylum Classic gear from yesteryear; vintage audio standing the test of time. |
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Vintage Asylum Classic gear from yesteryear; vintage audio standing the test of time. |
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In Reply to: Re: VINTAGE STUPID - why not new posted by Bob Wortman on December 26, 2003 at 00:09:46:
Bob,Amen to that! A funny story about preamps was Stereophile and Bob Carver. He sent them a new preamp to review. They hated it. But they contacted Bob, pre-article. He told them something must be wrong with the unit he sent. Send it back, and he'd check it out. He did check it out and found nothing wrong. Cleaned it up, put on a new label with a new serial #, and sent it back with a letter saying he had found some problems and was sending them one they had checked and found to be in spec. (that was true) They reviewed it a second time, and raved about how much better it was than the first example.
Kind of makes your point doesn't it?As you may have guessed, I am an engineer, and all the snake oil, hype and BS just aggrivates the S--- out of me. A couple of us dropped into a local "hype end" shop last year. Among the things we listened to was the "good" system in the main listening room. A pair of Revels driven by Mark levinson electronics. Total was around $40,000. We asked the owner to play two CD's for us. The Blind Boys of Alabama, a gospel group with some excellent backing, and the Telarc of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. The system gave a totally unrealistic vocal presentation on the Blind Boys (my friend said it sounded like some white guys trying to sound black) and on the Vivaldi, the harpsichord in the background was not resolved at all. However, a $1500 system of Vandersteen 1C and NAD electronics out in the open space in the shop in a very unfavorable placement sounded great on the vocals and easily resolved the harpsichord. After we got back here we tried the same two CD's on my den system with stacked Advents, Rotel CD player, and NAD C350 integrated amp and the vocals were "live" sounding and the harpsichord stood out clearly. On the living room TV system (Bose AM-5's, Sony XE-500 CD player, and Sony STR-D135 receiver, $140 at Best Buy, chosen for the high WAF)the vocals were very good and the harpsichord easily found. OK, so why would I want to spend $40,000 for an inferior system, unless it's bragging rights about the $$$ and the name plates. We've had this same experience several times in other shops. Set up is part of it, but they can't all be that badly set up, can they?
I won't get started on the cones and stuff. Suffice to say I worked for the first 12 years of my career running aerospace vibration and acoustics labs and 95% of the devices and claims are pure BS.
Jerry
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- Re: VINTAGE STUPID - why not new - Bold Eagle 13:52:52 12/26/03 (0)
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