Amp + Floorstander Recommendations. Budget Rs.2L

[Berlyassocial]

Hi,

I'm looking to upgrade from a Cambridge Azur 340A SE amp and Wharfedale Diamond 220 bookshelves.
!

My best advice to you is to first understand what needs an upgrade.

Let me elaborate

The vast majority of audiophiles never hear their currently owned system to their full potential. Why..? Because they don't have the means to understand or analyze what they really hear when sitting in their room at their listening position.

The solution to understand what you hear is a measurement microphone like a minidsp umik 1 and a computer. This is singlehandedly the best investment you can do if you are an Audiophile because it gives you the power to analyze what you are hearing at your listening spot. Every time you change a room or equipment you can measure how it affects the sound throughout your Audiophile life.

You can have several lac worth of a system in your room and have been listening to terrible sound for years before you sell it and move on to another system thinking "ive used the previous system for a long time and I've explored its performance". WRONG..!

There is a deceiving reason behind why this is happening which most companies will never tell you nor want you to know.

The measurements you see of a speaker you buy were taken in an anechoic chamber or on an infinite baffle if it is an individual driver.
The sound you are hearing in your suboptimal listening room which has asymmetric furniture, windows, doors is entirely different than the official specs.

let me give you a real-life example I encountered

take a good look at this system.
remember to keep that published frequency response of the speakers in mind.







ANECHOIC FREQUENCY RESPONSE OF AMATI FUTURA FROM STEREOPHILE WEBSITE



speakers are not visible in the first photo but it's situated in both sides which were SONUS FABER AMATI FUTURA.
one entire room was only dedicated to audio with an extensive amount of sound-absorbing panels and diffusers and bass traps symmetrically placed on all sides. there was no furniture except a listening chair and a table.

the price breakdown of equipment.

sonus faber amati futura - 27.1 lac INR
Genus Aries Cerat integrated amp- 15.5 lac INR
Genus kassandra dac- 20.7 lac INR

I'm not even gonna get into the streamer ,cd player , speaker cable ,interconnects, grounding box for speaker and all that. it was priced at a similar ratio. but you get the idea.

so looking at it, any audiophile would consider this as one of the top-tier most desirable audio systems you can have and expect the resultant sound to be nothing short of perfect. Right..?

you wanna see what we saw when we measured it with a measurement mic at the listening spot..? keep your tissue papers ready to wipe off the tears.


WHAT DO YOU THINK...?
well as they say the truth is always ugly.
go and compared the in-room response to the published response. are they any similar..?
so this was the sound signature he was getting from a multimillion rupee system at his listening spot. A sound output filled with nonlinearities, resonances, cancelations, and reverberations. do you think this will sound good to anyone regardless of being subjectivist or objectivist...?

If you think "oh this is not the case in my room and that guy didn't know how to set up his system", then by most probability you are wrong because sound waves are not something under your control and it interacts with everything in the room and can be extremely unpredictable. I'm telling this from the experience of measuring a lot of seemingly perfect dedicated audio rooms like this one here.

it made me wonder what is the use of all this running behind upgrades if you never qualitatively measured and understood what you were hearing all this while.

so readers what did you learn from this.?
you can keep running behind upgrades all your life and never be satisfied unless you scientifically understand what you are hearing.
there is always a lot more unexplored potential in your current setup waiting to be discovered like a sunken ship filled with gold.

once you have that power to measure you can correct this sound by passive methods like positioning the speakers or positioning furniture, carpets, and remeasuring to assure that what you hear is acceptable. the best part is that this costs close to nothing compared to what people shell out for upgrades. The only cost involved is the price of the mic.


So my advice to you is to keep your amplifier for now.
Yes, your speakers might need an upgrade as bookshelves are generally limited for the bass they can produce. so get or build a new set of speakers which can produce sound in a linear manner.

then get a measurement mic and measure what you hear at your listening spot. then experiment with speaker positions and furniture to get a reasonable sound signature.

if you want to further fine-tune the output do room correction using a parametric EQ on a windows computer (computer has to be the source always) OR get a minidsp room correction module and correct using it if your source is a cd or vinyl.

Now it's time for you to analyze the information and decide your strategy.
I wish you all the best.
Happy listening

 

[Decadent_Spectre]

Hi Berlyassocial, is that really 1/6th smoothing?

 

[Berlyassocial]

Hi Berlyassocial, is that really 1/6th ssmooth

Yes. You can see that in the subbox below the graph. Cant believe it right. I couldnt too.

Take a few minutes to let that sink in

 

[Decadent_Spectre]

I did read it but wanted to confirm. Thanks for the reply.

 

[Berlyassocial]

I did read it but wanted to confirm. Thanks for the reply.

Yes buddy i know its hard to process when you see how seemingly well setup the room was.

 

[liverpool_for_life]

it made me wonder what is the use of all this running behind upgrades if you never qualitatively measured and understood what you were hearing all this while.

Well said. The anechoic and in-room frequency response you posted for those speakers should be a in a stickied thread in this forum. And ought to be required reading for everyone. Preferably once every week.

Unfortunately, it is my experience that your observations will (mostly) fall on deaf ears. Literally and figuratively. Bravo for trying though.

 

[Berlyassocial]

Unfortunately, it is my experience that your observations will (mostly) fall on deaf ears. Literally and figuratively. Bravo for trying though.

Quite sad that people shrug off the most important aspect of home audio reproduction.

Its because they dont learn about this in the beginning of their Audiophile Journey. Instead what they learn is a lot of opinions. Some valuable but some pure pseudoscience.

And thus they will travel the audio journey for a long time and reach a point when it will be too damaging for their self esteem to ever accept anything which is against their convention even if it is proven and demonstrated facts.

I constantly see people piling up all kind of audio stuff just thinking "this is gonna make it sound right " but it never does. Why..? Because they cant measure the sound qualitatively.

The gentleman i saw the sonus faber with was always asserting on the phrase "i like natural sound and my system sounds natural". The only complain he had was bass felt a bit odd. Offcourse it did as you see in the reading.

But disregard the bass. look at the mids and highs. honestly i have no clue what aspect of that sound the poor guy perceived as natural. The uneven mids or the crashing down highs..? No clue.

This is a perfect example of a psychological flaw all humans possess which is called confirmation bias.





just so you know im not making some wierd stuff up.

Im not saying this to humiliate subjectivists. Im saying this because i genuinly feel sad for the guys who are on the constant run for that better sound. And at one point they too become tired of it because however they run how much ever they spent they never get that good sound. because they dont have the means to measure and analyse whether the sound they hear is good qualitatively.

Infact i believe an Audiophile needs to be subjectivist and objectivist in moderation.

If i was an objectivist i would be listening to studio monitors. Im not because i dont like the way they sound. But there is no doubt they are the purest most natural sound one can have. Even though all of us advocate for that cliché "natural transparent sound", the fact is that none of us audiophiles like that original natural sound.

as i always say
Now its time for the readers to analyse the information and decide on their strategy.
Happy listening

 

[sidvee]

Infact i believe an Audiophile needs to be subjectivist and objectivist in moderation.

I concur wholeheartedly with this statement, unfortunately moderates are very few and far in between in this hobby, we have extremists leaning far left or far right eg: Absolute sound magazine vs Audio Science Review forum.
Cheers,
Sid

 

[sonic-wanderer]

My best advice to you is to first understand what needs an upgrade.

Let me elaborate

The vast majority of audiophiles never hear their currently owned system to their full potential. Why..? Because they don't have the means to understand or analyze what they really hear when sitting in their room at their listening position.
.....

Hey Berylassocial, thanks for the recommendation. Lots to chew on, much appreciated. Yes, room analysis will be next on my list when / if we every come out of lockdown again.

 

[Bloom@83]

My best advice to you is to first understand what needs an upgrade.

Let me elaborate

The vast majority of audiophiles never hear their currently owned system to their full potential. Why..? Because they don't have the means to understand or analyze what they really hear when sitting in their room at their listening position.

The solution to understand what you hear is a measurement microphone like a minidsp umik 1 and a computer. This is singlehandedly the best investment you can do if you are an Audiophile because it gives you the power to analyze what you are hearing at your listening spot. Every time you change a room or equipment you can measure how it affects the sound throughout your Audiophile life.

You can have several lac worth of a system in your room and have been listening to terrible sound for years before you sell it and move on to another system thinking "ive used the previous system for a long time and I've explored its performance". WRONG..!

There is a deceiving reason behind why this is happening which most companies will never tell you nor want you to know.

The measurements you see of a speaker you buy were taken in an anechoic chamber or on an infinite baffle if it is an individual driver.
The sound you are hearing in your suboptimal listening room which has asymmetric furniture, windows, doors is entirely different than the official specs.

let me give you a real-life example I encountered

take a good look at this system.
remember to keep that published frequency response of the speakers in mind.

View attachment 56258



View attachment 56259

ANECHOIC FREQUENCY RESPONSE OF AMATI FUTURA FROM STEREOPHILE WEBSITE
View attachment 56260


speakers are not visible in the first photo but it's situated in both sides which were SONUS FABER AMATI FUTURA.
one entire room was only dedicated to audio with an extensive amount of sound-absorbing panels and diffusers and bass traps symmetrically placed on all sides. there was no furniture except a listening chair and a table.

the price breakdown of equipment.

sonus faber amati futura - 27.1 lac INR
Genus Aries Cerat integrated amp- 15.5 lac INR
Genus kassandra dac- 20.7 lac INR

I'm not even gonna get into the streamer ,cd player , speaker cable ,interconnects, grounding box for speaker and all that. it was priced at a similar ratio. but you get the idea.

so looking at it, any audiophile would consider this as one of the top-tier most desirable audio systems you can have and expect the resultant sound to be nothing short of perfect. Right..?

you wanna see what we saw when we measured it with a measurement mic at the listening spot..? keep your tissue papers ready to wipe off the tears.
View attachment 56261

WHAT DO YOU THINK...?
well as they say the truth is always ugly.
go and compared the in-room response to the published response. are they any similar..?
so this was the sound signature he was getting from a multimillion rupee system at his listening spot. A sound output filled with nonlinearities, resonances, cancelations, and reverberations. do you think this will sound good to anyone regardless of being subjectivist or objectivist...?

If you think "oh this is not the case in my room and that guy didn't know how to set up his system", then by most probability you are wrong because sound waves are not something under your control and it interacts with everything in the room and can be extremely unpredictable. I'm telling this from the experience of measuring a lot of seemingly perfect dedicated audio rooms like this one here.

it made me wonder what is the use of all this running behind upgrades if you never qualitatively measured and understood what you were hearing all this while.

so readers what did you learn from this.?
you can keep running behind upgrades all your life and never be satisfied unless you scientifically understand what you are hearing.
there is always a lot more unexplored potential in your current setup waiting to be discovered like a sunken ship filled with gold.

once you have that power to measure you can correct this sound by passive methods like positioning the speakers or positioning furniture, carpets, and remeasuring to assure that what you hear is acceptable. the best part is that this costs close to nothing compared to what people shell out for upgrades. The only cost involved is the price of the mic.


So my advice to you is to keep your amplifier for now.
Yes, your speakers might need an upgrade as bookshelves are generally limited for the bass they can produce. so get or build a new set of speakers which can produce sound in a linear manner.

then get a measurement mic and measure what you hear at your listening spot. then experiment with speaker positions and furniture to get a reasonable sound signature.

if you want to further fine-tune the output do room correction using a parametric EQ on a windows computer (computer has to be the source always) OR get a minidsp room correction module and correct using it if your source is a cd or vinyl.

Now it's time for you to analyze the information and decide your strategy.
I wish you all the best.
Happy listening

What was the listening experience like ? With ears only , I mean ...

 

[Berlyassocial]

What was the listening experience like ? With ears only , I mean

To be honest When i initially listened the only thing i felt which was odd was as the owner said the boomy bass was noticeable and additional to that the only thing i felt was that treble felt low. I mean that sparkle was not there. Otherwise i felt that the sound stage was actually nice. So overall sounded nice.

Other than that if you ask me, i could not figure out any of those extreme non-linearity all over the range by pure listening. Somehow i had feeling like "maybe this what high end sound is" until i measured using the mic.

 

[Berlyassocial]

Hey Berylassocial, thanks for the recommendation. Lots to chew on, much appreciated. Yes, room analysis will be next on my list when / if we every come out of lockdown again.

Trust me. It will be worth it

 

[Lizard King]

This is a perfect example of a psychological flaw all humans possess which is called confirmation bias.

View attachment 56280


View attachment 56279

Infact i believe an Audiophile needs to be subjectivist and objectivist in moderation.

Golden words spoken. All of us have been guilty of conformation bias in many areas of life, at some point or other. It's also prevalent to a great extent while buying cars. And to extend the analogy, even after matching the specs, the two most important factors the determine how the car will drive, are rarely taken into consideration. The road, and the man behind the wheel

 

[Berlyassocial]

Golden words spoken. All of us have been guilty of conformation bias in many areas of life, at some point or other. It's also prevalent to a great extent while buying cars. And to extend the analogy, even after matching the specs, the two most important factors the determine how the car will drive, are rarely taken into consideration. The road, and the man behind the wheel

Thats one example as well.

 

[Deleted member 15865]

Golden words spoken. All of us have been guilty of conformation bias in many areas of life, at some point or other. It's also prevalent to a great extent while buying cars. And to extend the analogy, even after matching the specs, the two most important factors the determine how the car will drive, are rarely taken into consideration. The road, and the man behind the wheel

But can the most important aspects be covered in specs? Like the handling of a car, or the immediacy of sound? There’s no substitute to a test drive/ audition where one has to assess these (and similar qualities) experientially.

Specs (and reviews) help narrow down the list to audition where subjective considerations can be assessed.

 

[Analogous]

So, after 4 pages on this thread do we have a consensus on the issue, (keeping ‘confirmation bias’ in mind, of course)?
Since it has not been mentioned in this thread, I call attention to the ‘Dunning Kruger effect’ that may also have a peripheral effect...

 

[Berlyassocial]

Since it has not been mentioned in this thread, I call attention to the ‘Dunning Kruger effect’ that may also have a peripheral effect...

Your point is extremely important. But im not gonna get into it because it can become controversial and lead into unhealthy argument's.

I know people who have told me
"send me a smartphone video of your speakers playing. I can figure out their quality from the video".

 

[Analogous]

Tangentially: Two controversies involving FMs in two days resulting in moderators taking action in the backdrop of an out of control pandemic....is there a tenuous link? Subjectively speaking, of course?

EVERYONE IS STRESSED!!!

 

[Berlyassocial]

But can the most important aspects be covered in specs?

My take on this.

As i mentioned in one of the previous posts
"i think an audiophile needs to be subjectivist and objectivist in moderation."

what does it mean in a practical scenerio.

Objective specifications and measurements can be extremely helpful in providing a baseline when it comes to buying audio gear. But thats not gonna determine if you are going to like the sound. Perfect example is a studio montior which is objectively superb but subjectively unfavourable.

And when looking into specification you have to know what really matters to your listening room and how each specs is gonna affect your listening experience. For example when comparing amps side by side you see one of them has a THD+N of 0.0011% and another one has 0.0019%. Some people take this way too seriously. But here you have to understand that these kind of increments in THD+N is never ever detectable to human ears. So in this case it will be much better to focus on other aspects of the amp which might make one better than the other for your case.

Another thing people take to extreme lengths is speaker amp impedance matching.
The impedance of a speaker is not constant it varies all across the freq range.

For a 4ohm speaker it will be producing all kinds of impedence values while playing music as music is dynamic and a combination of different frequencies at different spl.

Infact this particular issue was something of a big concern in the past as amplifiers had very less power. But in the modern age with amps coming out with 40watts per channel and more, this impedence matching has become very less significant. Also have to consider the fact that someone having a 40watts amp probably never played it ever above 10 watts in their room.

When matching speakers to amp the most important thing i would say is matching according to sound signature of amp and speakers. Matching a bright sounding amp with a bright sounding speaker is gonna be a pain in the a&%. Similarly matching a tube amp with a low sensitivity bookshelf speaker with limited bass by physical limitation and which has a dampened treble is gonna be a disaster aswell.

If i keep talking there is countless number of scenarios to mention which would be impossible to write up all of them.

Quite frankly showroom auditions are not really that helpful. There is a lot of factors which makes you get impressed when listening at a showroom. It can be the typical sparkly "showroom sound" which will impress you at first but if you listen to that for a week you get listening fatigue. But you never listen in showroom for a week do you. Ultimately the sound you hear in showroom is gonna be radically different than the same setup in your room due to room interactions.

So after all considerations and purchases the most important thing is what is the sound which arrives in your ear when sitting at your listening position. So if you don't measure that then all the money all the specs all the auditions everything has gone to waste.

So prioritize between specs, sound signature and room limitations when buying gear.

Happy listening

 

[liverpool_for_life]

Infact i believe an Audiophile needs to be subjectivist and objectivist in moderation.

I agree wholeheartedly that both objective measurements and subjective listening can be very helpful in this hobby. They can, and should, co-exist.

IMO, what's required is humility. To understand that our ears aren't perfect and that measurements can help aid our pursuit of quality sound.