Auditions and thank you's

[ajay124]

A few months back I brought a new cdp/amp/speakers without an audition.Barely 48 hours later I realised that I had made a huge mistake!Individually what I had purchased was fairly decent but pared together and based on my musical preferences I felt that this was not the setup for me.Rather than torture myself with equipment which had turned my huge and laboriously accumulated collection of cd's into mere sounds that I could not relate to I ventured on the painful path of selling my one month 'old' equipment.And brothers and sisters,I can tell you categorically -There is no second hand market in India!What you get at the end of the day are lowball offers not even worth responding to.So my advise to all potential buyers is take your time,choose your equipment carefully and ONLY after several auditions.NEVER,NEVER,NEVER buy without an audition!Airfares to Bangalore,Bombay,Chennai,Delhi,Pune are quite cheap if one books well in advance.I would have saved myself serious cash and many heart aches if I had visited some of these places and auditioned everything before buying.Anyway I am in the process of selling of what I had bought and also auditioning stuff in Delhi and Bangalore.
I began this thread in order to thank all the great folks who shared their time,knowledge and equipment when I visited them.I will not describe what I heard as that was a personal experience.Would not hold true for anyone else.The notion behind this thread is --don't get carried away by anybody's opinion.Go out and listen for yourself...
Places I visited
In Delhi
Viren Bakshi/Lyrita Audio
Faisal Hamid/Sound Of Music
Denny Jose/Bass & Treble
Bharat Gupta/Gemini Traders
In Bangalore
Prithvi/Absolute Phase
Sridhar and Ali/ARN
Venky/Reference Point
A2V and PROFX have good stuff but since I was not interested in dealing with disinterested and uninformed salesmen I was out of their audition rooms in less than two minutes.When will some folks wise up to the fact that there are a few people on this planet who do not like Eagles,Dire Straits,Pink Floyd,Jagjit Singh or AR Rehman.....
All in all an amazing experience.Great stuff is available with all these guys.You just have to go and HEAR and decide for your self.Forums and hifi magazines set up the platform,but without the actual experience of listening to your music with different set ups -don't ever make the mistake of putting down hard cash.
If you are into jazz and want a full setup for about a lakh go for Lyrita Audio!That's the only recommendation I am going to make.As for me I have kind of fallen in love with the Linn Magik 140 floor standers available at Absolute Phase.Can't get them out of my mind.
Finally.I feel privileged to have heard the Rethm Saadhanas at Prithvi's place.If one has that kind of bread then there is no need to look elsewhere.Period.For those on a budget there are the Rethm Maargas and now the Baby Rethm's.
Also I was given a patient and very helpful hearing on the phone by the folks in Bombay,Pune and Chennai...
Premal/Lakozy
Raj/Soundsmiths
Vijay and Gratin/Boomerang
Dhananjay/Cadence
Jai/Sound & Vision
Jalal/Audio People

 

[iaudio]

Ajay124, Yes, you are right in saying that unless and until one hears something for oneself, you can never know its right for you. Everything else is a gamble and unfortunately in our country where hi fi is in its infancy, auditions are a difficult process and somewhere along the line people give up and go for a product based on others opinions.
So now that you are decided on the speakers, how close are you to your desired system?

 

[corElement]

LOLLLL

you should have SEEN the faces on people when I took my trance and electronic music tracks and told them I wanted to audition listening to these.
Each and every speaker and amp sounded different playing trance/electronic tracks, the differences which arent all that noticible with the groups you mentioned above that everyone plays.

Drove those "disinterested and misunformed" salesmen CRAAAazzy lol

 

[ajay124]

@iaudio
I was close to a dream setup in return for my 'old' stuff and a substantial amount of cash but the deal fell through.Hopefully I will be able to put together something I really like soon.
@corElement
Had a similar experience when I asked them to play Paganini's 24 Caprices LOUD...

 

[marsilians]

I think you make a fair point but there are 2 core items that are still missing in your note.

1. Even if you get to audition the equipment in the showrooms and become mightly pleased with the synergy of the system, it will sound absolutely different at your home because of the acoustics and design. The solution to this is to be able to get the equipment to your house and keep it for sometime to ensure it is indeed sounding as good as you thought. Unfortunately due to the high costs and potential abuse of the policies we are not there yet in India.

2. As much as the salesmen are not fully upto the task, you cannot expected the vendors to have all kinds of music as they would have to setup 10s of different systems to ensure the right audition. Yes, its great that you took your preferable tracks to the stores and that is what is expected from a potential buyer.

 

[ajay124]

LINN MAGIK 140 IMAGE LINK
http://www.cleverhome.com.au/images/products/Linn-Majik-140-loudspeaker-Maple-left.jpg

 

[heliumflight]

Hi Ajay,

I'm glad you liked the LINN MAGIK 140 so much. Could you describe the sound signature and the related components?

--
helium
Amp: Lyrita SET 2A3
Speakers: Vintage B&W DM4

 

[rams1977]

This is from your post in march 2010...

Huge improvement with minor tweaks!Earlier the Dyns were 3 feet away from the back wall and 12 feet from each other.Pushing the speakers back to 1 feet away from the back wall has tamed the brightness and added depth and a pleasing resonance.Reducing distance between speakers to 8 feet has resulted in a vastly improved sound stage.Changed the interconnects from Sommers/Ampheleon to a QED(Quinex).Reduced the speaker cable length from the earlier unnecessary 18 feet each to 9 feet each.Returning one 18 feet cable to the shop got me the Qed with a little more cash thrown in.So what's left?Maybe replace the Draka speaker cable and get some decent banana plugs sometime in the future.After a tempestuous two months in which I researched and purchased my present setup and then kept on researching other more expensive equipment lead to a feeling of cognitive dissonance.I am sure all serial upgraders are familiar with that feeling.Human desire is insatiable and the next something better is only a flick of the credit card away.Peace can only be attained with immense self control.I think I am finally making peace with the Dyn/Nad combo.They are sounding warmer and sweeter the more I run them in and I can live with that!Early morning and listening to Debussy's Prelude's.I am feeling happy...

This is your present post...

Barely 48 hours later I realised that I had made a huge mistake!....Anyway I am in the process of selling of what I had bought and also auditioning stuff in Delhi and Bangalore.

What happened to your setup in 1 month, can you eloborate? I thought you were satisfied with your setup?BTW, i 100%agree that auditions are the way and there is no other way out.

 

[anm]

very interesting. Was the earlier post within 48 hours of setting up the system as the new post says you realized within 48 hours?

 

[ajay124]

@anm/ram1977
This is from your post in march 2010...

Quote:
Originally Posted by ajay124
Huge improvement with minor tweaks!Earlier the Dyns were 3 feet away from the back wall and 12 feet from each other.Pushing the speakers back to 1 feet away from the back wall has tamed the brightness and added depth and a pleasing resonance.Reducing distance between speakers to 8 feet has resulted in a vastly improved sound stage.Changed the interconnects from Sommers/Ampheleon to a QED(Quinex).Reduced the speaker cable length from the earlier unnecessary 18 feet each to 9 feet each.Returning one 18 feet cable to the shop got me the Qed with a little more cash thrown in.So what's left?Maybe replace the Draka speaker cable and get some decent banana plugs sometime in the future.After a tempestuous two months in which I researched and purchased my present setup and then kept on researching other more expensive equipment lead to a feeling of cognitive dissonance.I am sure all serial upgraders are familiar with that feeling.Human desire is insatiable and the next something better is only a flick of the credit card away.Peace can only be attained with immense self control.I think I am finally making peace with the Dyn/Nad combo.They are sounding warmer and sweeter the more I run them in and I can live with that!Early morning and listening to Debussy's Prelude's.I am feeling happy...

This particular post would be a few weeks after I bought the stuff.I think most folks who have bought stuff in a hurry and are repenting at leisure go through these phases where after some minor tweaks they feel their setup is finally working only to fall into confusion and despondency again a few days later.Any contradictions you find in the posts above merely reflect my perplexed state of mind regarding what I had bought.Incidenatally I have still not been able to resolve the issue or put together something that I really like.