Components that floored you!

[heliumflight]

Hi Audio gurus,

I've been reading reviews, suggestions, Tweaks, guess work and past experiences of indiviual components and now slowly gathering the cobwebs.

Making me analysis and understand that it is more of synergy of upstream components rather than medicore amp with excellent bookshelf speakers OR branded medicore tower speakers with good Indian amp OR warm detailed Cd player in a small room for blues....

Hence I request you all to share your personal experiences as it may be possible to get optimum sound systems which can give you a 'WOW' feeling as if you were stoned immaculate


Kindest regards
helium

 

[hemantwaghe]

I thing first you need good music or movies .....whatever they do in post production like Recording or Special effects ,5.1 to 10.10 remastering I still feel content is the king.... hyeah:hyeah:hyeah: ,otherwise "roop ki raani choron ka raja ","Chindni Chauk To China","Godzilla",,"Waterworld""Tashan" would be superhit ....these movies were technically far superior at their time ,but empty inside...

Same - good recording never made Sudesh Bosle ( IMHO a ok singer & good impersonator) kishore Kumar!

Again good recording enhances the quality considerabally and post production add to the movie..

I have low bit version of some songs and I enjoy cause I like the music the words...I am looking for hi res version now ( A good example is "Itna Lumba Kush Lo Yaron" from Hu Tu Tu"
Again I saw Dirty harry on my 7 Inch Handheald ,again the serial "Sledgehammer " On it ,U.H.F. on my Ipod Touch and I enjoyed it like anything!

Still I'll love to see these movies on 5.1 ,120" screen but in travel it is not possible!

Coming to equipment a good equipment enahances quality of Good Music & Good Recording considerabally ... But the chain is

Good Music - Good Recording - Good System....

Expert will hae opposite view but my view is trash like " yaadein" or "Paheli ( I spent 700 Rs with my wife to saw this ) will suck, even suck more on most expensive HT system!

Now systems which I was zappend in differnt part of my life

1) 15 Years Back - Bose AM10 & Bose 901 ...hyeah:hyeah:
2) In Dubai I heard McIntosh Pre with 2 Tube Monoblocks , Don't Remember Speakers or CD ,it was mindboggling!
3) Sony High End SACD player playin through Sony High End Headphones .....Too Good!
4) Pair Or Cerwin Wega with twin 15" Woofers Heard briefly but was " shaken!"
5) When I was not in audio I head a basic Technics system at my friends' place ,must be 20 years back ....and I had decided to indulge in audio ....and songs like " hanging Tough" by New Kids & " take on me" still haunt me!


Again my route will be Good Music - Good Recording then equipment ,Next year I am planning Pc based system and Now I started ripping all my CD's in flac and retagging them!

Path to music nirvana starts with good music - I used to wonder about people who buy Rs 30 K Hi Fy system ( 10 yrs back!0 with just 15 -20 casettes & 2-3 CDs!..as CD's are expnsive! I 've seen a person with 5 CD changer with only 3 Cd's! ( System was 25 K one!)

Content is a king - lease I like to enjoy Jack Daniels or Chivas at home than drinking bagpiper ( IMHO repackaged purifed " desi' alcohol)!!!:yahoo::yahoo:

 

[moserw]

@hemantwaghe - Well you do have a way of stating the obvious!!! Great going as always. BTW sent you a PM, did you get it?

 

[hemantwaghe]

Content is a king - least I like to enjoy Jack Daniels or Chivas at home than drinking bagpiper ( IMHO repackaged purifed " desi' alcohol)!!!:yahoo::yahoo:

Oops my last statement should be read as - Content is a king - least I like to enjoy Jack Daniels or Chivas at home than drinking bagpiper ( IMHO repackaged purifed " desi' alcohol) in 5 star!!!!!!

To assemble best system the best option is -if you buy any matched componants -buy the entire system ! And try to find out what you like -- not what the reviewers like or what other prerson like ! Same starategy for a used system !We abuse Bose here but I've seem people who are " Thrilled" by synthetic sound of bose! Agai Myself too never like those so called "revelling , clinical & dry systems...." I do not like bose now but deep bass is still my preferance ...

 

[afj]

the first music system that floored me was my uncles - huge arphi aquarius speakers - i think it had 2 x 12" full range speakers in it with a cosmic amp. i thought that was the best when i was young - thats when i knew that when i grow up i would buy a really nice music system

in college a few friends had systems in their cars. stuff like 12" jbl subs with 3 way pioneer speakers and power amps and stuff like that in a maruti 800. those systems floored me too. i remember once though turning down the volume one notch (since it was a little too loud) and it went to zero volume - which meant i was listening to it on 1 - and too loud

listened to the bose (as most people do) with people telling you that its the best. the 301's and the 901's were nice. never really liked their am series

heard a few speakers along the way but the first good system that i bought included the JBL L890 speakers. now that really floored me. this was entering into audiophile territory. now i knew what real speakers should sound like. started getting more and more into systems - found that the ma rs6 were more refined and more musical so bought those. experimented with amps (wasnt part of any forum then and believe me i made some expensive mistakes). i've got a nad now (which doesnt really floor me) but have just ordered an amp from china - bada purer 3.3. im anticipating that it'll floor me - 30w class a and upto 160w in class b. hydrid (pre tube and power ss).

oh listened to the monitor audio platinum PL300. that more than floored me. one day i hope the buy them...

 

[psychotropic]

The first and only system to totally floor me was the one at my cousin's place, which I heard about 3 years back. A Quad CD player, Quad amplifier (don't remember clearly whether it was an integrated or a pre-power), and definitive technology BP8B or BP10B bipolar floorstanders. It was stunning. Listened to some Ray LaMontagne and some other stuff, it was my first taste of true high-end sound and that's when I started getting interested in audio.

 

[anm]

first time I went to a bose demo in CP, it floored me. I thought I will buy some day it but then it was too expensive for me at that time. But I was decided I will have a very good system one day, and bose was priority one.
Many years later, first time I went to a jbl/ hk demo room, the big screen of projector floored me. The big base etc coming out of small onkyo speakers/sub and avr too floored me. Klipsch F1 etc in another demo were too good, and the base was great even without sub. Unbelievably good.
Then I went to a demo of L890 JBL with some receiver I am not sure. It was just a single song demo, hotel california as power supply failed soon. I think I was sitting about 5-7 ft from the speakers, but the bass was hitting my skin. I could "feel" the music hitting me, and shaking me. I was floored and was damn sure I wanted these speakers only, and HK was the perfect for me. Spent few months researching the best option to get them, by import route etc. Was a surround sound fan then. Meanwhile I closed on an onkyo htib so that I have at least something to watch movies on.
This was before I joined the hifivision. Vision changed quite a bit after joining hifivision. I had so many questions on the techie side, which were patiently answered by people like Suhas, moserw, venkat, cranky, gobble, spiro etc. So I was floored with this forum, more than any other forum.

Then the lyrita system - it floored me, and more than that, interaction with Viren floored me too.
BTW, I still have to listen to a multi lakh rupees system - which I can not afford, but sure like to listen to understand how much I am missing.

regards

 

[moserw]

I was a kid probably around 7 and visited a relative's home whose son was in Australia and the son had gifted his dad a Bose CDP and small satellite speakers that were wall mounted. The sound coming from it was "wow" and literally mine and my brother's jaws dropped. We both wanted "that Bose system" since this was the first time we heard anything with that clarity. This was also the first time we heard a CD in fact coming from LP and tape players at home which delivered muddled sound in comparison to the Bose.

Needless to say that started my obsession with the CD and music and I pestered my dad till he got me an Aiwa and a Sony from Europe. These were "my" systems and I never shared them with anyone. I moved them to my room and listened to music on them practically every minute I was awake and also let the system play at night with the lights switched off till I dozed off.

The next time I was floored was when I heard true high-end Focal Utopia speakers at a newly made friend's house. The detail and clarity was something I'd not heard before and I heard new strings and sounds in albums that I'd heard practically hundreds of times and was very, very familiar with. This was with Dire Straits - Brothers In Arms album which I practically knew by heart but yet I was hearing new sounds from it on the Focals. From that time I'm working towards having my own Focal Utopia or something even better.

 

[anm]

hey moserw, how about your ADM speakers? Did they not floor you?

regards

 

[psychotropic]

you have a friend who has a pair of focal utopias?

QUOTE=moserw;64914]
The next time I was floored was when I heard true high-end Focal Utopia speakers at a newly made friend's house. [/QUOTE]

 

[sandeepmohan]

A pair of tiny AKAI AE53 speakers is what I would categorize as something that floored me. Floored me because of its small size, was rated at just 30 watts RMS & the fact that it was something made in the mid 80s. It had a unique speaker arrangement (for its time). The front baffle of the speaker housed the Tweeter & Mid Bass driver. The rear had a Passive Radiator (Rare to find on a bookshelf) & Super Tweeter. This design is good but it would never work in a normal home as I discovered from 20 years listening to it. The speaker placement suggestion in the users manual was very specific. Being of such a design this speaker needs walls every where for the sound to reflect from the rear. I never really managed to get the best out of this speaker system. The drivers are small so bass was not expected but I was shocked one day when I heard one of the speakers delivering a good amount of bass all by itself. There was no technical issue with the setup for one speaker unit to send out all the bass. It sounded right cause it was kept on something solid and was given the right amount of room from the rear wall. So I had one speaker unit delivering solid bass & one that was not. I switched speakers units from left to right & also switched the wiring behind the amplifier thinking there was something wrong with the amplifiers circuitry on one channel but there was nothing wrong. It had a lot to do with placement to deliver the sort of bass I was hearing. The bass was not a lot. It was right & was tight for the volumes this speaker could handle & I guess it had a lot to do with the enclosure being sealed as well.

Two things that are important. Placement is very critical for a book shelf & never discount the capabilities of a book shelf speaker. Some of them as so brilliant in design that you can easily mistake them for floor standers playing if you were blind folded.

 

[moserw]

you have a friend who has a pair of focal utopias?

QUOTE=moserw;64914]
The next time I was floored was when I heard true high-end Focal Utopia speakers at a newly made friend's house.

[/QUOTE]

Well actually a friend's friend, but yes now he is my friend too.

 

[jai1611]

I define floored as much better performance than what you expected. For example a pair of 8 lakh Thiel towers sounding brilliant doesnt get classified as floored but a pair of cheap DIY speakers sounding as good as speakers 5-10x their cost is "floored" in my book.

My experience of a component that floored me is with a tiny digital amp (uses the TA2024 chip). I plugged this into my bedroom system (that uses a NAD CD player and Yamaha towers). The performance was absolutely brilliant. Wide and deep soundstage on a pair of cheap, badly placed towers. Really pulled me into the music. Quite an achievement for a little amp that cost under 3k :clapping:.

 

[jaudere]

the first system which floored me was Denon 1908 with Jamo s406. I came to know what Hi-fi is.

The second was NAD-PSB combo (costing Rs 5L , don't remember the models). immersing sound.

My favourite was HK 3490-JBL(probably ES 80)combo. I was left wordless. I liked it more than NAD-PSB combo. whenever i gather enough money, I will get that HK and try it with my open baffles. If they don't work, i will buy those JBL's.

I found that HDMI gives enormously better sound than Optical out.
Once I was introduced to Hi-fi, started spending more on audio CDs arther than mp3.

So many things do matter.

 

[afj]

the first system which floored me was Denon 1908 with Jamo s406. I came to know what Hi-fi is.

The second was NAD-PSB combo (costing Rs 5L , don't remember the models). immersing sound.

My favourite was HK 3490-JBL(probably ES 80)combo. I was left wordless. I liked it more than NAD-PSB combo. whenever i gather enough money, I will get that HK and try it with my open baffles. If they don't work, i will buy those JBL's.

I found that HDMI gives enormously better sound than Optical out.
Once I was introduced to Hi-fi, started spending more on audio CDs arther than mp3.

So many things do matter.

if i were you i'd listen to the es80 again before i would decide. and also other speakers in the price range. i dont rate them too highly. and neither the hk 3480. very poor soundstage

 

[theEnd]

About a year ago I heard by first set of horn speakers at Boomerang in Bombay. They had hooked them up to the same cdp and amp that I had recently bought (a budget Arcam combo), but the sonic delivery was miles apart from what I usually get from my Jamo floorstanders.

I've since forgotten the name of those horn speakers (forced myself to forget them, as they were way over my budget), but that was the very first time I understood what imaging was all about. If I closed my eyes, I could precisely pinpoint each musical instrument coming at me. The clarity of the sound was also breathtaking.

Currently, my favorite album of all time is Mezzanine by Massive Attack, and the way my current setup presents it to me is satisfying enough. So for now, my immature tastes will be satisfied by the slightly heavier than normal bass output of my floorstanders.

But if I ever get into classical music I will certainly save up to buy some high quality horn speakers and a tube amp.

 

[jaudere]

if i were you i'd listen to the es80 again before i would decide. and also other speakers in the price range. i dont rate them too highly. and neither the hk 3480. very poor soundstage

With due respect to your views, that was MY rating and I stand by it. Of course i will definitely audition it again in case i go to buy them. But HK with my open baffles will be my first try.

 

[afj]

With due respect to your views, that was MY rating and I stand by it. Of course i will definitely audition it again in case i go to buy them. But HK with my open baffles will be my first try.

hey jaudere no offence there - each person to his own ears. i guess thats why theres such a diverse market in the audio industry. enjoy it

 

[anm]

listen to L890 once with 3480 or 3490 or some 7xx series receiver, and be ready to be floored again.
I had heard L890 before listening to ES100. They had larger woofers and sounded decent - however I found the bass slightly loose and boomy. After the audition, when I ask the JBL employee that they sound that way, he gave an interested reply - "they are setup to sound like this". I had to run and I couldn't quiz him in detail. Open to interpretation.

 

[jaudere]

hey jaudere no offence there - each person to his own ears. i guess thats why theres such a diverse market in the audio industry. enjoy it

No problem friend