Being away (most of the time) for almost 15 months now from my system and the increasing hunger to listen to music (the second most important thing after my family I miss), I finally decided to take a plunge into a so-called micro hifi system. I scouted around for a while, looked at and listended to the offerings from Bose (Wavesound), Harman Kardon, Nakamichi (Soundspace), Yamaha, Sony, and several others. In line with modern technology, I had narrowed down to a system with tuner, CD/MP3 player, USB and i-Pod dock. None of them sounded convincing and left with no choice, I decided to go for a value-for-money system, a JVC UX-LP5. It is less than half the price of Bose and Harman Kardon with similar features. Initially it was painful listening to these with the music just "sound" but am getting used to it.
What is really missing is the concept of space in the music as well as the timing and phase coherence I am used to. It is absolutely two-dimensional (more of point source!), flat and absolutely no feeling of a 3-dimensional space and awful timing anomalies among the various notes. It suddenly makes you realise how beautiful the same music sounds when listended in a decent system, how thrilling when you feel the soundstage, resolution, and things like that. You have to really feel it to understand what you miss.
Budding audio lovers, you will realise these when you are able to listen to good and mediocre systems. I am posting this because often I see people asking for advice regarding cheap and mass market stuffs to buy but believe me, you are wasting your money and time. If this makes at least one person think before he leaps into the bandwagon, my job done.
Thanks and cheers.
murali
What is really missing is the concept of space in the music as well as the timing and phase coherence I am used to. It is absolutely two-dimensional (more of point source!), flat and absolutely no feeling of a 3-dimensional space and awful timing anomalies among the various notes. It suddenly makes you realise how beautiful the same music sounds when listended in a decent system, how thrilling when you feel the soundstage, resolution, and things like that. You have to really feel it to understand what you miss.
Budding audio lovers, you will realise these when you are able to listen to good and mediocre systems. I am posting this because often I see people asking for advice regarding cheap and mass market stuffs to buy but believe me, you are wasting your money and time. If this makes at least one person think before he leaps into the bandwagon, my job done.
Thanks and cheers.
murali