What system should one buy

[prem]

First you need to hear 5 kinds of rigs

1. Solid state system costing about 1 lakh
2. Tube based system costing about 1 lakh
3. Solid state system costing upwards of 10 lakhs
4. Tube based system costing upwards of 10 lakhs
5. Vintage system

This will give you an idea of what floats your boat. The purpose of listening to an expensive system is to at least give you an idea of what improvements you can get by spending ten times more.

Once you have decided solid state or tube based or vintage, you need to figure a budget.

Decide on your budget strictly on basis of what you can afford. Do not, I repeat, do not get influenced.

Now coming to the components, allot about 30% to source, 20% to amp, 30% to speakers, 10% to cables and 10% to rack, room treatment and other accessories.

I always recommend spending a little more on the source because in music its garbage in is garbage out. Also a good source will allow you to upgrade.

Next step is to identify the brands in your budget. You need to figure out if you want to buy brands that are available only in India or are OK to buying directly from abroad. Here I would suggest identifying experienced members on this forum and taking their opinion. If you are going tube, speak to members who have tube based systems and similarly seek out the vintage and solid state experts. Also there is a lot of stuff you can read on the web. When researching, look for synergy between components. Thats extremely crucial. A synergized 1 lakh system is likely to sound better than a randomly put together system costing three times more.

When auditioning always make sure you are listening to your kind of music. Do not get carried away by what the dealer plays on that system. For example, I mainly listen to Bollywood music. So what I always check is how Lata, Rafi and the like sound, irrespective of the price of the system. Many times I get a dirty stare but I tell them this is what I listen and I need to know how good this sounds on the system.

What sound attributes should one look for when auditioning? To be honest there is no answer for this. Music tickles your sensory organs. So its like a flavour or a fragrance. There is nothing right or wrong. You might like your chai at a particular restaurant. Someone else will prefer another restaurant. That doesnt mean one is inferior to the other. Some may even want to drink chai only in a 5 star because apart from flavour, he or she is also attaching a social importance to it.

So coming back to sound, its all about what you like in your budget. If two or three people in your family are also going to listen to music on that system, do take their feedback also as to what sound they like.

When listening to a system, hear music as a whole. Do not break it up into treble, mids, bass or attributes like stage, detail, etc. See how it appeals to you as a whole.

Your first system should be bought on how the system as a whole appeals to you. Once you have lived with your system for a few years you will know what hifi attributes appeal to you. So at stage two you could look for these attributes.

I hope other senior members do contribute to this thread so that this becomes a helpful thread to those wishing to buy a system

 

[arj]

Great Thread Prem.+1 on the source. i may even put it at 40% but then %ages are just indicators

My submission: While Auditioning, start your critical listen only after a min of 30 mins of starting play. Thats when the system gets warmed up to the designed temperature and ideal operating condition. also the first 15 mins are highly deceptive on the sound.
Playing music which gets you emotionally affected is very important ..that ensures that the connect to music which gets ignored in most audition is very important.

Do also carry a "reference" piece of music which is known and reviewed which also gives you a sense of the level that system is playing.

One more caution: Once you do zero down on the system, especially bought new, give it at least 30 hrs to break in and settle down before drawing any conclusion

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

I have never done any room treatment, and have only even started to read or think about recently. It is probably a pity that it is regarded as advanced audiophilia.

Paraphrased from something I read on gearslutz only yesterday:

"I have a budget of $500 for [monitor] speakers. My room is small and untreated. What should I buy?"

"Spend $150 on treating your room, and $350 on the speakers: the result will be far better.​

So what I am learning is that, perhaps instead of all this extra cash spent on cables, furniture, bits and pieces, that some sort of room treatment would have been a much better investment.

But this is probably impossible for the beginner to realise, in the same way as we don't know how much better the high-cost stuff can sound if we have never heard it. So it may be that this is an insoluble conundrum on the audio path --- but it is worth a thought or two.

When auditioning always make sure you are listening to your kind of music. Do not get carried away by what the dealer plays on that system. For example, I mainly listen to Bollywood music. So what I always check is how Lata, Rafi and the like sound, irrespective of the price of the system. Many times I get a dirty stare but I tell them this is what I listen and I need to know how good this sounds on the system.

It is important to audition with a variety of music. The salesman won't have a random collection; he won't even have music that he likes; he'll have music that makes what he is selling sound good. You need, most importantly, to know how your music will sound, as this is what you are choosing to live with. But try to have wider horizons. Even if you are not a classical buff, try something orchestral, and try some piano, of whatever genre.

 

[prem]

Hi Thad e Ginathom

Room treatment is very important. But i would suggest keeping it simple because most of us have our system in living rooms. A few plants as diffusers, a rug between the speakers and the listening chair, a wall hanging at the centre behind the speakers and four small triangular cotton pillows at the four top corners of the room where the side walls intersect with the ceiling can be a good starting point. Speaker positioning in the room is the more important first step according to me than room treatment. Unless you have positioned them correctly, you will not know what is wrong with the room.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

I agree with keeping it simple, working with what we have, and what we can afford. Demanding that beginner start with bass traps and such is just as bad as telling them that they have to spend 10 Lakh, or do all sorts of over-complex stuff, before they can even enjoy music.

I didn't mean to do that

 

[ranjeetrain]

Great thread, Prem. Just in time!

I was about to post a similar thread but I haven't been doing justice to the ones I have already opened

I'll post my detailed thoughts later.

 

[prem]

Hi Ranjeetrain

What happened to the reviews of the stuff you auditioned? I was looking forward to it. You stopped after one review

 

[prem]

Hi Thad

I am not sure you need to audition a variety of music. I slightly differ from you here. My thinking is if you dont listen to western classical, why audition it? I thought one buys a music system to listen to music one likes. So why not just stick to auditioning music that one hears?

As it is its tough figuring out what system to buy. Why complicate it by listening to music you dont normally hear when auditioning?

 

[ranjeetrain]

Hi Ranjeetrain

What happened to the reviews of the stuff you auditioned? I was looking forward to it. You stopped after one review

Prem, I didn't feel they were wanted. Some comments were suggestive of doubting the credibility.

I have the outlines ready, all the notes are in place too. I just have to streamline the thoughts, build the story and insert the photos. I'll begin posting them soon.

 

[jai1611]

For auditioning equipment, I remember putting together a couple of CDs with a mix of songs across genres that I liked and was quite familiar with. Comparing the same music / recordings across systems gave a pretty good idea on where a particular system stood. This would work very well for initial auditions. It would help weed out systems that have a very different presentation than what I like or are not geared towards the sort of music I listen to. For more in depth auditions, I'd end up using a few favoured album to better judge how a system draws me into the music. Quite often systems that cleared the first round would stumble badly here.

For me, the centrepiece of a system is speakers. Find a speaker you like, check if it will work in your room and then think about what you need to make it work at its best. I have tried it both ways - fix the amp first and fix the speaker first. In hindsight, the fix the speaker first approach has worked better for me.

I also concur with what Prem and Arj highlighted - spend more on the source. No point spending 1L on an amp and speakers only to put a 20k source in front of them. However, starting out this is quite hard to do as changing the source does not bring in as obvious a change in sound as a change in amp or speakers. It is in the second round auditions which focus more on musical connect that you really notice the benefit of a good source.

p.s. sorry for the long and slightly rambling post

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Hi Thad

I am not sure you need to audition a variety of music. I slightly differ from you here. My thinking is if you dont listen to western classical, why audition it? I thought one buys a music system to listen to music one likes. So why not just stick to auditioning music that one hears?

As it is its tough figuring out what system to buy. Why complicate it by listening to music you dont normally hear when auditioning?

Understandable. It is certainly hard to audition using music one does not like, as that would be a wholly negative experience. Whilst I can't think of anything that either tests or shows off a hifi like Western classical of the Romantic era, I'm sure there are alternatives. Just... try to listen to music that is more than just electronic, more than just three or four instruments, more than just "loud" (compressed). The point is, the buyer wants to know what this system will do. (or won't.)

As someone commented on another thread, musical tastes tend to widen when one has good equipment to play.

When we test drive a car, we try out different roads. We may even drive a little faster, a little more aggressively, than usual.

So, even out of one's existing music collection, as well as the audition favourites (we all have those, I guess) take along some different stuff as well.

 

[hydra]

Excellent thread, Prem!

... Once you have lived with your system for a few years you will know what hifi attributes appeal to you. So at stage two you could look for these attributes.
...

This is so true! In fact, from personal experience, I'd say that somebody who's starting out on HiFi should not spend a lot on the first system. The first system should be like a set of training wheels (adequate enough to keep if a stage 2 is not deemed necessary), and they should take a couple of years to understand things like:

- What they really want from their systems,
- How they want their music to sound like,
- How important it is for them to have a very good system,
- How the different "philosophies" of music (Analog/Digital, Tube/SolidState/Hybrid etc) sound like, and how different brands of equipment sound like,
- How much they are willing to give up in terms of time, money, irritation-value to family, practicality etc., in building their end-game system,
- What they can expect from their room, how much they are willing to change things in the room for better sounding music, etc., etc.

IMHO, an understanding of these things (and many others) is very important before one starts to spend serious money on a system. Spending money without knowing these things would usually end in costly mistakes. Also a full understanding (and experience) of these things would be necessary to really decide what path (digital/analogue or tube/ss/hybrid) they will need to follow.

 

[Dr.Bass]

What an irony Prem, a thread like this has only 11 posts and a thread on wooden blocks has 329 posts and still going strong:lol:.

My 0.0002, source, source, source! Nothing else matters more. Contrary to what is a popular belief, speakers comes only after the source in the hierarchy of importance. True, that a change in speaker will bring in a more startling difference in sound but it is not as PROFOUND as a change in source. As an illustration, even a simple Wharfdale speaker driven by a Marantz integrated amplifier would go a long way in terms of musical satisfaction if the source is something like an Esoteric or a Reimyo. Spend as much as possible on a source and try to find a decent speaker/amp combo among what you can afford, you are off to a great start!!

A bigger speaker may give you more slam, bigger sound probably a little more refinement in the treble but a better source will do things which are much more fundamental, better resolution, finer macro and micro dynamic shadings, more articulate pitch and transient response, tone, colour, body, finesse. All of these would take a leap. What it does ultimately is adds "realism" to the reproduced music. In the end that is how hifi is all about, isnt it ?

Someone with a budget of say 1 Lakh, my sincere suggestion would be to at least get an Arcam CD player, DON'T start with a entry level NAD/Marantz/CA cd player please!! If it means waiting for a couple of more months to save, do it. If it means buying a used pair of speakers or amplifier, do it. But start solid with the source. If you upgrade your speaker or amp later you will still thank your source, if not you already know it is playing well.

There is another thread on wooden blocks where people are slogging out to understand why they dont hear any change with cables and isolation, the simple answer to that is, they do not have a good source.

 

[hydra]

...
My 0.0002, source, source, source! Nothing else matters more. Contrary to what is a popular belief, speakers comes only after the source in the hierarchy of importance. True, that a change in speaker will bring in a more startling difference in sound but it is not as PROFOUND as a change in source. As an illustration, even a simple Wharfdale speaker driven by a Marantz integrated amplifier would go a long way in terms of musical satisfaction if the source is something like an Esoteric or a Reimyo. Spend as much as possible on a source and try to find a decent speaker/amp combo among what you can afford, you are off to a great start!!

A bigger speaker may give you more slam, bigger sound probably a little more refinement in the treble but a better source will do things which are much more fundamental, better resolution, finer macro and micro dynamic shadings, more articulate pitch and transient response, tone, colour, body, finesse. All of these would take a leap. What it does ultimately is adds "realism" to the reproduced music. In the end that is how hifi is all about, isnt it ?

Someone with a budget of say 1 Lakh, my sincere suggestion would be to at least get an Arcam CD player, DON'T start with a entry level NAD/Marantz/CA cd player please!! If it means waiting for a couple of more months to save, do it. If it means buying a used pair of speakers or amplifier, do it. But start solid with the source. If you upgrade your speaker or amp later you will still thank your source, if not you already know it is playing well.

...

I've always been a bit conflicted about this. There seem to be two camps on this aspect too, with one camp saying "Source First" and another saying "Speakers First".

Both seem to sound logical: (1) Let the original signal be the best possible, and let the delivery mechanism do the best it can, within its limitations. (2) Let the delivery mechanism be the best possible, so that the source signal (to the extent that it can do) is brought out in the most complete way possible.

My tendency is also towards the 'Source' school of thought, for the original benefit (= best signal possible) and also because it makes good long-term sense: A good source will keep for much longer, while the rest of the system can be upgraded in stages (even multiple speaker upgrades!) as one's listening tastes and needs become more demanding. Every upgrade will bring out clear improvements as the music from the original source can shine though better and better.

 

[sidvee]

Guys my take on this. Firstly room acoustics IMO is the most important component. This has to be analyzed first and taken care of, hopefully with someone knowledgable rather than installing absorption willy nilly in the room. Secondly I believe that the speaker is the voice of the system, so it is next in line. Then the rest. I believe source and amplification are equally important, but I have experienced greatest diminishing returns with source and least with loudspeakers with amplification somewhere in the middle.
Cheers,
Sid

 

[Shivam]

I am one of the few who have changed their 'camp'. I was initially of the opinion that source comes first. This was the time of turntables and I was a proud owner of Linn sondek LP12. Turntables varied a great deal and their effect on the sound was substantial.

The things have changed now. sidvee has got it correct. Now with the digital music, the source has very limited change after a certain base limit. Go for the best speakers and amp combo that you can afford and get a decent source to go along with that. On my recent setup, I can hardly make out the difference between a Linn Akurate DS (which is not an inexpensive source to me) and a NAD cd player.

 

[Dr.Bass]

I've always been a bit conflicted about this. There seem to be two camps on this aspect too, with one camp saying "Source First" and another saying "Speakers First".

Both seem to sound logical: (1) Let the original signal be the best possible, and let the delivery mechanism do the best it can, within its limitations. (2) Let the delivery mechanism be the best possible, so that the source signal (to the extent that it can do) is brought out in the most complete way possible.

My tendency is also towards the 'Source' school of thought, for the original benefit (= best signal possible) and also because it makes good long-term sense: A good source will keep for much longer, while the rest of the system can be upgraded in stages (even multiple speaker upgrades!) as one's listening tastes and needs become more demanding. Every upgrade will bring out clear improvements as the music from the original source can shine though better and better.

Interestingly, a better speaker will not only show the best of the source but also all its nasties and that is exactly why the over all gain with a better speaker is not as much. In the end you would have to buy a better source in order to hear the goodness of the speaker. OTOH a better source will always improve the sonics of the system qualitatively.

Another illustration: Someone using a Rs.3 Lakh speaker can downgrade to a 1 Lakh speaker and still be adequately happy with the music but the same is very difficult if one has to downgrade from a Rs.3 Lakh CD player to a 1 Lakh Cd player. It is a drastic drop in quality of music.

 

[Dr.Bass]

I am one of the few who have changed their 'camp'. I was initially of the opinion that source comes first. This was the time of turntables and I was a proud owner of Linn sondek LP12. Turntables varied a great deal and their effect on the sound was substantial.

The things have changed now. sidvee has got it correct. Now with the digital music, the source has very limited change after a certain base limit. Go for the best speakers and amp combo that you can afford and get a decent source to go along with that. On my recent setup, I can hardly make out the difference between a Linn Akurate DS (which is not an inexpensive source to me) and a NAD cd player.

What is the rest of your system ?

 

[hydra]

Guys my take on this. Firstly room acoustics IMO is the most important component. This has to be analyzed first and taken care of, hopefully with someone knowledgable rather than installing absorption willy nilly in the room. ...

I agree with you about the importance of room acoustics, and with the idea that a reasonable budget should be allocated for acoustic treatment. I've always been of the opinion that we should get the maximum out of our existing equipment by tweaking placement, and the acoustics of the room, before we think of upgrading the equipment (particularly the speakers).

But, without downplaying the importance of room acoustics, shouldn't we decide (and spend money) on the equipment first, before we do up the room? The reason I'm saying this, is that:

- Different speakers would need different levels/types of room-treatment. For example, Rethms prefer very little room treatment. Too much of it, and it kills their liveliness.

- Different speakers would need different types of placement. Some may need to be pulled out further into the room, some less so. Some may sound better with the listener to sit very close to them, and other less so. Because of all this, we might need to finalise the speakers, the placement & seating, and then decide where, what, and how much treatment is needed. (For example, the FRPs and SRPs would change if the speaker placement changes).

- I'm sure the electronics would influence the sound signature of the speakers enough to need less/more treatment (absorption, for example) to fine-tune the sound to one's tastes. Here again, we'd need to have the equipment down pat before we start on treatment. This is definitely of much less importance than the above two points.

In all the above cases, I'm not saying we should wait till everything is final before we start doing room treatment. I'm just saying that I think a serious spend on room treatment would be best done once the equipment purchases are done, and the system is set up and running to satisfaction.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

{Whoops, it looks like I didn't press "submit" --- but my Firefox add-on still has they typing cached...}

Thirty years ago, when all I cared about was the fact that I had, at last, been able to afford my own collection of boxes that produced stereo music that I enjoyed listening to, I plugged various sources into it as a matter of convenience. This even included a cheap clock radio!!! Perhaps it is hard to believe that the result was listenable, but I can assure people that, yes, it was, and that I quickly came to the conclusion that, however good or bad its cheap electronics were, the worst thing about such an item was the 1-inch rubbish speaker. The same thing held true for the TV.

After those thirty years of dreams, desires, some actual purchases and an experiment or three, the thing that is upermost in the what-I-would-do, if I could, finanacially and practically, is something that I have only even thought about in the last year or two: room treatment.

Guys my take on this. Firstly room acoustics IMO is the most important component. This has to be analyzed first and taken care of, hopefully with someone knowledgable rather than installing absorption willy nilly in the room. Secondly I believe that the speaker is the voice of the system, so it is next in line. Then the rest. I believe source and amplification are equally important, but I have experienced greatest diminishing returns with source and least with loudspeakers with amplification somewhere in the middle.

Simply because I have active speakers on the wish/dream list just now, I have been browsing places like gearslutz. You would find absolute resounding agreement with your first point. Whether the advice is aimed at kids in bedrooms, or people setting up studios they actually hope to make some money of, the advice on monitor speakers is almost universally to lower the speaker budget and raise the room treatment budget.

Whilst I find that absolutely interesting, my current situation is that I probably won't invest in either --- I'll raise the headphone budget instead. But that's just my personal scenario.

added after reading hydra's post...

I wish I could speak from experience on this, but, with the disclaimer that I am theorizing (and possibly talking from the wrong orifice :lol...

hydra, I think less changes and more stays the same. Unless one makes a major change in equipment, eg to something that has a greatly extended frequency response (adding a subwoofer?), or suffers a complete change in music taste, surely there can't be that much difference? If there is that much difference, then the previous equipment can't have been as "hifi" as we thought --- and that is something that has happened to me.

If a person puts a lot of effort into speaker positioning, etc, they will be doing so with the room acoustics as they are. If they then go in for room treatment, then they may have to do the positioning all over again, as they will no longer need to compensate for room faults.

In reality, I suppose there must be a certain amount of leap-frogging both approaches, but if I ever have (and I probably won't) the luxury of having, let alone building from scratch, a proper listening room, it'll get treated, with the aim that it should accommodate any equipment, from modest to grand.

I'm just dreaming