"Don Pearce" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 19 May 2006 13:33:54 +0100, "Keith G"
wrote:


Its revised my views completely, my advice to anyone looking for good
sound
on the cheap would/will be 'build a pair of speakers and then chuck any
old
kit at them' - I reckon you could get a superb tuner/CDP system going for
less than 200 quid!!


OK - we can stop calling you Grasshopper now; you've graduated.


(Ooh! Does this mean you've got ping-pong balls for eyes? :-)


Anyway, I'm not sure I have 'graduated' (I suspect you are referring to the
perennial valve vs, ss argument) - I've recommended cheap (eBay/secondhand)
amps to people for ages. I've long suspected there wasn't much to choose
between ss amps in a given price range and still think they all sound pretty
boring/dull/grey/dreary/barren/bleak on 'normal' speakers whereas, by
contrast, valve amps can be tweaked across a fairly broad range to *tailor*
a particular (more pleasing) sound. But that's not the issue, what is a
revelation to me is just how much the speakers are dictating the final
result from a 'hifi' system - I now believe a ****e pair of speakers
(includes Famous Names) can fatally cripple just about *any* source or
amplifier!!

I'm not thumping any particular tub here - I just think it's a pity that
people are unloading a *lot* of money to get something satisfying from a
pair of speakers that ain't *ever* going to deliver the goods when the
solution (OK, not for everybody, possibly) is so damn cheap! If I wuz 10
(OK - 20 or 30....) years younger I would be seriously thinking of producing
a VFM horn speaker on a commercial basis!!

Two things, I think, have steered the modern trends - the inexplicable* need
for unnecessary, loud, pistonic bass in (paradoxically) a small 'user/wife
friendly' enclosure! Consequently amplifiers have to be capable of
outputting three figures of totally unnecessary and expensive watts (in the
average UK room) to get 'em to work at all and that brings a raft of other
considerations into the equation which are simply not of much consequence
when driving sensitive speakers with low-power amps. (Distortion, power
supply issues etc.)

Interesting that there's nothing particularly small about 'high end'
speakers, innit?


*Actually, not that inexplicable, given the nature of much modern *tribal*
music....!!