Hi-end audio hardware aesthetics?
 

"Rob" wrote in message
eb.com...
On 17/10/2010 01:10, Trevor Wilson wrote:
wrote in message
eb.com...
On 15/10/2010 22:19, Trevor Wilson wrote:
Fed Up Lurker wrote:
This is my own personel subjective opinion on the issue
of the aesthetics of expensive audio hardware.
There are many who feel the "hi-end" is worth every penny,
but I'm not one of those.
Back in the good old days if we do a correlation with the auto
world, we could find the audio equivalent of a Corvette Stingray,
A Bentley Azure, Jensen Interceptor, or an Aston Martin DB5.
Something that had "The look", an instant appeal. Now sadly
missing from the world of audio hardware.

**You're not looking hard enough. Whilst there are abundant examples of
audio horrors, like this monstrosity:

http://www.stereophile.com/integratedamps/201mf/

Which looks like it was designed by a Chinese farm worker. Form follows
function has been tossed out, whilst being substituted with gold
plating
and
cheap knobs accompanied by fake Allen head bolts. The thing, both
inside
and
outside, make me want to puke.


Yep! I've got the non-Nu Vista version of that, and it is quite clever
how
they managed to make it look so tacky. But then I bought it for what it
does, at a fraction (a quarter I think) of what they were asking at
launch.

Snip your examples of beauty - I'm sure they're lovely to your eye; I
think they look peculiar, and can't see at all how the form follows
function.

**You need to see how they've (the Halcro DM88) been put together. Then
it
makes sense. And yes, they are stunning to look at, IMO. Of course, with
the
cost of the industrial design exercise, they'd want to look damned good.
Romour has it that the cost was just under 7 figures (Australian) for
industrial design alone.


OK of course. I have no problem if that's what people are prepared to pay,
although in my quieter moments I think it's a daft world that produces
such puff :-)

**Certainly arguable. It is important to note that the industrial design of
the Halcro is just one part of the whole. The designer set out to build an
amplifier that eclipsed all amplifiers before it, in objective (and,
possibly, subjective) performance. The designer is a pretty clever guy and
has managed to reduce distortion levels to those that are below most
equipment used to test it. Necessary? Probably not, but it is a statement of
excellence. It's a bit like my mate's Ferrari. He cannot travel faster than
110kph in Australia. My rusty old Commodore can exceed that figure with
ease. I wondered what the point of the Ferrari was, right up to the point
that he took me for a run in the thing. It all made sense, despite the
external limitations that are applied to the vehicle. Lest you misunderstand
me: The industrial design provides the designer with certain freedoms not
seen in box shaped amplifiers. IMO: The Halcro DM88 screams 'form follows
function' brilliantly.


The important point for me is that you look at the engineering, and think:
'yep, that's pretty ingenious'.

**Which is precisely my point. It is exceptionally clever design.


I gather you design amplifiers, so I'd guess you know, but it
does strike me that some design decisions have been made to make them
look
good to some, rather than efficiency or even performance.

**I don't design amps, though I do fix them. Hence the reference to the
MF
M3. It is a ghastly POS, where all pretense to restraint has been
banished.
Worse, the inside is arguably an example of the same bad design. I can
live
with an ugly amplifier, provided the manufacturer has designed it for
specific reasons. The M3 lacks any kind of common-sense to it's design.
Inside and out.


Now you mention it is is the inside that bothers me. I'd have hoped that
MF could design the insides of an amplifier properly.

**Not in my experience. MF have managed to produce ****-up after ****-up
with monotonous regularity. Here's a few that srping to mind:

* Dr Thomas amplifier. Hot operating components packed tightly into a small
case, causing electrolytic caps and solder joints to prematurely fail.
* A1 amplifier. A triumph of design over common-sense. A claimed operating
power of 20 Watts Class A (actually, more like 2 Watts) and a horizontally
aligned heat sink, which allowed almost no convection cooling. Collector
wires soldered to the case of the output devices. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
* P370 amplifier. A claimed 185 Watts Class A (actually, more like 12
Watts). Borderline unstable design. Failure of one channel, often causes the
other channel to fail as well. Badly thought out heat sinking (starting to
see a pattern here?).
* M3 Nuvista. Design based around long-obsolete valves (Nuvistors). Output
devices bolted to a slab of aluminium, which is then bolted (end on) to the
heat sink. Very poor thermal coupling to heat sink as a result. 5 pin output
devices. Nice, in theory, but only available from a single manufacturer. A
bit of a worry, IMO.

There's other stuff too, like silly valved CD players and valved 'buffers',
which actually exhibit a nonsensically high output impedance. The list is
long. MF are masters in the art of bling and no substance.



FWIW I've always liked NAD, but never seen to need to pay for their
expensive range.

**NAD has pretty much always been a good example of basic, honest design,
with uninspired aesthetics. Given the value for money of the product, I
take
no issue. In any case, my Scottish heritage prevents me from paying for
anything that doesn't contribute to the overall sound quality,
reliability
or longevity. IOW: I detest 'bling' for it's own sake.


I do like design, but it's not the main thing. About 5 years I bought a
Mac computer, because I could afford it, and the Windows PC was becoming
too time consuming and unreliable. In a way the Mac is bonkers - on/off
switch is on the back for example. But I like the way it looks - it
obviously does matter to me to a point, especially if it does anything
else, such as its function, well.

**I understand the attraction for Macs, though I don't share it. For my
part, they have always been too expensive, too incompatible and too weird. A
mate bought one a year or so back and I was horrified at the screen. Sure,
it looked great in a darkened room, but allow a little light to refect off
it's highly reflective surface and the result was almost impossible to deal
with. This fault afflicts a good many PCs too. Why manufacturers seem to
think that refective surfaces on screens is a good idea is beyond my
comprehension. I expected more from the Mac. Don't get me started on setting
up a printer on another mate's Mac. PCs (running XP) are MUCH easier, faster
and more efficient. BTW: Since the advent of Windows 2000, PCs have been
pretty decent, IMO. Vista, of course, was an unfortunate abberration.

Maybe I just hate Macs. After all, I refuse to buy one of those iPhones. I'm
waiting for Android to deliver the goods.


--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

Hi-end audio hardware aesthetics?
 

On Oct 17, 1:54*pm, ScottW wrote:
On Oct 16, 1:39*pm, Boon wrote:





On Oct 16, 2:59*pm, ScottW wrote:

On Oct 16, 8:21*am, Boon wrote:

On Oct 16, 3:59*am, "Fed Up Lurker"
wrote:

"Boon" wrote in message

...
On Oct 15, 4:17 pm, "Fed Up Lurker"
wrote:

Did you really have them playing in your system? If you did then you
would've taken a few pictures of yourself posing beside them. upload
the pix to something like Flickr, I only suggest this so as to cast aside
any doubts some may have....
Or, you could look at my blog (the one you said that you read, heh
heh) and see the evidence.

Hi Boonie
There is no evidence on your blog?

Yes, there is. There are quite a few posts about receiving them,
unpacking them and setting them up, all with photos. In a couple of
the entries, there are congratulatory comments from the US distributor
on purchasing them. Duh.

*There is nothing to show that you

have actually demo'd those speakers.

Demo'd? What the hell are you talking about? I own a pair. They're in
my listening room.

There maybe doubting Thomas's
who may try to suggest you looked up an expensive model that is unlikely
to ever be heard by any in these groups and concocted a "review"?

So far you're the only one. And you're a bit thick in the head it
seems. I have no desire to prove anything to someone like you. I've
been on RAO for 12 years, and most of the people there know me, have
been to my house or know me on a professional level.

*I don't doubt you have some new speakers. I doubt your claims on
their performance as you've never demonstrated on any gear you've ever
owned any decent bass.

What are my claims to their performance?

Same 'ol boring crap and backpedaling.


No, I asked you to back up your statement with proof. YOU'RE the one
who just backpedaled by failing to prove your statement. Why? Because
you're so dumb, that you forgot what happened the last time you
brought this up...it turned out you mixed up two different speakers in
your addled little mind
..


*You've made some ridiculous claims on speakers...claiming one set was
flat to 30hz (which the 50 hz spec did not come close to support) only
to amend that claim to require room was required correction to get the
output required.

Name the speaker that I said was flat to 30hz and was actually really
just flat to 50 hz.

*flat to 50 would have been generous... I think it was your Zu or
their successors.

You THINK? You mean you don't know for sure? But you thought you'd
just throw it out there to see if I would crush you into the ground
again? That sound about right, Scott? Huh? Is that right?


*Doesn't matter, you won't stand behind your BS....again.

No, moron. I won't stand behind YOUR BS...again.

(snip the irrelevant obfuscations)

Every time you snip, it's something that makes you look dumb.

I might as well throw a saddle on you and ride you around RAO. That's
how much I control you.

Hi-end audio hardware aesthetics?
 

On Oct 17, 1:46*pm, "Fed Up Lurker"
wrote:
"Boon" wrote in message

news:dfce18ee-c844-4660-9647-

snip

You're a huge jerk, Scott. Jim Sanders had you pegged, George had you
pegged and I have you pegged. Throw in most of RAO, the Chargers group
and the Padres, and the consensus seems to be that you're a huge jerk.
And yet you can't think of anything better to do with your weekend
than hang out with people who criticize and despise you. I wouldn't
trade one minute of my life for yours. Not one second.
Loser.

Dear Boonie,
If we put aside your disasterous decision to purchase extremely
expensive hand polished, low sensitivity, awkward load, narrow
bandwidth stand-mount monitors, and also we will put aside the
obvious reason for posting your glowing but misguided claims
for their performance was to justify to yourself the outlay. And
we will also put aside your desperate obnoxiousness when the
error of your ways was pointed out to you, we will put all that
aside and they won't be raised and we will go direct to the heart
of the matter...
You are a very troubled individual, your issues are deep.
If you need to unload and talk, we are here to listen.

There is no WE, Internet geek. There is only you, alone, wanting to be
important in your real life, pretending to be important on a Usenet
newsgroup. Your system probably sounds like ****, but at least it
measures well, and that's everything to you. You hate the fact that
the high-end is full of snake oil and flooby dust, and yet those
people who are buying overpriced, underperforming gear seem to be
enjoying the hobby so much more than you. You feel like the world has
passed you by, a world that's full of stupid people who don't get you
and understand what you're talking about. That's why you call yourself
"Fed Up Lurker," because you feel that people are full of ****, but
you don't have the gumption to tell them to their faces. Thank God for
the Internet, where you can be yourself and say what you want without
fear of repercussion.

There there.

Hi-end audio hardware aesthetics?
 

In article , Fed Up Lurker
wrote:

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...


There will be something in the next issue IIUC. Should be on audio DIY.

Any chance of a hint?

The article is encouraging readers to have a go at DIY. Uses my fairly
basic/simple headdac design as an example of a circuit they should find
easy to make. But mainly aimed at just getting them to feel that they *can*
have a go and may well enjoy it.


FWIW during the last month I've been doing an analysis of the
320kb/sec BBC Proms stream experiment. Involved a lot of
program-writing and number-crunching, but the results are quite
curious. ...I've been wondering if the BBC is run by Time Lords. ;-

Huh?

Stay tuned... 8-]

Currently finishing the draft of the article on my measured results thus
far. Not sure yet if it will appear in HFN in detail or - more likely I
guess - appear on my audiomisc site and be discussed later in the mag.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

Hi-end audio hardware aesthetics?
 

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
snip

There will be something in the next issue IIUC. Should be on audio DIY.

Any chance of a hint?

The article is encouraging readers to have a go at DIY.

But we do that on the netty, and here on the netty we are trying to get
you pro review brigade to wake up to simple diy that produces results!

Uses my fairly
basic/simple headdac design as an example of a circuit they should find
easy to make. But mainly aimed at just getting them to feel that they
*can*
have a go and may well enjoy it.


Fair enough, but your head-dac project is based around the au-d3.
And your project is for a portable DAC for headphone use with a laptop.
From what I can discern the au-d3 will be an intergrated reciever/filter/dac
chipset of the type found on...laptops?
I do think a diy article is the right path for you and your mag, but you
bottled it with nonos? So.....
Your editor (and some others) have got excited about the Devialet D-
and it does indeed sound intriquing. But it costs 12 grand, and it has
the aesthetics of a metel butchers slab. It is exactly the sort of expensive
hardware that everyone holds back on and awaits early adopters (or
lack of) to bring the price down. But in this day and age who is there to
buy that beguiling slab at that price? Lottery winners opt for Bose or B&O.
So everyone will wait for competitors to bring out a rival at a fraction
of the cost, thats where you and I come into the game Jim.
We'll make a budget DIY version of the Devialet for an article in HFN+RR.
I'll guide you and show you where to get (or I'll supply) the components,
and we can do it for a few hundred quid and it'll look pretty too!
Run the idea past PM, he'll love it.
But if you want to just stick with your "opinion" column in HFN+RR....
I don't bother with most mags, specifically HFC or WHF? (Unreadable)
But we could ask Nobby over at HF+ if he is up for your diy articles.
I've got the latest awards issue, it's almost a one man show. And Nobby
does like to drop a bit of French or Latin into the mix. And he seemed
to imply in one article that one of his ways of gauging if he liked a
product
was if it made him cry whilst listening to Carmen? I really love that bloke.
If you're up for "proper" diy, we'll continue in email, these groups can
get a bit angry!


FWIW during the last month I've been doing an analysis of the
320kb/sec BBC Proms stream experiment. Involved a lot of
program-writing and number-crunching, but the results are quite
curious. ...I've been wondering if the BBC is run by Time Lords. ;-

Huh?

Stay tuned... 8-]

Currently finishing the draft of the article on my measured results thus
far. Not sure yet if it will appear in HFN in detail or - more likely I
guess - appear on my audiomisc site and be discussed later in the mag.

Slainte,

Jim


I have to be honest, - the bit rate and the BBC proms....
It's not what I would call a potentially exciting read, but what caught my
attention was your reference to Dr Who's Time Lords?
If you're talking about the lag between audio and video when using
a toslink/spdif to an a/v reciever or via pre version 3 of HDMI,
I could tell you how to fix all that....
Though I willl look out for your article.
Cheers.

Hi-end audio hardware aesthetics?
 

In article , Fed Up Lurker
wrote:

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
... snip

There will be something in the next issue IIUC. Should be on audio
DIY.

Any chance of a hint?

The article is encouraging readers to have a go at DIY.

But we do that on the netty, and here on the netty we are trying to get
you pro review brigade to wake up to simple diy that produces results!

Not sure who you are arguing with here. :-)

BTW I don't write 'reviews', nor am I really a 'pro' in a serious magazine
sense. I'm just a sort-of ex-engineer/academic enthusiast who writes a
little about what he does, etc.

HFN have been happy to publish what I've sent them so far. And in practice,
regardless of publication in print, most of what I've written over the
years I also put on the net in due course. One of the things I dislike
about the tradional print method is that material in old magazines can
become inaccessible in time if you can't do that. So I normally specify
that I keep the right to (re)publish on the net after print publication.
HFN were happy with that.

Uses my fairly basic/simple headdac design as an example of a circuit
they should find easy to make. But mainly aimed at just getting them
to feel that they *can* have a go and may well enjoy it.


Fair enough, but your head-dac project is based around the au-d3. And
your project is for a portable DAC for headphone use with a laptop. From
what I can discern the au-d3 will be an intergrated reciever/filter/dac
chipset of the type found on...laptops? I do think a diy article is the
right path for you and your mag, but you bottled it with nonos?

I write what about what interests me. That's the advantage of my being a
gentleman (sic?) amateur. If you want to write about something else, that's
fine with me. I'm certainly not stopping you. If someone else is, again,
your beef is with them, not me.

DIY isn't my only interest. Although I do want to encourage people to 'have
a go'.

More recently I've been looking at the BBC iPlayer. But I guess I'll return
to other aspects of encouraging DIY for HFN readers at some future
point(s). Probably also look at other matters, inc. 'nonos'. No long-term
rigid plan.


I have to be honest, - the bit rate and the BBC proms.... It's not what
I would call a potentially exciting read, but what caught my attention
was your reference to Dr Who's Time Lords?

If you're talking about the lag between audio and video when using a
toslink/spdif to an a/v reciever or via pre version 3 of HDMI, I could
tell you how to fix all that.... Though I willl look out for your
article. Cheers.

I won't comment on guesses about what I'm talking about as that could turn
into '20 questions'. :-) If you look at what I already published on
audiomisc about the iPlayer using last year's Proms you can see there are
various aspects to this. This year I'm using a different approach to last
time. I'll say more in due course. Depends on when/how the detailed results
are published.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

Hi-end audio hardware aesthetics?
 

David Looser wrote:
"Trevor Wilson" wrote

**You need to see how they've (the Halcro DM88) been put together.
Then it makes sense. And yes, they are stunning to look at, IMO.

I'd have chosen the words "odd" or "strange" to describe their
appearance, not "stunning"

**Beauty, as always, is in the eye of the beholder. Having seen the beast in
person, I find it a very attractive thing indeed. It looks nothing like a
typical 'black box'. Fit and finish is extraordinary.


Of course, with the cost of the industrial design exercise, they'd
want to look damned good. Romour has it that the cost was just under
7 figures (Australian) for industrial design alone.

Besides the fact that they look anything but "damned good" I'd stay
well clear of any product (especially a low-volume production product
such as this and even more a power amplifier) where a 7 figure sum
had been spent on the appearance. Audio power amplifiers are there to
be heard and not seen.

**I did say: "RUMOR has it..." I don't know how much the industrial design
cost. It may have been a thousand Bucks, for all I know. I merely repeated
the RUMOR. Audio power amps may well be to be heard and not seen, but they
rarely are. As a consequence, manufacturers have spend fair chunks of money
to make them look nice. IMO, Halcro have succeeded very nicely.



In any case, my Scottish heritage prevents me from paying for
anything that doesn't contribute to the overall sound quality,
reliability or longevity. IOW: I detest 'bling' for it's own sake.

Which seems at odds with your apparent approval of a 7 figure sum
being spent on the appearance of the DM88.

**I would need to be very wealthy indeed, to even think about spending money
on such a product. That does not mean that I approve of the RUMORED, sub-7
figure sum spent on industrial design. This comment begs yet another
question and some editorial.

The Halcro cosmetic design has remained essentially unaltered in several
years (around 10 years). How many different cosmetic designs has (say)
Musical Fidelity, Krell and the others produced in that time? How long will
Halcro continue with their present cosmetics? I sure as Hell don't know.
Clearly, a good industrial design can last many years, without change, thus
allowing the manufacturer to amortise the costs of that design over a long
period and a lot of products. What is better? A Halcro whose design remains
unaltered for more than a decade? Or a Musical Fidelity that changes
(seemingly) every few months?


--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

Hi-end audio hardware aesthetics?
 

On Oct 19, 2:26*pm, ScottW wrote:
On Oct 17, 10:21*pm, Boon wrote:





On Oct 17, 1:54*pm, ScottW wrote:

On Oct 16, 1:39*pm, Boon wrote:

On Oct 16, 2:59*pm, ScottW wrote:

On Oct 16, 8:21*am, Boon wrote:

On Oct 16, 3:59*am, "Fed Up Lurker"
wrote:

"Boon" wrote in message

...
On Oct 15, 4:17 pm, "Fed Up Lurker"
wrote:

Did you really have them playing in your system? If you did then you
would've taken a few pictures of yourself posing beside them. upload
the pix to something like Flickr, I only suggest this so as to cast aside
any doubts some may have....
Or, you could look at my blog (the one you said that you read, heh
heh) and see the evidence.

Hi Boonie
There is no evidence on your blog?

Yes, there is. There are quite a few posts about receiving them,
unpacking them and setting them up, all with photos. In a couple of
the entries, there are congratulatory comments from the US distributor
on purchasing them. Duh.

*There is nothing to show that you

have actually demo'd those speakers.

Demo'd? What the hell are you talking about? I own a pair. They're in
my listening room.

There maybe doubting Thomas's
who may try to suggest you looked up an expensive model that is unlikely
to ever be heard by any in these groups and concocted a "review"?

So far you're the only one. And you're a bit thick in the head it
seems. I have no desire to prove anything to someone like you. I've
been on RAO for 12 years, and most of the people there know me, have
been to my house or know me on a professional level.

*I don't doubt you have some new speakers. I doubt your claims on
their performance as you've never demonstrated on any gear you've ever
owned any decent bass.

What are my claims to their performance?

Same 'ol boring crap and backpedaling.

No, I asked you to back up your statement with proof.

*Yes, you demand I tell you what you said....again.

What a weak, stupid reply. I'm asking you to repeat what you THINK I
said. I know what I said. As usual, you've gotten it wrong. And you
know this, which is why you are evading the question.


As I said, same 'ol boring crap.

You telling lies about me? Yes...it's gotten very boring.


YOU'RE the one
who just backpedaled by failing to prove your statement.

* LoL. *Boons version of logic. * Anything goes.

Non-response noted. Failure to back up statement also noted.


*(snip the little boy who wants a pony nonsense).

What a coward you are. Why did you even bother to post this feeble
nonsense? Last word freak?