Re: Audiophile Rants [Was: 5 Things AppleTV needs to be a MUST BUY by Apple Gazette]

[LuKreme]

On 9-Apr-2007, at 16:33, Andy Ringsmuth wrote:
> I've seen people who spend a couple thousand on a nice shiny new  
> plasma TV and then pipe the audio through a 10-year-old stereo they  
> got at a garage sale or use the TV's built-in speakers.  To me,  
> that's like fingernails on a blackboard.  If you're going to go to  
> the trouble and expense of having a great video experience but the  
> audio is crap, it's a waste (in my mind).  But at the same time,  
> those people likely haven't personally witnessed a well set up audio

Yep, I think there is a fine line of agreement/disagreement here.  No  
one is arguiong that sound quality is not important.  I spend $700 on  
a decent Pioneer receiver 20 years ago and $600 or so on some floor  
model Bose AM-3 speakers (retailing at $995 at the time).  They are  
only 2.1 and the receiver is dying a horrible death now, so I am  
looking to replace my admittedly mid-low end amp some time soon.

I'm likely to spend less than the $1300 I spent 20 years ago because  
it looks like I can get a decent 7.1 Amp for $300 that will be at a  
step up from what I have now<1>.  Sure, I could spend $1300 on a set  
of AM-16s and another $1000 on some HK amplifier, but really, why?   
Most of my home-stereo use is watching TV and movies and I don't have  
a DLP projector and a home theatre setup. If I had lotto bucks, I  
might spend audiophile money (anything over $5,000 I think  
qualifies), but I STILL wouldn't be an audiophile because I would  
still be perfectly willing to listen to my crappy vinyl -> cassette - 
 > cassette -> cassette -> cassette -> nineteen-ninety-mumble MP3 on  
that equipment, and that is were the difference lies, I think.

I was at a friends house over the holidays and he had a copy of Santa  
Clause 3 that he'd downloaded off the torrent sites.  The video was  
decent quality for a camera capture, but the sound was horrible.   
Tiny and distorted and I felt like I was watching the chalk on  
chalkboard tabernacle choir and after less than 10 minutes I begged  
off.  I simply couldn't stand to watch something with audio that  
bad.  He didn't seem to mind one bit.

So, I guess a little bit of the audiophile geek is in all of us.   
Some things bother me more than others. Bad concert recordings I  
can't do.  Anything where the pitch has been noticeably altered up  
(less of a problem with down, but that is rarer) or anything where  
there is an echo-chamber effect really bothers me.  Some static?  A  
few vinyl pops?  even a fairly constant background hiss from too many  
generations of copies?  I can deal with that.

<1> I'm looking at the VSX816S and then adding some rear/side  
speakers to my AM-3s.  I have an OK speaker I can use for the center  
channel, or I can simply 'phantom' it, which seems to work very well  
with the AM-3s.

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