OK Brett so let me ask you a question.
If a person had to start from scratch in assembling a truly "HiFi"
system what would you recommend as purchase options?
I don't mean which brand names, I mean what variables
should be looked at when shopping for equipment.
That's an interesting question. I assume you really mean how do you separate "I like it" from "it's accurate". I would like to think about it before answering, but a few things immediately occur:
Don't buy anything that is claimed to violate the basic laws of physics and electrical engineering (i.e magic wire, etc.). You don't have to be an engineering prodigy to do this - for example, you can research the relevance of the "skin effect" to audio circuits in about 45 seconds. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand that wires do not need burn-in, just junior high physics.
Don't buy, or at least be suspicious of, anything that that claims to be a "breakthrough" or "newly discovered circuit topology", because the basic concepts of audio circuits have been known for decades. The important changes are down in the nitty-gritty (and frequently boring) details of parts selections, values, etc. Of course that makes for very poor advertising copy.
If someone is "talking down" to you, or claims that you can't understand the esoteric principles involved, or they have "super ears" and can therefore tell you what is better and what is not just by listening, they are probably blowing smoke into one of your bodily orfices. Another sign of this is the excessive "name dropping" of brand names, audio mag reviewers name (or worse, initials), etc.
SET amps are not "better" because they are "simple and thus have less parts standing between you and the music". They are grotesquely less accurate than almost any reasonable design, and have massive distortion at even miniscule output power. The massive distortion happens to be, in some sense, asthetically pleasing, due to it's nature, but that doesn't mean it's more accurate. If you happen to like it, don't apologize, just don't fool yourself about what's going on.
If someone says, when listening to some piece of equipment, something along the lines of 'the composer's hidden inner message was easily conveyed' run away from them, quickly. (I actually saw a speaker review with that quote, bonus points awarded for knowing the the speaker under review)
If something requires lots of special frequent adjustments or maintainence, there's a reason, and it's not because it's well-designed with parts running within their margins
When listening, it's possible to come up with useful subjective observations:
Resonances and variations in frequency response are very easy to hear, and are highly relevant. If you have a descending series of notes, it shouldn't sound like "boom-boom-boom-BOOM-boom-boom". If this is inherent to the equipment, the same notes will resonate on any source material.
Use common sense to separate out source material limitations from equipment limitations. You can listen to the same CD on several different systems, and the features that repeat from system to system are in the source. If the features are different on different systems, it's the system.
Most people already know this, but lots of times better systems result in worse sound. If your AC/DC record sounds like it was recorded in 4 different plastic boxes, that's a good sign, because it was. If your AC/DC record has "good imaging" it's probably something the system is doing to create signals that weren't there in the first place. And, it won't repeat on other similar source material.
On the other hand, if the imaging is good, with source material that was recorded in a live setting, and its good with all such source material, it's probably a GOOD sign because you can't really reliably synthesize that.
If you just like buying equipment, just admit you just like buying equipment. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. I have designed/built/bought a lot of not-very-good equipment just because I wanted to fiddle with it. I have boxes full of Williamson-style tube amps, and even a few SETs. I enjoyed putting them together, and was pleased with the results. Of course, they didn't really play music worth a crap, compared to my $450 30-WPC Jensen's amp, but I knew that was going to happen before I started, and didn't claim otherwise later. When I wanted to get a better musical reproduction system I called Frank and had him do it. He (and others, too) are professionals with decades of experience. If I spent the kind of time necessary, I might be able to do as well or better, but I am not going to do that. I'm sure if Frank wanted a correctly-designed satellite control system he would call someone like me, who does it for a living and had the necessary experience to make sure it worked.
Same with massive aluminum hogged-out faceplates, crystal and titanium external tube "cooling towers", blue LEDs, neon tubes, etc. If you just want to buy something because it looks good, don't fool yourself about it, just admit it. You are an adult, you don't have to phony up technical reasons that it's "better", just say, "I got it because it looks cool". If you are embarrassed saying you spent $10000 on a preamp because it looked cool, then, maybe you shouldn't do it.
It's really just my personal subjective reaction, but the thing that disturbs me the most about a lot of what I have seen in the past 6 months or so of casual research/refamiliarization with this hobby/industry is the incredible level of simply bizarre claims that I can only interpret as self-delusion about what we are doing. A lot of it seems to be directed towards one-upsmanship and impressing one's "audiophile" buddies with your latest new gadget, but it seems most people can't bring themselves to admit it. It doesn't make me mad, it doesn't make my life miserable, and I am not even being critical, but I found it odd. If it makes anyone feel any better, I see similar a similar situation in several of my other technical hobbies.
I've blathered enough, and no one really cares what I think about it anyway. Just take it as semi-objective observation from someone who hasn't kept up with the Joneses for the last quarter-century, more or less.
Brett
