[William Noble]

"jwvm" wrote in message
...
On Oct 14, 8:33 am, "William Noble" wrote:

snip

my advice is below.

1. maximize quality of preamp - buy the best that you can afford - by
best I
mean that which sounds the best to you.
then maximize the quality of your signal source within budget - for
example
if you will be using CDs, the D/A will dominate the sound - that is why I
spent way too much $$ (from a logical point of view) for a specific
external
D/A.

Many modern low-cost D/A converters have extremely good performance
and it is quite easy to design excellent preamplifiers. The money
saved here (perhaps just by purchasing a good-quality receiver) would
be better spent on speakers.

I don't know about "modern" D/A units - I had a reasonably good CD player
and found a worthwhile (to me) improvement in sound by going to an external
D/A - a specific model - I tried a bunch of different ones - with this
model, I cannot hear any difference between the cheapest CD player (with a
digital output) and the most expensive (a $15,000 unit that I would never
have considered buying). so, I don't know if my D/A is "modern" or not, I'm
just reporting results.


2. once you have that stuff, and your speakers, just try out amps within
your budget.

No one seems to believe me that in my experience, sound quality improves
with power. I was actually surprised to find this out when I tried it the
first time - I expected the Leak amp (at 15 watts, I think, mono) to
sound
the best, but it sounded the worst. I'm not going to debate testing
methodologies, I am just reporting my experience. I'm pretty unbiased in
these things.

Biases are very difficult to avoid in sighted tests without very
careful level matching. Humans are simply very poor at this kind of
evaluation in uncontrolled tests.

This statement is true, but I assue you that very much to my surprise, the
differences were so huge that there would be no question except among the
profoundly deaf (well, that's a slight exageration, but not much)

It is certainly true that there are items that are commonly changed on high
end setups that alledgedly make a difference - I've borrowed and tried many
(not believing) and I could hear no difference at all from any of the
following:

1. high end power cords
2. special feet for amplifiers
3. special stand for power amp
4. fancy speaker wire
5. different digital interconnects.
6. different CD players when using a digital connection to my A/D.
7 any of the magic things one is supposed to do to a CD before playing it

What I could clearly hear differences with a
1. preamp
2. D/A unit, or if no D/A, then CD players (no, not all, but some sound much
better than others)
3. interconnect cables,
4. tone arm and cartrige (but not turntable, or mat)
5. different formats of recording (e.g. CD versus vinyl versus 1/4 inch
tape)
6. tube versus transistor, particularly in the preamp.
7. different phono preamps
6. speakers and headphones


With a "modest" thousand pound budget, I would give the power
amp short shrift because the other parts make a larger audible
difference. I
would also encourage you to get whatever you settle on used and to get it
several years old, from an original owner if you can - you will save a
lot
of $$ that way.

Good amplifiers need not be all that expensive. Spend the money on
speakers!

well, your advise is the exact opposite of what I would say - in fact I'd
say buy a good preamp and a pair of Senheizer electrostatic headphones with
the accompanying amplifier if you want the best sound possible for less than
the price of a high end car. Then add power amp and speakers for when you
want background music.