Double Bass Audio Systems. How do we listen to music?

[Greg Clinkingbeard]

I hear you; Based on my Job in High End Hi-Fi I was always listening critically for those Audiophile nuances not the Music some you mentioned and finally realized it after I left field and remembered what was really my passion; Music

I used to frequent some high end shops and plop down to listen to the best stuff. Invariably, the salesperson would put on some pretentious music on an audiophile label for demonstration. It was almost like I was expected to go down a checklist:
-soundstaging
-bass depth
-dynamics
-air…?
-transparency
Etc
I never could cross through into the illusion of listening to live music.
Near the end of this I had a simple system, not much different than I have now: AR turntable, Dynaco PAS preamp and ST-70 amp, Rogers LS35A speakers in a small room. The owner of one shop told me the Dynaco ST-70 is the ‘65 Mustang of amplifiers’. But I enjoy my system…….Well, I eventually traded my ST-70 for a Rotel SS amp and the illusion was gone. Thirty years later I have a system that draws me into the music every time and none of he gear but the Denon cartridge is ‘approved’ by the audio rags. Off that hamster wheel.

 

[Greg Clinkingbeard]

Timely thread.

I need to assemble a sound system for a room in a new half-glass summer house we're building this year. 18'x28' with a 10' ceiling, 28'x8' tall sliding glass doors, and quarry tile floors. This living room will also be a de facto practice space. Not a designated recording studio.

Streaming only. Bluetooth receiver. Two stereo speakers? Or a 5.1 or 7.1 speaker array?

No turntable, CD or cassette player.

I'd love suggestions from the brain trust. Under $5K.

If you can position the speakers out in the room you might consider Vandersteens. When properly positioned they can be very natural and full range; simply disappear. Their positioning is critical. They are anything but bright but you will have the challenge of deadening that room. No help on streaming components.

 

[Greg Clinkingbeard]

It's easy to lose your mind in that world and audiophiles are often insufferable procks. But a good system is something that you never regret. I did my research and pulled the trigger and never looked back. I quickly got back to the music, not wallowing in forums and frequency response graphs. It was fun for awhile to get to know what is out there but I quickly realized that most of those audiophiles have never even played an instrument, don't even really know what live music sounds like. They're talking all about fidelity, about sounding like the music is being played in front of you, blah blah blah, but they don't know how music is made, how instruments function or really sound. It was like people pretending to be surgeons who never touched a human body before.

I learned the importance of the getting the midrange right. How a system reproduces an oboe, flute, violin, female vocal and then handles the dynamics of a piano is critical. You have to attend live music events to hear those things in the wild.
Attending hundreds of live rock concerts won’t cut it.

 

[marchone]

I learned the importance of the getting the midrange right. How a system reproduces an oboe, flute, violin, female vocal and then handles the dynamics of a piano is critical. You have to attend live music events to hear those things in the wild.
Attending hundreds of live rock concerts won’t cut it.

Despite being a rocker myself my wife and I attend a lot of live chamber music so I appreciate your observation. Also, mids are critical to cut through the mix.

Seriously, live music reproduction is the goal. And there's so much good equipment available today it's a golden age for consumers.

 

[garrett2]

It all depends on the kind of music you listen to. If you mainly listen to Aphex Twin, live music will not be your standard! I tend to think dynamics and midrange are most important -- especially the kinds of dynamics in symphonic music. Listening to this from beginning to end is a fantastic audition. But if you just want to listen to Chet Baker, or Jacintha, or the Eagles you probably won't care. And that's fine -- we only have one life so we should enjoy it. (Listening to a very wide range of music is how I ended up with my Grimm LS1s. I bought a demo pair and they ended any desire I might have for other equipment. They are the monitors that Channel Classics uses, and Cécile McLorin Salvant's Dreams and Daggers was mastered with).

 

[Greg Clinkingbeard]

I just googled those Grimm speakers. Wow.

 

[TroyK]

Most of my records are small group jazz recorded in the 50s or 60s. My system is a good, modest one, not high end, but carefully put together and yeah, I've kind of adorned the room around it as best I could in the space I have.

But doublebass sounds like double bass and on a good stereo recording, the imaging creates a very lifelike experience: Bobby Timmons over there by the laundry room, Billy Higgins by the furnace...

Kept me partially sane during the pandemic

 

[Greg Clinkingbeard]

Symphonic music is difficult to reproduce because it has such a wide dynamic range and sheer size and weight of the performance. Reproducing that in a small room with systems that are appropriate for small rooms is difficult. Listening to a recording of symphonic music on my system is very enjoyable but it seems smaller and less real than maybe a jazz piano trio might. Still, it’s enjoyable.

 

[Greg Clinkingbeard]

A recent revelation has been adding the Denon DL103 cartridge at the working end of my tonearm. It’s virtually unchanged since its introduction sixty years ago and does a great job in capturing the essence of jazz and classical recordings of the fifties and sixties. It was a broadcast cartridge of the period. Warm, dynamic, good detail and its highly polished conical stylus minimizes surface noise. It needs a heavy tonearm and is a low output MC but is so good and cheap that I can’t believe I waited so long to try one.

 

[Jason Sypher]

It all depends on the kind of music you listen to. If you mainly listen to Aphex Twin, live music will not be your standard! I tend to think dynamics and midrange are most important -- especially the kinds of dynamics in symphonic music. Listening to this from beginning to end is a fantastic audition. But if you just want to listen to Chet Baker, or Jacintha, or the Eagles you probably won't care. And that's fine -- we only have one life so we should enjoy it. (Listening to a very wide range of music is how I ended up with my Grimm LS1s. I bought a demo pair and they ended any desire I might have for other equipment. They are the monitors that Channel Classics uses, and Cécile McLorin Salvant's Dreams and Daggers was mastered with).

View attachment 5086509

Love me some Aphex Twin!

 

[garrett2]

Love me some Aphex Twin!

He is a genius.

 

[rebellovw]

A recent revelation has been adding the Denon DL103 cartridge at the working end of my tonearm. It’s virtually unchanged since its introduction sixty years ago and does a great job in capturing the essence of jazz and classical recordings of the fifties and sixties. It was a broadcast cartridge of the period. Warm, dynamic, good detail and its highly polished conical stylus minimizes surface noise. It needs a heavy tonearm and is a low output MC but is so good and cheap that I can’t believe I waited so long to try one.

The DL103 is very nice - I run with HKardon transformers - really great pair. I'm old school regarding carts - my other favorite is the Shure V15 IV that I'm running.

 

[Jazzdogg]

Back in the 70s I was poor, hard working, and very interested in reproducing music affordably at home. I read the audio enthusiast magazines of the day, and acquired one piece of gear at a time as I could afford them.

I remember buying a Hafler DH200 power amp as a kit and assembling it on my kitchen table in the evenings after work. In 1979 I was living on Anchorage and bought a JVC QLY5F turntable, which I had modified to provide variable pitch/speed control so I could learn songs from recordings while tuning my bass to standard pitch.

I remember what a revelation it was to wire a rear pair of speakers using the Hafler quasi-surround method, which passed only the difference signal to the rear pair.

These days, I am retired. We are full-time RVers, and I have to accommodate hearing loss and tinnitus.

When we finally stop RVing and settle down I have a record collection and a bunch of gear to listen to them, stored in our barn waiting to be used. I just hope I will have enough left of my hearing to enjoy them.

Thanks for starting this thread, Greg!

 

[Jason Sypher]

Back in the 70s I was poor, hard working, and very interested in reproducing music affordably at home. I read the audio enthusiast magazines of the day, and acquired one piece of gear at a time as I could afford them.

I remember buying a Hafler DH200 power amp as a kit and assembling it on my kitchen table in the evenings after work. In 1979 I was living on Anchorage and bought a JVC QLY5F turntable, which I had modified to provide variable pitch/speed control so I could learn songs from recordings while tuning my bass to standard pitch.

I remember what a revelation it was to wire a rear pair of speakers using the Hafler quasi-surround method, which passed only the difference signal to the rear pair.

These days, I am retired. We are full-time RVers, and I have to accommodate hearing loss and tinnitus.

When we finally stop RVing and settle down I have a record collection and a bunch of gear to listen to them, stored in our barn waiting to be used. I just hope I will have enough left of my hearing to enjoy them.

Thanks for starting this thread, Greg!

I thought full-time RVers were distinctly against settling down?

 

[Jazzdogg]

I thought full-time RVers were distinctly against settling down?

Jason, we are among the people who believe folks don't stop doing things because they're old; folks get old/think old because they stop doing things.

We're enjoying our life immensely, and both of us have lots of activities (in addition to grandchildren) to keep us active after we've stopped RVing.

 

[Eric Hochberg]

Nice idea for a thread! The pandemic got me more into listening at home and thinking about upping my system, which I did with some new speakers (Wharfdale EVO 4.2), dacs (Dragonfly Red, Focusrite Scarlett, and Sanskrit MK2). I also got my ancient NAD 1300 preamp working again and found an ERA turntable from the 70's? to replace my damaged AR XB. The Bryston 3B which I bought used around 1985 is still going strong. I also got into streaming Tidal from my laptop and am loving it!

If I wanted to splurge, I'd get a Naim system with Proac speakers and may do one of their used integrateds at some point. Lots of fun!

 

[TroyK]

Naim is some British Awesomeness and sexy as hell, but if I were going to spend more than I wanted to on new gear, it feels like Macintosh would be the carrot.

I'd love a Linn turntable. I loved my Philips, but was shocked at the sonic lift when I went to Rega, especially the natural clarity of the bass. I felt like I was hearing that fingerboard fuzz that I didn't know existed until I heard it come out of my speakers and I thought "that's what it sounds like when you're playing!"

...but I'll never pay for a Linn. I think unless you really have a tuned room and conditioned power, there has to be a rule of diminishing returns.

I did spend...I don't know $30? On a SpinClean for my records and it's a HUGE impact. Even for and especially new records. It's amazing how much crud is in the grooves from the pressing process. The high vibration vacuum machines are certainly better, but closer to $1,000 and require counter space that I don't have.

 

[jmpiwonka]

Have had the speakers (home built -Pi Audio plans) and the Empire turntable for a long time. Had little tube amps for a while, simplified to a Marantz 2220. sold that a while back for 5 times what I paid and got the Van Alsteen pre and Hafler power amp.
have a tube phono amp and a little stepup thing. Denon 103 bought cheap and had The Soundsmith put a new cantilever on.
kids pushed in the dustcaps on my speakers

recently bought a bluetooth thing so I can play music from my phone but that’s only for convenience. Almost always play/buy vinyl.

 

[jmpiwonka]

Yeah, I have noticed many musicians listen to very non-audiophile systems and are totally happy with it. My buddy runs a record label that puts out lots of jazz stuff and for a while at the beginning he would bring test pressings over to my place so we could listen on my stereo haha.

 

[Eric Hochberg]

Naim is some British Awesomeness and sexy as hell,

After I saw you in Seattle last time I went to Hawthorne Audio and spent an hour with a Naim integrated paired with both my Wharfedale model and Proac bookshelves. Very tempting but did it sound better than what I have? Not sure...

My friend is a Naim dealer so I've heard their very top of the line stuff paired with $80k Proacs and it's a surreal experience. He told me about a customer of his who purchased the whole system, probably half a mil, to use in a second condo he bought in his building just for listening. Must be nice!