Hall of Shame

I normally would not weigh in on something like this with all it's potential for inflaming the emotions of us hyper-sensitive audiophiles, but, I've got to comment in this case. Frankly, I'm amazed by the post of Mikeam re: the Dynaudio Evidence. I've been involved in this hobby for over 30 years and presently own the Evidence speakers. Obviously, I could have chosen any number of other speakers, but, felt these were absolutely the best, period (see my further comments as to why on audioreview.com). I don't require that any of my local audiophile buddies reaffirm my choices in equipment, but they are of the same opinion as I am on this point and feel that they have not heard anything better than my system anywhere. These are not yes men, in fact they relish the opportunity to be critics. I don't know the YBA electronics, but I suspect that this shouldn't be a serious problem. My guess is that it would have to be the room/setup. Mikeam, if you are ever in my area, I'd be happy to demo the system for you, just e-mail me. BTW - I would not attempt to defend ANY component on its price since what you are willing to spend to achieve a given result is purely subjective.

Milo, do you find this true also with MIT's latest and more expensive offerings, or do you refer to their wires of about 8-12 years ago? If that's the case I aggree with you wholeheartedly. I use their newer stuff with Spectral gear and Plasma tweeters, there the highs certainly do not seem rolled to these here ears. Regards,

Transparent cables. Over priced and bad sounding. MIT comes a close second!

There are things that I personally ignore when surfing an audiomarket for upgrade:

Cables: Monster cable, MIT, Transparent.
Amps: OCM, Belles, Anthem, Jolida, Parasound, SETs
CD-players: Rega Planet above $300
Speakers: Talon Khorus, Martin Logans., any Horn speakers.

I can continue that list with some analogue gear but I'm not willing to place everything onto the Hall of Shame -- It's just my personal taboos.

Perhaps Sean is right here (he usually is anyway). What really hit me was someone disliking the Dynaudio Evidence speakers. I cannot afford them personally, but agree with the above post by the person who owns a pair. I've heard them at a dealer and, although you may equal them at half the price, they sounded absolutely fantastic to me. Perhaps it's really not objective at all, but even if it is, system synergy is important. One example: I'm upgrading cables throughout right now. I tried synergistic research IC's with audioquest speaker cable. Horrible! Extremely bad! However, the audioquest speaker cable on its own with other ICs was OK, and it turns out the synergistic research IC's are my favorite. They were just incredible with different speaker wire (Tara Labs). So, what the hell. Maybe I'll just put myself in the hall of shame for bashing MIT earlier. It's pretty appropriate, actually, I've got the worst singing voice I know.