Digital, Low Mass, ClassD, Less expensive, Let it happen!
Well here we are! Not that you can't go back and buy boat anchors, but now we know sound is better with low mass designs. Digital source? Yep, the tide has turned. ClassD amplification is also here to stay. Lower mass speakers, on their way back too. The audiophile hobby is getting less expensive and better sounding.
I guess we can debate this, but it's happening anyway. The hobby is simply growing up and becoming more aware of how to get great sound, and get it smart. There has been a lot of myths passed down when we only had paperback magazines, mostly for marketing, but the internet has finally caught up with audio reality. Instead of $20,000.00 components we have $20,000.00 whole systems (including all the trimming). Shoot, there are $5,000.00 systems that excel. The Trade Shows are changing, the market is changing and we are changing. Want to stay old school? No problem, there will always be old school and plenty of used gear (at least for our lifetimes). There will also be smaller niche companies that spring up to tempt us.
The hobby is entering a new era for the extreme listener. It will be a hobby of doing and exploring Electrical, Mechanical and Acoustical as equals. Components will be much smaller and more flexible, and more time will be spent on playing our whole music collection, and not just a few recordings. Many HEA debates will be making their way to the archives as the hobby grows closer to mainstream. Mainstream as in higher quality audiophile mainstream.
There's no shortage of boat anchors. Nobody building heavy class A is feeling any pinch or worry about class D. Nelson Pass cited adding mass to his amps with bigger heat sinks and beefier power supplies was the secret to getting better sound from his designs. Stereophile agrees they sound better. Their amp of the year last year wasn't class D amp. It was a single ended class A amp.
My fav all-around system by a considerable amount, if I have to choose one, is my Ultra Light portable Sony Walkman cassette player with Grado SR-60 headphones (which I made even lighter by removing the really horrid sounding ear pads, whose brilliant idea were those? ). Dynamic, engaging, musical! Total mass 14 ounces. I’m not hot doggin ya. 🌭
"In 1974 the FMI 80 was a very good low-priced speaker, better than many much more expensive models from other companies. The same was true of the NAD 3020 integrated amp in the 1980's."
I agree, 2 wonderful products.
"but that's not why they sounded good"
That statement is where you and I would disagree. Double the weight of either the 80 or 3020 and the soundstage will shrink, shift up and run into the speakers' locations.
In 1974 the FMI 80 was a very good low-priced speaker, better than many much more expensive models from other companies. The same was true of the NAD 3020 integrated amp in the 1980's. I guess they could be described as "low mass", but that's not why they sounded good. Good design is not a bumper sticker slogan.
Well, like I've been saying (as well as others here), it's happening whether there's a debate here or not. Simple passive acoustics, room correction (DSP), low mass amps and entry level speakers, inexpensive enough to make the audio cheapskate blush, are making their way into the audiophile mainstream way of thinking.
None of this needs Agon membership approval. It's just a fact that simpler, happier audiophile days are here that is far more practical then what was preached years past.
Many of you are putting together, past and now, systems that rival the big buck systems and that's good. The cool thing that I'm talking about is, your sharing your findings and that's what is needed. And, that's what's going to balance out this hobby and introduce new blood to the magic of in-room listening. Headphone and car listening are already there, more or less, but HEA has struggled to get to that comfort level it deserves.
Room correction is now the norm, passive and electronic, that's a big step. Low mass is taking place, that's the most needed next step taking place. Low mass more gain.
One wonders if low mass speakers refer to the total mass or just the diaphragm. The flagship Martin Logan’s come in at 280 lb per pair. The big Sound Labs A-1s tip the scales at 370 lb per pair. Is that really considered low mass? Hmmmmm...
I just love sweeping generalizations. Low mass speakers are "coming back"? ESL's never left. The vacuum inside a tube exhibits very low mass (zero), but the transformers of the amp it is installed in shouldn't (ask Roger Modjeski or Tim de Paravicini). More grandiose proclamations please!
I've heard some digital amps that left me cold and wanting and I've heard some (Genesis and Audio Alchemy) that sounded really nice.
What I have heard is very, very limited but the potential its there. When all the bugs are ironed out and they get better as they get smaller I'll be all ears and maybe open wallet as well. 😄
I am all in! Loving my digital powered dac with room correction as well as DSP options in Roon. All lightweight, can stay on 24/7, produces no heat and sounds fantastic!
I am definitely on board the whole free wheelin’ low mass train 🚂 Toot! Toot! Not counting my elaborate seismic iso stand, which is quite massive and tricked out, the system itself is only 24 ounces, including Grado headphones and Panasonic portable CD player, made in Japan. Obviously when you go very low mass as I have you not only shed a lot of pounds but a lot of things that produce noise and distortion.
Yep, I think we’ll all have enough fun. The guys who probably won’t be having fun are the ones left behind arguing about what they think distortion is.
As far as digital, I loved it in the beginning and I love it now. A lot of folks who don't like digital for the most part haven't learned how to play it.
I’ve always been a fan of simple well made $1000 systems.
It takes effort on the part of the user of such, though.
Most throw money at it trying to get it to work, when effort is the part that makes it work. Throwing money at the problem can be ineffective and take far longer to get the same spot that could have been reached years earlier via effort.
Learn. Grow. think. Logic. All in the service of the emotions we attempt to invoke, when hearing great reproduction.
Most folks who are here, though, are enthusiasts and tend to put in some to more effort.
$1000?
sure.
Buy the right speakers. Upgrade them.
Buy the right amplifier. Upgrade it.
Buy the right source device. Upgrade it.
Buy the right cables.. Of course, upgrading here can be a problem.
Sites that cater to the DIY audio enthusiast have fairly large followings. Such groups probably outnumber the percentage of people on audiophile forums. There is a reason for that.
Not a fan of class D, though. The sound they produce is mostly noise/hash, misheard as detail, due to how the ear processes signal. Most audio equipment (pretty well 100%, actually) is guilty of this sort of sin. A little of each, darker and noise/hash as detail a a pair of sonic bookends. It is literally the nature of electronics. Class D pushes this too far in the one direction. It can take time to discern this point.
Class D will probably take the same path as Digital. Where it (digital) was a step backward at first, and felt by some to be superior and pushed as superior. This (digital) was uniquely a industry wide corporate push, though. Then over the next 20-30 years, it (class D and digital) approaches the quality of what was available before in the prior technology, and then it is realized, openly, at that time...that it was a degradation, not an advance. But we’re much better now! Really! (will be the admission in 20 years, re Class D......)
But hey, if folks like it and it makes for them having fun with tunes, who am I to argue.
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