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Is this an audiophile forum?


Alessio

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I'm definitely not an experienced audiophile (i'm mostly a music lover that is trying to improve his listening experience), but i think i've noticed a curious difference between this forum and the few others i've been visiting.

 

On other audiophile forums they all talk about famous amps, high end DACs, huge cables… i mean, all that expensive stuff. And speakers, of course.

 

I'm well aware this is, let me call it, a 'speakers forum', but i'm quite surprised anyway because i don't see any trace of all those expensive devices.

 

Speaking of amps, for example, i've only seen mentioned Crown amps. A brand i wasn't even aware of. I'm not even sure if they are considered hi-fi…?

Btw, i've been reading several threads on biamping, where those Crown amps pop up here and there.

And they're used to pilot quite expensive Klipsch speaker systems.

 

What are your thoughts on that?

 

Please mind that i'm not trying to be polemic at all. I just find all this a little ironic. ;)

Speaking of irony, this makes me guess that if i visit a McIntosh forum, for example, i'll probably find people talking the hell out of McIntosh amps, most of which connected to 'cheap' speakers, because amps are what it's all about. 😅

 

Edited by Alessio
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Oh no, not the "A" word.........

 

There are some members here with what you might call "audiophile approved" gear. There are also many more here who will tell you that all amps, preamps, cables, etc. sound the same.

 

You just have to separate the wheat from the chaff.

 

So this might not be your typical audiophile forum. But there is plenty of experience and knowledge available if you are patient (not a virtue inherent in my personality).

 

Some here are even open minded enough to accept that there are other speakers as good as (better?) than Klipsch........😮

 

Shakey

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Yes, this is an audiophile forum. Spend time digging into the subforums and you'll find plenty of people have plenty of expensive gear. And we do our fair share of humble bragging, but we also spend time talking about music theory, source material quality, room treatment, etc. The nature of Klipsch speakers tends to attract people who seek accuracy, transparency, and the optimization of their entire sound reproduction system - precisely because the speakers are so unforgiving.

 

And then there's the people. A great many people that hang around here have decades of experience in the music industry, engineering, exposure to a great many system configurations, and truly eclectic listening preferences. And we're interesting people, too, with a great many side hobbies besides audio and the forum leadership is generous in allowing those "off-topic" discussions to flourish for the sake of building community ties. It's the reason I hang out here and not any other forums. 

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While some "audiophiles" do spend a lot of money on their system, spending a lot of money does not make someone an audiophile. To me, an audiophile loves and appreciates music. The gear is a means to an end. So as long as the system delivers live realism and has you get taken away emotionally in the music, that is all that is required, regardless of the cost.

 

I feel many Klipsch speakers fly under the audiophile radar. Sad really because they are a great bang for your buck. The speed, dynamics, realism and ability to articulate a whisper are what I like about my Jubilee and Cornwall III speakers. YMMV

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1 minute ago, Shakeydeal said:

There are also many more here who will tell you that all amps, preamps, cables, etc. sound the same.

 

This is what i suspect and what i'm genuinely curious about.

 

I mean, i find it weird to see 10k+ speakers connected to 'cheap' amps, also because i see that in threads where all single audio frequencies are dissected with utmost precision. 🤔

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Btw, thread title is obviously provocative. 😎

Please don't take it literally.

 

I see there's people on here which has so much knowledge on the audio matter that's kinda scary.

(scary because it just makes me understand how little i do know and how much there is to be aware of)

 

And THAT's also what raises my 'question'.

 

I mean, the same people which are so deeply in the known about frequencies, phase and all that audio world, seem to be useing 'cheap' gear.

Apart from the speakers, of course. ;)

 

That puzzles me.

 

Edited by Alessio
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We could spend all day (and countless posts) on subjective vs objective opinions. I am clearly in the subjectivist camp, and that seems to be the minority. I find it best to just focus on discussions that don't involve those types of mudslinging contests.

 

Shakey

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And some of us just can't afford the "expensive stuff". Or even if we can, we choose not to, because there are more important places to spend the money. It makes the goal of assembling a quality system on a budget that much more interesting.

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3 minutes ago, Edgar said:

And some of us just can't afford the "expensive stuff". Or even if we can, we choose not to, because there are more important places to spend the money. It makes the goal of assembling a quality system on a budget that much more interesting.

 

Sure, i agree.

Maybe i didn't express my point clearly.

 

Forget the 'expensive'.

 

My point is, it seems to me (BUT i may be wrong!) that some very knowledgeable forum members put the utmost care in choosing and configuring their speakers while at the same time they're not much interested in all the rest of the chain.

 

So, i'm wondering if that's actually true. And if it is, why?

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11 minutes ago, Alessio said:

My point is, it seems to me (BUT i may be wrong!) that some very knowledgeable forum members put the utmost care in choosing and configuring their speakers while at the same time they're not much interested in all the rest of the chain.

 

 

You keep coming back to this point - please share the threads/posts which have cemented this for you.

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10 minutes ago, Alessio said:

My point is, it seems to me (BUT i may be wrong!) that some very knowledgeable forum members put the utmost care in choosing and configuring their speakers while at the same time they're not much interested in all the rest of the chain.

 

So, i'm wondering if that's actually true. And if it is, why?

 

The speakers and the room are the most important parts of the signal chain.

 

That said, look at how picky some members are about pairing tube amps with Klipsch loudspeakers.

 

On the other hand, few seem to have $20,000 amps because it's just not necessary.

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1 minute ago, JJkizak said:

By the way A Crown amp is a big time thing and has been for many years.

 

I think I mentioned this in a post a while back, but about a year ago I happened to speak with an amplifier designer at Harman. I asked him what he does differently when designing an audiophile amp for Mark Levinson that he doesn't do when designing a consumer amp for Harman Kardon. He answered, "The circuits are the same. I just use much higher quality parts in the Levinson amp."

 

Crown is somewhere in between. Since they are designed for pro use, they are built for abuse. But they are also built for low cost. So they are quality amps at a good price.

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28 minutes ago, Alessio said:

My point is, it seems to me (BUT i may be wrong!) that some very knowledgeable forum members put the utmost care in choosing and configuring their speakers while at the same time they're not much interested in all the rest of the chain.

 

16 minutes ago, Thaddeus Smith said:

You keep coming back to this point - please share the threads/posts which have cemented this for you.

 

I think I may know what Alessio means.  This is a Klipsch forum and as much as we think of Klipsch speakers it is also a place for the followers of Paul W. Klipsch, the man, and his philosophies.

 

PWK had a very down to earth philosophy of how speakers should sound and be engineered, he also had a down to earth idea of what helped that sound and what didn't.  He was very well known for flashing his Bullshit badge whenever he saw an idea which was counter to his audio philosophies.  He was a proponent of lamp cord or zip cord as speaker wire.  He was well known that despite all the hand wringing over minute technical aspects of a speaker and its components, at the end of the day he might declare those things "did not make a dime's worth of difference."

 

I think Klipsch is the working man's audiophile speaker and many of the people here reflect that. 

 

Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

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4 minutes ago, wvu80 said:

I think Klipsch is the working man's audiophile speaker and many of the people here reflect that. 

 

In some ways the Klipsch forum is more like a hotrodder's forum than an exotic car forum. You can buy a 600 hp Ferrari and smugly drive down the highway, or you can build a 600 hp camaro that will run with it for a lot less money. No, the Camaro will never be a Ferrari, but the Ferrari owner will never know the satisfaction of having put it all together himself. Same applies to some of the systems put together by Klipsch owners.

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