Buying blind

There you go

Tony

If it so easy at being a dealer, you have a go.

Regards

Mick

 

doing it for love --

Around 10 years ago i was looking for a TT.
I had had dealings with Audio excelence in Bristol and one of the guys there was very friendly chap and right into LP12's
He spent a fair bit of time advising me about LP12.
He actually told me to buy second hand after demo'ing one for me.
He even offered to come along and look over any s/h ones i found.
Now that is service and some-one who is doing it for the love!
Unfortunatly i lost my job at the time and never did get an LP12.
Unfortunately number 2 - The guy no longer works there and the service aint the same anymore

 

Hi Penance,

If you are ever in a position of wanting a secondhand LP12 again, my modest knowledge is at your disposal. Anything from choosing a good un to set up.

 

Hi Paul

Thanks for the kind offer.
I still fancy an LP12 just to try out, but im building my own TT atm, based on Scheu components.
Bit of a tangent from an LP12 but strange how things pan out

 

Best of luck,

A friend who worked for Rolls Royce once ended up modding an old AR deck to the point where you could say he had just about built it himself.

The main bearing was. incredible, it made the Linn item feel sloppy. The platter took about 5 minutes to fully drop and the oil was very light.

The sound was not as weighty as a Linn but very fast and tight to the point where it could make even a Linn sound a bit slow.

 

if you think about it most people's 'hi-fi' is bought after a 10 minute demo in comet or currys, they buy it for it's aesthetics and ability to rearrange their bowels at 40 paces, so it's not surprising that a lot of people buy before they try. don't forget, also that naim systems are sold on the basis that you are happy with them in your home. if not you can take them back for a full refund, another reason for naims great customer service reputation.
most of the dealers that i have dealt with on a long term basis have held stocks of 2nd hand, ex demo or sale items (some even carry only this sort of thing). they offer things like home trials, a garuntee and some even offer flexible payment options so sometimes you can have your cake and eat it too, by supporting your favorite dealer and buying second hand. best 'dealers' so far have been music matters in stourbridge and james at tom-tom. MM is one of those rare places staffed by people who love hi-fi and james is a nice guy and loves hi-fi too.
cheers


julian

 

Mick, buying into the "sound and ethos of a particular brand" is all fine and dandy but what happens when that changes? Since I'm sure you would cite Naim as an example, I will too. I prefer Chrome Bumper kit to Olive kit - its warmer and juicier whilst being up to speed but a tad less detailed and refined. I prefer the Olive kit to the Reference kit at similar price points - I think it times better and has more groove; its faster but a tad less detailed and refined. Where does this leave your failsafe 'upgrade' path? If Naim's forum is anything to go by, the 'upgrade' path to the new kit is a rocky one to say the least.

To complicate matters, Julian, if the new Naim gear takes about six years to come on song how are we supposed to home dem it with any meaning?

Of course, there are lots of people who'll think Naim's Reference gear is miles better than anything that preceeded it so they won't have a problem. Fine.

 

alex,
fair point, but at least if it offends immediately you have a fallback position which is nice. you can then go for that nice man-jewelery musical fidelity, innofensive audio mickey finn. (hey time for the mf crowd to take a beating instead of the naimies).
cheers


julian

 

The latest incarnation of my 'hi-fi' was purchased in Comet, without even the benefit of a ten minute demo. I rated it primarily for the tasteful cheery effect speakers and also for being the only unit in the shop not to sport traffic lights, protruding plastic refinements and all manner of gizmos which i could not readily mentally unite with the concept of music making. In retrospect i made a reasonable choice, and it makes music in a dignified, no frills fashion. It was also one of the few systems which did not sport a billboard claiming earth shattering power capabilities, hence my bowels are thoroughly intact.

99% of all my past hi-fi purchases have been bought 'blind', to the extent that they were not listened to prior to purchase. I never really understood what i was buying anyway.

 

I find it difficult to get demos really, this I put down to two reasons.

One is that I am quite young and they probably know I'm not going to come in and spend £500+ on a single component (because I simply can't afford to), and I almost get the impression that until I get my wallet out and put the cash down on the counter that they can't really be bothered to go out of their way to help me (especially true of superfi in wolverhampton). It seems to me that if I'm only interested in spending less than £200 on a cd player, then they just can't be bothered to set up a demo for me

The other reason is the hifi dealers in Wolverhampton are really limited and I find it hard to travel, we have Superfi who seemingly can't be bothered to set up a demo for me unless I'm buying a whole system, and Sevenoaks, who are actually very helpful but don't stock much that I can afford (saying that, the staff there are very helpful, they don't seem to have the same attitude of superfi that because I'm not spending megabucks its not worth their time, which is odd given that sevenoaks is a reseller of more higher end gear than superfi...).

Anyway, things I've bought....

Marantz PM7000 amp - Bought blind, with almost no research into alternatives since I got it into my head that I wanted marantz. I do like it though

Marantz CD4000 cdp - Bought blind, again with little research, I just wanted a cheap cd player that would match the amp at the time, and this fitted the bill even if it is a warmed over philips. Not my best buy though...should've got a CD6000 OSE or something.

Jamo D-165 speakers - Demo'd them off a Sony midi system, god those things were crude (compared to what I have now), but bloody loud and a lot of bass....

B&W 602 S1 speakers - Bought s/h of Isaac, I did demo these but having them run off a totally different combination of cdp/amp made it only so useful vs a home demo with your existing kit, but I could tell they were far better speakers anyway

M-Audio superdac - Bought blind, but with lots of recommendations and I can always ebay it if I don't think its worth it when it arrives.

Cables I just bought blind, never spent enough on them to make me think 'hmm I need to check how this sounds first'. So far my experience with interconnects has shown differences to be relatively subtle when you compare against different speakers, though I haven't ventured out of the budget end yet

 

I have the odd situation in which No.1 set-up (all Linn) was bought after exhaustive (and exhausting) comparative listening, and No.2 set-up (Meridian 588/EAR834/Quad 405-2 - Quad 44/Quad 303/ Rogers LS3/5A was bought almost completely blind.

The Meridian and the EAR were bought second-hand from Ian "Sideshowbob" whom I knew to be a man of taste, so I expected to like them, and I did. The initial Quad 33/303 gave faithful service for 20 years, so I knew that buying Quad would present no problems. The exception in No.2 were the LS3/5As, then just arrived on the market, heard in Tottenham Court Road and then transported back to Melbourne that night as cabin baggage (one each).

 

mixed experiences...when I got my first decent rig about 15 years ago, i went completely over the top, demming for hours at loads of dealers for stuff that cost maybe 300 a pop. Since then I've bought some stuff blind on mail order because of price (Pioneer universal player, little tannoys, secondhand Thorens - all of which turned out OK). I've also done self-deception-demming - ie you listen to a piece of kit at the dealer but not in the context of the rest of your system. I got my Celestion A3s like that and was never happy with them . Mind you, this did also stop me buying an LP12 on two occasions... I think some of it depends on what you're going to spend - if it's a hundred quid then I'm not going to waste my or a dealer's time, and there is also a certain thrill when you plug a new piece in for the first time to see what you've got! - but once you're into serious expenditure then you'd be daft to take the risk unless you'e on a sale or return deal.

 

Apart from the spliff and the wine (non-smoker and non-drinker here), this makes marvellous good sense to me (and just think, Fox, you can have my share of the abovementioned twosome!). I suspect I'm easily pleased (some would say deaf, but anyway), but I can't recall having ever heard anything with which I couldn't live - in comparative testing, it was always the one that sounded better to me that got bought - heard in isolation, I probably would have been haoppy with anything.

Curious hole in my experience - Naim. I've never actually heard any, simply because I've never been near a dealer that handled it, nor have I known anyone who owned any. However, I'm sure it would have been fine too (but it's too late now).

 

I bought both my B&W Signature 805s and Krell 300iL blind, no regrets here!

 

I bought my Rotel RB1090 blind and I have never regreted it.

One regret, Marantz SR5400 (arrived on Tuesday) bought blind as a stop gap solution until I have enough funds for 5 channel power amp and processor but already thinking odf getting rid.

Maybe, am just used to quality stuff.

 

well, I've seen a nad c350 for 170 notes (including delivery by parcel farce)...that will be done potenially blind...

think I'll take the plunge..

 

It depends what we mean by blind.

There is the model, the room, the partnering kit, then the specimen - no two boxes not even the same model may sound the same, right?

I bought a Rotel 991 CD player back in 1999 based on hearing it at a dealers. I didn't hear the specimen I actually bought until I carted it home sealed in its box. Fortunately it fitted nicely in with my Rotel amps and B&W 602S2 speakers I had at the time.

I bought my Naos speakers as the same specimen based on a dealer dem but they were not heard in my system or in my room before purchase. It took me a few upgrades elsewhere after that to make them work properly. You live and learn.

After that, everything I've bought new has been tested at home before purchase. Indeed a CD5 I bought was delivered and installed at home, I was ecstatic - it was a country mile better than the Densen B400 player I had borrowed for several weeks, but John, the dealer from Acoustica said that it didn't "play the tune right" and promptly took it away again! I was aghast, but when it came back a week or so later I understood what he meant and was glad that he hadn't given me the option to keep it as it was when it first arrived.

My Densen B100 integrated had a louder background hum than the demo version I had previously auditioned at home, so John from Acoustica let me swap it for the demo model.

I bought my CDX after borrowing the demo model not once but twice. The specimen that turned with my name on it up sounded even better to my ears so I took it at full price even though I was offered the demo model (that was still in mint condition) at a much reduced price.

Decent dealers are hard to come by, and mine has helped me to formulate my own preferences for how my system should sound both now and in the future so that I will know where I am heading without wasting cash on upgrades that wont satisfy me ultimately, and although Acoustica is a staunch pro-Naim dealer, I have resisted the urge to join the all-Naim treadmill - in part thanks to them.