HiFi+ goes digital and multichannel!

hmmm,
i'm not so sure. i agree in principle that spreading your budget over 5 channels is not going to get the same quality as spreading it over 2 however with new amplifier technology on the horizon from sony, tripath, and others this may soon be a moot issue with small efficient good quality amps available cheaper than traditional valve or transistor amps.
as for having multiple speakers in the same room causing degradation of the sound well i don;t know but if this is such a big deal why did mono ever die out?
I'm sure that multichannel is the future of mainstream hi-fi if it isn;t already and any commercial hi-fi organisation that tries to deny it could be likened to king canute trying to hold back the tide. stereo i'm sure will endure, however what form it will take or who will be making it in a few years time is somethign to wonder about. turbulent times.
cheers


julian

 

Oh I hope it does Ju, two channels of Naim is QUITE enough thankyou

 

mike,
come and have a listen if you think you're hard enough .
actually naim are one of the few traditional manufacturers who have embraced multichannel and multiroom and still kept their identity.
cheers


julian

 

I think the point is Tony that you don't spread the same budget thinly, you have to spend more.

Just a further thought on this, but if you had two separate rooms and systems - one for movies and one for music (as I plan to one day when we move to a bigger house) - would the music room be two channel only or would people consider running a 4.0 system (no centre or sub) for DVD-A and SACD i.e. adding a high quality small pair of rear speakers and another stereo power amp? (To do this you'd obviously need some kind of classy 6 channel pre-amp like the Copland valve jobby).

Matt.

 

That is spreading the budget thinly... :JPS:

 

In order not to spread my budget I decided to use my 2-channel system and to make it 4.0 system by keeping my 'old' stuff (1 pair of speakers, a preamplifier, an amplifier and cables).
I thought several times of selling them but for the price I would get, it would be better to keep them and to use them either for 4.0 or give them to my kids in a few years.
I just have to find an Hi-End DVD player or/and TV-tuner with 4 channel outputs to drive in my preamplifiers. I don't know if such things exist.
I wouldn't need the mid subwoofer since my system has enough (2 big ones).

OT: I am waiting for cheaper and better projectors. I don't know how good they are now because since a year I am not following the development. Another fact is that I am not such in a hurry because at the moment I don't even have time to decently here music...

 

Is it just me or is HiFi+ only sold in one newsagent in the country?
And what did they have to say about the Callista? Lovely musical French sounding thing or triumph of form over function?
By the way, recommend "Dub Side of the Moon" by the EasyStar Allstars, as reviewed in the last Hifi+ - cracking dubwise renditions of "Last Gig In The Sky" and "Money".. Decent Floyd for those who would normally find them a bit pompous

 

I never ever bought a hifi unit because of its looking. I don't even consider the looking of a unit when I evaluate stuff. I have the luck that no females poke there nose in my hifi business and that I have a special room for my hifi gear and nobody cares how the room looks like.
The dealer who installed my Kalista was shocked that I was placing the unit in a corner and half hidden. He said it should be placed where my turntable is so that people who come here can see it and I would also enjoy the look. I said I didn't care how these f***ing units look like. The fact that the testers give such an importance to the look of a unit tells me about their lack of professionality (said in diplomatic way). I have tested at my place at least 10 units from 3.5K £ on and this was far the best. And just a last point about Hifi+: did you read with which DAC they testet it?
I have nothing about that unit but if you test something you should do so with compatible units which at least have the same concept. Anyway I am not trying to convice anyone that the calista is a good unit. I am now very, very happy that I have it.

 

Yes, but IMHO that money would always be more wisely invested in improving the two channel system!

Tony.

 

That's where I disagree. With 2 channel you rapidly reach a point of rapidly diminishing returns.

IMO if you had a £10-15K stereo system and were prepared to spend another £10-15K you'd get far more bang for your buck by going multichannel.

When there are enough quality multichannel SACD recordings it will soon become abundantly clear that multichannel is the only way to re-create a live musical event in any remotely realistic way. IMO the time is not yet right to go multichannel for music though. The format war is still raging, there's no standard multichannel digital interface and there simply aren't enough quality mutlichannel recordings. Even accepting that algorithms like DPLII are very good (and contrary to popular belief they have no effect on the original stereo signal and do NOT degrade it in any way) I don't think it's anywhere near as good as a proper multichannel recording and doesn't (for me) justify the investment. In fact, if and when I do go multichannel I'm pretty sure I'll still listen to stereo recordings in stereo.

Of course there will always be flat-earthers who will never accept multichannel - not least because it would be the death knell of new recordings on vinyl :devil:

Robbo - Chris Thomas said the Wadia 302 was "not my cup of tea - but that doesn't mean it won't be yours". He advised people to listen to it and make their own minds up - make sure it's fully broken in and warmed up though!

Titian - yes, I thought that testing the Kallista transport (which they loved btw) using the Wadia 861 as a DAC rather an odd combination! They should have at least used a Metronome DAC for comparison IMO.

Michael.

 

I suspect that will be when hell freezes over... SACD is a format without a future IMO.

I've never heard a multichannel music setup playing real music (as opposed to the usual test disks masquerading as music) that didn't sound like a waste of time, but then I freely admit I've not heard many multichannel setups. It has a long way to go IMO, and it's not even clear there's much of a market for multichannel music anyway, beyond music DVDs (as opposed to DVD-A), which are comparatively cheap to manufacture, and allow record companies to reissue lots of tired "classics" on yet another new format with minimal effort. Slap a few videos on yet another reissue of Classic Rawk Album Number 3, and sell it at a price premium over CD to the usual suspects, seems to be the mid-term mass-market multichannel strategy AFAICT.

-- Ian

 

sacd has the lead right now only because it is backwardly compatible with cd and enough people wanted yet another version of dsotm. once a dvd can be whacked in a cdp and played then you'll see the war start for real.
i can't see why multichannel should be the end of vinyl, the format is remarka bly resillient and as long as the multichannel components of the future can do 2 channel well then vinyl will endure. overall though multichannel is the way of the future but it will cost a lot more.
cheers


julian

 

Yes, I would agree with that. But my stereo system has already cost 6k and that is very definitely on the outer bounds of what I consider to be sane and reasonable. In fact, if I were starting with nothing I would start with a somewhat lower budget. Maybe 4k - 5k. So for me to consider going multichannel, this would definitely imply a cutback in the quality of some of the components. It would almost certainly mean that I could not buy British components either

 

Does anyone remember the old "Quadraphonic" formats - SQ, QS, etc.?

Many music listeners (myself included) would like a high quality stereo system with the additional reproduction of concert hall ambience and the accurate placement of audience applause, etc. I wonder then whether the new formats are any better than the old for this. Am I missing something here?

I have had enjoyable results using a rear speaker taking the anti-phase component of the stereo reproduction. This was using the 'Haffler' set up where the rear speaker(s) is connected to the L and R + terminals. This system is very cheap and simple and can be used just as easily with vinyl. I set up the rear volume until I could just 'not hear' the sound from the rear.

The next step from this Haffler set up would be to add a simple delay circuit to the rear channel(s).

As for SACD and DVD, I'm far from convinced that both of these formats can survive. I'm happy to play a waiting game here.

 

Sure. Until recently I was still using an Ortofon MCA-76 head amp, which has a button for that other 4-channel format: CD4

 

That's effectively what things like Dolby Pro Logic II do but electronically (and in the digital domain). Delay is not necessary providing all your speakers are equidistant from the listening position.

Qudraphonic was an idea before its time that wasn't helped by at least 3 competing formats. Now that many people these days will have a 5.1 speaker setup (admittedly, a poor one designed for movies) multichannel has a much better chance of success.

SACD is the leading format and will win eventually only because I can't see them ever getting DVD-A discs that are backwards compatible with CD players which makes the format dead in the water. Hybrid SACDs can be sold on the shelves along with normal CDs and Joe Punter won't even know he's buying them.

Michael.

 

Not so sure. Mass-market sales of CD players are virtually dead nowadays (I haven't got the figures to hand, but I was reading them somewhere recently - stand alone CD players are definitely on their way out), so compatibility with CD players is not a huge issue in the medium term. Given an average laser mech life of, say, 5 years, and the existence of cheap DVD players, it looks as if most people will end up replacing their CD players with DVD players. That encourages the trend away from 2 channel audio, for sure, but I also suspect that many people listen to music less often than they used to, and use their DVD players primarily for watching films and music videos. It's not clear cut what will happen in the next 5-10 years, but I wouldn't bank on either SACD or DVD-A in its current form being around for very long.

-- Ian

 

YAWN!

SACD only sells more because Sony count the ones accidently purchased as CD's.Given that the buyer would have bought the CD anyway, it doesn't make a great case for the public queuing up for hi rez.

Multichannel should be reserved for movies IMO, just seen an XXX import claiming to be the first adult movie in DTS ES Now I understand what the mean by " from behind"

 

michael,
aparently the dvd forum see backwards compatibility as a major selling point and are looking at getting it working as a must. currently i belive they are looking at 2 very thin discs glued back to back much like the early double sided dvd's. the current problem is that this will take them very close to the manufacturing tolerancies if they are to keep within dvd and cd standards.
cheers


julian

 

Wouldn't it be easier to simply include a DVD and a CD in the same pack. The cost of pressing the damn things is only something like 20 pence after all