The best money I ever spent in audio is....

Mike

Mike

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What is the best money you've ever spent in audio?

For me, it was a professional setup by Jim Smith - bar none, followed by my Vicoustic room treatments, bass traps from Resolution Acoustics and all my purchases for power: dedicated panel, ground, 8 dedicated 20 amp circuits, Shunyata Denali, etc.
 
JBL 4367's, I still love my Strads but the 4367's are too much fun to give up.
 
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Without a doubt devialet. Dac, pre, amp all in one. Simplifies everything, eliminates many cables, sounds world class, is gorgeous, and costs less than anything it competes with.
 
Without doubt, it was buying an Acourate license. It costs about 300 Euro and has made the single biggest difference to my system, short of the speakers itself.
 
jaxwired said:
Without a doubt devialet. Dac, pre, amp all in one. Simplifies everything, eliminates many cables, sounds world class, is gorgeous, and costs less than anything it competes with.
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Good to see you Jax (Tom). The Devialet is good without a doubt especially when you have the SAM for you speakers. I agree that itegrateds eliminates a lot of cables (I love the kiss setup - Keep It Stupid Simple). I had a demo of the 400 mono's vs the Aavik U300. The U300 had more clarity and most important was more musical IMO. Yeah it's more $$ but I feel it whipped the Devialet's butt by a nice margin.

As for the best money spent I would say it's a toss up between the Ansuz D-TC power cord and the Raidho D.1 upgrade. Both added a much blacker background resulting in a clearer and more musical sound. BTW with either you can push listening level anywhere from 2 to 3db more. That said the .1 upgrade is less money. Now the D-TC Ic or digital cable bests either but is a LOT more money. Add them all together and all I can say is holy cr@p.

Again those are my personal opinions and as you can see I really love Raidho's Diamond series and I know they are not your favorites. Just goes to prove everyone has different tastes and preferences. Meaning there is no one product that fits everyone's needs and wants.
 
Revel Salon 2s. I have been through lots of speakers. I just don't see parting with these.
 
The best money I ever spent in this hobby was many years ago when I purchased my pair of Dahlquist DQ-10's and a GAS Ampzilla amp to power it. It was then when I realized what this hobby could be.
 
octadyndude said:
Good to see you Jax (Tom). The Devialet is good without a doubt especially when you have the SAM for you speakers. I agree that itegrateds eliminates a lot of cables (I love the kiss setup - Keep It Stupid Simple). I had a demo of the 400 mono's vs the Aavik U300. The U300 had more clarity and most important was more musical IMO. Yeah it's more $$ but I feel it whipped the Devialet's butt by a nice margin.

As for the best money spent I would say it's a toss up between the Ansuz D-TC power cord and the Raidho D.1 upgrade. Both added a much blacker background resulting in a clearer and more musical sound. BTW with either you can push listening level anywhere from 2 to 3db more. That said the .1 upgrade is less money. Now the D-TC Ic or digital cable bests either but is a LOT more money. Add them all together and all I can say is holy cr@p.

Again those are my personal opinions and as you can see I really love Raidho's Diamond series and I know they are not your favorites. Just goes to prove everyone has different tastes and preferences. Meaning there is no one product that fits everyone's needs and wants.
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Thanks for the shout out. Well, I will say that the Aavik U300 is cool as Sh't! That is one sweet looking piece of technology. I'll also say that if I were going down the raidho route, the 2.1s would be my choice as well. Congrats on those. Would love to see a few pics of your rig if you get a chance...

Funny that you found the Aavik more musical than the Dev because I was just telling Chris the other day how to me the Dev is for music lovers and is smoother and richer than some other rigs I've owned. I find it addictive. But as you say, different tastes and preferences....
 
Probably Magico S3's, they're awesome. Nothing really tempting me right now. Except maybe the M3s, but they're in another price category.


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For me, it has to be Jim Smith's Get Better Sound book. Jim's tips on dialing in a room and seeking a musical sound rather than impressive hi-fi sound has superseded any gains I got from new audio purchases, not to mention his tips helped maximize any new gear I bought.
 
I'd have to say my Magico S5 Mk2 speakers which are a home run imho. Great loudspeakers which I plan to keep as my long-term reference. And as Hiro said above, you can just keep improving your room and optimize your setup to get further gains in sound.
 
Mike said:
What is the best money you've ever spent in audio?

For me, it was a professional setup by Jim Smith - bar none, followed by my Vicoustic room treatments, bass traps from Resolution Acoustics and all my purchases for power: dedicated panel, ground, 8 dedicated 20 amp circuits, Shunyata Denali, etc.
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Number one ingredient was also a professional set up by Stirling Trayle of www.audiosystemsoptimized.com

What a difference did that make, nothing I invested in came close to what Stirling did.



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As audiophiles WE should know how to set up our systems without having to pay a professional to do it. The equipment you need (mic + soundcard + cables) only costs $300-400, the software is free, and you need a spare laptop to run it. I taught myself how to do it. I assure you, this kind of knowledge is extremely valuable.
 
Keith_W said:
As audiophiles WE should know how to set up our systems without having to pay a professional to do it. The equipment you need (mic + soundcard + cables) only costs $300-400, the software is free, and you need a spare laptop to run it. I taught myself how to do it. I assure you, this kind of knowledge is extremely valuable.
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Sorry but I beg to differ, there are some people out there that know how to set up systems in ways that us mere mortals don't understand. Sorry but you cannot compare yourself to someone that has set up thousands of system, even if you read a book or two and have been in this hobby for 30 years. I've seen some of Stirling's (probably the same for Jim Smith) set up ideas from up close, some that can be pretty basic and provide significant sound differences. He will literally tear your system apart and then spend time rebuilding and checking things out to make sure there are no bottlenecks prior to moving speakers around.

Once set up right you will find that speaker movements of more or less than a millimeter to have a profound differences in the resulting sound. That's how sensitive your equipment can be!

At the end of the day it's probably the cheapest expense you will never incur for the resulting sound improvement, but then again you will not know till you try. Everything else is speculation.

As usual your mileage may vary. :)



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Keith_W said:
As audiophiles WE should know how to set up our systems without having to pay a professional to do it. The equipment you need (mic + soundcard + cables) only costs $300-400, the software is free, and you need a spare laptop to run it. I taught myself how to do it. I assure you, this kind of knowledge is extremely valuable.
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Hi Keith,

My own experience has been different from yours.

I have found that hiring a professional third party to evaluate my system has led to a level of sonic performance I could not possibly have obtained by myself; far from it.

Perhaps I'm not a competent audiophile, or was very lucky to have found the level of professionalism and expertise from third parties, or both; but I'm very glad to have hired outside experts to guide me.

Their contributions to the sonic improvements in my system from room acoustics, power optimization, vibration control, equipment selection and evaluation, noise reduction and speaker setup, have been invaluable in my personal experience.

The more I learn, the more I realize how much more there is to learn, and how much better a system can sound.


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Probably fair that I can't compare myself to someone who does this professionally, or who has set up thousands of systems. I have "only" set up my own system and helped measure maybe a dozen others - and I am still learning. Audio is my hobby and not my profession, so I can accept that my technical proficiency does not compare to someone who does this for a living.

I am not averse to paying consultants to help me. Many years ago, I had my room professionally measured. I watched very closely what the guy was doing, and learnt a great deal - not only about my room, but how to take those measurements myself.

Since then I have done hundreds of measurements in my room, and my understanding of my system and room is definitely worth the paltry price I paid for the equipment. Like I said - $50-70 microphone, $150 sound card, and $20 in cables. This is less than what you pay for a set of cables (in my case, it is about 1/15 the price of my speaker cables!) - and the stuff you learn is more than worth it. I have now upgraded to a $900 microphone and $1500 sound card.

What you will see when you start taking these measurements will really open your eyes and train your ears. Because I have spent so much time listening to sine wave sweeps and test tones, my ears alone can tell me exactly where an anomaly is if I hear something. I don't have to say that "this sounds too bright" - I can say that "there is a peak at about 8000Hz" and then confirm it by taking a measurement. I can also tell the difference between a frequency anomaly (e.g. a peak at 8000Hz) or whether that "brightness" at 8000Hz is due to harmonic distortion from a much lower frequency by hearing alone, and then confirm it with a measurement. When I go listen to another system, my ears alone can tell you where the frequency anomalies are. It is not because I have golden ears, it is because I have done this hundreds of times and have confirmation from my microphone whether I was right or wrong.

Of course I don't compare to a professional who does this for a living. But I think I have more of an insight than the average hobbyist who doesn't check what he is hearing with measurements.

I am not suggesting that your own effort at measuring your speaker and room would be better than a professional. But I think it is important that we try. The cost of entry is very low.
 
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