On my 15k rig 3k was spent on room treatment. I know it makes the most difference. But I also listened to Grande Utopias with dCS in a treated room similar to mine and the difference was night and day.
Was the room really similar to yours or did it appear to be that similar? Were the speakers responsible for the difference or do you have those in your room as well? Room treatments often need to be tuned to a specific speaker and your own tastes.
For example, I've never liked ANY Martin Logan electrostatics that I've heard, for example and I cannot fully explain why they sound so dead to me given my own speakers are planar as well. They have very unfocused imaging due to the width of the drivers which ruins the imaging and female vocals like Tori Amos sound muffled to me like she's behind a wall of velvet or something. Magnepans are also unfocused due to the width of the drivers, but they sound so much more alive to me and quite listenable despite the broad imaging. Their bass is lacking, though. I love the "live" sound of dipoles for stereo material, though and ended up with Carvers due to the thin ribbon nature (pin-point width imaging while limiting ceiling and floor reflections due to their tall height) and covering the entire range down to the upper bass (~200Hz with my active crossover) and small 10" drivers to handle down to 27Hz on the bass end with improvements made with a custom active crossover to improve the Q-response. For the money, I'm more than happy with the end result and only hear a small improvement on other systems I previewed at the time when I got over the $50k system mark and I'm talking about small improvements there.
And while I realize high quality earphones are more revealing than speakers in general (I have ALL the flagship earphones from the major manufacturers)
Wow, you must be rich to own so many. Do you listen to them all or just tossed some aside over the years?
there is simply no way to get the stage depth you get with best of the best speakers.
No, I guess not when the image is in your head with headphones. Stage depth cannot be truly achieved with stereo imaging, only hints with echo reflections, etc. and phase differences. This is where surround setups are nice IF you can find the recordings to support them. . My dipole ribbons simulate room presence and give a 3D sensation to the voices, etc. that makes them seem three dimensional in my room (and Carver's 2-channel sonic holography generator I still use for stereo maximizes the 3D effect even more if set up right), but that's not the same as transporting you to the space where they really recorded. For that, you need a surround rig with true surround recordings. Imaging has little to do with hearing detail, though. In fact, a room will always reduce detail unless you're an anechoic chamber and they're generally pretty miserable sounding.
And I really doubt most audiophiles hearing response is cut at 15k. I'm 28 years old and I listened to music in loud volume since I was 12, can still hear 18k at 75 dB with both ears.
Well, the implication was that "most" audiophiles are over 50 because most younger people cannot afford "high-end" rigs...kind of like how most younger people cannot afford a new Corvette. The implication is NOT that younger people cannot hear higher ranges. I haven't had my hearing checked by a professional since my mid to late '20s, but it was still to almost 19kHz back then. It seems to be to 18kHz now based on a test CD and I'm not even 35 yet. I'm sure there are some exceptions, but the fall-out rate is between 15kHz-18kHz for most adults. You typically need to be in your mid-20s or less to hear to 20kHz with some exceptions. Of course, the octave range covered by the difference between 15kHz and 20kHz is all of 6 notes. Actual useful audio content in that range is nearly non-existent except for mutiple harmonics. In other words, it's not THAT big of a deal unless you like listening to silent alarm systems. Most musical content is below 12kHz. But splitting the difference between 15 and 17kHz is almost negligible given the content in that range. Music has certainly not nose-dived in quality over the past 10 years for me.
While there are more and more designs out there for midrange/woofer, many high-end speakers have continued to put the same drivers (modified but same tech) into their flagship products and still improved the sound through enclosure changes. When I was reviewing my B&W 804S in the demo rrom before purchase I listened to 800-802 as well which use the exact same midrange/tweeter unit as in 804S but the clarity of midrange on those units was quite ahead.
B&W speakers are incredibly overpriced, IMO. I listened to their entire line at a local dealer a few years ago when pricing the speakers for my home theater system. I ended up with $400-600 PSB speakers that have +/-1 dB response. B&W speakers didn't come close to them in sound quality until you got over $2000 for monitor range speakers (already had a sub to use with them). Then Tori Amos' voice on certain recordings of hers (which I often use as a benchmark for "reality" of female voices on a speaker) finally sounded believable. Yes, they sounded nice once over the $2000/pair mark, but all their speakers below that sounded terrible to me. I wasn't willing to 4x as much to get the same sound. In other words, just because they're a famous brand name doesn't mean they're a good deal or that price has a direct bearing versus competitors. Many high-end speakers are way overpriced compared to similar quality speakers priced significantly lower. This is why it's very important to preview them before buying so you don't get ripped off.
I ofc know about the law of diminishing returns. But it really does not start at low prices. 1k rig will sound considerably worse than a 10k one where a 100k one will sound night and day better than a 10k one. But yes if I had
Sorry, but in my experience the law of diminishing returns begins one heck of a lot lower than 10k rigs. My ribbons system cost around $6500 total with amplification and a custom active crossover. I've listened to $50k+ systems and while a few might have been marginally better sounding in a the mid-range and have a bit lower extension and tightness in the bass, that didn't justify the 10x increase in price to me. You're free to believe whatever you want, of course. But 10x the price to get 15% better sound to me is very much a part of "diminishing returns". Sound is subjective to some extent, especially on high-end equipment where subtle differences are often preferences in emphasis in certain frequency ranges (even Cello has a glorified graphic equalizer "tone palette" to purposely modify their sound). If you feel comfortable spending the cost of a house on speakers, well, you should be so blessed to have that kind of disposable income in the first place.
Personally, I believe we could get much better sound as a whole if they would do more on the mastering side of things. So many pop/rock albums sound so bland/harsh/loud to me no matter what system they're played back on (They often sound better on cheaper systems that mask the recording problems like my car stereo). I'm not a huge fan of classical music. I like japanese orchestral soundtracks for Japanese anime, but true classical seems to be more about performance and complexity than melody. At some point, I decided the MUSIC was more important than the recording because I was collecting a lot of high quality sound recordings where I didn't enjoy the music. Classical and Jazz fans typically have a much better selection to achieve both for their own tastes.
I don't understand why people want so hard to see BluRay support in Macs. We can buy HD movies from iTunes, so it is not a priority to me...
You mean the whole 2 dozen (mostly bad) titles they offer??? That hardly compares to what's available for Blu-Ray. Besides, the video snobs on here won't be happy until there's something to replace Blu-Ray that offers UNCOMPRESSED 4080P. Everything else looks like "crap" to them.
I believe there's still a good place for Apple's 720P movies, but they should be priced at $10 and they need to offer everything they have to RENT in HD to BUY also. I'd be happy to buy a few select 720P titles for now until it's either easy to rip/encode my own BD discs quickly and easily or at a point when I can easily buy/download high quality 1080P. But when some BD titles are now going down to the $15 range, it makes NO SENSE to buy Apple 720P movies for $20 (assuming there's even something you'd want to buy there). I do like renting their 720P movies, though because my current projector is only 720P to begin with and it's so much more convenient than going to the video store or waiting a day or two for Netflix to deliver a disc that's quite possibly scratched up anyway. I do think their rental price could be dropped a buck or two, though too.
TV IS capable of decoding 40mbps 1080p content, it is the software that is limiting it to 720p...
