Totally Different Styles of Gear

Consider this:

Audio Note, well respected and used by several here. They make a full line of speakers, tube electronics and vinyl playback gear. Their AN-E speakers are a highly optimized and refined descendent of the Snell Type E. I used to have a pair of those Snells and regret not fixing them when the woofers succumbed to foam rot.

B&O represents the other extreme. Consider the Beolab 90, an expensive powered speaker with 8kw of Class D amplification per side, multiple drivers capable of being reconfigured on the fly to change from directional to omnidirectional response, or move the sweet spot around. There is also a room correcting DSP built in. The rest of the line is directed at whole house streaming and is similarly high tech, high design "lifestyle audio". The Beolab 90 recently received an A rating from Stereophile.

I believe the philosophies of these two companies represent the extremes of audio. Any thoughts?

 

I think there are lots of extremes and the examples approaching the edges are probably not really that near to the actual edges, limited as they are by my paltry knowledge. The difference between Beats or Skull Candyand Wilsons is quite a gulf. Krell versus SET. AR versus Clearaudio or SME. Tivoli versus Magnalab (or Magnum Dynalab or whatever they call their tuners) or an old Marantz. AT versus Decca or Lyra. The list goes on. Your approach of comparing "whole system" approaches is interesting, but that model seems to have had its glory days. AN and B and O are two of a relatively small universe of higher end whole system offerings. Maybe toss McIntosh into the mix.

 

Relative to AN, there are lots of manufacturers of tube amps, vinyl playback and high efficiency speakers. AN just happens to make all of them, so that's who I picked. B&O isn't the only manufacturer into whole house streaming, but they looked like a great example. Some of the brands you mention fit into the Vinyl/high efficiency speaker/low power tube universe. Others are conventional, like Mac. If you want a tuner, better get one with digital radio, because FM is not long for this world.

There may be no particular wisdom here. It might be no more than the digital vs vinyl divide.

 

I guess my point was that manufacturers seem to prefer niches over offering entire systems. I recall the thread on 80s stacked systems, usually with amp, tuner, cassette, equalizer, TT, and huge speakers. Very few companies offer such packages any more.

 

Looking for a niche is a well used strategy, but the stack systems were about looks rather than function.

 

If we look a bit more closely, Yamaha, Marantz, McIntosh, Rega, Naim, Technics, Pioneer, Sony, Cambridge, and a few other companies offer top-to-bottom systems that include, turntables, CD players, network players, headphone amps, preamps, power amps, integrated amps, speakers. Several of those companies also offer wireless multi-room systems to either stand alone or to augment the wired systems.


There is a longer list of companies that offer everything except speakers. I don't think it's accurate to call them niche makers just because they don't offer speakers.

There's an even longer list of small companies that specialize in turntables only or preamp/amp/integrated amp only or speakers only.

 

You are right, Agitater. Interesting how marketing colors my perception. I also think the thoughtful and knowledgeable posts on SHF are likely to make one think of different companies for different parts of a system before thinking of, for example, an all Rega system, even though it might be a great combination of supposedly harmonious elements. Back to the OP, for some reason it made me think of those cool Nakamichi wedge components in the 80s.

 

They represent only 2 different poles There are many more poles and they serve many differences preferences.

 

My only real complaint about dissimilar gear is the non standardization of all the small boxes in the rack. I applaud Paramount and some others that offer small devices in a somewhat standard 1/2 size box as they do the Z series. Sonos is the worst offender as their boxes make absolutely no sense, though I understand that it may be unusual to have more than one in a location.

I guess this may not be the intent of the thread, but the title seemed to give me enough leeway for a good rant!

 

There's many routes to a great sounding system. High power vs low power, complex vs simple, SS vs tubes, horns vs planars, it can all sound great. Even though I have my preferences, I don't subscribe to the belief that any one approach is inherently superior.

 

That's true, but these two were the most extreme I could think of.

 

I don't personally see the suggested examples at opposite ends of the design spectrom. Audio Note uses computer-aided design to create circuitry and do analysis. B&O does the same thing. The product end games for the two companies are slightly different, but both companies still have in mind their views of what constitutes a selection of complete systems for end users. One company believes the separate components that can be individually upgraded is the best route. The other company believes that fully integrated and interconnected componentry constitute the best systems. The two companies produce things that certainly look distinctive, but the real differences are much less significant and somewhat unimportant in my view. Both systems sound great in a wide variety of listening rooms.

A specialty company that develops a SET amplifier to demonstrate its view of the pinnacle of audio design and musicality compared to a specialty company that devlops high powered pure class D amplifiers as its view of the pinnacle of audio design and musicality seem more like opposiing engineering extremes to me. There are quite a few examples of both types of company, but even so their end games always seem to be driven by the designing engineers' philosophies about what will result in musically enjoyable experiences for end users. They take different roads to get to very similar destinations. Distinctions without differences or differences without distinctions.

 

There are so many different designs in this industry it is staggering.

But i would highlight your Audio Note example (as I am an owner and quite a fan of the approach) in that they don't just sell Speakers/Amps/Sources and cables. Yes there are plenty of manufacturers that do that. You can buy an all Rega or Linn system from source to speakers - or many other companies.

Where the difference lies is that Audio Note makes the actual parts that goes inside those components. So it is not a situation where a company that builds amplifiers like Bryston phones up the makers of Axiom speakers and then has someone build the speakers and put their own name brand badge on it - or a Sim Audio that goes out and buys Denon's amplifiers and put it in their own case and sell for 20 times the price.

I bought a NAD turntable - well guess what it's a Rega P2. Just put a different label on the front.

Even Audio Note isn't exactly "whole" - they bought up Systemdek and Snell so the platforms already existed. Sure they took over those products and they have extensively modified them but even AN can't completely say that everything is their own.

Still when you buy their upper end stuff - they design and manufacturer the resisters, capacitors, transformers, volume pots, the casework, the wiring right down to the silver solder. No one else in the industry does this to this degree - Most everyone buys off the shelf transformers, caps, wires etc.

I am not saying this is bad mind you - but it's kind of similar to those many watch makers - some design the actual movement in house and the watch from the ground up while others buy a movement say from the Swatch group and put that movement into their watch and then charge an obscene amount of money for a movement that you could find in a watch at 1/10th price. Of course both watches could both last decades and tell great time and look good too.

Although personally if I were to be spending premium dollars I want the craftsmanship - not the guys who buy stuff and stick it in their own box and pretend they are high end. But enough people don't do their research.

And as you already know Audio Note is a low watt SET maker that believes in things like vinyl superiority and Red Book CD player as being better than all high res mediums. A complete Audio Note system runs completely counter to the entirety of the mainstream audio industry. AN uses SET (worst measuring amps), No filter, no error correcting, no jitter reduction, R2R ladder DAC approach - thus the worst measuring CD players in the industry. So bad measurements on top of bad measurements into speakers that also run counter to mainstream speakers (they're not bad measuring in many respects but in some areas yes they measure poorly). And heck silver cables are deemed to be bright. So 4 wrongs. And yet... Many of this Stereophile rates class A too incidentally.

Then as you note the complete counter to this approach SS high power and impressive measurements get a class A.

Guess what - both don't sound anything alike. And that's why IMO magazines with these ratings are stupid. It gives readers the impression that class A is created equal or that class A is better than class B. It's not. It is a way to help generate sales. If everything is great then more sales will go to the audio industry and more money for them to advertise. And even if that is borderline accusatory - there is the fact that all those awards and ratings still only come down to one man's opinion - JA the editor.

Reviewers are just audiophiles who got a job writing. No one needs to be told what to like. There are people who go ape crazy in love with ribbon planar loudspeakers and I have a friend who told me he felt they were the absolute worst sounding speakers he has ever heard. Granted his sysstem has a ridiculous six 12 inch woofers per channel and he loves hard rock - Well duh no kidding the ribbons will stink. So will most speakers at doing what he wants his system to do!

People always use the rather trite saying "there's more than one way to skin a cat" but there really isn't. Chances are you, as an individual, will find a certain "sound" that you really really love - and the "other ways" will not do as good a job. There will be something that doesn't quite do it.

Not even just SS versus Tube but what kind of tube - SET or Push Pull? But it goes even more down to which output tube 2a3 versus 300B versus 211.

I think the biggest problem in this industry is that some people want systems to serve the music - like me - I am not hugely interested in blathering about technology because I don't care about the technology. My eyes glaze over when someone starts talking about MQA or class D or watts per channel. I want to listen to the product and that frankly will tell me everything I need to know. You go into an AN room - they play music and they will play YOUR music and that is it. Most rooms they have some sales pitch blathering for 20 minutes about the gel they use in their tweeter or why their amplifier is the greatest invention in the history of amplifiers. blah blah blah blah. Put the f-ing disc on and push the play button. If it's good then I might be mildly interested in what technology made it sound that good. I like the AN E speaker so I ask gee why does that sound so much better than the comparably priced B&W speaker. And they will tell me what the differences are. But it doesn't matter - the result matters.

And the greater problem is that some reviewers are genuinely about serving the music - but most are about the gear. Every new product is the greatest thing in the history of audio until the next issue when something else is even better - and the next issue etc.

The sad thing when everything gets a rave review it weakens all reviews because the truly exceptional stuff gets missed - oh the review raves about it but he also raves about 6 other brands using the same vocabulary. And worse when I have spoken to some of them at other magazines they will say yeah I like ABC the best but then you read ABC's review and XYZ's review and you can't tell which one he likes better.

 

I agree with you on a lot of points here, but I'm one of those who genuinely doesn't prefer a single type of approach. One of my systems is comprised of horns and tubes, and one is comprised of SS and dynamic box speakers. I enjoy them both equally and both complement their respective rooms. I also enjoyed my time with planars. I don't have a massive resume of gear experience, but I have yet to hear a combination that I deem superior with all types of music.

I find it interesting that AN's business model allows them to produce all those components. They demand high prices, but still...