'Source First' Brigade vs Team Mullet: FIGHT!

Thank you Doctor : )

This is becoming a bit of a pattern. Sorry to sound like Hungryhalibuts echo!

I personally don't see any real gain going up to a SuperNait 1. As Patu says the SN2 is in a different league, I was never a big SN1 fan whereas the SN2 is quite special for an integrated.

Saying all of this...... As you are going to really enjoy your "temporary" system for the time being I think a 250 DR is more than worth the wait!

I'm going to insert my oar into this Mullet v Monkfish debate. I'm always keen to dispute fish metaphors with my oar. On reflection, most of the disputation I do, I do with my oar. I never leave the house without my oar. 

Logically, the source-first credo is irrefutable. Ultimate performance can only be reached with the ultimate source splashing about upstream. Sunlight, no doubt, dappling its perfect scales.

So, the quality of the source exponentially effects - and limits - the final performance of a system. However, very pleasing performance can be reached much more immediately; by the simple expedient of suffixing a mullet.

For instance, my iPhone, using a 256kb track, sounds a lot better with a pair of Klipsch X10s stuffed into my ears than does a CD quality rip using the free Apple ear buds. According to the source first credo this is illogical. It's also true.

Likewise, my original Uniti (an excellent, excellent, ground-breaking product - but essentially Naim's three cheapest bits of kit stuffed into a box together and denied the use of the letter 'y') sounded much better when I hooked up a pair of £1800 Guru QM10s. Normally, you wouldn't recommend a speaker of that price to be paired with a compromised Nait 5i.  But it did sound utterly beguiling.  The introduction of the speakers, though egregious, gratuitous and wrong-headed, lifted everything.

I think that some of the heft of the source-first argument has been eroded by the increasing competence of low cost front ends. I think it (the Source-First Argument) made more sense in the 80s and early 90s, perhaps, when CD transports and DACs where still evolving.  Certainly it did when thousands of pounds were being spent on spinning records at a constant speed and trying accurately to lift the data from the format. 

Nowadays, lifting the data perfectly from the format is cheap and it's easy.  A bit-perfect CD rip is easy. People need agonise much less over getting the information, in a representative and orderly fashion, to the pre-amp. DAC technology, along with the software that accompanies it, has also evolved substantially since the format was in its shorts, jam-splattered, and wandering about asking people to play conkers with it. So although the source is still the absolute limiting factor, it no longer cripples a system to have a more modest front end.  

Besides, the overwhelming majority of people do not immediately set their cap at the achieving the last word in audiophile replay. It would be weird if they did. This notion is patronising and exclusive - it renders 99% of all available hifi redundant, which simply cannot be the case  In fact, it's arguable that the extreme ends of the audiophile spectrum are where the really pitiable reside. As with most spectrums, including F&B colour, fashion and psychopathy. 

And thanks to steadily improving digital front ends, they (and by 'they' I mean 'most of us') can now achieve really very good sound without having to mortgage the house for the pre-eminent source component.  Or squat in Gary Neville's hotel until March before cheekily mortgaging that for a pre-amp.

And then hock their offspring to the Chinese in return for a power amp (not that I'd necessarily advocate a Chinese nuclear power amp).

And then join an internet pyramid scheme to fund a pair of speakers made from exquisitely hand-embroidered Luridium, sculpted by mercilessly accurate x-rays to resemble, at the perpendicular, the face of Keith Chegwin.

Before buying and then hiring out the moon in a complicated HP arrangement to fund the cabling and isolation platform (s).

And then, finally, wondering if they can afford an electrician to pop over (to this re-hocked moon I mention) and do something wizardly with a Dedicated-Electrical-Lunar-Spur to get it all not to sound 'broken'.

By Venusian standards. 

Oar.

Nicely written Mr Keheaute. 

G

Mr Keyhaute, or may I call you Don,

Very entertaining read with insights into Mullets and Monkfish.

I still think it should be possible to proceed without too much imbalance and still skip the odd unnecessary 'upgrade'. Call it a Mullfish or a Monket.

Alonso,

Have you tried the SCM19?  May be another route with about £1k spare for amps?

Jude

I liked the suggestion made by someone a little while ago that a balanced system should be called a halibut....

No more fish analogies - it's getting confusing enough as it is.

I must admit HH if I had my time again and wanted to minimise my box count, a Halibut would be just the ticket. And if you needed something in addition to stop speaker spikes from scratching your lovely new wooden floor you could order Halibut and Chips.

Sorry - I'll get me coat.

Ha. This is a laudable suggestion. But I suppose I'm suggesting the exciting heterodoxy of 'system balance' being determined by the owner's own ears  and wallet. Rather than a manufacturer's pricelist. For the reasons I outlined above. 

Mullets, and monkfish, can and do sound beguiling. As can haddocks, perch, roach, tench, and anchovies. But for the ultimate in musical illumination you need a 60W lamprey. Or a burning plesiosaur with appropriate cabling.

That would be one eel of a system. 

It was my suggestion, specifically in your honour!

I'm questioning the accepted logic of 'imbalance' which appears to advocate spending mostly identical bits of money on various pieces of the hifi food chain. Why? That's reduced nonsense from the supplier side.  If it reaches your ears 'balanced' who really cares which bit of kit is contributing what? No fish were harmed in this argument.

I assume you mean the accepted logic of balance, rather than imbalance?

Yes. I made a tipo. Which is where, I'm told, Sitting Ball lived. I'm questioning, as I said, the prevailing idea that things need to be of roughly equal cost in order to sound 'balanced'. Things only need to be of roughly equal cost in order to be equally expensive, I think. I'm suggesting there are short cuts, via the mullet or monkfish model (and room dependencies etc cetera) whereby things can be both heterodox and sound very lovely. Hence my original post.

I feel this oar of yours has much insight into the broken mind of the audiophile - where a fidelity of reproduction beyond the ambitions of 99% of the planet is deemed unworthy because of what it doesn't do, rather than deemed superb because of what it does do...

I know my ears when removed from a place where direct comparisons could be done, would be very hard pressed to differentiate between the impact of the system, the music, the room or my mood on my reaction to a particular piece of music played on almost any Naim-based system.

Once they've reached the acquisition of Naim equipment stage the poor audiophile is already on the road to insanity, as they pine for something they believe must be missing from their music as someone else has said it is. As I reach the later years of my life I find I still consider my original cheapy Rotel tuner-amp acquired at the age of 14 gave me more pleasure than I achieve from my Naim system - as I was sharing and exploring the music with my friends, the stereo was rarely discussed - unless it was to wonder if we could get a bigger one to make it louder.

I think everything I've done with HiFi since then is an attempt to recapture that wonder and exploration of curiosity. Naim does bring some of that feeling back as I've never heard music sound so good on any system I've owned, but the overall experience and contribution to memories is not as good.

I'll continue to play with upgrades, probably, as I enjoy the curiosity aspect of upgrading. I'm not expecting the music to move me any more than it does now - and I'm aware that it will actually reduce some of my enjoyment of the music as I concentrate more on its reproduction than its essence...

it's a funny game this HiFi lark...

The whole mullet scenario can arise when, in this case, older but very good and/or demanding speakers become available at very affordable prices. Clearly the Nait is not up to the ATCs. Had everything been at new prices, the situation would not have arisen. 

It's similar to my situation, with formerly £6,000 speakers being fronted by 'just' a 272. Is it a mullet? I don't know, but it jolly well sounds good. 

Hello HH. Yes I accept the thrust of that. But speakers colour a system's sound more, I think, than any other component or black box. Hence my original i-device plus £150 speakers  sounding better than i-device with a perfect cd rip through apple buds. 

This is perhaps why mullets occur - because they are the cheapest and swiftest route to better sound. 

Yes.  From an outsiders perspective , putting together expensive things as a system must mean that something exotic will appear for the fancies of those interested.

Speaking as an insider as long as the pieces produce sounds that are more than the sum of its parts no matter what shape it resembles  - then we are all tickled.

Yes tickling fish is a very skilled art form !

Ummm.... I think the argument about a special system punching above its weight or delivering more than the sum of its parts is very valid and confuses the Mullet/Monkfish/(and I suppose we have to include) Hallibut argument.

For example I heard a very lowly (sorry to those who own these) Unitilite feeding a pair of Guru Juniors (£1995 + £800 I think) and I was astonished how wonderful it sounded and this was at a hifi show! You then start to wonder if the 'less is more' argument is a more compelling one and might outweigh the cleverly unbalanced argument. By the way when I refer to a mullet or a monkfish I do not mean unbalanced in terms of the relative cost of each component, more the 'accepted' relative SQ capabilities of each component.

So what am I saying? There are unconventional Naim-based systems that sound better than they 'ought' to. Unconventional not just because of a perceived 'imbalance' but also because they are at the very bottom of the rung, are very well matched, have been expertly set up and have no right to sound that good!

It is a complicated business this hifi but a fascinating one.

Yes Nigelb happy birthday.

cheers.

HH, I assume your system was christened a Hallibut before you got the SL2s. Might I respectfully suggest that it has now moved more into Mullet territory?

No, I won't, no, I'll resist. Oh why not, might it now be called a Mullibut.

I know, I know, I'm going, OK.

This, +1

Above a certain very modest price level, getting great music to ones ears is above all else about synergy between components, speakers and room.

IME there is not always that much correlation between the relative price of the components/speakers and the level of synergy between them. If one component is a limiting factor to the whole it's not necessarily about a price mismatch - great sound can be had from vastly (price) mismatched components, just as synergy can fail with closely priced kit - trust your ears!

The idea was coined for a balanced system - flat all the way through. It did not refer to my own setup at all. 

As I mentioned a few posts up, I do suspect there might be mullet tendencies in what I have now, but with the XPS in place I think it is now well balanced, though of course the speakers have the capacity to work in much bigger systems, such as active 500s, as used by some on here.