Source First ? Really?

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

I hope I am not being too contentious in saying 'source first' or 'speaker/room/amp' first is really irrelevant.. ultimately it's about system balance or system first. An imbalance in one part of the system could hold the other back... kind of like the music record/reproduction chain/cascade model that is used in some audio engineering circles. 

 

I agree in principle, however to keep a system in 'balance' at all times dictates either only small changes at a time when upgrading a single component, or upgrading the bulk of the system simultaneously. That's all very well if someone has adequate resources to do that, but for people with very limited resources (e.g. me when I started out, low salary and mortgaged up to the hilt - for many years the latter continuing when salary increased) the emphasis is on cheapest route to the desired goal, tending to dictate infrequent but significant discrete steps, and the system could easily be considered not to be in balance at times (which could remain unchanged for several years). The important thing at each step is that to the individual concerned the music sounds good and listening is enjoyable, however "unbalanced" a system might be.

Of course as one reaches the pinnacle of one's hifi journey, or has more disposable resources along the way, things can happen in a much more co-ordinated and systematic way.

Huge posted:

Adam Zielinski posted:

Huge posted:

Adam Zielinski posted:

I find this discussion very inspiring and educational (from the English language point of view) 

I still stand by my argument though: if it's lost at the source, the other components will not get it back.

If it's lost in the speakers it won't get through to your ears - exactly the same principle applies!

Huge... Different logic. Please see my answer above.

Pertaining to the sound heard by the listener....

If it's lost at the source, the other components will not get it back.

If it's lost in the amplifier, the other components will not get it back.

If it's lost in the speakers, the other components will not get it back.

What's the difference in the logic?  Is there something which makes the statement about the source unique and more significant than the rest?

I know you didn't include the others statements in your post, but neither is there anything in there to exclude them.

The logic of that summary, Huge, is inescapable.

Just to add another empiric example

A long long time ago, in a time when digital audio had barely made it's first steps out into an unsuspecting world, I investigated an upstart phenomenon that was threatening to topple the mighty tower of vinyl records.  After I listened to several CD players including some way outside my intended budget, I came to realise there were differences between them, but these were much smaller than between turntables.  So much so that even changing the mat on my Thorens deck had a greater effect than the difference between any of the CD players.  So I became the owner of a 1st generation Yamaha CD player; and thus the slide into successively upgraded systems began, when I realised that my homebrew amp and Castle Tyne speakers no longer matched the resolution or bandwidth of the new-fangled source.

I built a new amp (performance level was slightly above that of an Audiolab 8000A), and the limitation of the speakers became abundantly clear.

I listened to thirteen pairs of speakers costing between £300 and £825.  In the end I settled for a pair of Spendor SP2s (£550) to most people this would be considered a mullet, but only two other pairs of speakers sounded anywhere near as good as the Spendors (and yes this included Kans which were unacceptably coloured).  The advantage that the Spendors had was that for such capable speakers, they are an exceptionally easy load and don't stress a power amp allowing it to show it's true nature.  The amp and Spendors clearly let through the additional information from the source, showing its true characteristics when all the lesser speakers masked the information and gave a much less pleasurable result.

The amp was also specifically designed to work with CD players (and handled the ultrasonic spuriae better than all commercial amps of the time), so I was finally able to hear of what the CD medium was capable.  The sound was better than the sound from the Thorens deck (and most of my friends agreed to their surprise, despite the adverse comments in the Hi-Fi press).

Two further upgrades followed when several generations later CD players improved significantly, and in each case the amp and speakers were still the key to keeping a full, detailed and pleasing sound.

More recently I ran a ND5 XS & Nait XS 2 into those same speakers, and the source became almost balanced with the quality of the speakers (the current model of the Spendors retails at £2500).  Adding an external power supply to the ND5 finally made up the difference an the source and speakers were balanced again.  Now I have a 272 with the same PSU, and I'm starting to get to the point where I think the source is a little more capable than the speakers.

If "Source First" was correct as an absolute principle, then, all those years ago, making a marginal improvement to the source (and blowing all my budget on it, at more than double the cost)  would have made more difference than changing my functioning but limited Castle speakers for the Spendors; and certainly all the other mid price speakers would have been more than good enough.  This was most certainly not the case.  Only the high end speakers (£500+) were anywhere near capable of matching a mid price (£280) CD player with a properly matched amp.  The world had changed - "Source First" had lost its objectivity and become no more than a mantra.

Huge's tale has resonances with mine (more in my profile), starting with the speakers I got in about 1975, after a major auditioning session of a dozen or so speakers in what would be the £2- 2.5k bracket today. They lasted me until I moved up to their biggest brother secondhand in about 1990/1, unaffordable when I got the TLS50s, and those in turn lasted me until six months ago (and they still live on making someone else very happy), my music always sounding great and very satisfying over this whole period, while amps and source upgrades improved the sound further.

As for those original TLS speakers, when I first knew the person who is now my brother-in-law, he was the proud owner of his first hifi system, consisting of LP12, a decent amp (I don't recall what, though not Naim) and IBLs. He thought it sounded great. To me it lacked bass and whilst it was enjoyable to listen to music with a group of people (as anywhere on almost any system), it was not satisfying with much music, and I would not want to live with it. A year or so later when I upgraded my speakers to their bigger brother, I offered him my old ones. He was flabbergasted at the improvement in sound of his system, most notably the bottom end, and said if only he'd heard them first he would have got them from the start, and wished his dealer had played him speakers like that, even if they may cost a lot more than the IBLs

IB, he could have asked...

ryder. posted:

Hungryhalibut posted:

Why exactly would that be your recommendation? Have you ever actually compared a source first and a source last system, and if so, what were your findings?

I thought I was pretty clear when I wrote the comparison in my post earlier.

An extreme analogy with no allowance for changes to system components.

£10,000 source into £100 speakers

£100 source into £10,000 speakers

I will take the latter.

I have to say that i agree. My point is that sometimes i see systems high-end with poor speakers and i don't really understand the point to go that high with such a "poor voice" in the end.

Some systems are totally unbalanced. Speakers are also very important with the room.

But the best is of course a balanced system ;-)

ryder. posted:

Hungryhalibut posted:

Why exactly would that be your recommendation? Have you ever actually compared a source first and a source last system, and if so, what were your findings?

I thought I was pretty clear when I wrote the comparison in my post earlier.

An extreme analogy with no allowance for changes to system components.

£10,000 source into £100 speakers

£100 source into £10,000 speakers

I will take the latter.

You'd have to be barking mad to think that either of those setups would make any sense whatsoever. How about some real world examples? Maybe even ones you've listened to that illustrate your point?

Loki posted:

IB, he could have asked...

I gathered that he was guided by the dealer, A suggested relative budget for each stage identifying contenders to audition. The IMFs or TDL successors would have been in a higher bracket to the IBLs - though I have no idea whether the dealer stocked anything like that.

An example that I can give is the change from active SBLs fed by 135s, 52 and CDX to passive S600 fed by two 135s.  There was a family resemblance, but (as I had expected) the bass was much better, and the treble, while similar in character, was less 'harsh' than the SBLs.  On overall improvement that was quite noticeable by changing the speakers on a system that was, I believe, quite well balanced on the whole.  Arguably the front end (i.e. everything upstream of the speakers) was better than the speakers could respond to.  Active DBLs also would have shown an improvement over what I had, of course - in spades in many respects.

When I changed to the NAP 500 I was told that I should instead change the 52 to a 552.  I really don't know whether that would have been a better change, but I would be surprised - though not for the first time in my life.

Hungryhalibut posted:

 Have you ever actually compared a source first and a source last system, and if so, what were they and what were your findings?

ChrisSU posted:

How about some real world examples? Maybe even ones you've listened to that illustrate your point? 

And have either of you actually compared source-first and source-last systems? Can you give some real world comparisons you personally have made of source-first and source-last systems?

Just a thought, when we talk about "Source First" are we thinking of one of the following...

A  Having a source component that is at a 'higher performance level'* than the other components.

B  Building a system by choosing a source component first, then selecting other components to match (even if some of these are at a 'higher performance level'* than the other components).

C  Upgrading the source component first when upgrading the system.

D  something else.

* whatever that means to the person concerned.

I have used nSats on the end of a CDS3, 552 and 300 and it was a wonderfully enjoyable and engaging system. I've also heard Ovator 800s driven by a 552 and active 500s, with a bare NDX as a source, which sounded very large, but was totally unengaging and not enjoyable at all. Recently I tried a Chromecast Audio on my own system (£30 compared to what were £6,000 speakers when they were last sold) and it was truly appalling.

Back in the day I've done th classic flat earth comparisons - LP12 into Nait and Kans against Dual into 32/250 and SBLs and know which I prefer. 

So yes, I have heard the options, but what I have not yet heard is Ryder's support for his assertion, based on real examples. And I did ask first. 

Huge posted:

Just a thought, when we talk about "Source First" are we thinking of one of the following...

A  Having a source component that is at a 'higher performance level'* than the other components.

B  Building a system by choosing a source component first, then selecting other components to match (even if some of these are at a 'higher performance level'* than the other components).

C  Upgrading the source component first when upgrading the system.

D  something else.

* whatever that means to the person concerned.

I'm thinking of A and C. 

Im probably more thinking D - when we say source first - for me I am thinking of the sonic style and type presentation of the source  - above a certain level of the rest of the system - that becomes in my experience a dominant factor in the source. Back to my point of treat a source as an instrument I raised a page back....

I am thinking of A, with C as the unavoidable consequence.

Hungryhalibut posted:

Huge posted:

Just a thought, when we talk about "Source First" are we thinking of one of the following...

A  Having a source component that is at a 'higher performance level'* than the other components.

B  Building a system by choosing a source component first, then selecting other components to match (even if some of these are at a 'higher performance level'* than the other components).

C  Upgrading the source component first when upgrading the system.

D  something else.

* whatever that means to the person concerned.

I'm thinking of A and C. 

I tend to go for A or C

Hungryhalibut and Chrissu,

Actually there can be many setups that illustrate my point. Anyway, since you want real world examples I can give you one:-

1) Krell KPS30i / Chord QBD 76 (approx £6,200) into Naim NAC 282, NAPSC, Hicap DR, NAP 250 DR (approx £9,400) into PSB Alpha Intro LR (approx £150)

2) DVD player (approx £20) into the same Naim stack (or any cheap as chips amp) into Harbeth SHL5 (approx £3,200) 

The second system takes the crown. No contest.

I realise all my 4 bits of kit (streamer, dac, amp, speakers) cost about the same.

G

If you want a more objective assessment, you can invite 20 participants, blindfold them and ask them to pick the better sounding system assembled based on the price/quality of the source and speakers. That would be a much fairer evaluation rather than asserting a point based on experience.

I'm not sure that cost per component is really relevant any more, especially given that cables can cost as much as amplifiers/preamps (and more in many cases).  Cost has little to do with what goes into the equipment, of course, and much more to do with what the marketing people think they can get a way with.

Although not a measure of performance or sound quality, cost is a measure that sometimes has been used as a guide to proportions to spend on different parts, and sometimes to comment on others' systems. So FWIW I estimate that the price ratio source:speaker of my system as developed over the years crudely estimating new value for the older part at the time of upgrading, for thmy system has varied between a 1:3 and 1:5, until just last month reaching somewhere close to parity for the first time. And I have never felt dissatisfied with the sound.

Guys,

Naim now demonstrate the Uniti entry model with Focal Sopra 1s. 

Huge posted:

Source first argument:  Nothing later can add back what isn't there in the source.  Better amps and speakers just show up the limitations of the source.

Balanced argument:  Nothing later can add back what isn't there in the source.  Nothing can add back what isn't passed on by later components in the chain.

Weakest link argument:  An audio system is only as good as its weakest link.

Successive aberration argument:  Each component adds it's own distortions and colouration; what you hear at the end is the sum of all these. Improving any component will improve the result but the degree of improvement will va

Hungryhalibut posted:

It all sounds very sensible to me, especially the bit about it being easier to find a good amplifier than good speakers. 

I had rega Mk1 ELAS on my modest nac112x and 150x ..Everything sounded ok ' but a little to fast . music did not seem to hang there...I only noticed when I partnered the above with speakers that are a little more demanding BW 1800 from the 80's...What a great combination...Everything is more natural...i tried the above pre with a nap180 at a friends and it sounded sluggish...I think the right combinations in naim amplification is crucial..Dont think they mix and match to well ' but that is another subject....

My experience mirrors HH 100%, and is the absolute opposite of Ryders, which from first hand experience is a recipe for a nice sounding lot of mediocrity. Or put another way, dull as dishwater. On the other hand, a CDX2 would be all that's required to elevate system 1 rather than a Chord.

Thanks Gary. At least you have some common sense, which seems to be in short supply.