Worst Hi-Fi

Foot tapper posted:

In those days, the THD from most amplifiers was negligibly small, so they therefore had to sound the same.  Speakers were far more important.

I ended up replacing the magnificent Hitachi monster with a far more humble beast.  There was a small company called A&R Cambridge, based in a place called Huntingdon and they had launched a new product in a wooden case that could barely summon 30 Watts per channel.  It was called the A60 but those 30 Watts must have been carefully pre-selected, as they did sound rather good.

I first heard it at Robert Ritchie's hifi shop in Montrose and it sounded really rather good.  There were also some strange black boxes from a company called Naim.  At least they had a chrome bumper surround, which indicated that they could be nearly as good as proper, aluminium fronted, Japanese electronics, or so I thought ... 

In fact I compared one of these with an Audiolab 8000A and a Naim Nait way back in the mid 80s. Needless to say the Nait won. I had it serviced a few years back and I've still got it. 

I quite liked the Audiolab 8000A, although I did replace it after a year or so with a 72  & 140.

I think the worst I've encountered was Snell K speakers awful things, but obviously some people like them

Karl

I did much the same in the early 80s around the time the Nait first appeared, but also included the Mission Cyrus 2 in my demos.

In my case, the 8000a won the day quite convincingly. It sounded absolutely amazing at the time to my ears when partnered with the very recently released original Acoustic Energy AE1s. Unfortunately, I couldn't afford them at the time (I recall the cost as being around £800), but it also sounded pretty good with the Heybrook HB1s and Manticore Mantra turntable I eventually chose to partner it. It also had a pretty good MM/MMC phono stage to cap a great value for money package.

A few years later on, it trounced (to my ears) amplifiers such as the Musical Fidelity A1 and A100 which were very highly reviewed at the time.

Funny how the 8000a provoked such extreme reactions. Many loved it, but equally many seemed to really dislike it. I never quite understood why.  

This could worthy for consideration. It's called the Soundwagon vinylkiller. A battery operated record player. Has a needle on the bottom and a speaker on the top.

Sometimes I believe that "worst hi Fi" is the best Hi Fi, giving maximum enjoyment. I am enjoying my "worst" (whatever that means) Hi Fi currently, a Muso and a Muso Qb. They don't sound "the best" but what they do is make you forget all that Hi Fi boll*cks, and that's good enough for me!

Alba1320 posted:

While  I wasn't a big fan of the Cyrus amps (1 & 2), I'd take them over the Audiolab any day! Ditto the Musical Fidelity amps.

Now that you mention them, I wasn't keen on the AE1s, either.

Now just to complete the picture, I guess you will also tell me that you are also not a fan of Vitus and Gryphon amplifiers, which would have topped my 'want' list if I could have afforded anything but their bottom of the range integrated amps when I upgraded my system fairly recently. 

I'd be very surprised if you have heard my current Lindemanns, but I'll throw them in for good measure.

Alba1320,

Just spotted something that we do have in common. I didn't rate the Pioneer A400 either. 

To get back on topic, one of my worst hi-fi experiences was when I purchased on of the first stand-alone dynamic range expansion DBX units back in the late 70s (I think).

This wasn't an integrated tape noise reduction unit. Rather, it was designed to be used with turntables, and its purpose was to reduce surface noise and increase the dynamic range of recordings. Well, it did reduce surface noise, so that the lead in to tracks was astonishingly quiet (for the time), but it also removed some of the high end 'sparkle', and the dynamic range expansion was initially exciting, but ultimately very artificial (a bit like Naim amps - sorry I don't really mean this) and unsatisfying over a period of time. It was also pretty expensive (more than I could really afford at the time), and so I think I sold it after about 3 or 4 weeks.

Luxman PD 131s TT.  Overhyped piece of junk!

Alba1320 posted:

Kermit posted:

Sometimes I believe that "worst hi Fi" is the best Hi Fi, giving maximum enjoyment. I am enjoying my "worst" (whatever that means) Hi Fi currently, a Muso and a Muso Qb. They don't sound "the best" but what they do is make you forget all that Hi Fi boll*cks, and that's good enough for me!

That's the problem with most hi-fi, IME - sounds 'great', impressive etc., but musically...

(Someone will be along presently to say that's 'lazy and meaningless' (as is their wont )).

I wouldn't particularly call this lazy, but it just goes to show that "musicality" when used in this context is almost completely subjective (which in itself absolutely fine), but also pretty arbitrary. 

Our tastes in music reproduction obviously don't tally. One man's 'cup-of tea' is very obviously, in this case, another man's poison. You'll be telling me you like LP12s next. 

https://youtu.be/zpukXRm0Dxk

An Audio Technica 'Soundburger' in racey red...yum!

G

Put it another way, I wonder how many on this forum will never really be satisfied of sound quality, regardless of the never ending upgrades? The system (hardware) becomes more important than the music! That's my point.

Robiwan posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

but to those in the know it was (mainly) the British hifi components that sounded best.

 most of the vintage British hifi was crap, build like an Italian 70/80's car had crap components and sounded like crap. The Japanse had their best products made in those days! 

We'll have to agree to differ, as that was not my impression. Yes, as with everything there was rubbish around, but quality gear abounded, the following to name just a few: Quad ESL 1957, SME arms from end of 1950s, IMF monitors from ~1969, Linn LP12 from ~1972, Naim NAP200 from ~1973, Tannoy Westminster from ~1981

Has to be an Amstrad 3000 tuner of my dads. Tried to use it while revising for my a levels in mid 70's but it never managed to stay tuned on a station for more than a minute. I had an Amstrad cassette deck which was ok, but the tuner was dreadfull

Never had any bad Hi Fi and that's going back to the very old days of Scott & Marantz receivers, Quad amp, Technics table and tape-deck, later a Nakamichi and a Tandberg reel to reel, all that with speakers from BW and JBL. On the other hand, according to my dealer almost everything that is not Naim is garbage..

Just had a quick trawl on the web and found this. Looks familiar.

I love that heavy duty audiophile dust... perhaps it acts as some sort of dampener.

Take the roll of white tape off the left stack and it looks fine to me.

I wonder what TonyM thinks about it...