KV – The Crazy World of Hi-Fi

by
Mike Norman
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20 years ago my speakers stopped working when the rubber surround perished as they were over 20 years old. Fortunately, in modern speakers the rubber surround does not perish nowadays as the materials they used is much improved. Anyway, I went to audition a new set of speakers and I ending up buying some Tannoy R3's, but soon after that my 20-year old amplifier packed up too as the new speakers offered a different load (current draw), so I had to audition for a new amplifier too, and I settled for a Nova A2 costing a £850.

Anyway, I thought that my system was a little on the bright side, which also consisted of a Marantz CD-63 Mk 2 KI Signiture CD player - which cost £500, but I managed to pick one for about £230 in a sale. I was so pleased to get it because it was said to be almost as good as the very best CD players around. This version had the same design as a standard Marantz CD-63, but with upgraded parts, a better track layout to stop magnetic fields affecting its circuits, and an improved power supply. All the Marantz CD players used copper screws in the chassis and on the PCB because they said that steel, being magnetic, altered the sound quality. This is how pendanted Hi-fi designers can get, or is it hype? 

So, I told the guys at the hi-fi shop about my occasional brightness, and then there was a brief pause for a moment while their faces went long and serious, after which they told me in a slight hush voice, and with the gravest of concern, that my CD player wasn't really up to it. I could see that they weren't very unimpressed, despite the fact that it had won so many awards, like CD player of the year, etc. 

I didn't audition for a new CD player right away as I had already spent quite a lot of money, but I did buy some DNM Reason speaker cable which really smoothed out the sound nicely. But a few months later Nova came out with the matching CD player to my amplifier, and the reviewers all raved over it, saying it was one of the best they had ever heard, playing everything really well from classical music right through to rock. The price £1200. A bit steep. 

I then rung up What Hi Fi magazine who gave free advice for two hours every Friday afternoon, and they said it was definitely my CD player at fault, and although it was one of the finest available at its price point, winning many awards, the matching Nova CD player to my amp was way much better, and in an entirely different class. Then the guy on the phone asked the other hi-fi reviewers in the room what they thought, and they all said yep, the new Nova CD was absolutely fabulous!? After that, I was twitching with excitement like a bird watcher when seeing a very rare bird for the fisrt time. I had to have it! 

I didn't audition it as the hi-fi shop had a 14 day return policy and I could take it back if I didn't like it.  So I bought one and it did indeed sound outstanding: An Iron fist in a velvet glove, one reviewer said. Super smooth, but with beautiful and powerful dynamics, said other reviewers. The CD player, like the matching Nova amplifier, was prestigious, and simply beautiful to look at, and it gave much pride of ownership. 

But after I had it for a few weeks I started to wonder if it wasn't a little fatiguing at times, that maybe it was too powerful, and that my old CD-63 KI was a tad gentler, and so nicer after all. So I rigged my old CD63 KI MKII next to the new Nova CD player using identical high quality phono leads in both of them, but taking CDs out of one player and putting them in another to compare them wasn't working out as one CD player would sound better for a short while, but then later, I might prefer the other one, and so on. So I decided that if I borrowed CDs from the public library which I already owned it would be easier to compare the CD players side by side. 

The next day I did this, but I still could not figure out which CD player sounded the best. Anyway, I realised that one CD player was louder than the other, but I was fortunate because I could alter the input sensitivity on each channel on my new amplifier, so I carefully matched the volume of the CD players to play at the same level. All well and good, but I still had trouble hearing which CD player I preferred, so I realised I had to synchronise them to play at the exactly the same time so that changing between the players was seemless. If you change from one CD player to another and the musicians are playing a different part of the song, it's not easy to compare. So, by repeatly pressing the pause buttons I could perfectly synchronise the players.  Now I had the same CD in each player, playing at the same volume, which were perfectly synchronised, and then something really crazy happened, I realised that there was no absolutely no difference whatsoever between the CD players. Nothing, zilch! 

My new Meridian CD had always sounded magnificent, a fist in an iron glove, powerful, stunning, but now all of a sudden it sounded totally ordinary, so my mind must have been adding all the rest, and this was a startling experience. It reminded me of the Wizard of Oz film, where the organ is being played really loud and you can hear the gigantic voice of the wizard, and then all of a sudden the curtains of a small room at the side of the organ are swept to one side and you see just an old man working a machine. And all of sudden my super duper new CD player didn't sound all that special at all, in fact no different to my old CD player. Crikey! 

So, a sort of placebo effect was taking place, because I was expecting the new Nova to trounce my old CD player so this is what I heard. I actually wrote off to Professor Irvin Kirsch, who studies the placebo effect in medicines, to tell him about this, and he wasn't surprised. 

So, I got my portable Minidisc player out, which cost me about £150, and is no bigger than the palm of my hand, and plugged that in, altered the input sensitivity of my amplifier, then synchronised it with the CD players, and I was taken back when it sounded absolutely identical to both my top class CD players. At this point I started to wonder if something was up with hi-fi and hi-fi magazines, but we can't take a snap-shot of sound and store it in our memories, and this what makes comparing Hi-fi difficult. Speakers, amplifiers, and speaker cables do sound different, but not CD players, it seems. And manufacturers will use a DAC (Digital to Audto Converter) board to compare different DACS when designing their CD players, and they believe they can hear small differences, so who am I to say, except did they synchronise everything, like me?

I now put my expensive carbon phono cables in my Nova CD player, and a budget set in my Mini Disc player, and nope, no difference in sound. Nothing! But Hi-fi reviewers are reviewing them all the time, finding significant differences between types and brands. Hmm! 

My girlfriend came around - who thought that hi-fi was over rated and had no interest in it - so I got her to validite what I was hearing, and she couldn't tell the difference either. But I wished I hadn't asked her, because I got a lot of leg pulling from her after that. Good Hi-fi is very revealing and a bad recording will sound terrible on it. My girlfriend said that my Hi-fi sounded rattly, and that she preferred her £120 Amstrad Hi-Fi system she got from Argos. Oh well! 

And my friends could hear no difference between my CD players or my Mini Disc player either. Mini Disc uses compression, a lossy format, and so is said to be an inferior recording medium, but it sounded good to me, and everyone else too, and was no different to my top end CD players. 

Now, super expensive CD players cost a fortune to make, because of low productivity runs, plus they use quality parts, along with a luxurious chassis, so CD player manufacturers are not over charging, in fact, top CD players tend to be loss leaders. They like to have them because it looks prestigious in their range. It signifies they are a great company. 

A few years later I sold the Nova CD player on eBay, where it got bidded up to a really high price. I couldn't believe the amount of people bidding on it - it was frantic! Later, the winner came around, walked into my living room, then stood there for a moment, cocked his head to one side, and said with a bit of a quiver in his voice, because he was so excited, "Do you know, those things sound absolutely amazing, and the new ones are nowhere near as good, which is why so many people were bidding on it, because these are fabulous, so everyone wants one!".  He was one happy customer!

And do you know, when he got home it would have sounded awesome, because when you get a new piece of Hi-fi you play it louder, and then the mind kicks in and does the rest. He would have been blown away, and especially so if he had a few beers too to celebrate it. And this was the reason why I started to believe that my new CD player may not as gentle as my old one - I was just playing it louder. 

Nowadays I'm quite happy listening to my little Bose Mini II Bluetooth speaker, which sounds great at low volumes. When you get older, loud music starts to get irritating and Bluetooth speakers are designed to sound good with lower volumes.