Truthfully, there’s just some rock bands and artists I’d care about getting original albums, unless it was classical or Jazz. There’s not a big market for remastered classic or jazz unless more channels were added for surround sound

Otherwise, most of what I collect are modern artists and bands that would be classified as indi music in the USA.

But right now I’ve been exploring European indi music.

I like the original masters if the original master is well done.

Don’t get me wrong, this engineer is one talented guy, but literally thousands of albums were cut since the dawn of using Vinyl as a medium to stamp records.

Not all engineers are as talented as this one.

It’s a curious question you ask. But for some artists, I do prefer the originals, for the rest, I’m far less picky if it’s an original or not as long as it’s enjoyable to listen to.

Have you thought about getting monitor headphones? It would give you clarity on what a sound engineer hears when they were remastering the song.

I rarely fault any sound engineer on how crappy remasters sound.

With remasters, the sound engineer is being paid to make the music sound closer to what the average consumer might buy on impulse.

It’s like asking an artist that can paint like the old masters to recreate Three Young Musicians by Antoine Le Nain by using crayons because the target audience are 5 and 6 year olds.

There is one person in the household that does like Opera.

After warming up to it for several years, I came to the realization that it’s like any other genre: some artists I like and some I can’t stand, and the rest are sitting in shades of grey between liking and hating a particular artist

Opera is still my least liked genre as a whole.

Maybe you should listen to various opera singers on Youtube or another streaming service before buying Opera music.

I’m guessing the Paradigm speaker is late 1990’s to early 2000’s.

Not exactly sure of the make & model, but Paradigm started refreshing starting around 2003. It might have been manufactured after 2003.

The more stoic brands of audiophile quality gear tend to sell older models for years after they introduced newer lines

Some of the Paradigm MillenniaOnes in my current system predate 2010. My first home theater, cobbled together around 2008 to 2011, still has speakers I used in my new system, installed last March. (subwoofers and surrounds)

In fact, I have Paradigm Premier speakers.

2x 200B, a 600c, and 2x Ultracube 10’s. (plus 8x Paradigm MilkeniaOnes for surround/ceiling speakers.

I’m not particularly surprised.

It’s taken me years to learn the nuances of listening to high end music.

I’m not sure I’d qualify the Paradigm Premiers to have enough quality to discern the difference between those 2 amps without giving the rega elicit mk5 time to break in for at least several weeks and a lot of playing to break in.

Although I think breaking in speakers is more about a person getting used to listening to new speakers: (I might be wrong, but it’s too minor for me to care), other equipment, especially amps, do need a breaking in period before it will perform to it’s best capability.

But I still think it’s overkill for the Paradigm premier line, as far as the rega elicit mk5. I’m not sure the Paradigm Premier line would find much improvement over the cheaper amp.

Paradigm Premier speakers are excellent, but I’m planning on far more expensive speakers for my music only zone 2.

But not snake oil. Buying better amps and any other part of a system is an elegant dance of trying to bring out the best of what your system can do without over indulging in any single component.

☺

Enjoy music.

What drives most audiophiles, and is a side effect, rather the goal, is an intense interest in what makes recorded music sound better.

I watched nearly 5 minutes of it, before quitting.

It’s amazing an disingenuous that in the entire time, they never mention it was a Thunderbolt 3 or 4 cable, nor the maximum amount of data the cable can carry, and only the vaguest mention of video, and most importantly, when would a person actually use the cable.

Which is primarily to move data to and from NAS (network attached storage) or a Thunderbolt dock.

I guess the target audience are complete idiots that need stuff explained they were 5 years old.

r/explainlikeimfive

That’s not even remotely true, although most audiophiles own or want to own a turntable.

Sometimes people want to listen to vinyl in order to bask in glow of analog and actively listen to music off a vinyl record.

But many audiophiles focus on CDs, streaming, or music files for the majority or vast majority of the time.

Still, playing a vinyl record evokes a certain nostalgia: the act of putting on a record, listening to it, then having to flip the record all to soon. One has to physically get up to change the record, another bit of nostalgia that harkins back to a simpler time of a bygone era. A romantic idea for sure, but one that many audiophiles subscribe to on occasion.

But that’s a far cry from vinyl being “preferred”.

Considering that FLAC is effectively a 1:1 transfer of CD music, I always felt that WAV was file format that never needed to exist.

I vaguely recall that .wav files were used for ringtones and years earlier, used with super short animations that had sound and I think, but not sure, Microsoft used (maybe still uses?) .wav files for system sounds with Windows 3.x

I never recalled .wav files ever being widely used/accepted as a major file format for larger files like songs.

I think the *early days of sharing music as .mp3 killed any chance of WAV files having more acceptance.

*before the DMCA https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act

85% of a movie’s audio comes from the front speakers, so feel ok to use lesser cost, but good quality speakers.

A single good subwoofer is 10x better than a pair of crappy subwoofers, if money is an issue.

And ported subwoofers can produce a similar sound as a much higher priced sealed subwoofers.

-A decent ported subwoofer will sound closer to a movie theater.

I use sealed subwoofers, but it just boiles down to individual taste.

Sealed subwoofer have a much tighter sound, but some people like that and some don’t.

Honestly, “room filling sound” is snake oil.

People that have high end 7.2.4 systems and Dolby Atmos think about it in terms of being inside a sound envelope or bubble.

The know the speakers surround them, so it’s a matter of setting it up correctly…

…or getting it professionally installed.

Thrift shops. (When travelling) (CD’s to be specific).

It’s pretty much a shot in the dark. 95% of the time a thrift shop has jack worth even looking through after the most cursory look.

But occasionally, I hit a good cache of CD’s and find a few worth buying

Cables is the biggest snake oil.

Never let a sales person talk you into luxury cables.

Good quality mass produced brands are more than sufficient.

For my home theater, I paid about $50 for a pair of 6 ft. cables for my left and right speakers. The rest of the system used inexpensive bulk cable that was the exact same the AV store used to hook up their own equipment.

-They did sell cheaper bulk cable…

…are far more expensive bulk cable.

I think the bulk cable was around $1.25 per foot. It was definitely less than $1.50/ft.

Hard say what that would be now. I had it done at the end of Covid, just before the spike of inflation.

No matter what, a system has to be equal. All the components need to be in a similar price range.

My own home theater will act as a hub for an eventual zone 2 with much better speakers.

Some use equalizers. Perhaps modern tone controls are more likely to done via an on-screen or via bluetooth (phone), making it completely hidden.

Certainly only traditional slider controls you see posted here is on vintage 80’s and 90’s equipment.

Truthfully, many people, esp older people, have some level of hearing loss, (no matter how minor), and equalizers can help shape the music so it sounds much better to them.

I’d say the vast majority here are fine with being poked fun at.

There is is far less show & tell, and vastly more posts asking questions here.

At the end of the day, the regulars are audiophiles not to be snobs, but just have a passion to to understand what make recorded music sound better.

In any event, the genre is so big, many here don’t pertain to being a walking dictionary of knowing everything audiophile, and just pipe into a conversation

My own niche of knowledge is more focused on CD players and the path that sound takes (regardless which type of source), through equipment, to coming out of speakers.

A fairly small niche in a sea of knowledge, but a very useful niche for answering questions.

I’d say CD quality is more than adequate. (By extension cd quality FLAC).

But audio CD’s are often miffed at by audiophiles, but CD’s are quite good. But I mean physical CD’s and not FLACS.

But it takes really good gear to bring out the best in redbook CD’s.

There’s far too much detail to go into the specifics of why.

Mostly because there are several different ways that high end audiophile brands can ultimately choose to turn a spinning disc to musical excellence.

No

I lean toward companies based in the USA, but I don’t force myself to only buy American.

That being said, the biggest issue is easy of warranty returns. Some of the high end brands in Europe can be difficult to deal with as far as trying to return something that didn’t work when you bought it, or had major issues during the warranty period.

Shipping items to Europe and other countries, when the item or replacement is shipped back, often a tariff needs to be paid in order to get it, then the customer has do deal with the paperwork in order to get the tariff refunded. Plus many foreign companies won’t pay or reimburse shipping costs, which is probably customary for companies that don’t have an office or warehouse in the USA.