How much did he charge? Steve charges on his Patreon $50 for 15 minutes. That comes out to $200 an hour.

@@gunsnwankers1 probably best to confirm with Herb what he’s asking now but it’s in line with what Steve asks.

As a bicycle mechanic, my going rate is 125/hour. Its less than the first hour for a plumber. 200/hour, aint so bad coz no one is ever gonna book them for a day, and they will likely never have days fully booked. Seems like a rate that will keep demand in control.

@@veniceog I don’t want to state any opinion on whether the going rate is good or bad. If you think it’s a fair rate more power to you.

Hmmmm, Wprimrose ACTUALLY spent the money and thoroughly enjoyed his time with Herb! It’s kind of weird that you other guys are babbling about whether or not it’s worth it. Sure, if you don’t want to spend the money that’s cool, in life each of us has to decide what’s worth the cost, but to talk about what other people do with their money is ridiculous. Mind your own freaking business.

Somebody had to say it. You are my hero.

I have to agree.

You sir speak the truth. An edible will make a budget system sound like angels cumming in your ear.

Delicious meals, good company raises your serotonin levels so much that the listening session becomes memorable. ;-)

What is the point of diminishing returns of an audiophile system for a deaf person? How can you tell a difference of 10% in sound quality? It is really based on what you can hear and what you are willing to spend. When making upgrades, I have tended to go the dramatic route. If I can't hear a difference I won't spend any money on an upgrade. If the difference is very noticeable, I may just spend what I can afford at the time and be happy with that. When you do critical listening to a demo and then go home to listen to your existing system, do you miss the sound of the demo? If you can't tell the difference, there is no point doing the upgrade at that time. Instead of spending the money, save it up so that if you do run into that situation later on, you can afford it. The ability to pay for a system is also important, as is one's priorities. If you feel that spending $3000 to fly for a 1 week vacation to a different country is more worth it for the memories it creates, do that instead. If you can only afford $1000 for a system, you only look within that range. If you can afford $100,000 for a system, then your criteria is very different. 20 years ago, I had a system which was about $12,000 and I thought that it was the best in the world, to my ears. A couple of years ago, I ended up with a system which was $30,000, and I felt that it was in a totally different class. The way the system interacted with the room was totally different and I felt a totally different level of immersion. I then thought that that was the best in the world, to my ears. There were more expensive systems but I didn't bother listening to them because I could not afford them, so just made the "diminishing point of returns" statement to myself to make myself feel good about my purchase. A couple of months ago, I listened to a system which was the big brother of the one I bought a couple of years ago. What was good was that the manufacturer was willing to take the old system back as trade-in at original purchase price. Along with a discount, the cost was still eye watering but something that was a possibility, given where I am in life. I got back home and really missed what I heard from the demo, even a week later. What I heard in that system was something I had never experienced before. I therefore ordered the upgrade, which has a 3 month manufacturing lead time. I am really looking forward to finally having it installed next month. As the video stated, diminishing returns isn't really applicable. It is really more of a rationalization to make one feel good about one's purchase. Yes. The costs of systems can get very large. However, you don't really look at it from the 20% increase in sound quality point of view. You look at it in terms of how the system makes you feel, and if the cost is worth it to you personally.

@@matthewbarrow3727 Very well said. Your point reminds me of the advice often given about purchasing a computer system years ago, “Buy the best one you can afford.” Of course, the reason we listen to all these reviewers, or visit audio stores when we can, is to get an idea of what’s out there, of what is obtainable if I dig deeper, save longer, etc. Anyway, very good discussion in the original video, and your comment helped move the conversation along for me.

well .... here, apparently, it means pimping out your associate for $$$. disgraceful!

@@jeremiahchamberlin4499 It is my sense that people don't really understand the concept of sound quality. It is dependent on the personal experience of different aspects of it. A person hears music which has high distortion but the distortion is of even harmonics, which reinforces the primary waveform, so seems to sound better. A person hears odd harmonic distortions and it doesn't sound good. Both distortions are different from the source material, but one seems to have a better sound quality to the other or even the source itself. This is probably why some people like tube amps, due to the way they distort. As the price gets higher, the nature of the sound of tube and solid state is said to become closer together as there is less distortion. The way we experience the sound coming from speakers and the room is a very large aspect. People don't just hear with their ears. I was chatting with the speaker designer (for the speakers I have) and he mentioned that people have 3 ears, with the third being the sinus cavity. If you have a cold and your sinus cavity is blocked, you won't have the same experience when listening to music. Sound quality has the aspect of pressure waves hitting your body. When we hear sound, we are really experiencing a vector field of sound, with sound coming from the speakers as well as the reflections of sound from the room walls also hitting us. How a system interacts with a room is therefore very important. The route I went was with a system which uses DSP to cancel out the first wall reflections from the speakers in the time domain. This removes smearing in the sound itself. If you are a musician who does mixing, you probably understand the concept of reverb and delay. If the sound reflection is within 30 milliseconds, it's controlled as reverb (perceived sound of room size) rather than echo. While a musician uses consistent time delay, a room generates inconsistent time delay, which causes uncontrolled smearing and changing the make up of the music itself. The system I am upgrading to goes one step further, where it has speakers which are directed at the walls (back, front, ceiling) to try to send sound waves that reflect off the walls and arrive at the listener in a coherent manner to the primary sound that comes directly from the speakers. ie. It tries to recreate the reverberent field in the recoding. The goal here is to recreate the experience from the recording itself and makes use of the listening room to do so. This interaction of sound has some very interesting and unexpected consequences. It can change the texture of the sound itself. When listening to a track by Sting, it felt like there was sound in the shape and texture of mist which surrounded the singer at chest height. What we hear and feel (from the sound pressure waves hitting us) causes our brain to extract associations in our memory and experience, which creates unexpected sensations. In case you were interested, the system I have is a custom fully 3-way-active set of Legacy Audio Aeris with Legacy Audio Wavelet pre-amp (with room-correction/speaker adaptation). I will be upgrading to the Legacy Audio Valors. For me, the goal is the full experience, not just what I hear with my ears. If all I cared about was what my ears hear, I would likely go down the headphone route. Enjoy your progression in this hobby. It can be fun, but it can also be very expensive.

@@matthewbarrow3727 Do you consider your audio system an expense, or an investment? The way you talk about your immersive experience, you getting a reuturn which enhances your quality of life. I’m still working on getting my first serious system together. I listen to my system, I listen to other’s, and I critically assess where my weakest link lies. Right now I working simultaneously on both the input and output side. On the input, trying to get the best I can from my current turntable; on the output, trying to match an amp with speakers. I have a collection of vintage speakers that seemed a bit dull and lifeless, but moving them around made a dramatic difference, and a new tube amp has really perked them up. I’m in for a lot of experimentation to figure out what I can get from my current setup before I begin another critical assessment. It sounds to me as though you have gone where your ears have lead you, and that seems a good path to me.

This was my thought. These guys have a huge incentive to convince people that they never have enough, that they can always buy something new and better.

Cynics.

You also get familiar with your music and start to listen for more. New music often sounds better at first

I’ve listened to uber expensive and affordable high end and what I would say is that in many cases the difference is in magnitude but the character is the same. Specifically, I spent a fair amount of time comparing two systems: one costing $6K and one costing $170K (that’s for amp and speakers only in both cases). My conclusion is that the $6K system delivered much of what the $170K system delivered - in character. The scale of the more expensive system was bigger - you had more of the same in a way with some more nuance and more scale - but the character, the ability to connect to the music, the presentation, were in a similar vein. The cheaper system was like a younger brother of the bigger one.

@@miguelbarrio Just curious. Would you say the $170k system was 28 times better than the $6k system?

@@Hi-FiBBQ That’s the thing: it is not a 1-dimensional problem and so quantifying it by a number like that is not reasonable. What I will tell you is I could not have the $170K system in a medium sized room for example, and in such a room the $6K might be 2x better… :) In my room (24ftx36ft) did I get more of the bigger system? Yes. How much more? Errrr… Like I said, it’s not a number. Is a $80K car 2x better than a $40K car? The question doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t either in this realm.

@@keplermission4947 Two questions here: Does substantially more money get you a better system? The answer is: yes, if chosen carefully. The second question is: What does “better” mean? This is where it depends on many factors. To me, the most important factor is connection to the music - and there are many affordable systems that will give you that.

@@keplermission4947 I’m not sure that your metaphysical argument is coherent. Or at least it’s disingenuous. People will pay more money for the “thing they’re into” and not care. And turn around and just buy commodity level for other stuff. You see people with Steinway grand pianos in their home when no one within a 5 mile radius could play it because it’s a statement piece. It has nothing to with how it performs or how it sounds when it is played. And the only one who gets to enjoy it is the musician the homeowner hires for their annual holiday party. I can tell you for certain that I have heard far better out of Rythmik and JTR subs for both visceral and “controlled” or “musical” bass than the stacks of RELs at the brick and mortar high end audio store 10 minutes away from me.

It is still a great endorsement of the RP-600. The Cornwall is a large speaker so will deliver a greater size of sound due to stronger lower midrange and midbass energy...which is a small vs large speaker thing.

been there done that actually too! except it was 1979 and i was 14 years old!

Debated today with someone who claimed $300 amps are perfect.

Normal speakers just don't cut it in my opinion. It is interesting that you mentioned the real trumpet. I make speakers and with about the best recent amp @ $1,600. I am running 5" FR drivers in oversized boxes with a 1 cm gap between the box and the driver (with longer screws and spacers on the driver). You will have to tweak the gap (1/2" on the bottom screws and 1cm on the top screws as a guide) and use thin flexi hose as spacers that you can squeeze to tweak the gap. BUT...with the driver 1 cm above the hole it isn't going to sound any good (too "bonky")! So I have a 1.5" deep plastic tubing bass tube on the driver hole to stop the "bonk" and act as a very effective bass vent. A point source bass vent. And with the combination of point source sound, the acoustic gap and a great amp, these speakers nearly sound live. Way different to normal driver mounting in a more spacial way. With 2-ways the texture and tone come from different sources some inches apart. This forms a triangle with the ear and you can tell where the disjointed sound is coming from (with trigonometry, sort of). But with single drivers you just get a line instead of a triangle and so it's harder to tell where the sound is coming from. This alone will give you WAY more of an illusion of a real trumpet. But that is not enough. Plus the sound from the back of the driver escapes through the gap and that makes the sound different to normal mounting (in a good way). They sound like panel speakers but without the 6 ft mouth and light years cheaper. Mine absolutely smoke my B&W 706s (my reference speakers). It's not a frequency thing, it's an acoustic thing, more spacial "tuby" sound. The Audiolab 6000 amp is a good FR match cos the treble is nice and soft (not fatiguing) but reliably extended way up. But not "wiry" like some class D amps. FR drivers tend to be loud in the "chiff" but lack the very top a bit. Opposite to the amp. Anyway I sometimes get startled by a voice in my room when there is nobody else in the room. Once I heard a jet aircraft overhead at low altitude and looked out the window, but nothing. It was an add on KZfaq. Do it, make some, you won't believe your ears.

@@Justwantahover I've heard a number of FR drivers over the years and you're right they do some interesting things! But most of it is around the midrange and not the extremes. They mostly sound "Band Limited" to me. I love classical and jazz, so I really enjoy the fullness of the lower mids and upper bass. Right now, I'm using all tubed electronics with the Elac Uni-Fis and two fast little subs. Those speakers do a fantastic job of imaging in my room with layers of depth. I have a Lt. Kije recording that sounds like it extends out into the yard! Ha! What 5" FR driver are you using?

@@Justwantahover Jamo made a concentric bass vent speaker. Also I've gotten the same effects you describe by playing around with a megaphone pa speaker. I mean I'm sure the brass instruments sound great on that because it's shaped similar to the mouth of a trumpet/sax/trombone

You are correct 👌

@@keplermission4947 It’s not fair to post in Hebrew what Google can’t translate. 🙂

Steve might have been having some fun with his ‘pure’ question. There are others on You Tube who explain Class A mode quite clearly as a matter of biasing either the triode tube or the Bi-Polar Junction Transistor (BJT). The Tube/Transistor is set at the midpoint with a constant current running through it, the signal then modulates the main power supply, thus amplifying it in the process. The trouble is that, while high fidelity (faithful to the source) is maintained, gain is limited. If two tubes/transistors are used in combination, the effective gain is doubled. Two challenges must be met to make this arrangement work. (1) The two tubes/transistors must be matched, and (2) Distortion is to some extent unavoidable as the signal ‘crosses over’ from one to the other in the pair. Engineers compete to find the best solution to these perennial problems. The Class A A/B stays in Class A mode until more gain is requested and then shifts into the Class A/B mode. At least that is how I u derstans the issue as it has been explained to me. I haven’t had the pleasure of building amplifiers myself, but I’m looking forward to it. 🙂

Class A amps runs as a class A amp . When people refer to pure class A they refer to the class A/B amp running in class A before it runs A/B .

And the room you are listening in is more important than the playback equipment. A good room and inexpensive gear can sound fabulous. Crappy room and expensive gear sounds crappy.

I totally agree with both you and Vinyl Rules. The recording and the room/speaker/listening position are at the top. The biggest problem with the esoteric systems is that they force a person to listen to obscure, audiophile quality recordings for the purpose of gear evaluation. I like lots of music from the 60s 70s and 80s. Most of it was not recorded very well. No reason for me to invest more than about 6K on a complete system. There is a MASSIVE law of diminishing returns. Placebo effect and snake oil rule the day in audio.

He would for sure

I want to hear Cheap Audio Man with Herb

That's why we have more then one room. Bedroom upgrades :)

They're not even marginally better sometimes - you are paying for exotic manufacturing or art pieces, curated sound signatures etc. Which is fine if you have the money. Afterall I don't necessarily want an ugly speaker even if it did sound good (I'd accept it but wish it looked better lol)

That is a very interesting point. Recording quality, density and levels vary so vastly that you can't compare any random piano recording with a real instrument.

@@markhusbands6132 exactly, it really countdowns to what the engineer(s) intentions are, it's basically like opinions, everybody has one and in any kinds of levels!....

That's what I thought too. Pure Class A means it never switches over to AB. Those are expensive!

My journey… 600m’s w/ Peachtree amp. Then to 8000f’s w/ the Muzishare X7. Now I’ve landed on the Forte IV’s with a Willsenton R8 amp. So the X7 vs the R8 is basically a toss up. But the upgrade in speakers in night and day. Truly. The Fortes are in a different class. From the slam of the bass to the incredible detail in the highs and then the lifelike mids - I am constantly in awe when I listen to them. The dynamic output is damn near startling at times. So yeah…no question on the major upgrade.