Originally Posted by
Nightbrace
Best diagnosing tool is the Stereophile test CD. Vinyl, unless PERFECT, can never sound as good as even a regular CD played on a player with a great D/A convertor. But as the Walgreens commercial says, we don't live anywhere near perfect. DAT tapes are neat, and were actually very good, but not as easy to work with.
If you've never heard a modded player with 24-bit/192KHZ DAC's you'll wonder why anyone bothers with LPs. A stand-alone player, like the NAD 5060 I use currently with the $9, yeah thats right, $9 Benchmark DAC-1.3's, to me is more than acceptable and has outperformed the few SACD players I have tried using normal 16-bit 44.1 KHz CD's on the NAD vs. the same recording on an SACD.
The way I fashion speakers (and complete systems) to sound good in a particular room, (as every room is entirely different), is I start off with the least detailed set-up and slowly work my way up. This is a very generalized approach, but for now, for me at least, it seems to get things done fairly well. I get the best speakers I can afford, and tweek things slowly (via the crossover, L-pads, pre-amp adjustments, till they sound the most detailed without being over bearing at around 95 Db.) This is a veryfine line, and once dialed in, its hard to explain, but they just sound "right".
However, bass response can sometimes be a problem when using this method. Thats why once I get them right, as far as detail, I usually recommend using a quality subwoofer like an HSU or Velodyne if you are unhappy with the bass performance. I sometimes, in very LIVE rooms, need to even get very warm sounding speakers like Advents or KLH's as as you guys probably know, JBL is tough to set-up in a live room for critical listening. Home Theater to me is nearly impossible to get right unless the room itself it properly dimensioned and conditioned, but with 2-channel nearly any room can sound good with a little patience.