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 Post subject: Re: Need recommendations on good 2 channel amp.
PostPosted: 26 Mar 2015, 15:35 
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what are these Ino piP?

i'm perfectly happy with my old stuff and that's what all matters in the end.
i used to buy lots of electronics and use them for a while when i was younger, then sold them to friends only to get new stuff.
when i found NAIM i stopped changing my gear.

with my naim set up i have to run their own specific wireloom, i can't use any aftermarket stuff.

with the rest of my electronics, i only use Ixos Y/C cables - scart cables - phono cables.
i'm very happy with Ixos performance compared to cheap noname cables (SSK) = Sämsta sortens kabel
i did see difference in picture quality testing both cables.
a good cable gives you more stability/clarity in colors and details.
it's all about if you want to pay $50 bux for a good cable or $5 bux for a noname cable?
it all depends on what you like.
everything is made in China nowadays to keep low costs for both cheap noname cables and high end cables.
you get what you pay for.

of course there's lots of snake oil on cable market and other stuff, small trick boxes put on cables, I don't buy such products as i know it's a scham.
  
 
 Post subject: Re: Need recommendations on good 2 channel amp.
PostPosted: 26 Mar 2015, 16:16 
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Ino piP is a bookshelf speaker by Ingvar Öhman. Among the best of its kind (impossible to get better speakers in the price range) and clearly worth a look if you ever get the chance. Its sister, Guru QM10, is mass produced and very equal in sound quality but a bit more expensive.

But the term "you get what you pay for" doesn't make any sense when talking about cables. If you're buying an expensive cable, you're paying for the brand. Nothing else. Once you've got a cable that's good enough, there's no reason in paying more attention to it. I doubt anyone here is using speaker cables in their living room that doesn't hold up well. If you have a distance of 500ft between amp and speaker then there's a risk that the lead resistance get too high with some cables (and a $5000 HiFi cable won't help), but in a living room it's nearly impossible to reach a level where the speaker cable isn't good enough.

A $3000 watch won't show the time better than something in the $50 range, but with cables you can at least make some fun jokes about them. :P
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0NUcjUoGpw (in Swedish)
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 Post subject: Re: Need recommendations on good 2 channel amp.
PostPosted: 26 Mar 2015, 18:51 
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the longer cable is the worse it sounds they say.

buying good quality Y/C cables today is cheap because not many people use S-video, Ixos is cheap.
back in the days maybe 15 years ago, Ixos gold series cables cost more than $100 dollars in Sweden.
Ixos offered Gold - Silver - Bronze series.
I only went for gold and silver series cables.

if you look for Audioquest Y/C cables on Ebay, there's a seller asking top dollars for them, asking price for an high end Y/C cable is from $149 dollars today 2015.
how many will pay for this?
not many people will buy them, certanly not me!
  
 
 Post subject: Re: Need recommendations on good 2 channel amp.
PostPosted: 26 Mar 2015, 20:00 
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Well this is very arguable as we have seen but I've had great results with what nissling mentioned regarding surround amps. I have two surround setups I've used in two channel. One is a Marantz AV-500/MM-500 I used primarily with CD and DVD on Denon DVD-1600. The other is a Denon AVC-1020, used for standard def LD, VHS, DVD, and for CD. Both provide fantastic two channel. However, surround amps often lack tone control. This is true of the Marantz although I've always loved its default sound. The Denon has simple knobs, which do work but they're very simple.

I'm currently switching between them as surround amps, as I recently moved and I am revamping my SD setup. I don't know which I prefer yet, but whichever one I don't choose for surround I will roll back into two channel.

And there is a valid point -- I am not a deep, dedicated audiophile! I understand my opinion may not matter here.

I agree about cables coming with a lot of hype but I must say I do notice an improvement with nice coaxial Y/C cables, even short ones.

As far as audio interconnects I do hear a lot of difference! They seem to be very sensitive in nature and there's a really broad range of sound with them. For a hardcore audiophile, I imagine most of the money goes into the passion of trying different ones. As for me, I've settled on decent, affordable shielded directional twisted cables, the older AR Home Theater series. Anything I've liked more, is just too high dollar!
  
 
 Post subject: Re: Need recommendations on good 2 channel amp.
PostPosted: 26 Mar 2015, 20:49 
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you know audiofile amps don't have any tone controls to manipulate the sound

my previous hifi before i bought my final hifi which is full Naim kit with cd/amp/pre-amp/speakers, i had Rotel/Arcam/Harman-Kardon amps.
with these amps I had american Nordost flat cables for speakers and interconnects.
these cables are really fast, rated in %, their audio quality is awesome
http://www.nordost.com/index.php
  
 
 Post subject: Re: Need recommendations on good 2 channel amp.
PostPosted: 27 Mar 2015, 11:18 
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carlosthejackal wrote:
the longer cable is the worse it sounds they say.

The sound level will be decreased if the resistance is too high (due to high lenght). Nothing else. You won't get "unclear voices" or "loose bass" or whatever.

And you don't rate cables in percent. As long as a cable is good enough, you don't need to care about getting something better. And it's nearly impossible to find a speaker cable for a living room that's not good enough. You wouldn't be able to tell a freebie cable apart from a high-end cable in blind test.

Yet I'm kind of fascinated how some people claim there are huge differences between amps that differs in 0.0001% in THD yet they're using speakers with distorsion on many percent. Same thing goes to cables. With these "high-end" RCA cables you can in some cases measure differnces. With a 1KHz-tone playing at -5dBs, one cheap cable may have a noise floor of -110dBs at 15KHz and the "high-end" one at -115dBs at the same frequencies. The music you're listening to, even if it's a perfectly mastered CD, will have many times higher noise floor than the cable you're using. Talk about strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. :roll: And no, I don't consider myself an audiophile although I'm genuinly interested in audio and video.
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 Post subject: Re: Need recommendations on good 2 channel amp.
PostPosted: 27 Mar 2015, 12:35 
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here are my old Nordost cables.
read the back

i made a typo yesterday, cables are not measured in speed of sound, it's in speed of light

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 Post subject: Re: Need recommendations on good 2 channel amp.
PostPosted: 27 Mar 2015, 12:41 
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Cables are mainly measured in resistance. "Speed of over 90% the speed of light" is pure advertising b******t. It's freakin' copper, not some kind of magic. You can use a lamp wire and get the same result.
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 Post subject: Re: Need recommendations on good 2 channel amp.
PostPosted: 27 Mar 2015, 12:48 
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this is consumer fraudulence if that's BS marketing from Nordost.
can i report this to Allmänna Reklamationsnämnden= consumer report bureau?
  
 
 Post subject: Re: Need recommendations on good 2 channel amp.
PostPosted: 27 Mar 2015, 12:58 
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You can do so if you want. It is false advertising for sure and there's tons of it when it comes to HiFi.
It's like if Volvo would put up an ad saying "With the new XC90 we've added an entierly new feature, not found elsewhere: Four-wheel drive".
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 Post subject: Re: Need recommendations on good 2 channel amp.
PostPosted: 27 Mar 2015, 13:34 
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i was very fond of my Nordost cables, they sounded very sweet on my previous stuff.
this company has very expensive cables, my cables were more consumer friendly to buy
  
 
 Post subject: Re: Need recommendations on good 2 channel amp.
PostPosted: 27 Mar 2015, 13:46 
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They will give you great sound, no doubt about it. It's just that pretty much any cable will do just as good, especially at that lenght (0.6m). That's my point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgurPKQ1DdU
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 Post subject: Re: Need recommendations on good 2 channel amp.
PostPosted: 27 Mar 2015, 19:06 
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some components is a mismatch to certain electronics which means they don't cope and don't sound well 2-gether
i had to test lots of speakers and cables before i found the right ones to match my gear.
hifi store were kind enuff to lend me the stuff for some days to listen to speakers/cables at home.

in the end it's all about matching the components getting the best out of it, same goes for room acoustics
  
 
 Post subject: Re: Need recommendations on good 2 channel amp.
PostPosted: 27 Mar 2015, 19:26 
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carlosthejackal wrote:
in the end it's all about matching the components getting the best out of it

Yes, and for that reason it's a waste of time to try out lots of cables imho...
Same goes for CD players. I don't see the point in spending too much time and effort in choosing one as most players made the last 20 years sound more or less the same. Speakers and acoustic have most impact on end result. Choice of amp plays a part too but certainly not in the same degree. Yes there are differences between amps and they can be massive, no doubt, but many consumer models on today's market have such equal design that the differences are negligible or simply not there.

If you can't hear any differences between an expensive Nordost wire and a lamp chord, what's the point in buying the Nordost if you're just looking to get better sound? If you want the brand, or some sort of status, or its look, then it all makes sense.
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 Post subject: Re: Need recommendations on good 2 channel amp.
PostPosted: 27 Mar 2015, 20:05 
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who buys a cable to read the brand name?
that person must be a schmuck!?
when i buy something i first read testreviews then i go and look it up, then test it on my equipment and if i like it, i'll buy it.
this can only be done at my local hifi store, I can't go to Radio schack and borrow stuff to test the item at home.

some amps are sometimes constructed the wrong way which means they can't drive a low impedance speaker coz they are not powerfull enuff.
when you crank it amp will cut the sound, this happened to me once when i bought an Yamaha 2 channel amp.
this was the worst and weakest amp i've ever had and it was highly rated by swedish mag Hifi&Musik.
i had to get rid of it coz it couldn't handle my speakers!

when i got my Harman/Kardon that was a different story, this was an amp on steroids!
one of the best 2 channel amps at an affordable price.

it's mostly the wireloom and speakers that needs to be tested to hear if these components match your specific gear.
if you buy the wrong speakers they will sound very ill to your ears.

using lampchord wires for speaker cables or interconnects don't sound very well, cable is flat on details and low on bass n treble.
it's like eating a meal at a restaurant, chef forgot to add spices and salt to food, no taste no good food

when i build my own hifi at home, I picked the best sources from the store, gear my wallet could afford to pay for making the best out of it.
which means I had mixed electronics brands.
when i stopped doing this i went for full NAIM, that was it.

my best dvd-player I had was an Arcam dvd, best HiFi sound and video quality 12 years ago.
only downside with Arcam was the price tag of 20.000 Swedish kroner and they used a discdrive component from a s****y manufacturer made in Korea.
this discdrive broke several times and i had to get it replaced, after 3 times of replacement I took the player back to the shop and I was fed up with it!
I demanded my money back and finally got them back.
i was very unhappy that it broke down all the time.
Arcam dvd was highly rated by test reviews
after that I bought a Harman/Kardon dvd25 and till today it performs flawlessly.

I would go for H/K components to get great audio/video quality
  
 
 Post subject: Re: Need recommendations on good 2 channel amp.
PostPosted: 27 Mar 2015, 20:15 
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carlosthejackal wrote:
who buys a cable to read the brand name?

Who buys an Omega to look at the time?

If a speaker has is low impedance and doesn't change much they will be easier to get a decent amp for than vice versa. I don't know what you mean with "Constructed the wrong way"?

carlosthejackal wrote:
using lampchord wires for speaker cables or interconnects don't sound very well, cable is flat on details and low on bass n treble.
it's like eating a meal at a restaurant, chef forgot to add spices and salt to food, no taste no good food

Pure b******t... Audio is all about physics. The signal is transmitted through copper. As long as the resistance isn't too high, any cable will do for speakers. And when resistance is too high, sound level will be decreased. Do some blind tests and you'll see what I mean.

I know that cheap CD and DVD players can have cheap disc drives and such, but I've never heard one give bad sound. None at all. A good enough DAC for 16/44.1 with low-pass filter can be bought from China for less than $1 and because of that there's really no idea for the manufacturer to compromize anything more.
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 Post subject: Re: Need recommendations on good 2 channel amp.
PostPosted: 27 Mar 2015, 22:30 
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omega is bling bling accessory, people pay lots of cash to have something nice on their wrist.
- heeeeeeey look at me i have a nice watch on my wrist -
if not get a Casio, it works well for less

constructed wrong way= when magazines testing amps, they have a diagrahm cube, if it dips in certain places means amp don't get enuff power and it will not handle speakers properly.
  
 
 Post subject: Re: Need recommendations on good 2 channel amp.
PostPosted: 01 Apr 2015, 11:37 
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2 channel amp or surround. Doesnt it matter if the surround amp is build up with mono blocks or just as one ? If the channels are individual or just one group. If they are using mono blocks in the amp then the only thing that differ is the build quality.

Cables: I stop listening if someone says they can heat any difference on expensive or cheap cables. I bought a pair with nice connectors that looked good, nothing look worse to me then cheap white "phone" wires for speakers.

I would go with any decent brand of power amp. Rotel, NAD, NAIM, Pioneer, doesnt matter so much. There might be difference in the quality or tone, but my opionion is that you get very little for the money exceeding 800 usd, so 300 used will get you nice stuff.
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 Post subject: Re: Need recommendations on good 2 channel amp.
PostPosted: 07 Jul 2016, 21:15 
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Just to necro this thread, I kinda gave up for a while with finding a decent 2 channel amp, Moving into a new house and what not. Its a little hard to find good pictures of this amp, seems to be kind of obscure. The build quality is pretty nice, high quality caps, separated power section, and active cooling fans. The little front screen is useless, but cool looking.

Kenwood kmf x9000
Image

I wouldn't call it audiophile quality, but for basic music listening and movies it does a good job. If given the need and chance I would pick another one up for cheap.


Also picked up a little kenwood subwoofer a SW 305. I wouldn't say this is a fantastic woofer, but what I paid for it makes up for it.

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 Post subject: Re: Need recommendations on good 2 channel amp.
PostPosted: 08 Jul 2016, 02:16 
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That Kenwood LOOKS really good. Who said good design/good looking components are dead? Would be interesting to hear.

carlosthejackal wrote:
personally i would never touch Sony HiFi components


That's just ignorant. I got a late 90s DA-50ES from ebay for $50 10 years ago. I have put thousands of hours on it and it's still the core of my system. Absolutely fantastic 2 channel sound and drives my SS-AL5 Mk IIs beautifully.
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