Testing affordable hifi-equipment | HifiReview.org

Phono stages

2010-03-17T10:23:00.007+01:00

I just got hold of this ranking of low cost riaa MM phono stages/preamps, from the linn forum. So I thought I should publish it here as well, evaluated with Tune Method the list goes like this!

1. Lejonklou Slipsik 5
2. Lejonklou Kinki 3
3. Kairn
4. Linn LK1 preamp used as phono stage (easily the best)
5. Rega Fono MM (not as good as LK1 but noticeably ahead of all the rest)
6. Rega Fono Mini
7. Kolektor phono stage
8. Grado PH1 (warm and euphonic but not as tuneful as Rega at the same price)

And significant below these:
9. ProJect TubeBox
10. ProJect PhonoBox SE
11. Nad PP1 (Probably should be here some where)
12. NAD PP2
13. ProJect PhonoBox

More Headphones!

2009-12-17T18:36:00.101+01:00

We've been testing a lot of headphones in diffrent price-range lately, mostly for fun, but ofcourse also to really find those performing well over their price tag! We've amied down our searching to really find headphones that are better than our reference akg k420.

Keep in mind that even those on the bottom of this list probably outperforms 95% of the headphones out there on the market!

1. Beyerdynamic dt990 2005 ed-500$
We haven't listened that much to this one, we just got recommended that it was ultra good, and we heard it and just agreed. It's kind of pricy though and quite big to have on your head. But we're quite convinced they own all the other ones.

2. Sony Ericsson hpm-61 - 15$
And now we come to this little bastard. 10$ is the price for this one, and yeap it sounds rather crappy and bass-weak when it comes to details and asking for a full bodied sound image. BUT, it's ability to playback music, the tune, and the tightness actually surprised us!. I'm quite sure there would be some linnists going for this one :)(only fits to Sony Ericsson phones.)

3. Sennheiser HD 60 TV
This is my friends dads old headphones that he bought some how back in the nineties. It's not that pretty and it doesn't have as high resolution as the akg k 420, but somehow, we got surprised by it's remarkable ability to playback music, great headphone!
Unfortunately we don't have any price on this one.

5. Sennheiser HD-595 - 200$
Looks closed but has an open construction, no 3.5mm plugg. Great sound awesome musicality, really looking forward to hear this one more!
Edit: Unfortunately we had to move this one down, after hearing it at home, it wasn't as extremely good as we thought. Still good though!

6. Denon AH-D1001 - 200$
Really great closed headphones, awesome crispness and great musicality, didn't expect to get this from Denon, good job!. Best closed headphone so far. All in all it's is a really great headphone for the price and a good step up from akg k420! Worth mentioning is that the plug on these has been resoldered, because of damage, so it might sound even better from factory. That's yet to be heard!

7. Pioneer se-m280 - 40$
I find it more musical but less overall hifi than akg k420. But since musicality is the most important, I would rather SACRIFICE some soundquaility(crispness, details etc) to get some more musicality(correct music-playback). These are rather cheap even cheaper than akg k420. The downside is their ugliness, quite bad buildquality, and a bit veiled sound.

8. Akg k420 - 60$ - Really nice sounding, musical,. Could hurt if worn to long. Our reference headphone in the 100$ below price span.

9. Grado sr-80 - 200$
Good headphone, but compared to the other ones in this top test, it aint worth it's price.

Beyerdynamic DT235 - 75$
Nice sounding musical, but my intention says they are slightly worse than AKG K420

Sony MDR-v150 - 40$
Hmm, really confused about this one. Sounds like it has the same driver as the sony mdr-v300. First time we tested sony mdr-v300, we kind of thought it to be better than akg k420, but then later changed our minds. But now we herd this one, and surprisingly we thought it to be quite good again, unexpected. For now I would place it close to hd595, will give it a closer look some time ahead. Smooth sound, got quite much loudness effect, and one would think it lacks some details, but still a little bit more resolution than Sennheiser hd 60 tv. I'm sure it's not as god as Sennheiser hd 60 tv, but I'm not convineced where to put it in the list yet.

Mp3-players

2009-12-08T06:51:00.008+01:00

Hi! We just made a small comparison between three mp3/cellphone-players.
We tested Sony Ericsson K810, Sony Ericsson w890, Sandisk Sansa Fuze, and Nokia Xpress Musix 5800 with the hifi chip.
Me myself was surpised since i thought that the se k810 and the se w890 would have the same sound chip, I kind of thought the walkman thing was just a name!
Here's the outcome, (I reserve my self for small variations, in between the positions)

1. Se w890i
2. Sandisk sansa Fuze
3. K810
4. Nokia xpress music 5800 ( i was really disappointed with this one, calls it hifi-chip and it can't get the music out right. Sorry nokia-fans)

Stereo amplifiers

2009-11-14T16:55:00.014+01:00

Here's my short list of stereo amplifiers. So far I've heard marantz pm4001 and marantz pm7001, and i've heard system fidelity sa-250 and system fidelity sa-300, and here's my list. (I've listened to these particular amps since i've heard from high end people that these ones are good).

(1. System Fidelity sa-300)
1. System Fidelity sa-d30(15watt digital small plastic thing, that can be driven by battery)
2. System Fidelity sa-250 (320$)
3. Marantz pm7001 800$
4. Marantz pm7001 KI 1100$

Since sa-300 is too expensive, it doesn't count.
I'm right now comparing Sa-250 with Sherwood rd-7500 and it's looks like the sa-250 is att better choice, but I'll will come back when the test is over.

DVD-players

2009-11-06T11:28:00.006+01:00

Hi again, and here comes my list with competent and affordable DVD-players, when it comes to playing CD in stereo, evaluated with "tune dem"!

1. Sherwood sd-871
2. Sherwood Newcastle v-768(before the sd-871 come, this one was one of the best DVD-players for cd-music up till Linn's much more expensive Classic movie dvd's that existed.
3. Sherwood 4500
4. Denon dvd-1720/1730

Obs this list does not fill with all the models and brands, there might be models that do have a dvd that's better than the denon for exampke, but i can quite confident say that these sherwoods are on the top. These recomendations i got from a shop who honestly evaluates exactly the same way I do, and the've had lots of DVD-players in and many they have sent back, before they found sherwood. Tanks to www.taktoton.com who helped me to find sherwood!!!

Receivers contest i music reproduction!

2009-11-06T11:21:00.012+01:00

And here comes my list of budget receivers, listed after performance in music reproduction in stereo under 700$, evaluated by "Tune dem" test method!
1. Sherwood RD-7500
2. Sherwood Rd-7502 or Sherwood rd-7503(new one with full HDMI support)These ones are better then the 7500 on the digital ins.
3. Sherwood Rd-5503 (forget about the other sherwood models, they aren't as musical as these)
(4. Marantz) Would be here if they were more cheap.
4. Kenwood

If you're thinking about an old Arcam avr250 as an alternative, think no more, since a shop I know about did demonstrate Sherwood rd-7500 on daily basis against arcam avr250 to prove sherwoods superiority.

I'm keen to see where the denon avr-1507, avr-1707, avr- 1907, avr-2307, avr-2808 would fit in here. Probably on place four , but I don't know. If you know how to use tune dem, or you are trained to hear differences in musicality, please report if you've compared with Sherwood 75*.

Affordable high musicality speakers!

2009-11-06T10:54:00.007+01:00

Hi! It's been a while since last time i wrote. So I'm just goiong to do a short update on products that I've found in my researches about finding the best equipment in the affordable price area!

Speakers, these are from my own experiences and from interviews of people who listen like me, people who has been trained comparing products with the evaluation method "Tune Dem", which according to me is by far the best method to find what products to be the most transparent in letting the music coming through the equipment in the best possible way!

Here's the list of the best speakers I've found for under 600$:
1. Linn Unik (does require to be accompanied by a competent sub though)
2. Kef Cresta 10, Kef Cresta 30
3. Monitor Audio RS1
4. PSB Alpha B1 and System fidelity sf-3030
5. Dynavoice Challenger S-5(This one if if you want an extremely cheap musical speaker)

Headphone comparison!

2009-06-12T14:28:00.036+02:00

It's been a lot of focus on headphone comparisons lately for me and in a hifi-forum that I've been active in. And it's been a lot of different headphones that have been listened to. A lot of different brands have been compared, brands like sennheiser, grado, akg, sony, koss among others. And as usually we have mostly focused on the headphones ability to playback music.

And out of all our listening and comparisons in the forum, it seems like we've narrowed it down to one pair that performs a little bit better than all the other ones in the affordable range. It did even outperforms our predecessor AKG k412 AKG k24p.

And that headphone is AKG k 420!!!, Akg p 420 is a new headphone on the market and has a quite linear balanced sound, are nice to keep on your head and last but not least are the most musical headphones the marked has ever seen in this price range.

Here comes a ranking list:
1 Grado Sr-325 (370$ though)
2 Grado sr-225 (510$ though)
3 Akg k420::: (80$) Clear, correct and crisp sound. Very musical!!
4 Grado sr-80 (140$)
5 Grado sr-60 {102$)
6 Pioneer SE-m280::: Didn't have time to really testit out, but i did have time to hear that it is very musical(and ugly:D)!!
7 Sennheiser px100::: clear, balanced but not as muscial as AKG k 420.
8 Sony MDR-v300::: It's an ok sound. None of the headphones are bad, but it's not as clear as Sennheiser px-100 and lacks some res in the lower end and feels a little bit vailed.
9 Koss porta pro::: Kinda good, quite musical but still not top top of the line. (this is a guess that this one is worse than Sony MDR-v300 could be the other way around when it comes to musicality. But sound quality in px100 is spoken of as better than koss porta pro.
10 Akg k 518 DJ:: Very smoth and nice highs, but gets a little bit boomy in the bass and must be the least musical of all the headphones I've heard. Totally kills the swing in the music. Lacks timing. I really tried to like it, but it sucks.

To mention just a few of other headphones that have been compared to k420 as well: grado sr60, grado sr80(both less musical than k 420 but still really good), akg 501(could be better than k 420 but is in a higher price range), grado sr225 togeather with the sr325(are aspiring for the winning position in the higher price range both probably beats the k420, but i don't know which one is best probably sr325), sennheiser px200, akg k 430, akg k 450(none of these two are close to k 420) and a lot of other headphones as well.

And the cable tests continues!

2009-01-04T15:15:00.008+01:00

And the cable tests continued and this time, I compared the winner from last time(Oehlbach) in a five round blind test with the reference Linn interconnect black(again) and a "Van den Hul M.C D300", 50$ cable. And I made sure the test person could not know what cable he was listening to. And since I know there's a possibility that different inputs on the amp might sound different in some systems I made sure to placing them on different inputs in turns on the amplifier.

The outcome were like following:
Linn: 4 of 5 times on first place, one time on third place 3
Oehlbach: 4 of 5 times second place, one time on first
Van Den Hul M.C D300 4 of 5 times came on the last place and one time it came on the second place.

We happened to have a third person in the room, not even a part of the test nor a hifi guy, just a photograph:) Still he came to the similar conclusions. I must admit that there's a chance that he could have been affected by the first persons opinions, since first person was talking while he was being tested. But he's a guy that likes challenges and probably wouldn't too easily fall for that temptation to write without hearing for himself. Though it can happen subconsciously.

Conclution: Oehlbach's 15$ rca-model seem to stay on the top.

Source comparison!

2008-12-18T22:50:00.030+01:00

Made a short blind test with my friend two weeks ago between my two signal sources. Both cost new around 120$ and both are well known and praised for their good performance at the given price.

The first one is my internal e-mu 0404 soundcard with a high end AK4395 DAC(standard)and the second signal source is my Denon dvd-1720, mentioned by carlsson planet as a cd(dvd) player that beats many much more expensive units.

The Denon dvd-1730(same as 1720 with hdmi)is now their budget reference close in performance to their more expensive reference dv-668 in transparency.

I had Oehlbach cables on both sources but had a model higher cables to the soundcard, one that my dealer says is a little bit better than the model under.(couldn't have the same cable because my computer wasn't close enough). Should have moved the computer though, but I think this will give us a clue anyway.

I had the remote control and he didn't know which source was playing, amp display was covered. And after some zapping between the sources, and always changing the volume between the zapping to make it at the same level for both sources, he got pretty convinced about which one was best. Even I heard it more clear than before. And our conclusion was that the Denon dvd-1720, was more clean in the sound a little bit less muddled compared to the e-mu 0404 and so more musical transparent. Worth remembering is that e-mu 0404 is still a very good card for home recording and still one of the best ones for music playback, so I'm probably going to keep mine for a while.

*Worth remembering is that just because this Denon model was extra good others newer denon products doesn't necessary have to be this good. Since it's often like that with some brands their receivers and cd-players, at-least according to carlssonplanet.com goes up and down in quality from year to year...

So between two bangs for the buck the dvd-1720 seems to be the winner.

The final round!

2008-12-12T00:47:00.011+01:00

Finally I had a couple of friends over for a final round blind test, and we all concluded that Oehlbach was the winning cable. One of my friends said, it's more clear, and the other guy who's an hifi-enthusiast like me said, that the Oehlbach was more musically transparent. And as I was blind testing the other guys I got of proven myself that the Oehlbach was better for music a little bit more clear, keeps the rhythmic flow better by keeping instruments togheather in the timing, and maybe keeping the image more natural by not adding any 3d or effect that i believe shouldn't be there.

Seems like we have a winner, and it's fun the cheapest cable in this test is the winner!!

Congrats Oehlbach!

But hold on, my friend thinks he's got a really good cable, that were gonna test soon!
So let's stay in touch!

Top noche budget rca signal cables test!

2008-12-11T06:36:00.030+01:00

Hi before reading this blog I feel like I need to introduce ya all to a term that's very often misunderstood and misinterpreted from people that aren't into brands like Linn and Naim.

The Term is called "musicality" and if you're not introduced to it in hifi-context press HERE to get into it. Otherwise you'll misunderstand everything i write.

This week I've been testing three different rca- signal cables. Two of them that my Linn-dealer proposed to me as really musically transparent cables for a low cost as an alternative to more expensive Linn-cables(ca 200$/m).

Since this blog is about getting the best possible hifi for the lowest possible amount of money the most expensive cable I'll test cost me 37$ and is an Ixos.

Cables tested were.

*Oehlbach :: Around 1meter, single shielded ::: 15$ :: Meant to be in cars.

*Ixos :: 1meter double shielded (i think) ::: This is my old one cost 38$ when i bought it two years ago.

*Streetwire Zero noise ZN3 ca 1meter:: Also meant to be in cars, but the cable doesn't know where it's supposed to be:) This one was 31$

Between the Oehlbach and the Ixos it was no doubt which one was best, since my Hifi dealer sat me up for a blind test once he heard I had an Ixos cable. In other words, he knew that even my untrained ears(compared to his) would hear the difference. Very soon I could hear that "cable A" did something with the sound image that made it sound less musical. It sounded like the instruments/musicians weren't playing as tight to together as with the other cable. Maybe it sounded a little bit bigger but at the same time more warped and not as smooth to follow the swing as cable B. And it showed that cable A was my old one. We even blind tested the Oehlbach against the expensive Linn cable, and of course we concluded the Linn cable was better(still blind test), but it wasn't that very much of a difference to my ears even though the dealer insisted on it was. Maybe I would consider it as greater today, with an ear more trained to here small differences, or maybe not.(one week later of intensive cabel-comparisons practice:)

Now it was time to take the Oehlbach home! Always exciting to take hifi- stuff to your home, because nothing sounds the same from room to room, from system to system, and you will never know how great the change is gonna be till you try.

At first I was a little bit disappointed after i plugged the signal-rca-cable to my equipment, thought to myself it was too bright n hard. So i went to borrow another cable from my dealer. But after some more testing it seemed that the first cable(Oehlbacher) became more smooth with the time, or maybe I heard wrong in the first place. And after a couple of days i really liked it. The second cable from Streetwire, really impressed on me from the beginning, while the Oehlbacher wasn't played in yet. It brought forth the instruments and created a clear 3d effect where the singer was much easier to point exactly(where he was panned in the mixing) between the speakers. But when the Oehlbacher came loose it might have been even more tight in the musical transparency and a little bit more dry in the bass, even though it didn't point out the singer as well in the middle. But not all 3d-effects are good, some might actually be a type of coloring distortion. And I haven't till this day concluded which cable is best, maybe Oehlbacher is a little bit more musical. But my dealers says it's the opposite way. And maybe Streetwire is a bit more soft and gives more depth to the sound image. But one thing is sure, that both cables are really good for the given price. And since I can't decide, and if i wont make a friend come over for a blind test, I'll go for the cheaper one.

:::Conclusion:::

Oehlbach single shielded, 1m cable is an extremely well valued cable for the money!

*Worth noticing is that I always made sure to turn the cables the right way, with the text flowing from the cd-player to the amplifier, except the first test with the Oehlbacher at home when i forgot to check this out.

Hopefully I can come back with an even larger blind test of more signal cables. But the Ixos cable was the best recommendation from one hifi-dealer and the Streetwire and Oehlbacher were the best recommendations from the other hifi-dealer in my town and they've both been doing this for a very long time, and since the one dealer had tested so many cables that they even took in car-audio cables, I assume we're very close to the top in this pricerange.

Timing, Musicality and musical transparency, what's that???

2008-12-11T02:23:00.005+01:00

The secret to a good sound!

Hi, and welcome to this short introduction of the term musicality. You wont regret that you spent one minute to get this for a life time knowledge about hifi. If you're a hifi entusiast, it can cost you thousands of dollars in upgrades that you would never have done if you knew this!

By the term "musicality" or "musical transparency" i mean, that the cable or amp or cd-player doesn't destroy the timing of any given instrument compared to other instruments in the playback sound. It sounds really stupid, but it's really a serious and common problem that different systems, cd-players or speakers have mistakes in the building of the circuits that make the timing wrong in the playback. By that i mean that there is an displacement in time of some frequencies, for example in the bass. This results in that it sounds like the bass is a little bit after the drums, or the violin is a little bit after the bass or the song is a little bit before the guitar. When this happens system is called to be lacking timing. Or not musically transparent. And you wont really feel the swing and the enjoyment from the recording till all the different instruments in the sound image are playing together, none is after the other. It's hard to measure but you have this problem in you system too, even today, companies like Linn and Naim are making progress in preventing these mistakes in their circuits. And there's still a lot to learn.

And it has come to my knowledge that we on the other hand have a

surprisingly large amount of companies that haven't even discovered these problems in their products, they're just happy to make large sound image, fast speaker, and punchy bass and much detail. But you'll never be really happy with your hifi-system till you learn to listen for these huge distortion problems and buy equipment that's made to prevent it. And I promise you that these distortions are harder to live with than if the flute doesn't sound exactly like the flute-brand played at the recording time(tonal distortions).

OK I'm against coloring of the sound, but I'm even more against coloring of the timing and musicality cos that can really make you head ache as you listen or it makes you wanna have you system more turned of than on. But just some coloring on the tones or details is much easier to live with.(OK I'm not only talking about the soundproblems you can get with too bad damping in your room, I'm talking about problems you don't know yet that you will still have after you have made an perfect damping in your room, save some damping costs here)

But you don't have to buy really expensive equipments(1000$+) like Linn Naim or Rega to experience this, it seems that there are coming up cheep brands that at least are showing some of these qualities.
You wont reach the really high end with the cheap brands but we're getting closer. And there's particularly one brand I've discovered in the last months and that is System Fidelity. OK Marantz is pretty musically but still some steps behind system fidelity.

So that was the explanation of the key term musicality , at for example lejonklou.com you have descriptions and techniques how the hear these type av distortions when it's just a small difference between two pieces of equipment .