Hi all
First of all, and to stick to the original subject of the thread;
My home system:
Audio Note Series E/B Speakers (Audio Note version of the Snell type E)
Audio Innovation S200 2x12 w class A tube amp (4 x el84) power amp
Creek OHB 12 passive pre amp
Electrocompaniet PRE1 and Cambridge Audio C70 pre amps (These two pre amps are only there because of their phono stage, I regulary switch around when I listen to Vinyl)
Micromega/HarmanKardon/Rotel CD players (all top models of the brand, at the moment 2 lives in my studio and the micromega sits at home)
Regar Planar 3
Tara Labs / Supra cables (In the most reasonable price range of high end cables I could find)
Living in Oslo/Norway, I regularly buy hifi magazines from other countries as well. There is one thing that strikes me, and I would like to know if anyone else has this impression:
In Norway, "everybody" knows that the best amplifiers on the surface of the earth is built here in Norway (Bruce Swedin uses the Norwegian "Electrocompaniet" as his reference amplifier, and all albums he mix is done with this. Abbey Road Studios uses Dynamic Precision to power its main monitors etc etc), and there seems to be a common thought that Norway manufactures some of the best high end sound products anywhere in the world.
It seems like the same can be said about Sweden. And Denmark. Not to mention France, Germany, Great Britain and The United States. And probably any other county with a hifi industry and a hifi press....
It has also occured to me that there seems to be a different ideal to what "good sound" is about, and this seems to vary from country to country. Often it seems that the character of the "preferred national sound" happens to be EXACTLY the sound from the top model of one of the top national suppliers.... Things such as linear frequency response etc seems to be unimportant to most, and their descriptions of the sound hardly ever tells me anything as a professional sound engineer. (Unless someone can direct me to a dictionary where explanations of expressions such as "sounds a bit splintered compared to XX" or "soundwise a little richer than XX etc)
Imagine this:
A test of three amplifiers in a hifi magazine, i.e. Electrocompaniet, Bryston and Jeff Rowland. Which one would be the champion in Norway? In USA? And in Canada??
These are all HIGH END amplifiers with a brilliant reputation. All of them would probably sound superb. Still, I am almost certain that the winner often would happen to be built in the country where the magazine is released...
So the question is: Who do we trust? I have stopped trusting the hifi press a long time ago...
Does anybody else have thoughts on this?? Is this in effect what differs "pro audio" sound manufacturers from producers of HiFi components?
This is not a claim to be the truth in any way, I am just very interested in the opinions of other pro sound engineers.
Regards,
larsK