Cheap B&O?
- Thread starter Iain
- Start date
Phatgixer
Too Fat to Wheelie
Iain@Pacific said:Quite fancy some more B&O stuff; given that they work to a 48% margin; was wondering if anyone knew where I may be able to get some either cheaper than MRP or 2nd hand?
I am quite riendly with the owner of the Newbury shop. He used to work as a junior salesmen to my best friend, selling Mini Metros!
He did a nice deal on a (discontinued) Beovision3 for me 6 months ago. Let me know what you want and I'll try and get nice price.
:
damian
Godzilla
Gastro said:
Aiwa X1000-Megablaster soundz wikid mate!
lukz the biz!I'm a Hi-fi audiophile (not so much nowadays), during University I used work for Marantz and got the bug big time, spending crazy amounts of money when I finished. During my first few years of working (1992-1995) I [mosimode]spunked[/mosimode] money on equipment worth £26k
Do you think a 1 metre pair of speaker cables (I have monoblocs close to the floorstanders) are really worth £100?
Don't get Zod on the subject, he's just as bad
I used to be a huge hifi buff.. Recently went back to it with a new setup.
Linn Speakers.
Linn K20 (?) Cable
Naim CD Player.
connected to below with a gold tipped cable (name escapes now)
Roksan Kandy Amp.
Stands by a really good company but i've forgotten the name. Speaker Stands are spiked and the main rack is seriously heavy. (and i mean very) with half inch glass shelves.
Not sure of the cost but it sounds fekking awesome and miles better than the much more expensive B+O kit i tried out !
Linn Speakers.
Linn K20 (?) Cable
Naim CD Player.
connected to below with a gold tipped cable (name escapes now)
Roksan Kandy Amp.
Stands by a really good company but i've forgotten the name. Speaker Stands are spiked and the main rack is seriously heavy. (and i mean very) with half inch glass shelves.
Not sure of the cost but it sounds fekking awesome and miles better than the much more expensive B+O kit i tried out !
Audio is VERY personal because obviously everyone has different hearing and tastes in music.
Iain, imho, you'd be mad to buy B&O audio equipment unless you are prepared to be locked into their product. It isn't the best sound quality and bar the design, it has little to offer over products that cost 25-50% less (and sound better!).
Find a good HiFi shop (with a test room), bring your fav CDs and get them to put some systems together.
I invested a reasonable sum of money in a new system and tested everything from Bose and Nak to Linn and Arcam. I ended up buying something that sounds great, looks good and will age well.
If you like design, the Cyrus products are nice - and the sound is pretty damn good - I know Charlie has Cyrus stuff and really favours it.
My personal fav on the CD front is Arcam - they made their name in analogue and the quality of the sound is near perfect imho.
Pathos amps are nice, and also look VERY hip and trendy... a pathos amp paired with an Arcam CD player and some nice speakers will be hard to beat
Iain, imho, you'd be mad to buy B&O audio equipment unless you are prepared to be locked into their product. It isn't the best sound quality and bar the design, it has little to offer over products that cost 25-50% less (and sound better!).
Find a good HiFi shop (with a test room), bring your fav CDs and get them to put some systems together.
I invested a reasonable sum of money in a new system and tested everything from Bose and Nak to Linn and Arcam. I ended up buying something that sounds great, looks good and will age well.
If you like design, the Cyrus products are nice - and the sound is pretty damn good - I know Charlie has Cyrus stuff and really favours it.
My personal fav on the CD front is Arcam - they made their name in analogue and the quality of the sound is near perfect imho.
Pathos amps are nice, and also look VERY hip and trendy... a pathos amp paired with an Arcam CD player and some nice speakers will be hard to beat
Simon,
My set-up is A/V biased, so it's not fair to compare unless you're going for visual as well as audio.
Audio gets to a point of diminishing returns - you will spend double but he improvement in sound will not be twice as good, and in most cases you won't noitce a massive difference. The key is to price your system at the point where spending more will not gain you much...
If this will be your primary system and you love music and want to put a budget against a system that you will not want to replace in a few years, I think you should consider assigning the following rough costs: -
(keep in mind this is a VERY good system and it can be done for A LOT less, should you not want to spend semi-silly money.... equally, you can spend 3x the money)
CD Player (Single) - £1k
Amp £1.5k
Speakers (x2) £1k
Gastro, another good way to do this is to speak with some who buys in pre-owned equipment. Many good HiFi shops allow trading-up and thus totally A/V buffs will buy a £3K amp and up grage it when something 'better' comes along - you then pick up a brilliant piece of equipment, that will be like new, for half the price!
My set-up is A/V biased, so it's not fair to compare unless you're going for visual as well as audio.
Audio gets to a point of diminishing returns - you will spend double but he improvement in sound will not be twice as good, and in most cases you won't noitce a massive difference. The key is to price your system at the point where spending more will not gain you much...
If this will be your primary system and you love music and want to put a budget against a system that you will not want to replace in a few years, I think you should consider assigning the following rough costs: -
(keep in mind this is a VERY good system and it can be done for A LOT less, should you not want to spend semi-silly money.... equally, you can spend 3x the money)
CD Player (Single) - £1k
Amp £1.5k
Speakers (x2) £1k
Gastro, another good way to do this is to speak with some who buys in pre-owned equipment. Many good HiFi shops allow trading-up and thus totally A/V buffs will buy a £3K amp and up grage it when something 'better' comes along - you then pick up a brilliant piece of equipment, that will be like new, for half the price!
PS - here's the Pathos web site... they make some very nice equipment and I think you'll agree the design aspect is very damn amazing!
As I said, the sound is very pure and really brings most music to life
As I said, the sound is very pure and really brings most music to life
The biggest concern about any hi fi or audi visual set up is the room its based in.
It's no good having a top end hifi and then siting the speakers behind sofas and next to windows or so on, there's a whole world of room lay out and dimension studying.. and its a mind boggling science/art. It all depends how mad you want to go
My system is based on a good front end(CD player) which was about 1k and then about 700-800 i think on amp and speakers and about 2-300 quid on good cables. Then good stands and a professional installer..
All up to you in the end mate.
It's no good having a top end hifi and then siting the speakers behind sofas and next to windows or so on, there's a whole world of room lay out and dimension studying.. and its a mind boggling science/art. It all depends how mad you want to go
My system is based on a good front end(CD player) which was about 1k and then about 700-800 i think on amp and speakers and about 2-300 quid on good cables. Then good stands and a professional installer..
All up to you in the end mate.
Room is massively important as is the stand (for both speakers and components)
However the point made about cables is really on the money (no pun intended!).
The amount of people that actually buy good equipment and shitty cables is astounding. Real AV nerds will say that you should spend 10-15% of the cost of your components on cables and in fairness, this isn't too far off.
As for a professional installer, I'd agree on A/V (and if you want to chase cables) but for pure audio, I'd say you can avoid this cost unless the equipment needs high level configuration (and even then a sound metre bought from Radio Shack - or Tandy if you can find one) for £35.00 will sort a lot of this out... again your ears are king and on a two speaker system, most people should be able to set it up as per their taste
However the point made about cables is really on the money (no pun intended!).
The amount of people that actually buy good equipment and shitty cables is astounding. Real AV nerds will say that you should spend 10-15% of the cost of your components on cables and in fairness, this isn't too far off.
As for a professional installer, I'd agree on A/V (and if you want to chase cables) but for pure audio, I'd say you can avoid this cost unless the equipment needs high level configuration (and even then a sound metre bought from Radio Shack - or Tandy if you can find one) for £35.00 will sort a lot of this out... again your ears are king and on a two speaker system, most people should be able to set it up as per their taste
jcremonini
Ring Warrior
To put this thread in the context of the watch thread (where people were mentioning design houses as watchmakers) B&O are designers , not stereo makers. The likes of Linn, Arcam etc *are* stereo makers. I bang my head in frustration at anyone who buys B&O stuff as, to be quite frank, it is a total waste of money.
James.
James.
However people often buy things for apparently odd reasons.
Like buying food for how it looks , not how it tastes.
Buying hifi cos of how it looks and not cos of how it sounds is odd, but different people have their boxes ticked by different things.. Else we'd all have exactly the same car, watch, house, and so on.. Personally I love the ergonomic pleasures that B+O stuff gives, and when i go to my mate's house and sit and play with his swivel tv its great fun.
It's just not for me. I want my hifi to sound f-ing great(so that it makes the hairs on the back of the neck stand up!) And I want my TV to have a stunningly clear and bright and beautifully rich picture. I want my surround sound to make me jump when I hear totally lifelike steps coming from behind me and i want my car to handle and perform great and go very quicly. I want my watch to tell the time accurately and reliably forever, and not be unpleasant on the eye(since you have to look at it sooo often).
Other people have different desires and motivations and thank god for that !
Like buying food for how it looks , not how it tastes.
Buying hifi cos of how it looks and not cos of how it sounds is odd, but different people have their boxes ticked by different things.. Else we'd all have exactly the same car, watch, house, and so on.. Personally I love the ergonomic pleasures that B+O stuff gives, and when i go to my mate's house and sit and play with his swivel tv its great fun.
It's just not for me. I want my hifi to sound f-ing great(so that it makes the hairs on the back of the neck stand up!) And I want my TV to have a stunningly clear and bright and beautifully rich picture. I want my surround sound to make me jump when I hear totally lifelike steps coming from behind me and i want my car to handle and perform great and go very quicly. I want my watch to tell the time accurately and reliably forever, and not be unpleasant on the eye(since you have to look at it sooo often).
Other people have different desires and motivations and thank god for that !
Similar threads
