UKC

Well done. One of the first things I bought once I had earned any money, and still going strong.

But now, tiny Bose things are whispering in my ear about you. They say, I don't even need you, let alone those boxey things that are always either side of you. Two dozen + more books of shelf space, they say. Behold our wondrous electrickery, they say, and most loudly, they say that they sound just as good to your clunky ear. And they may be right. 

But I don't think I'll bury you. 

What to do?

In reply to mbh:

Like vinyl, flares, and dayglo climbing clothes, separates will be back. And then you'll be a trend setter.

In reply to mbh:

Keep the NAD, the planet will thank you, or species which still have a toe hold. will do.

Reduce, reuse, repair, recycle, and enjoy music...

Edit: My Dad is a hifi nerd, with a 10k system he bought on retirement as a whoohoo present (he'll use it for as long as he's alive to be fair, if he lives until his mid 80's it'll be 16ish years of listening), and he rates a little NAIM thing his partner bought higher than anything by BOSE - in finding them too bass orientated and 'muddy'.

Hi Fi separates can be adapted and altered and upgraded, on ebay you can buy the circuitry for the Musical Fidelity X-10 D filters which soften the signal going from the CD player to the amp, to make things a little bit less digital sounding, I found mine second hand in Richer Sounds in the noughties, but the boards can be bought from China. There's possibly ways of tinkering with your amp which could be rewarding.

In reply to mbh:

It's a classic amp. Keep it and use it - why not?

In reply to mbh:

I’ve got a NAD 3120 that I bought in 1987 (with my first student grant cheque, how times change). I play vinyl on a Pioneer PL-510a that is 50? years old - I bought it from a colleague at work 20 years ago. Speakers haven’t fared so well; JPW P1s bought at the same time as the NAD. The cardboard in the cones rotted out but I still have them because I can replace the woofers. I used to have Dual cs 505 but that blew up after 20 years. If I want to play a CD I’ve got a Rotel RCD-865 that’s nearly 30 years old. Totally satisfactory for thousands and thousands of hours of listening pleasure.

Media and playback equipment you can trust for 30 to 40 years! seems totally unrealistic now, what with all this innovation and improvement.

In reply to mbh:

I have the same debate going on in my head about reassembling/upgrading my old hardware as opposed to going all in for one of the streaming services which would free up masses of storage space and remove all need to buy a Linn Sondek or Michell Focus. I can’t resolve it either....meanwhile the hardware gathers dust in a cupboard.

In reply to colinakmc:

But streaming services also require final rendering - i.e. they need D-to-A, amplification, and speakers. You can use your existing good quality equipment for (at least) the final two.

In reply to pasbury:

...and inbuilt obsolescence. I'm wondering now if one now needs to buy quite high end products (in many areas) to avoid this.

In reply to Timmd:

I had a 3020 A or B something like that. Unfortunately it broke after about 10 years of use. 

In reply to colinakmc:

Depends on how highly you value the quality of the music. Hi res is just about getting back up to CD quality, which still has a long way to go to match vinyl.

Hard to beat the convenience of digital but it's definitely lacking something. 

As for the OP and bose, I recently replaced our bose speakers used for the TV only. Replaced with a cheap Sony system on offer at pc World, all I can say is, never again will I touch bose. 

In reply to mbh:

Bose, schmoze.  Keep the old NAD flying.

T.

In reply to mbh:

I got a Google chromecast audio and a half decent DAQ with optical inputs. Modern day streaming services on old separates. Win win?

In reply to mbh:

I note that likes and dislikes are disabled as if we were mourning the death of a person.

Moderators; we aren’t.

In reply to mbh:

My NAD C300 and Tannoy floorstanders are a mere 25 years old. In an age of built-in soundbars and Bluetooth speakers they still sound absolutely brilliant, though! 

In fact, I reckon that they might be one of the best purchases I've ever made; they're used pretty much every single day, and they bring the quiet delight of good kit just doing the job well every time. 

In reply to Timmd:

Well I didn’t; distinctly low end stuff (but still high quality) but it’s lasted. I think it was made by people who wanted to make things that were good at doing what people wanted them to do for a a long time. Similarly the media that you used to bring these products to life were made to last without maintenance or further investment or indeed further anxiety.

I really like physical media, remember when CDs were first produced and people said they’d only last a few years? I’ve never heard of one wearing out ever. Vinyl can if it’s not treated well, plus there was a period when vinyl was in it’s initial dotage when a lot of crap discs were manufactured. 

In reply to artif:

It's the other way around: CDs are encoded 44 kHz at 16-bit; Hi-res digital is encoded 96 kHz (or 192 kHz) at 24-bit.

That's another debate entirely! (As indeed is whether or not hi-res digital is better for listening than is CD-quality digital.)

In reply to pasbury:

Pressed CDs can degrade over time via aluminium oxidization to the point of being unplayable - google for 'disc rot' and similar. It's not common, but it happens.

In reply to mbh:

Still running my Nytech CA202 amp, virtually every day - from early 80s think I bought it.

Not only that but your post had me google them and found there is still a Nytech company that keeps all the spares, does repairs, upgrades, servicing etc. Couldn't believe that. 

In reply to mbh:

Good vintage separates are selling for significant money and the NAD certainly fits into this category. When my old Pioneer Amp died I was ready to scrap it and buy something modern until I found out what people were paying for them (even dead ones). About £200 for parts and 100hrs of work later it’s back to full working order.

The only down side is that after 40 years the electrolytic caps will be near their end of life so maybe think about getting it recapped and a spray of Deoxit for the pots and switches and it should be good for another 40 years.

I wonder how many of the ‘tiny Bose things’ will still be working in 10 years time and I bet most of the parts are custom and probably aren’t available now let alone in 10 years time.

If you do want to sell it you will probably get more than you paid for it.

Some interesting comments here, along with the manuals.

https://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/nad/3020.shtml

In reply to artif:

Depends if you're looking for euphonic distortion, poor S/N, low dynamic range, poor bass response, etc.

Almost all vinyl in the past 30 years has been created from digital sources, followed by a complicated series of non-linear processing stages to press the vinyl. Hi-res ought to be taking you back to the original, undegraded, studio master.

In reply to pasbury:

It was quality I was thinking of, rather than price, I still have my basic NAD amplifier.

In reply to mbh:

Keep it. I've got 1970s speakers and amplifier, all in lovely teak veneer. No way would I swap them out!

In reply to mbh:

Another vote to get it repaired, and as Mark said the electrolytics could probably do with a re-cap. My Cyrus one is still going strong, but it's a positive youngster compared to my Thorens TD150. Keep old hifi going!

Paul.

In reply to Rob Parsons:

I've experienced disc rot a few times. 

On Hole's "Live Through This" and rather more disappointingly (as Hole's album was just a standard CD and these days replaceable very cheaply), the 4AD box set of Cocteau Twins singles and EPs that came out circa 1993 as the band left the label. 

In reply to all:

Interesting comments from everyone.

I have no intention of selling my NAD 3020 (which, if you are not a HiFi buff, was at the time a highly rated but low budget amplifier that a wage-earning 18 year old could afford about 40 years ago. I paid about £100 for it when I earned about £60/week (when I had no kids, no mortgage, no anything, really, besides rent.)

An electrical thing which is still going after 40 years has done very well and deserves the fondness its owner might have for it. I have a Dyson, but won't throw away ancient Mr Henry.

Truth is though, once Ms Bose and Mr Dyson came through the door, I have rarely used the NAD 3020 and poor Mr Henry has not once come out of his cupboard.

In reply to mbh:

Out of interest: what's the Bose thing you're using?

In reply to pasbury:

On this tangent...

My hi-fi amplifier is a low-end Sherwood one I bought for £80 in Richer Sounds in 1996. My speakers are basically studio speakers - a pair of Wharfedale Diamond Pro that I bought second hand from a friend for £50 also in 1996. My CD player is a reasonably good quality NAD thing I bough for £200 in 2003. These are all still going strong. The Sherwood twin cassette deck I paid £200 for in 1996 (it was £200 because it was kind of swanky - both cassette decks could record in both directions) has died but is probably a fairly easy repair, think it was first one tape motor (I was able to soldier on given that I still had one recording deck) and then some years later the other). 


Courtesy of teflonpete formerly of this parish, I have a "backup" Yamaha single cassette deck in mint condition which is probably 27 years old, a cambridge audio amp, and some KEF studio monitors (untested but I am sure they are perfect). 

My turntable I got second hand about 16 months ago, a Rega Planar III with a Linn cartridge, I think it was either cherished/pampered, or unused, for about 20 years by previous owner.

So many people are discarding such equipment and also their physical media, in favour of streaming to a Bluetooth speaker. One does wonder about the long-term future of such processes. Even if the hardware lasts, the concepts may not, and someone may come along with something totally different to Bluetooth-type wireless communications, and streaming services will change and increase in price and some material may become unavailable due to rights and contracts....

I am sticking with the Luddite approach for now (well OK I do also stream music to Bluetooth speakers from my phone but I am not about to make that my sole source!)

In reply to Rob Parsons:

This tiny one:

https://www.bose.co.uk/en_gb/products/speakers/portable_speakers/soundlink-...

In my and my family's non-HiFi focused world it sounds perfectly fine (It sounds great actually) and has all the wifi/bluetooth connect-ability we could want.

In reply to mbh:

I m on the keep hold side , great little amp that was almost the bench mark starter amp in the 80s, also ,apologies if this has already been mentioned, but if your 3020 has a phono input then it s quite a good one (at the price ) . Lots of amps now and for quiet a few years have no phono stage , so the resurgence of vinyl has meant people either paying for a separate phono stage a buying a new amp. if you do sell make sure you get a premium for this alone.

In reply to mike123:

Aren't phono stages virtually a "dongle" pre-amp you can get for around £25?

In reply to Blue Straggler:i ve no idea how cheaper ones perform and i ve  only ever had amps that have them built in , if  you d asked me to guess I would have said you would need to pay upwards of  £100 for something half decent , a quick google seems to show £200 and up . whether it s worth spending that ? well theres a nice big cans of worms ! i would think that you wouldn't be doing your rega justice with a cheapy,

https://www.whathifi.com/best-buys/accessories/best-phono-preamps

In reply to Removed User:

Also got the Chromecast Audio and liked it so much I bought a second one. My NAD D 3020 V2 has Apt-X Bluetooth and optical in, so I can Bluetooth TV audio through it, use the Chromecast for streaming music, podcasts or radio and also have my CD player hooked up, although all my CDs are now ripped to FLAC, so the CD deck will be going to the loft.

Good as Bose-type speakers are, I still like to sit and listen to music and hear/see(?) the stereo imaging. I also think hifi speakers are prettier.

In reply to mike123:

Ha! I looked at the same one (funnily enough the top hit on Google, I wonder how that could possibly be!)

My Sherwood amp has a phono stage built in. My Rega sounds good to me. I may have cloth ears from standing close to speakers at loud concerts and from diving. 
 

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle / Hardonicus :

just had a look and you can get a chromcast on ebay for £70. I ve got an arcam bluetooth dac with optical in  that at the moment I use to connect my phone or ipad to my amp/speakers. It can be a bit glitchy (longish email chat with arcam didnt resolve this and  i gave up worrying). I m interested to hear a bit more about how you use the chromcasts ?

edit (sorry for hijack)

In reply to mike123:

Chromecast or Chromecast Audio on eBay? One's for telly and the other for, well, audio.

Basically you operate the UI of the app you want to cast on your device as normal but the Chromecast hardware streams the content rather than your phone, so you're free to use your device as normal without the audio interrupting whatever you've chosen to cast. Your device is effectively a remote control for the Chromecast and anyone with the Chromecast software can stop and change whatever is currently casting regardless of whether they put it on or not.

I paid £25 each for mine and they're by a stretch the best pound for pound I've spent on audio equipment.

In reply to Rob Parsons:

LOL, I knew that comment would get a response.

I've not dug into it too deeply but some seriously nerdy audiophiles (£10k might just pay for their speaker cables) I know, told me that hi res is almost as good. Sony seem to make similar claims with their hi res system also. 

In reply to artif:

If they're paying for £10k cables I have some crystals and tinctures that they will *love*. 

In reply to captain paranoia:

Quite. There's nothing wrong with preferring vinyl but claims that it gives a superior sound are piffle. Tonally neutral, it ain't.

T.

In reply to artif:

Might be time for this audiophile link again: https://www.russandrews.com/cable-elevators-set-of-2-42279990002/

Twenty quid for a couple of two-inch blocks of wood ...

(No harm in it if that's what you enjoy of course; at some level it's all just a hobby.)

In reply to Rob Parsons:

Wooden spikes are old school, they built concrete slabs into the floor, after they found a house with a room of the right dimensions for their hifi. Last time I saw them, one had just got some sort of magnetically suspended tone arm, and an air purifier/ioniser gadget.

Just found this if you're really serious https://audiolounge.co.uk/shop/clearaudio-goldfinger/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAvJXxBRC...

In reply to Rob Parsons:

..but if they are screwed to the floor and the floor vibrates... and between these supports they are hanging in the air...? I guess that's why the time has come again.

In reply to mbh:

My 3020 was nicked and replaced by a 3120 in 1985 ...still going strong and getting used, with a new lease of life making Spotify louder

In reply to steveriley:

B*******s! So is my 3020 (not yet nicked and not yet dead).

In reply to artif:

Now you're talking, baby! And what better way to power the turntable to which your 'Clearaudio – Goldfinger Statement Cartridge' is fitted than a £2000 mains cable from our old mate Russ! Just step right up at https://www.russandrews.com/the-superkord500-sdii-uk-mains-w350-evo-rhodium...

These 'friends' of yours, artif: do you think I could interest them in some of my Magic Beans?

In reply to Rob Parsons:

 Plus  another 150 for the burn in Unlikely they want the magic beans, they are tech geeks of the highest order, and have been playing with high end audio for decades.

I only got so far as a few hundred on speaker cables and some custom made interconnects made of some  unobtanium cable by said nerds. Lost the lot when my boat sank

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:

Google binned the Chromecast audio a year ago. Now people are trying their luck on ebay for silly amounts like £70.

Shame really as it was a great bit of kit.

In reply to Rob Parsons:

Back when high end CD players first came out a shop in Frankfurt was selling a machine for milling and lacquering the edges with green nail polish, supposedly to reduce light scatter within the disc. Supposedly that made the sound crisper and, wait for it,

.

.

.

.

.

.

also reduced noise and improved contrast in digital image files (slide scans) burned to CD.

Another, slightly more sensible shop nevertheless implored me to make sure that I install the speaker cables I had just bought (woven copper wire) with the printing on the sheath pointing towards the amplifier, otherwise the music would be ruined, RUINED I tells ya....

CB

In reply to mbh:

I well remember the party at which both my beloved 3020 and B&O speakers got burnt out 🙁

In reply to cb294:

Heheheh. I bought some pure copper 2-core from an electrical merchants for 60p/m.

In reply to cb294:

There are some sound scientific principles behind some of the most snake oily sounding audiofile areas of interest. Such as for instance the way copper cable is manufactured, through pulling  copper through a die, creates a unique crystalline structure that sounds better in one direction than the other. That said differences of that sort are only discernible once you start to go way up the food chain of high end audio. Also there are lots of people out there playing  on that sort of thing so probably for every one good product there's just as likely one BS one. 

There's an American guy called Paul McGowan, who owns and founded PS Audio one of the most well renowned US hifi manufacturers, he does a daily vlog on youtube discussing a lot of this stuff and the science behind it and often what's bullshit and whats not. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd_UBKioKrnbZl15gpk7pcDDvBrGLCCnr

All of that being said a lot of it is down to some things just sound better matched together. 

some fun geekery on a forum

(random find, I was looking for the article about the lawnmower cable)

https://theartofsound.net/forum/archive/index.php/t-41263.html

In reply to Frank4short:

I've been asleep in (in use) sound system bass bins more than once in my twenties. I'm not sure I'm crystalline structure-sensitive any longer.

In reply to Frank4short:

Directionality of cable might have had some credence were it not for the fact that the audio is AC and therefore current flows both ways, equally, in the cables.

In reply to Frank4short:

I work with time resolved single photon microscopes, where the single biggest factor contributing to the measurement uncertainty introduced by the  instrument is which side of the semiconductor layer of my avalanche photodiode an electron was hit by the photon I want to measure.

In these circumstances swapping the orientation of a cable means that you can start the entire calibration process over, but for that to be audible?  Speaker cables that are too thin, or lie on the floor in coils, all plausible, but orientation of a woven copper cable?

Absolutely no physiologcal way.

CB

In reply to GrahamD:

If that were the case then it would be impossible to have your cables out of phase/the wrong way around. Which it quite clearly is possible to do, which makes your point moot. 

In reply to cb294:

To paraphrase you've a really big complicated machine that's super sensitive to all kinds of things but you don't think it's sensitive to this? So therefore this couldn't possibly be the case?

Further to this is a significant proportion of your machine detached from an other part of your machine? Do you have to go to any lengths to make it work better because of this?

I have a somewhat fancy stereo, at least by most peoples standards. There are a couple of obvious weak links in it, which i'm working on if i can convince my wife they exist (harder than proving cable directionality). I don't know if it's a provable thing, i suspect loss in the cable in one direction may be greater than the other, this makes sense to me as an engineer. That said i have the cables installed the way the manufacturer recommended, I've not tried installing them the other way around to check if it makes a difference (but i suspect the previously mentioned weak links overcome any losses through cable management anyway), also the i try not to drag attention to matters stereo due to the aforementioned doubting wife. I'm not saying i definitively believe its a thing but the answers people provide in response frequently have major holes in them or conflate completely different yet seemingly comparable things. That said yes there are huge amounts of snakeoil being sold in hifi i'm just not definitively sure this is one of them. https://www.psaudio.com/askpaul/why-do-cables-have-direction/

In reply to mbh:

Damm you lot, I was supposed to be working today but ended drooling over high end turntables. Transrotor Artus is hitting the spot for shiny techy engineering just small matter of paying for it and the rest of the stuff to back it up

In reply to GrahamD:

and the frequency isn't high enough for the skin effect

In reply to Frank4short:

surely not, as even in high frequency circuits there is still a ground

and you couldn't have incorrect phase if they were steady DC

In reply to cb294:

I wonder if I swap my 50 ohm radio feeder around it might work better?

I suppose the outdoor end might have gone damp

In reply to artif:

Don't muck about with that rotating nonsense. Get some truly excellent engineering: a Matrix Audio Element X DAC

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/review-and-measu...

In reply to Frank4short:

McGowan is a woo merchant. Nothing he says is about science; it's all about bullshit woo. His products test badly.

In reply to Frank4short:

Er, no, can you imagine the non-linear distortion you would be getting if your wire had effectively a semiconductor effect?

In reply to Alkis:

I was thinking that - you'd probably generate harmonics of all the audio frequencies

In reply to captain paranoia:

do you think there might be a market for laser vinyl-readers?

In reply to wercat:

It has been tried, with only limited success:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_turntable

In reply to Harry Jarvis:

with the resurgence of vinyl perhaps its time has come

In reply to Alkis

Passive intermodulation would, but because you are using it on an AC waveform, there is as much distortion whichever way round you connect it.  It's all a bit irrelevant unless the speaker crossovers and voice coils are wound with similar spec wire.

In reply to Frank4short:

Swapping the polarity of the speaker connection will obviously make a difference (if done on one cable only) but that isn't the same as just reversing the cable.

In reply to Pursued by a bear:

https://www.e bay.co.uk/itm/X-10D-Musical-Fidelity-6N11-Tube-BufferStereo-Dual-Channel-Pr...

If anybody wants to get back to the softer sound of vinyl, this can be bought for £40-ish including P&P.

Edit: Remove the gap in the link.

https://www.stereophile.com/tubepreamps/873/index.html

Edit 2: Here's a review to tell you what it does, and if it might possibly be worthwhile. 

In reply to Timmd:

Just add a vinyl distortion effect into your digital media player... e.g.

https://www.google.com/search?q=vst+vinyl+effect

That's the tragedy of crap like the loudness wars. If you want to compress the shit out of music, you can do it at the player. But record companies were obsessed about 'going up to 11' over radio, or 'optimising' media for earbud/car playback. Again, both of these 'optimisations' can be performed by a modern digital playback device, at the user's discretion. So distributed media should be 'perfect'. Streaming services apply the same dumb logic, 'optimising' for some perceived LCD endpoint player.

In reply to mbh:

I only got rid of my 3020 (similar vintage) when one channel stopped working - and replaced it with another more recent NAD (model number escapes me). This now has a similar problem with one channel only working intermittently - which seems to be due to a crackly volume control. I'm left wondering if there was ever anything much wrong with the 3020 and if I should have had that repaired as I now have to get the replacement fixed! NAD owners out there try turning the volume up/ down if you get similar problems - they might be an easy fix!

In reply to Mick Bradshaw:

Intermittent contact on the wipers of any of the controls (volume, tone, selectors) is a common fault for old hi-fi, and one of the first things done during a service is to give a squirt of something like De-Oxit to clean the wipers. A good spin also helps.

In reply to pasbury:

I have to say the lack of likes and dislikes on this thread makes me want to post in it more.

To the OP

Keep the NAD and don't bother with the bose.  Be smug knowing that unlike the plonkers who bought sonos you'll be able to keep listening to your music for ages.  Bet it's more repairable too.

In reply to GrahamD:

Yeah, this is specifically talking about the claim that whichever way you connect your lead makes a difference to the signal, which would indicate it being a semiconductor.