Good afternoon everyone:
One of my neighbors is in the market for an old school vinyl record player, an amplifier and two decent speakers (I didn't know that people even listened to vinyl anymore, by the way, but fortunately they still do apparently).
His budget is about $5 k max for everything. He went to a local store, listened to a Teac turntable connected to a Marantz amplifier and Martin Logan speakers. He liked them, but he thought that the speakers sounded a bit "tinny". The sales guy told him that the woofers need to be broken in before they give the full bass response.
What do you guys think, nonsense, or may there be some truth in it? I read stories about headphones that need to be "broken in" by having them play pink noise or just all kinds of genres for a day or so but as far as I am concerned speakers should sound great straight out of the box. If they sound "tinny", that means their bass response is probably not enough. There ain't no substitute for cubic inches. Or he might get a subwoofer just to handle the low end.
If I were in his position I'd probably go on eBay and look for a pair of excellent speakers from any generation, and ditto for the record player and amplifier. The critical component in the chain are probably the speakers, then the turntable (and decent cartridge with new needle), and then the amplifier.
We both live in an artist loft, by the way, with 15 foot high ceilings and a beautiful but very noisy wooden floor, so a smart thing to do in any scenario is to set aside a small budget for some acoustic room treatment and at the least decoupling pads to keep the neighbors below happy. He's a good carpenter so he can probably make beautiful panels himself which would beat any commercially available panels, at least in the looks department.
Any thoughts / suggestions?
Thanks!
One of my neighbors is in the market for an old school vinyl record player, an amplifier and two decent speakers (I didn't know that people even listened to vinyl anymore, by the way, but fortunately they still do apparently).
His budget is about $5 k max for everything. He went to a local store, listened to a Teac turntable connected to a Marantz amplifier and Martin Logan speakers. He liked them, but he thought that the speakers sounded a bit "tinny". The sales guy told him that the woofers need to be broken in before they give the full bass response.
What do you guys think, nonsense, or may there be some truth in it? I read stories about headphones that need to be "broken in" by having them play pink noise or just all kinds of genres for a day or so but as far as I am concerned speakers should sound great straight out of the box. If they sound "tinny", that means their bass response is probably not enough. There ain't no substitute for cubic inches. Or he might get a subwoofer just to handle the low end.
If I were in his position I'd probably go on eBay and look for a pair of excellent speakers from any generation, and ditto for the record player and amplifier. The critical component in the chain are probably the speakers, then the turntable (and decent cartridge with new needle), and then the amplifier.
We both live in an artist loft, by the way, with 15 foot high ceilings and a beautiful but very noisy wooden floor, so a smart thing to do in any scenario is to set aside a small budget for some acoustic room treatment and at the least decoupling pads to keep the neighbors below happy. He's a good carpenter so he can probably make beautiful panels himself which would beat any commercially available panels, at least in the looks department.
Any thoughts / suggestions?
Thanks!