Hi-Fi Honesty

[Lindsayt]

...To an extent i know what people mean with the lp12, but not the rega. But there again, it is not my place to say that someone is wrong for liking the rega, and i dont get the attitude of people who feel they have the right to say that someone is wrong for doing so.

Its that attitude that i have issue with, not the fact that they proclaim that x is better than y

What do you think is going on when there's 2 sets of people that have such polar opposite views of the Rega Planar 3?

1 set saying it's the best turntable of its' era short of an LP12.
Another set saying it was the turntable equivalent of AVI ADM9's.

It's clear that each set of people are convinced that the other set is wrong. You may not like people expressing their views that the other set of people are wrong. But that's the truth of the situation.
We could all be nicey nicey and diplomatic about it. Or we could be more forthright.
I don't mind someone disagreeing with me in forceful manner, as long as it doesn't descend into wide of the mark, ad hominem personal insults.

[Vinyl-ant]

Well thats the point isnt it. For some reason, these discussions always end up in a stupid row over black plastic.
Life is far too short for that.
If i have no dog in a race, its irrelevant to me which dog wins
I dont have an opinion on what another person likes and doesnt, why would i? Why should they care what i like and dont like.
The arguments over things like this are pointless because there is no right.
Just because something is said, it doesnt mean it needs to be responded to

[Vinyl-ant]

Edit: why do i think there are 2 sets of people with different opinions? Because they are looking for different things and have found what the want in different products

[Geoff.R.G]

Well thats the point isnt it. For some reason, these discussions always end up in a stupid row over black plastic.
Life is far too short for that.
If i have no dog in a race, its irrelevant to me which dog wins
I dont have an opinion on what another person likes and doesnt, why would i? Why should they care what i like and dont like.
The arguments over things like this are pointless because there is no right.
Just because something is said, it doesnt mean it needs to be responded to

Your opinion matters because you have more experience than most, for example you may be able to prevent someone from pairing an expensive moving coil cartridge with an unsuitable arm. Some combinations are never going to produce a good sound how much one might want them to. There might not be a “right” but there are clearly some wrongs where vinyl playback is concerned.

[Lindsayt]

Well thats the point isnt it. For some reason, these discussions always end up in a stupid row over black plastic.
Life is far too short for that.
If i have no dog in a race, its irrelevant to me which dog wins
I dont have an opinion on what another person likes and doesnt, why would i? Why should they care what i like and dont like.
The arguments over things like this are pointless because there is no right.
Just because something is said, it doesnt mean it needs to be responded to

On the other hand:

there's the poking the ants nest form of entertainment.
Why do blokes talk about football down the pub?

There is a right in this case. The Rega Planar 3 was pretty shit.

[Daniel Quinn]

Investigate when and how people formed thier opinion of a piece of equipment.

This is the single most important thing to know , it is also the thing that people don't offer

[DaveyTed]

If everyone thought, and listened, the same there would be very little choice on the market. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion without criticism. We should encourage helpful guidance such as suitable equipment pairing. For a hifi newcomer to read comments saying their turntable, or whatever, is crap or rubbish is hardly constructive.

[Geoff.R.G]

Well thats the point isnt it. For some reason, these discussions always end up in a stupid row over black plastic.
Life is far too short for that.
If i have no dog in a race, its irrelevant to me which dog wins
I dont have an opinion on what another person likes and doesnt, why would i? Why should they care what i like and dont like.
The arguments over things like this are pointless because there is no right.
Just because something is said, it doesnt mean it needs to be responded to

On the other hand:

there's the poking the ants nest form of entertainment.
Why do blokes talk about football down the pub?

There is a right in this case. The Rega Planar 3 was pretty shit.

I never talk football, I don’t know anything about it, I know somewhat more about the oval ball game with 15 players, which still isn’t much.

[savvypaul]

If everyone thought, and listened, the same there would be very little choice on the market. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion

I'm with you up to here...

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion without criticism.

And everyone is entitled to challenge any opinion, and back up why they disagree. That is (or should be) the core purpose of any forum. I'm assuming that we want to learn rather than be patted on the back. What we don't allow is personal attack (ad-hominem), but anyone can attack the content of anything that anyone says, as robustly as they want.

For a hifi newcomer to read comments saying their turntable, or whatever, is crap or rubbish is hardly constructive.

You would prefer that experienced listeners do not proffer opinions based on what they have heard?

[Geoff.R.G]

I like gear that gets out of the way of the music. I judge gear by how long (and how often) I want to listen to music for. Gear can only 'lose' music, so the best gear for me is that which loses the least of the music along the way, and doesn't obviously add anything of it's own - the least dirty window, for me, please. I could listen to a well fettled Lenco all day, I could listen to a 301 or a 401 for nearly as long, I suspect I could listen to a decent Technics for a long time.

When I owned a Linn LP12 (with Naim pre power and Linn Kans), around 20 of my records sounded fantastic, but most of the rest of my 2,000 records sounded a lot less engaging. I was left with the feeling that I was hearing the colouration of the LP12 more than I was hearing the music. A bit like applying a special effects filter.

I could write my review of the Rega 6 that I took a punt on and owned for a few months in one word - meh. It was mediocre at playing any genre of music. It was not a case of strengths and weaknesses; I cannot think of a single area of it's performance that I would rank as strong. I was much happier with a RP10 that I had on demo, though - one of the most engaging renditions of Jimmy Jazz by The Clash.

I think it's true that some gear does some things very well at the same time time as doing some other things quite badly, and I can hear how that suits certain genres better than others. The Klipsch Heresy are great for country, folk, punk etc, but poor on classical. But, they are known to be a certain flavour and I don't think that many people claim otherwise. The Quad 57s are magical at chamber music, but I doubt their ability to have me playing air guitar to White Noise by Stiff Little Fingers.

I think that some of the posts (both here and there) are talking about two subtly different things - performance of the gear vs personal preference. If someone said that the Rega 2 / 3 /6 was their favourite turntable (bar a Linn LP12), I would respect their personal preference but I would think that 'closest to the music' was perhaps not their overriding priority, or that they hadn't heard many other turntables. I would also factor in that one of human beings basic needs is to 'belong'. I have absolutely no doubt that some 'audiophiles' have a greater need for belonging, and you wouldn't 'belong' for long if you went on a forum of Linn and Rega devotees to tell them that they might be deaf.