Nordlys

Put it in the bucket I was given, a pink one, why does Thailand have only pink buckets?

They seem to have it in every color that is color of taxis.

Isn't it supposed to be auspicious to have Tokkay in the house!?

Lucky you you got such a close look. I never thought they look so charming.

I don't suppose you shot this in Bangkok? I could hear them in Bangkok when I was a kid. That's no more.

Nice. How have you configured the wiring? Does your Marantz have pre out to bypass its power or are you using two amps (bi-amping) to drive the Contour?

Other places include Hi-Fi center near Big C opposite Central World (Isetan) and Seacon Square but selection also limited. If you already know what brand you're looking for it's easy to find Thai distributor through manufacturer website. DECO 2000 in Amarin is also a big distributor dealing in quite a few high end brands but they don't have a showroom and most of what they sell are in their auditioning room which can only be visited by appointment.

Where is 4D digital now? They used to have a showroom at Ploenchit Center, where did they move to and what brands do they distribute now?

I don't know about other countries but many high end audiophiles in my country do actually assemble their own speakers, especially the older generations who love horns. Super Tweeter is also becoming something of a norm for many audiophiles, probably more so than sub woofer.

I wouldn't know what grade audio cables they use in recording studios. And it seems so unfathomable if not irrational why changing AC cables at the last 2 meters or so of the current downstream makes so much difference when the power line from power plant, cable from the pole mounted transformer to your house and electrical wire in wall conduit (from circuit breaker) remain untouched. But we all know it does. But regardless how good it is I think it should still be treated as an accessory for tweak and no more than that. The high end set up I've auditioned for Nordost cables demo two weeks ago sounded far better than mine even with Nordost's cheapest cable. In my opinion changing wall outlet to AV grade (or hospital grade) is far more cost effective way to improve sound (and visual) than cables. That said, I find changing interconnect cable from unbalanced (single ended = RCA connector) to balanced (XLR connector) tend to be a big bang for money if your components are designed on balanced circuit.

I very much question the ability of the human ear to hear the difference between good and standard cables, and between a wooden cabnet and a pressboard cabinet; my feeling is that whats good about nice cabnets is the way they look, not the way they sound.

I've never really compared the difference the rack makes (but I can easily tell the difference between speaker board and no speaker board) but it's fairly easy for me to tell the difference in cables, I know Benjie would disagree but even digital cable like HDMI. At AV fair in Bangkok just two weeks ago a sales rep from an American premium audio cable manufacturer Nordost has demonstrated the performance of their various cables step by step, beginning with their most affordable cable to their top-of-the-line cable costing over a million baht (ODIN) and second in line half a million Baht Valhalla (both AC, interconnect and speaker cables). The difference was overwhelming. I've spent some 200,000 baht on various audio cables and I've home auditioned most of them before I bought them (and many more I haven't bought). I wouldn't have spent that much money on cables if I couldn't tell the difference. That said, the question of whether you like it or if it's worth your money is another matter altogether. It doesn't make so much sense for me to buy a speaker cable costing close to 1.5 million baht that I've auditioned two weeks ago when my entire system costs less than that. But I'm sure it does to a few.

I'd say everything makes difference. Sometimes I wonder if even the weather might make the difference. I can tell my stereo doesn't sound all that same when I play it, mainly depending upon the quality of the AC mains. I live in a condominium and I can tell when on long holiday like new year and Songkran (when half the residents spend holidays away from condo) the sound quality is significantly improved with less noise contamination in AC mains. That is, even though I use a line conditioner and other power purification device regularly.

Your budget should be divided in a similar fashion 30% source - 30% amp - 30% speakers then

the other 10% for stands and cables

It's funny Neverdie said in another thread that the front end component (CD player, turntable, etc) matters the most while others say 90% of your budget should go into speakers. But I tend to agree with astral. I never intended to follow those rule of thumb when I started upgrading my 150,000 baht stereo to now-over a million baht set up over the span of some 6 - 7 years, starting first with amp (integrated to separate) then CD player and then speakers. I'm still in process of slowly upgrading piece by piece, but when all the component upgrade was finished I realized their cost was almost equally divided in three (separate amp 300K baht, SACD player 300K baht, speakers 280K baht). I never really intended to spend that much when I started the upgrade with the amp, but then I wasn't really happy with the sound yet it never stopped till I replaced them all (with the exception of the speaker cables). The only difference is I spent far more than 10% of the entire cost of the set up on cables, rack, isolation device, power purification devices and other accessories for tweak.

believe MBL distributor is KS & Sons.

Does Piyanas sell anything from RGPC (Richard Gray's Power Company)? It doesn't seem to be listed on their website...

haha... aren't we all biased toward our own system? There was no question the demo set up sounded far better than mine (albeit the demo amp was integrated) but I kept thinking to myself "millions of baht and only this good?". True, it was really hard to judge the quality in that environment with all that noises, chatters, gears contaminating mains and home pro-grade wall outlets. I guess you ultimately have to home audition to determine the quality and I guess that's part of why I didn't buy XRT QX4 regardless the discount was so tempting it seemed like too good a deal to pass.

Yeah that Nordost sales rep had really strong Scandinavian accent it wasn't easy for me to understand him. Wonder what's with all that unprecedented bargain on high end gears? I wonder if that's because of the economy in US and elsewhere that has surely hit the market and slowed the sales that they are dumping products in markets outside U.S., Europe and Japan? Do you know Hovland (distributed by DECO 2000) has gone out of business in this recession?

So did you get anything yesterday Carl?

I spent almost entire afternoon there but only at 3 DECO booths, one of them dedicated only to Nordost products with a Scandinavian sales rep from Nordost giving presentations and doing demo on both their cheapest AC, signal and speaker cables comparing it with their top-of-the-line Valhalla and a million baht Odin series cables. I'm not that big a fan of Nordost but was very keen on auditioning their Quantum Resonance Technologies QTX4 (power purification device) which they were selling for 100,000 baht with their power distribution block (power strip), which would normally sell for more than 158,000 baht a set. It seemed like such a good deal (cheaper than U.S.) that I almost took advantage of the promotion but ended up against it as they only gave 20% discount for QTX4 alone (didn't find a need to have 50,000 baht power strip) and upon multiple auditioning I've determined it's not such a big bang for money albeit numerous positive reviews. It just didn't exceed my expectation. I actually went there to buy Ayre AC cables, but upon learning there's no promotion on Ayre accessories I've ended up buying 60,000 baht's worth of Nordost Brahma AC cable and 12,000 baht's worth Nordost Silver Screen HDMI cable (2m). Couldn't resist 40% discount!

AX-7e can be upgraded to MP. I did the MP upgrade on my K-5Xe (pre) for 16,000 baht. There was significant improvement in sound quality that it was much better worth for money than tweaking with accessories costing more.

If you're looking for integrated amp you should also consider Ayre AX-7eMP.

Probably as good as Accuphase and McIntosh (if not better) while most likely cheaper. Accuphase is way overpriced in Thailand and McIntosh distributor really sucks. AX-7e used to sell for 120K baht but they should have raised the price since the MP upgrade.

http://www.ayre.com/products_detail.cfm?productid=12

You will appreciate the weight of the SLR pressed against your head to steady it for the shot.

...while it's getting harder and harder to appreciate the weight of it on your shoulder and neck...

Does this model have a clip on view finder for the top of the camera?

It does, both the EVF and optical view finder (both optional).

What is HT??

Nice speakers JackA. What brand is it? DynaAudio?

I thought Schroers & Schroers is made of acrylic rather than glass.

The high end audio/visual distributor DECO 2000 sells U.S. made Stillpoints and Japanese made TAOC racks. I've paid 45,000 baht for this TAOC (picture below) that I use for both the TV and HiFi components. It's base price is 36,000 baht but I've paid extra for spike and spike plates and ordered longer lower shelf columns so that the power amp have more overhead clearance for better heat dissipation as standard column only gave 7cm clearance for power amp. Stillpoints is suspension type acrylic rack and do not have wide racks like TAOC for flat panel TV and way more expensive than TAOC (80K baht or so for most basic model).

Here's the link to TAOC A/V racks (in Japanese only).

http://www.taoc.gr.jp/products_rack.html

ai ai! 11-14 March is the hi-fi and AV show. This year at the Ambassador Hotel, Sukhumvit 11 (avtat.com). If anyone wants to meet up and go for a couple of hours let me know.

Is this the "What Hi-Fi" show? Do you know what distributor is participating the event? DECO 2000? I might go on Sat.

Depends on how you define "top brand" but I use Aerial Acoustics and it is one of the few high end brands that manufactures speakers for both pure audio and home theater application (and a bit more expensive than BOSE). The distributor is Deco 2000 and its showroom is in Amarin Plaza with direct access to BTS Chidlom station.

http://www.aerialacoustics.com/products/index.aspx

I believe there is a Bose shop at Siam Paragon Mall.

Yes, BOSE showroom on the 3rd floor of Siam Paragon in the row of high end audio/visual shop showrooms on the south side.

but I thought you're half way there in that direction...

And are you sure your investment and upgrade will stop with 7D and 24-105F4L?

You might soon find 30,000 baht to be a small fraction of your total investment in camera gears.

Took this one this morning with my Nokia phone.

Just wanted to show to Nordlys that the Canon lens 24-105mm is more balanced on the Canon 7D than on the Canon 450D.

And conversely that the Canon kit lens 17-55mm was well balanced on the Canon 450D.

You didn't have to do it as I never doubted that.

After all those cheapo kit lenses were designed for entry level dSLR like 450D and 24-105mm was designed essentially as a de facto kit lens for 5D. It sure is well balanced in terms of weight and size with 7D as I understand it's about the same weight and size as 5D Mk2.

The 7D is better for sport and wildlife photography thanks to its cropped factor (a 200mm has the reach of a 320mm) and its faster continuous shooting at 8 fps. And also better for video recording.

I think it's rather misleading to say 7D is "better" in sport and wildlife than 5D or if 200mm lens has a reach of 320mm on 7D. 200mm lens has a "reach" of 200mm lens whatever the body you use it on, it's not like you get more magnification on cropped sensor body than full frame because if you crop the shot of a subject in the same distance from full frame's image you'd essentially get 7D (why they're called "cropped sensor"). That said, smaller sensor and less pixels means faster and thus high fps of 8 over 3.3 of 5D Mk2 which surely makes 7D more advantageous and suitable for sport and wildlife photography.

Both camera bodies are about the same weight, I think the 7D is even a bit heavier than the 5D.

So you never even bothered to compare with 5D Mk2 in the shop and chose 7D simply because it's 30,000 baht cheaper? I mean each to their own and nothing's wrong about your choice, but I don't quite understand why anyone would go for 7D over 5D Mk2 for mere 30,000 baht difference when it's as big and heavier than 5D, or for that matter, what kind of niche market Canon had in their mind when they developed and marketed 7D (or is it only D300 that they had in mind?)? I mean it's like 7D has all the feature, spec and build quality of the high end, except for a big sensor which is essentially what identifies pro and high amateur models as pro and high amateur. It seems to make more sense to me if they came up with a full frame camera in the spec and build quality of 450D at the price of 7D.

What lens did you use?

I still don't get it....

Wouldn't it better that you set the ISO lower if you want to achieve slower shutter speed or am I missing something?

Even if someone can troubleshoot at component level and has the skill to replace the part with soldering iron how do you go about sourcing the part? I've paid close to 30,000 baht when I replaced the logic board of my PowerBook years ago. I'd say save that money for a new MBP.

I've seen a Japanese working as a sales at Toyota Libra, a joint venture between a Toyota dealer in northern Japan (Aomori) and Toyota Tsusho, a trading arm of Toyota Motor. But none in aftersales.

Whilst I can see all the advantages you are putting forward, I fear it would not work for me.

Checking http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/PanasonicGF1/ the viewfinder is the screen on the back?

I shall be 63 in 2 weeks time and simply cannot hold a camera steady at arms length.

I have tried with friend's point and shoot jobs, and also my mobile phone. I cannot do it.

The DSLR, pressed against my eye, and head, is no problem.

They provide optional EVF. But micro 4/3 camera + EVF is almost as big as Olympus E-520/420 class 4/3 SLR, only thinner (and if not more expensive in total cost). I'm not sure between micro 4/3 + EVF and Olympus E520/420 if I want to buy the former simply because it's mirrorless.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/PanasonicGF1/page6.asp