Hi people, nice to meet you all, i'm new on this group and it's a pleasure for me to post here; I'm from Italy and my name's Massimo; my setup is NAD 542 cd player, Kef Q7 speakers and i've just bought a Sony TA F707 ES amp(the one with the wood on the sides) anyone got opinions on this amp and can tell me how good is this amp?(my signal cable is VDH hybrid and speaker cables are VanDen Hul biwired Royal Jade) My previous amp that i sold was an Harman Kardon HK3480 and i still got an old technics SU 8080 that i want to sell. Thanks Max
not fantastic but not the usual sony, "not upto par type stuff"
J. Vigne
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Posted on
Massimo - Ciao! I see you are in Lazio. Are you North or South of Roma? You must be close to the sea. Can you tell me about any of the Italian audio products? Unico has been getting good press over here. I believe they are manufactured in Treviso, up in the Veneto. Do the Italian shops sell Italian audio or mostly what is imported from other countries?
I'm in Lazio, 80 km north of Rome just near Bolsena's Lake ; Italian products are growing and growing in quality standards...mostly on shops it's easier to find U.S. , Jap or U.K. brands...Fort that regarding electronics(amps, sources) maybe the italian best sellers are amongst Audio Analogue; it's Puccini entry line has still got high quality at an affordable price; Maestro Top Line is considered to be cheaper than exotic U.S. amps and maybe better sounding...For that regarding speakers we don't trust so much on Italian speakers(ok the new sonus faber stradivari are pretty damn cool!!) so on 90% of the cases we prefer to buy from Big Brands like B&W, Kef, Tannoy, Klipsch...the best italian speakers are surely sonus faber...and then in Italy there are many "artisans" that make very good amps like Graaf from Modena for example , but mostly they are valve amps, not solid state, and the cheapest is 5000 euros(6000$) too much for me... The best compromise, as i stated before, on italian brands is surely Audio Analogue, very well built and most important very good sound; i don't know the prices for AA in U.S.A. here for doing an example a puccini integrated amp is 550 euros street price and for a Maestro Preamp+ 2 Maestro monoblocks finals it's 18000 euros (not very cheap...) However not so much people here spend all that money on amps...we prefer to stay under 2000 euros in 99 % of the cases... if you have other questions feel free to ask! Gladly Massimo
J. Vigne
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What type of music do you listen to personally? I have a satelite dish for TV that has "Italian" music on one channel. There is lots of Frank Sinatra, Vic Damone, Dean Martin and "crooners" from the 50's and 60's. They will occassionally play "O Sole Mio" and a few typical Italian restaraunt type pieces and then a new piece that seeems totally out of place. Of course we have "Mob Hits" as our current idea of Italian music. Those of us with Italian heritage just smile and go along. The dollar to euro exchange is very much against those of us in the U.S. buying European goods. The Unico has gone from $1295 to $1895 in the past 18 months. The Pucinni is around $1500 with remote (may be more now, that price was from a posting over a year old) and the Stradivari's are selling for $40,000. Several of us on this forum have been listening to tubes. You say that tubes seem to dominate the Italian high end, do you have any idea why? Lastly, for now, have you been to the Cinque Terre?
sure i've been on the cinque terre, beautiful place, but there are many better places to visit here...the italian songs you told me are only for nostalgics, like saiyng that all americans listen to elvis presley; with a difference; in Italy we don't have big artists, in fact italian modern music is only for silly teenagers or for losers (apart maybe zucchero; a sort of drunk bluesman that do good songs).Tube vs Amps...my brother is a guitarist and a guitar teacher, i think that for him tubes have more sense that for us on HIFI...if you consider the pro and cons of tubes and solid states you have to admit that practically they have the same value in HIFI, or maybe the solid state is slightly better (fast response, better transients), also , the tubes have for me many flaws; they burn out fast (my brother have to change them every 6 months) , they are microphonic, so normally here in Italy even in high end we prefer solid state; as i stated some artisans produce tube amps in very little numbers mainly for the export (for the rich japaneses or americans that didn't care of spending for an amp the same price of a car) And finally, in Italy we don't like very much local products; we know that they haven't got the same quality of german, or USA brands, an example for all,on Cars (except ferrari naturally even if even in this case i have to admit that a ferrari is built to last 100000 km, on the other side a porsche can do 10 times this road w/out problems) we buy only alfa romeos, lancias because they are cheaper than bmw's or mercedes or audi, maybe italians are stilish, but lacks in qualiti and reliability, so mainly we buy Mercedes, BMW's...the same is for HIFI equipment; most of the Made in Italy is Made for Export, where there is people that wanna spend much money only for reading "made in italy" .
J. Vigne
Unregistered guest
Posted on
So, tell me, where is better than the cinque terre? My ancestors came from Piemonte. The family was from a small town at the foot of Mont Blanc, a village called Susa. I understand it can get very chilly in the area. My great grandfather's diary tells of him being in the military and traveling around most of Northern Italy in the 1860's. It is true, here in the States, the label "Made in Italy" means you will get something special. We finally learned Fiats don't run well over here, neither do Lancias which we regarded as high end Fiats that ran three days out of the week. There is an occassional Alpha, older ones, though I don't know how or where they acquire parts. I keep hearing that Italy is changing and what we assume over here to be "Italy" is disappearing except to please the tourists. Apparently pasta and wine are not going out of style. I don't know if you have heard of our obsession with the Atkin's diet which severly restricts anything other than protiens. My local Italian deli says it has really hurt their sales of pasta and anything other than meats and cheeses. What do you do for a living? Is your town part of the tourist trade?