On 12/21/2023 at 4:23 PM, fas42 said:

the gear used is almost completely irrelevant

8 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Quality of the equipment, as a working system, is paramount

You might want to ease off the intoxicating substances Frank. 

14 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

You might want to ease off the intoxicating substances Frank. 

I take it you didn't understand the significance of the phrase, "as a working system" - consider, a bad Monday morning assembled Porsche, which has so many things wrong with it, that the dealer dumps it - many bits of brilliance in parts can't compensate for too many problems ...

Just now, kumakuma said:

 

Expecting others to "grok" all of the nuances of your bizarre belief system seems unreasonable to me.

My "bizarre belief system" tells me that what you hear is the recording, plus all the artifacts of the playback chain not behaving itself, "perfectly".

Other people's apparently highly rational viewpoint is that adding more and more expensive bits to a rig keeps "making it better", ad infinitum; and turns quite reasonable recordings into unlistenable earache.

I'm quite happy with my 'belief system', thank you

20 minutes ago, fas42 said:

I take it you didn't understand

I never understand you. 

1 minute ago, fas42 said:

I'm quite happy with my 'belief system', thank you

That’s really what matters. 
 

It is bizarre though. I know of nobody with even similar beliefs. 

4 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I never understand you. 

No prob's ... in turn, I can't understand how audio enthusiasts can listen to badly distorting, highly expensive machinery, and think they're in a good place ..

2 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Other people's apparently highly rational viewpoint is that adding more and more expensive bits to a rig keeps "making it better", ad infinitum

 

I don't know anyone who believes this.

2 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

That’s really what matters. 
 

It is bizarre though. I know of nobody with even similar beliefs. 

I've bumped into a few over the years. The audio friend up the road groks the approach, now ... and this means at times I get to enjoy some remarkable good playback from his well tweaked setups ...

2 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

I don't know anyone who believes this.

I take it you don't read posts in audio forums, then ...

6 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

I take it you don't read posts in audio forums, then ...

I have better uses of my time.

This post,

explains why I come a completely different direction from most ... in this comment,

Quote

 

I don't know which decision where in the chronology of events was most critical, whether that cable was important really or not, or which combination of gear did the trick. I have a fair degree of certainty about some things like room treatments but at the end of the day I am not completely certain of anything except somewhere it fell into place.

Quote

I would say it took over 20 years. While I am very open to improvements I finally became pleased with what I have. I can listen to the music, recording permitting, without the gear intruding

 

For me, this happened in a 1 to 2 year period. In the 1980s. So I have had plenty of time to reflect upon things. And to refine my understanding.

What I do here is attempt to to entice people into taking shortcuts ... rather than, go through that, "over 20 years" journey ...

2 minutes ago, fas42 said:

This post,

 

explains why I come a completely different direction from most ... in this comment,

 

 

For me, this happened in a 1 to 2 year period. In the 1980s. So I have had plenty of time to reflect upon things. And to refine my understanding.

 

What I do here is attempt to to entice people into taking shortcuts ... rather than, go through that, "20 years" journey ...

The nice thing about the internet is that we can cherry pick quotes to support any belief we have.

For example, here's one from same person in the same thread that sums you up in nutshell:

Quote

 

The credibility of an expert is often inversely proportional to their degree of certainty.

 

My index of suspicion increases exponentially to the degree the expert is self taught - the illusion of knowledge, ability to dupe ourselves, and overestimation of one's own abilities, all become steroid boosted.

 

6 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

The nice thing about the internet is that we can cherry pick quotes to support any belief we have.

 

For example, here's one from same person in the same thread that sums you up in nutshell:

 

 

You really have a problem with me, don't you? Unfortunately, you appear to live in the world where one follows Recognised Authority Figures ... which sometimes works. And sometimes not.

13 minutes ago, fas42 said:

you appear to live in the world where one follows Recognised Authority Figures ... which sometimes works. And sometimes not.

I'm not really a Follower of Authority Figures, Recognized or Otherwise, but, if forced to choose, I suspect they are more likely to be correct than some Rando on the Internet.

In most fields, they do an excellent job. But in audio, for some reason, a solid foundation of understanding, capable of withstanding any querying, has never properly surfaced. IMO. Which in part has led to this ongoing, bitter feud between the subjectivists, and objectivists ...

4 minutes ago, fas42 said:

In most fields, they do an excellent job. But in audio, for some reason, a solid foundation of understanding, capable of withstanding any querying, has never properly surfaced. IMO.

No idea if this is correct or not.

All I know is that much of what you preach contradicts the experiences of only the Authority Figure that matters to me.

53 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

Yeah, I didn't go to the Frank school of fine audio.

 

here's the thing Frank, I wager should a group of AS members visit your house and take a listen to your gear, (take measurements should they be so inclined), their overall listening conclusions would not match what you hear. While this may apply to us all, if tables were turned, I anticipate that the discrepancy would be largest at your house.

 

This is not to say your method doesn't work for you - just that, from all I can 'grok' - it likely only works for you...and that guy down the road.

I've already had the "audiophiles visiting the house" experience. And as you suggest, it won't work, many times ... they will put on their test tracks, and if it doesn't sound like a superior version of what they "expect it to sound like", then it will be a fail . I have a member of the family who comes from this angle - he's decided what some music "should sound like!", and if what he hears doesn't match up, then he finds fault. At the last audio show, he came to - and preferred the budget rig, as compared to the premium setup, in one room; because it made a specific track sound like what he was after ...

The system's purpose, for me, is to put on any recording - and it works as a listening experience ... that means, any volume from whisper quiet, to blowing out the windows, is satisfying to listen to. And also any musical genre and time of recording. If someone wants a rig to pinpoint how bad, "bad recordings" are, then they will be disappointed in what I aim for.

53 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

We both enjoy our respective audio systems, that's the main thing

 

 

 

Yes, indeed. From the sound of it, what you have now would be good to listen to ... if the recordings you approve of, are played, .

4 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

I've already had the "audiophiles visiting the house" experience. And as you suggest, it won't work, many times ... they will put on their test tracks, and if it doesn't sound like a superior version of what they "expect it to sound like", then it will be a fail

The only criterion should be sounds lifelike to their ears - that would be the "test" and what I would ask them to assess. I just don't think it would match your assessment would be my best guess here.

2 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

The only criterion should be sounds lifelike to their ears - that would be the "test" and what I would ask them to assess. I just don't think it would match your assessment would be my best guess here.

At these times I always think back to a time at a Sydney audio club, when 2 rigs were demo'ed. One threw out a deep sense of an acoustic, the sound "lifted out of the speakers"; the other did the classic hifi thing, you could hear the drivers working away, no matter where you listened. And besides me was a well known hifi reviewer, active on a 'regarded' Internet site ... his choice? Guess ... .

And just prior to noting your post, I looked up that well known Audio Glossary,

Quote

Realism
Good: aliveness, ease, delicacy, involvement, musicality, naturalness, palpable, realism, transparency
Not Good: boring, colored, dead, distorted, lifeless, uninvolving

Exactly.

Far more gratifying is a visit by those completely uninterested in the hifi game, with a thumbs up response resulting, as mentioned here,

And someone mildly interested in audio who loved classical, many rigs and years ago, who got very nervous as the piece started. She knew how it ended, and for her the volume was going to be "too much!", at that point. Which it wasn't, of course - the crescendo "rolled over the top of you" - just as it does when hearing such material, live.

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

At these times I always think back to a time at a Sydney audio club, when 2 rigs were demo'ed. One threw out a deep sense of an acoustic, the sound "lifted out of the speakers"; the other did the classic hifi thing, you could hear the drivers working away, no matter where you listened. And besides me was a well known hifi reviewer, active on a 'regarded' Internet site ... his choice? Guess ... .

 

And just prior to noting your post, I looked up that well known Audio Glossary,

 

Quote

Realism
Good: aliveness, ease, delicacy, involvement, musicality, naturalness, palpable, realism, transparency
Not Good: boring, colored, dead, distorted, lifeless, uninvolving

Frank, it may have been that the person of which you speak thought your preference was the "classic HiFi thing" and the words you quoted defining realism didn't apply to your choice.

3 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

In my case, what I have is great to listen to... except for a few albums that are fatally flawed.

 

JRiver says that it would take 2.61 years to listen to my collection if I played it from start to finish, 24 hours a day, so there's really no need to run extension cords though my kitchen, pile newspapers on my speakers, or solder all of my connections together in order to try to fix the stinkers in my library.

AWW MAN - I only have 290.4 days according to JRiver 31...

I guess I have to look harder 😁

As far as badly recorded. I love Bob Mould but anything he records doesn't sound good at all.  I still have my moods, ya know.