Okay, perhaps last one from Audio Fest ... an example of a setup getting it right ...

Awww, just one more !

The intensity, immersiveness of live music ... this is what it's about, getting the power, and finesse, as it should be.

People talking about visually appealing speakers ... curious, I looked to YT for what may be on offer ... and came up with this one,

Okay, "beauty is in the eyes of the beholder" - and to my eyes, these work well. Unfortunately, such a design doesn't lend itself to competent SQ - and the sound in this clip has obvious quirks.

Paul at PS Audio is doing some good things, and understands the "disappearing speaker" thing - this is an instance of the type of presentation that results. Note in particular how at one stage in this clip the recording device is taken completely around a speaker, without losing the sense of the event,

And, as an example of how he considers this to be perfectly reasonable, as something achievable in relatively normal settings,

The next step,

Note the key thing he says, that the illusion really starts to fail when he gets very, very close to the speaker to one side. Here he does exactly what I do, get up close and personal to an individual speaker, to check the integrity of the illusion - now, this pivots on the SQ emerging from that speaker - too low, and the mirage fades; sufficiently high, the ear/brain can't 'break' the desire of one's mind to accept what is being projected, irrespective of how close you get.

A change of pace, here - the point of my posting this here is not the sound of a rig, but rather the impressions of the creator of this video of the PS Audio speaker setup, at the Montreal show,

His thoughts start at 20:00, and I thought were a very good example of how the "typical audiophile" could react to accurate reproduction from a system. Couched in the language of enthusiasts, it is a good account of how the replay would strike many of them; and explains why a good proportion of people coming from that angle would not be impressed - it doesn't tick the boxes for how they think a rig should sound; it's not what they're used to, and would be rejected as "not their thing".

One I just came across ...

Now, I don't agree with absolutely everything in this clip, but what it nails is the attitude to have - and how to go about things. The point is, don't be certain that you know what is important - the having an open mind thing seems to be extremely hard for some people to do, but is essential to make movement happen ... the process whereby this chap worked out what was relevant and what didn't matter reminds me very much of my own journey - you play with things which are very cost effective, to get answers ... and thereby learn.

Where a lot of high end seems to be trapped these days,

Trapped? Yes, the sound is 'trapped' inside the system - by the end of the clip I'm pretty bored, there's nothing to hold my interest - time to walk out of the room ... .

Why is this? Unfortunately, too many obvious defects in the sound; the cost of the gear is not a solution ... what to do next?

Been trying to find a recent clip that emphasises what the Wadax digital gear gets right - and they seem a bit rare, for some reason, .

So, came across this one, which nicely contrasts that sound with others, using same recording gear ... starts at 4:35,

Workin' nicely ... no complaints ...

Just posted, from a current show ... an example of getting the sound right; very obvious the case, because it ticks so many boxes ... but I wonder how many "audiophiles" are able to appreciate this?

Okay, latest audio show, equipment of very good reputation, CH Precision, doing a track which should have plenty of guts,

Hmmm ... sorta getting somewhere, but still way down on delivering the sort of punch, intensity and size that a rig like this should do - why? All the usual reasons ... using tracks like this makes it easy to pinpoint shortcomings, which are very obvious here - but unless someone goes to the effort of properly sorting a setup like this, the potential will never be realised ...

Right, equipment that should produce top notch sound - but it doesn't. Yes, plenty of space, many aspects of the track are clearly evident - but, it's glary, the treble is not right; and this type of SQ would be very irritating to live with.

Why? Same old problem ... clearly audible distortion resulting from some shortcomings in how the system has been set up. What are they? Would have no idea until one could do some experiments, to isolate the weak link(s) in the situation.

The absurdity is that such very expensive, and highly regarded gear still struggles to be accurate, in spite of being assembled by people who would have a strong interest in it sounding its best. And this continues to be the theme in the industry; that it is so hard to extract completely satisfying sound from equipment that should find it a pushover to nail the presentation ... the slowness of progress in developing understanding of what needs to dealt with, to get best sound, remains the elephant in the room ...

Interesting one ... not good as a means of picking trouble areas - easy to get away with crap SQ on guitar workouts; but is a good demo of how a rig should throw up Big Sound, and do it effortlessly,

And looked again, at that last YouTube channel ... yes, a recording which points out issues which weren't noticeable in my previous post, of that setup,

"Too much" sound ... it's now uncomfortably in your face, transients are over emphasised - so, no cigar, .

Nice find ... a good example of the Wadax DAC presenting competent SQ; many captures of rigs on YouTube using these units are well below the standard they should be,

Good to come across a setup that does AC/DC well; using 300b valves!

This speaker demo seems to have attracted a lot of attention,

Well, nope ... !! Nothing against the speakers, but this is exactly the sort of sound I don't want a bar of ... lots of "hifi" tizz, and as soon as it gets busy the cringe factor goes up plenty of notches ... the fact that this is considered so highly shows where a large part of the audiophile world is, still .

Was there good sound at this Pacific show? Yes ...

All the markers of capable SQ are in place - it's around, if you know how to look for it ... .

16 hours ago, fas42 said:

Was there good sound at this Pacific show? Yes ...

All the markers of capable SQ are in place - it's around, if you know how to look for it ... .

Probably thanks to due care being taken with cable management? 

4 hours ago, Confused said:

Probably thanks to due care being taken with cable management? 

 

Yes ... think of achieving competent SQ as akin to reaching equilibrium, in something like having a tall object not fall over. Now, there are two states of equilibrium, unstable and stable - an example of the former would be a microphone stand balancing upside down on its pointy end, one of the latter would be the same stand sitting on its feet, as designed ... now, which do we want?

IME, unstable is much, much easier than stable, as regards getting convincing reproduction. That is, the desired status may be reached - but the slightest perturbation wrecks it. Which means that not having the cables exactly right undoes all your good work. Which we don't want. The end goal is to be able to be as casual as you like about setup, and the rig always delivers. The system in the clip, at least in this example, seems to be in better shape than most; is, "more stable" - and therefore the state of the cables it's using is less relevant.

A situation which I'm looking at right now is the optical link between the cheap DVD player and cheap active speakers. If the waveform is "good enough", then the speakers deliver top notch sound, I have no complaints. But the quality of that waveform is dependent on the conditioning of the players electricals, and how well the disk has seated - I can badly damage the SQ by opening and closing the drawer, and then fix it by repeating the exercise; it's purely a random thing as to whether the seating is going to be good enough. Obviously undesirable, and another example of unstable equilibrium; just like cables not being 'right' ... .

One works towards stable equilibrium ... which means you could, say, tie all the cables together in a savage knot if you liked, and it not affect the SQ. But often care 'in balancing' reaps large rewards - so, you would be silly not to take advantage of such methods ...

Will just using the very 'best' of the latest thinking ensure competent replay, always? No, we are still not there yet, and this clip is a good example of that ... even though based on the Wadax DAC, and just calculate the cost of what you're listening to, this reproduction is highly flawed ...

Chanced across this capture of a rig - nicely done, no complaints from me on this one,

A just found example of what many people expect driving rock to sound like on an audio system,

This is all wrong, of course - nice and grungy, PA quality stuff. The actual recording is nothing like this, is as clean and full of detail as the "best recordings" ... .

So, why do people put up with this? Partly, because that's what they're used to, what they expect, and because it sounds like what hearing the group through a PA system would be like ... but, it's not accurate to the original recording. Not at all.

Of course, if this makes you happy, all well and good. However, there is another version of such tracks that can be heard ... and that is, a correct rendition of the content. Which I find quite amazing to hear - because it has such depth of detail, clarity, dynamics, and richness to the experience .

Another example of how SQ degrades on many rigs, over some minutes, as the music proceeds,

I suspect very few will be able to hear this happening, but one can train oneself to pick up the signature - if one listens to the start of the clip, and then the end, the variation in the quality is quite marked.

Why does this happen? All sorts of reasons, to do with the fact that even the most expensive rigs have weaknesses in their implementation, and the way they are assembled.

What to do about it? Only fastidious attention to detail will eradicate all the causes of such issues; get this right, and all the annoying loss of quality behaviours will be tamed - meaning, effortless listening over any length of time, for any type of recording one chooses to have play ...