What is "better" sound to you?

[mayhem13]

Wow.......lots of views and no replies? Hmmmmmmm

 

Well let me break the ice here.

 

'Better' sound? Not a subjective question really so I'll avoid a subjective response.

Full frequency spectrum is essential....flat +/- 3db from 20hz to 20khz.

Low distortion products across the board

A noise floor of the system that's below the ambient noise floor of the space

Dynamic capabilities to 110db peaks when called for.

Constant directivity from 500hz and up.

A controlled reverberant field.

Balanced power response.

Good recordings to feed the above.

[mayhem13]

(Grin) I forgot to add the poll I intended to add.

 

Can you expand just a little on what you mean by a controlled reverberant sound field? Are you talking room acoustics or the design of the speaker?

 

Yours,

-Paul

 

Sure

 

John touched on some points that relate to control. On the system side, where midbass and bass in concerned, impulse or step response is going to define the sound. Six to eight inch woofers although sold as such, well, aren't really bass producing machines and ports that produce the lower octaves aren't controlled at all but simply resonate at a desired frequency. In both cases, the content being reproduced is a bit reverberant or 'sloppy' to some degree. When larger drivers capable of moving more air are used in a system where either the woofers suspension is controlled or the box is removed altogether combined with high motor strength......the low frequency resolution improves dramatically with less induced reverberance. Add room treatments for modal response anomolies and the improvements extend even farther. Ceilings are tough and responsible for most of the mechanical room issues where bass is concerned as bass is non directional. There's ways to cheat that system somewhat, bit usually have low WAF.

[mayhem13]

Generally warm and blurry sounding gear is preferred by majority of the folks in the world because they have unhealthy body and ears. When ears are not healthy, they will convert sound from high frequencies into "distortion". Today most fancy manufacturers design and produce audio gear to "blur" the sound, so that unhealthy people can hear music without sounding rough or distorting and fatiguing. Ears play large part of this game, probably more than the audio gears.

 

 

What you are saying is you want true sound? Not a fake mechanical sounding but true sound like in reality? That can be done by upgrading power cables. And if you go high end power cables it will go beyond real life, several steps closer to heaven. No I am not joking.

 

 

 

Not necessarily true. Extreme detail is a good thing, and is very revealing. The extra details also promote larger soundstage, more 3-dimensionality. Stock cables provide more details than the fancy expensive aftermarket cables. A lot of higher end cables blur the sound just like the same way audio receivers and amps do. As a result you lose out detail.

 

It's easy to blur the sound to reduce fatigue. But it's difficult to increase detail and crisp sound without fatigue. 99% of manufacturers can't / don't have a clue to do it.

 

The ultimate sound by definition is to have the following:

 

- Dynamic Contrast

- Detail: Macro and Micro Detail

- True Timbre

- Multiple Dimensional sound (alien level from another planets, and yes, better than original recording and the file itself)

- Maximum Transparency (nakedness) without sounding harsh

- Some Openness / Airiness / Attack and Decay

- Musical elements separation (this also promotes more detail and textures)

- Cleanness and liquid smoothness without loss of detail

 

 

And speaking to other users here, no, loudness using high volume doesn't dictate sound quality. That's quantity, huge difference. Loud boomy bass and loud sound is for the parties for young folks.

 

 

 

bunny

 

So do you have a prescription for my unhealthy ears?

[mayhem13]

I was recently listening to a friend’s system.

In the realm of ‘great’ systems, this one has always held a V high placement on my short list of the one’s I have heard & consider ‘reference’ systems. This may seem counter-intuitive when one considers this rig consists of a single 3-1/2 inch paper-cone driver in each speaker driven by 50 year old 14 peak watt tube powered electronics.

 

Why would such a system consistently leave me in such high regard of its performance? It certainly is not blowing me away with its wide, huge, rumbling macro dynamics. No super tweeter, spine-tingling highs. Definitely not the throbbing, tsunami generating low end. Especially when the bottom end does not realistically go much below 60Hz even when you optimistically factor in the gain you might get from room effect placement. In fact, when you compare the hardware in this system against any of the others on my list of ‘reference’ systems you might see it as a blatant error or possibly the perceptions of a fool [i will allow consideration of this last possibility off-line, please].

 

But for me, perception is what it is all about. A subjective sense that all is right with the world; if even for just a few minutes.

 

You can have your measured 5-zero signal-to-noise ratio, your mass loaded, 5 driver cabinets of resonant-cancelling unobtainium which requires a small fork-lift to move them, along with a perfectly timed, zero jitter DAC with its ytterbium atomic clock.

 

In fact, it may just be the simplicity of this flea watt system that is its most critical characteristic. There is so little between it & the music. What is physically there is similar in economy to the Wright bros’ first flying machines. Consider the parts count of one of their early planes to that of an Airbus A340. They both fly, most of the time, anyway. But when it comes to making a heavier-than-air machine defy the laws of gravity…….one accomplishes the V same task in a much simpler & frugal fashion.

 

I like to consider the use of a single driver, its practicality & the pure ‘righteousness’ of it. Like a perfectly matched key for the most precise lock. When you start adding drivers you must carefully control when one driver begins to drop off in its frequency generation & the adjacent driver begins to pick up its generation of sound. This is the crossover point. And for every driver that is included to handle just one region of the total frequency spectrum, so too must a crossover be added to facilitate a smooth transition between. Easier said than done. And like most things, to do it right typically is not inexpensive. Many speakers also have this crossover point at frequencies that are difficult to handle. For example, the frequency range of the human voice is centered at around 1000 Hz, and covering a range from around 200 Hz to 3 KHz. Putting a crossover in this region is quite dicey & easily detected when poorly executed, weather due to price point constraint or simply poor engineering. And the more drivers you have spread across the spectrum the more crossovers are required. And every time an instrument produces frequencies that must pass through the crossover transition the more likely your ear is to notice unrealistic characteristics of the sound.

 

This is the reason you find many V good two-way speakers. The design is simpler than three-way & full-range speakers, & can be made to perform quite good relative to the quantity & cost of parts required when they give up trying to produce the lowest registers.

 

There are other advantages inherent to single-driver arrangements, too. Take the recent trend of coaxial drivers used in some V high-end designs. And Kef’s latest LS series utilizing their Uni-Q driver. Reducing the number drivers in a system makes good imaging & sound-staging much easier to accomplish. Again, it is matter of physics…….and the fact that sometimes, simpler is better.

 

But please, do not misunderstand me. I am in no way, shape or form implying flea-watt, single driver systems are ‘The’ answer to the audiophile’s quest. Such a system can in fact be quite limiting. What I am saying is, when executed correctly & fed a diet of less than complex & smaller scale acoustical & vocal repertoire they can bring to life such sound like you may have never heard before.

 

Getting back to the OT, it is this meager system & its ability to let the naturalness of the music & human voice just flow that never fails to amaze me. Obviously, its sweet spot is in the mids, a place where human voices & acoustical instruments spend most of their time. It was once said, “We live in the mids”. The mids account for the vast majority of what we hear in our normal lives. When a system can reproduce the sounds we are most familiar with in the most natural & realistic of ways to a level we feel as though they are genuine, that what I call ‘Better’.

 

 

I was 'OK' with your subjective viewpoint on YOUR listening pleasures until you brought physics into it.

 

The advantages of a single fulrange driver with what's available today siply dont exist over even a well executed 2way speaker. You like what you like....thats ok.........but it has nothing to do with what's actually coming out of speaker.....physically. If someone would rather eat skittles instead of prime rib......that's great. But when someone says skittles are better for you, well........you gotta draw a line in the audiophile quicksands sometime.

[mayhem13]

When I brought ‘physics’ into it, I was simply referring to things like lobbing & directivity issues common in speakers with more than one driver or with driver arrays. A single driver speaker acts a point source.

 

Ok........but a single driver still suffers from poor directivity and a well designed multi way doesn't exhibit lobing...............? And proper line arrays are one of the most direct wavefronts available.

 

.....on the other hand, Fullrange drivers have a terrible off axis response always.....

[mayhem13]

Paul is trying too hard to apply objective analysis to a purely subjective experience.

 

I didn't get that from the OP.

 

I 'chose' an objective response as it seemed like the more reasonable response given the alternative.

[mayhem13]

Yea verily, I hear thee!

 

I came *this* close to picking up a set of AR3a's from E-Bay the other day. Only thing that stopped me was paying $600 + shipping for a set of speakers that sold for $250/each new, and were in unknown condition. I remember seeing the price tags and grimacing at my local stereo store. (grin)

 

I have definitely been bit by the "heritage" "vintage" "old stuff sounds good" bug. It is part of what is making me reexamine what I think "good sound" really is. It really is both an easy and a fiendishly difficult question to answer, isn't it?

 

-Paul

 

Estate sales Paul......estate sales!......while they may be somewhat morbid, I have a friend who makes his living ( an excellent one I might add) at these with amazing finds of vintage audio and heirloom and high end jewelry. You won't believe the things family members pass over as worthless junk.

 

While you are blessed with a partner who shares your passion for music, there's plenty of others who rue the day their mates were bitten by the hifi bug and couldn't care an ounce for the gear cluttering their homes........imagine how much less so after the passing. Sad.......but still true.

[mayhem13]

I don't think it was a matter of trying too hard. Acknowledging that it is a subjective topic, it seems very reasonable to ask listeners what their biases are, and most posts have done just that. I have a feeling that most CA members are very analytical in many aspects of their lives--audio just being one of them. Even the dyed in the wool subjectivist can be analytical.

 

Exactly!

 

Subjectivist in a search for tangeable enjoyment more than objectivists.......with analytic procedures less scientific in their approach, but sometimes better suited to the individual purpose........but analyze they do!