Sanity Check

[Ron Scubadiver]

1 hour ago, mansr said:

Most people say their goal is accurate reproduction.

I agree that is what they say, but people have different ideas about what that means.  There are those who want to produce a pleasing sound with pleasant distortions.  Some strive for a highly detailed sound.

[mansr]

Just now, Ron Scubadiver said:

I agree that is what they say, but people have different ideas about what that means.  There are those who want to produce a pleasing sound with pleasant distortions.

That's not necessarily accurate. Nevertheless, that's still what they say they want.

 

Just now, Ron Scubadiver said:

Some strive for a highly detailed sound.

This usually means emphasised high frequencies or high-order harmonic distortion. In other words, not accurate. Once again, however, the adherents claim they are getting accuracy.

 

In other words, what people think they want and what they actually like are not necessarily related.

[Ralf11]

34 minutes ago, Spacehound said:

...You tend to end up with a dCS DAC and the latest Quad Electrostatics  

 

 

where's the bass?

[Spacehound]

47 minutes ago, mourip said:

 

I am curious what you have in mind by fidelity.

 

Faithful to the original performance? Faithful to the recording? Sounds good/real/convincing?

 

How would one know? Seems pretty subjective even if you had been sitting at the original performance.

We don't have access to the original performance as what was heard by people's ears has been changed by the microphones, how they were arranged, and what happened in the recording studio.  So we can forget the live performance.

 

What we have is the recording from the record label. That is our 'source'.

 

And by buying everything with as flat a measured frequency/phase response  as possible we know we are messing with it as little as possible.

 

There is nothing 'subjective' about it at all. It's the same with blind tests. Many people have the wrong idea about them. It's not about which you like best, it's about can you tell any difference,  which is a totally  objective 'yes or no'.

[Ralf11]

18 minutes ago, mansr said:

... The main remaining problem is the speaker.

 

 

True

 

BTW, what are your speakers?

[mansr]

Just now, Ralf11 said:

BTW, what are your speakers?

B&W CM6 S2 with a REL subwoofer.

[firedog]

I think the amp and CD player test is very believable.

Given the same good speakers, SS amps with enough power for them aren’t going to sound that different. 

Audiophiles don’t like to acknowledge that the curve of diminishing returns in Audio systems is very steep. Get to $2k and you start having to make  bigger and bigger outlays - orders of magnitude - to get signficant improvements. Certainly somewhere between $10k and $20k you get to the point where small improvements cost very big sums of money. 

So audiophiles tend to exagerrate improvements - because they’ve spent lots of money on some upgrade and it has to be worth what they paid for it. 

[Spacehound]

8 minutes ago, Spacehound said:

 Sorry, double post.

 

[Spacehound]

 

 

[Ralf11]

4 minutes ago, mansr said:

B&W CM6 S2 with a REL subwoofer.

 

Thx - just one sub?

[Ralf11]

1 minute ago, Spacehound said:

 

 

 

 I agree completely

[Ron Scubadiver]

27 minutes ago, mansr said:

That's not necessarily accurate. Nevertheless, that's still what they say they want.

 

This usually means emphasised high frequencies or high-order harmonic distortion. In other words, not accurate. Once again, however, the adherents claim they are getting accuracy.

 

In other words, what people think they want and what they actually like are not necessarily related.

That is an important insight.

[mansr]

25 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

Thx - just one sub?

For now. I've thought about getting another, but it hasn't happened yet.

[Spacehound]

1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

 

 

where's the bass?

It's there on the newer ones. It's just not the usual bloated by distortion and reflex port   stuff. A Stereophile 2012 test shows the 2805  in-room response  to be  flatter than most speakers  from 100Hz up and only 5 dB down from its 100 Hz response  at 20Hz. Which is pretty good - far better than the highly regarded and far more expensive and quite big   ATC SCM50  for example.  

 

Mind you, I've not had the courage to buy them myself 

[Spacehound]

1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

 

 I agree completely

It's nice to be agreed with 

 

I think I've got the hang of writing a post, changing my mind, and not posting it  now.

[gmgraves]

4 hours ago, GUTB said:

I’ve owned and auditioned in-home 7 stereo amps, and around 10 headphone amps. They all sounded different. They all have different strengths and weaknesses. Of those, three were class D, three were A/B, and one was A (DHT). The class Ds all sucked in terms of soundstage, but differed greatly in other ways — for example, the Crown XLS (Drivecore 2) is very unresolving while the D-Sonic (Pascal) is the most resolving amp I’ve had in my system. 

 

There is no possibility that I could not tell the difference between my Linnenberg Allegros and the Teac AI-301 (ICEPower). In amp terms they are like day and night. With a good track selection I would find it hard to believe anyone could fail a blind test between them, let alone prefer the Teac.

My point is that others might hear the same "vast" differences that you hear and proclaim them inconsequential. I say this because I review a lot of amplifiers and this requires that I leave them in my system for some weeks, even if I don't particularly like the unit I'm reviewing at the time. What I've found is that even amps that I initially found unacceptable to my ears, after three or four weeks in my system, start to sound "normal" to me because I've gotten used to the sound! I find that I have to make my listening notes early, before this phenomenon occurs. If after some time in my system, I go back and listen while reading over the notes that I made while the unit was "fresh" to me, I can still hear the things that bothered me so much in my initial impressions, but the difference is, I've become used to those anomalies and they don't bother me any more. I have found similar characteristics with speakers. Eventually, even the most flawed examples start to sound like "my" speakers (remember, we're talking about relatively expensive high-end speakers here, not cheap schlock. There are no truly bad speakers in the lot, just some that have a sound characteristic that is so different from what I' m used to, that I don't like it). 

[Spacehound]

6 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

My point is that others might hear the same "vast" differences that you hear and proclaim them inconsequential. I say this because I review a lot of amplifiers and this requires that I leave them in my system for some weeks, even if I don't particularly like the unit I'm reviewing at the time. What I've found is that even amps that I initially found unacceptable to my ears, after three or four weeks in my system, start to sound "normal" to me because I've gotten used to the sound! I find that I have to make my listening notes early, before this phenomenon occurs. If after some time in my system, I go back and listen while reading over the notes that I made while the unit was "fresh" to me, I can still hear the things that bothered me so much in my initial impressions, but the difference is, I've become used to those anomalies and they don't bother me any more. I have found similar characteristics with speakers. Eventually, even the most flawed examples start to sound like "my" speakers (remember, we're talking about relatively expensive high-end speakers here, not cheap schlock. There are no truly bad speakers in the lot, just some that have a sound characteristic that is so different from what I' m used to, that I don't like it). 

It's not the equipment that gets 'burnt in', it's the listener.

 

And even my 0-60 in 1.9 seconds Kawasaki became 'commonplace' after a couple of weeks.

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, firedog said:

I think the amp and CD player test is very believable.

 

So do I. I went to a "Burning Amp" DIY conference in San Francisco a couple of years ago, and Nelson Pass was there (he usually is). He had set-up a demonstration that startled a lot of people. He had taken two 4 X 8 ft sheets of plywood with two-by-fours to prop them up vertical on either side of the room. They had holes sawn in the center of each to accommodate a pair of generic 8-inch coaxial speakers. He was powering them with a cheap amplifier for which he was giving away schematics and parts lists. The signal source was a $40 Sony CD player. Interconnects were generic, as was the flesh-colored 16 Gauge transparent speaker wire that he used to wire the speakers to the amp. Most attendees were shocked when they saw what was  making the very respectable sound. I know that I wouldn't have expected such a lash-up to do anything that could be even remotely considered good sound! So, yes, based on that experience, I find the results of the Spanish test very believable. 

[One and a half]

DBT discussion usually ends up nowhere quickly, so will ignore this thread from cluttering the activity page. 

Spending time to think of the evils of Ethernet and how to overcome is of an interest that’s greater. Ciao!

[gmgraves]

11 minutes ago, Spacehound said:

It's not the equipment that gets 'burnt in', it's the listener.

 

And even my 0-60 in 1.9 seconds Kawasaki became 'commonplace' after a couple of weeks.

 

Bingo! You have hit the nail on the head. I have oft express this point, and usually get loud choruses of denial for my trouble.

[Allan F]

41 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

What I've found is that even amps that I initially found unacceptable to my ears, after three or four weeks in my system, start to sound "normal" to me because I've gotten used to the sound! I find that I have to make my listening notes early, before this phenomenon occurs. If after some time in my system, I go back and listen while reading over the notes that I made while the unit was "fresh" to me, I can still hear the things that bothered me so much in my initial impressions, but the difference is, I've become used to those anomalies and they don't bother me any more.

 

I can't speak for you, but I would suggest that rather than the things that bothered one no longer doing so, they tend not to bother one as much. They do not disappear.  IOW, while the sound may become acceptable, it does not become desirable. Replacing that amp with the "normal' amp that preceded it will only serve to highlight and remind one of the deficiencies of the "unacceptable" amp.,

[zackthedog]

You know, the results of this "test" don't surprise me very much.  A handful of people listening to two unfamiliar systems in an unfamiliar room...  And aren't those ATCs designed for near-field monitoring in a very controlled studio environment?  And what are those speaker cables?  Anyway, heaven forbid I should have to chose a system this way.  To say this this "proves" that components and cables and such don't make any difference is absurd.  An audiophile friend recently insisted that I *had" to try a single run of Duelund oil-impregnated 16 gauge wire on my ProAcs.  It was going to be magic!  Well, it sounded like tinned-copper 16 gauge wire--in other words, awful.  I have a hard time imagining what other people who swear by this wire are listening to.

 

The other thing is that a lot of high-end equipment sounds wretched to my ears.  I sat in the Wilson room at RMAF two years ago and found it simply unbearable.  So forgive me if I say that it really all depends on one's own room, ears and sonic preferences.

 

As for "flat" equipment that simply plays the original recording--compared to what?  What is the "reference" for "original"?  How would anyone know what the "original" sounded like unless he or she was in the studio at that moment?  It's all artifice.  I don't often agree with GUTB but I think he's right.  It's a facsimile.  You might like Norman Rockwell's facsimile, or you might like Picasso's. ;-)

[Danaudio]

That test doesn't prove anything in my opinion. Put those same amps on a larger more demanding system and which ever amp puts out less pure power will sound horrible. You can't hear the difference much in that test because the speakers most likely was the weakest link when you played it with the more expensive amps. Look at what gmgraves was saying about the bass and smaller stage area on his DBT. This is what I am talking about.

Hi-fi is no different than when building a computer. You can buy expensive components but it always is throttled buy the slowest component in your build.

When I pair my Bryston 7BSST2, or my Anthem MCA525 or my Marantz SR7002 with my Paradigm Reference V40 V2 the differrence between the amps is small or almost negligible. When I put the same amps on my Wilson Audio Sophia 3's you can definitely hear a difference. The Brystons are much more better at controlling the bass and the sound stage is much bigger than the other two amps. The Marantz sound downright tinny. The Anthem Amp doesn't have the same stage presence and is a bit more shallow in the bass.

To say solid state amps all sound similiar is incorrect unless you can't hear the difference since everyones ears are different. For example Macintosh amps are well known all over to be silky smooth amps and that is their sound signature. They sound very different than say a Bryston or a Naim amp.

They way I look at it is go listen to the equipment and buy what your ears are telling you to buy. I see guys on here say this or that speaker sucks or this or that amp suck but in my opinion if your ears tell you that they like the sound than that is what you should buy. The most important thing to remember is that everyones ears are different and that Hi-fi is like computer building.

[Ralf11]

5 hours ago, Spacehound said:

It's nice to be agreed with 

 

I think I've got the hang of writing a post, changing my mind, and not posting it  now.

 

Good!

 

I thought I was bad b/c my Maggies won't do much below 40 Hz; but a 100 Hz cutoff is....

 

not good

[Spacehound]

56 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

 

Good!

 

I thought I was bad b/c my Maggies won't do much below 40 Hz; but a 100 Hz cutoff is....

 

not good

5 dB down at 20Hz  from 100 Hz 'reference point'  is not exactly a 100 Hz "cutoff". Most people can't even hear 20 Hz though you might be able to feel it.

 

The only problem the Quads have is maximum volume. If you use them at a large 'rave' you will be disappointed. But they seem to be 'standard issue'  in the UK  for sound reinforcement in cathedrals and similar sized buildings where music is performed live. And the only time I ever confused live and recorded music was in my local UK large  'music' pub which uses about five Quads hung high up  on the walls upside down so the base tilts them slightly downwards,   when I thought it was a group performing live in the adjoining  room. Maybe I should con the pub owner into lending me a pair for a week or two as 'sale or return' for expensive stuff  is not common in the UK