My best demo albums

[gmgraves]

15 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

I think your spamming of every thread on this site to push your agenda has become so natural to you that you don't even know you're doing it.

 

This post by George on another thread sums it up pretty well:

 

 23 hours ago,  gmgraves said: 

Even here on CA, he shows up in every thread with the same tune. It doesn't matter what the topic is: In a thread about soundstage, he tells us that his method makes soundstage perfect, In a thread about DACs, his "method" makes  cheap DACs sound like expensive DACs, etc., etc.

But he never tells us how he does it, any of it. All we get is vague allusions to removed extraneous parts from components, and a list of common sense procedures such as dressing audio cables away from power cables; something that most of the rest of do anyway. But most of us do it without bragging about it, and claiming it as an audio panacea on every thread of this forum. 

[gmgraves]

15 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

So I take it that you're not interested in methods that enable audio playback to provide a more enjoyable experience ... ?

But Frank, you don't supply "...methods that enable audio playback to provide a more enjoyable experience." All you do brag that you have found such methods. In fact, beyond the obvious, you don't tell us anything! That's what this entire thread is about. You tell us how important it is to fine tune our systems over and over and over on every page of every subject, but yo never tell us what you've done.

Now, I'm going to suggest that start at the very beginning and tell us what you've done with each component (by specific, make and model). Then explain carefully and fully how you've assembled the system and explain to us the contribution made by each operation you've done to each piece of the system and to the overall system.

If you don't want to do that; and I can understand why you might not, then I suggest that you shut-up about your "methods" and you shut-up about telling us that our systems are flawed and that only you, in your divine wisdom, can tell us how to fix what's wrong with our systems - and then not tell us anything that anybody can remotely use!

 

I'm sorry this is off topic, but I was responding to a notification to me at the top of the page. I think there are one or two more of my comments here vis-a-vis Frank. But I'll post no more here on this particular off-topic subject.

Thanks. 

[gmgraves]

7 hours ago, semente said:

 

 

First, let's make a distinction between Demo Tracks and Performance Assessment Tracks.

In my view they serve different purposes.

 

I use the Demo Tracks to show-off my system's capabilities. Impressive and exciting sound, captivating music.

 

Objective or if you prefer observationist sound assessment through listening (as opposed to tasting which is driven by preference and enjoyment) is a comparison between what we are listening to and our database, our past experience of both live and reproduced sound.

 

Thus Performance Assessment Tracks are used to evaluate, amongst other things, tonal balance (frequency response), low-level information retrieval ability (noise), capacity to cope with sonic complexity (intermodulation), naturalness and realism (transient response, absence of harmonic and of distortion in general).

Now, to accurately assess all those qualities you need excellent recordings, those which are able to portray the sound of instruments and vocals as they're listened from the audience, those which capture cues of the space where the original event was performed.

 

The recording of two voices in an anechoic chamber is important because humans are most sensitive to the sound human voice.

 

Orchestral and choral music is difficult to reproduce because of it's complexity (you can have a hundred instruments and as many voices playing different things simultaneously) and extreme dynamic swings. A large orchestra of the late romantic period will include a large variety of acoustic instruments and this provides the oportunity to evaluate how the system reproduces the timbre of those instruments. Unlike amplified gigs, with classical music one can actually compare one's listening experience of live performances with what our system is reproducing. And unlike rock or pop and a lot of jazz, classical music is recorded in venues with natural acoustic reverberance which is also a good measure for realism. Finally, unlike most pop and rock, classical music is not just about percussive or syncopated sounds - there's a lot of legato sound, notes connected to each other, the use of the bow instead of the finger - and this makes it easier to determine low-level resolution and tonal balance.
 

So we disagree. Good, or should I write excellent, recordings are paramount to evaluate performace from an observationist perspective.

The funny thing is that a system which performs well in the aspects which I mentioned will make Billie Holiday's old mono recordings, or Callas', Casals', etc. sound much better because one can listen to more of the recorded signal, in spite of all their problems.

 

I do agree that Krells & Pigeons & Barbies & Bubbles will make any system sound reasonably good. That is why they are so popular in shows... I don't find them useful to evaluate performance.

I've never heard any "pop" recordings that I thought* could tell me anything about the performance of a system beyond frequency response and transient response. Pop recordings have no real soundstage. Everything is recorded separately and placed where they are across the stage according to the whim of the producer, with input from the "talent".  There is depth to the image, because instrumental placement is not acoustical, it's electronic making it two dimensional. Reverb is artificial from a DSP device like a Lexicon reverb box. You can't even count on it to test distortion because the playing has been run through so many "fuzz boxes" and other electronic effects generators that you're not hearing the instruments, as they make their sounds, but after each electronic effects boxes have done their thing adding layers of harmonic and IM distortion. 

* YMMV

[gmgraves]

17 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

You see, George, you've got part of the message - but haven't carried it through to its full conclusion ... and therefore fail to get the job done.

 

OK, let's go back to that good ol' chain analogy - the audio chain has to pull 100 lbs without breaking; if a single link can't withstand that tension, the chain fails - completely. You've spent some time strengthening various links, and are quite satisfied with your efforts - but there are some links that you thought you "fixed" that are still below 100, can only handle 85 say; and other links that you completely ignored. Apply 100 lbs force - Snap!!

 

The "panacea" is knowing that every link has to handle 100 lbs - the system fails if any is below that strength.

Everybody knows that Frank. You've said this same thing on every thread of this forum and every audio forum on earth at least 10,000 times! Of course, again, you fail to tell us what those 85 lb "links" are. - and you're off Topic

[gmgraves]

6 hours ago, fas42 said:

One memory is of a setup with top of the range panel speakers, with a colossal power amp that required about 4 people to move it - put on a classic Frank Sinatra CD ... gawd, it was awful!! Poor Frank, he didn't stand a chance ...

OK, Frank, I'll bite. What was wrong with the audio presentation of these top-of-the-range panel speakers and this colossal power amp that made Ol' Blue Eyes sound so bad?

[gmgraves]

9 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

 

Jarre? It's all about the synthesizer, each and every track - vocals are used as a sound effect, heavily manipulated to just become a sound construction, in the context of the composition.

 

Vocals and 'natural' instruments automatically fall out as being 'correct', if the system is thoroughly optimised - if Jarre albums 'work', then conventional vocal content in any sort of recording sounds like the "real thing". It takes listening to an album which has totally 'artificial' instruments for everything but the vocals, to appreciate how there is a sharp contrast between the two - but, each still retains full integrity. Think, listening live to an opera singer on the left, and a rock guitarist using his amplifier on the right, with volumes "matching".

 

To repeat, the speakers are not the problem - budget standmounts in a competent rig have no problem delivering the intensity of live sound; this has been verified by me many times over. Also, the audio friend down the road is using tiny, tiny Tannoys - the midrange/bass driver is barely bigger than the tweeter; the limitations there are the chain prior to the speaker, as is usually the case.

 

FR has also shown to be of a low order of importance - if the quality is there, the mind compensates beautifully, for variations; exposure to a full blown DEQX demo indicated no benefit to getting the FR "right" - the flaws in the playback were still obvious.

What bunch of hog drippings, Balderdash and poppycock, I say! Budget "stand mount" speakers can sound OK, but they can never fool anybody into thinking that they are a pair of SoundLabs or Martin Logan ESLs, Or Magnepan MG-3.7s or MG-20.7s! My desktop system consists of a pair of Napa Acoustics NA-208S. They have a 6" "woofer and a 1" dome tweeter.

 

The rest of my system is as simple as simple gets. My desktop computer feeds, via direct USB, (no cable) an AudioQuest DragonFly Red DAC directly feeding a Napa NA-208A amplifier via an single pair audio cable. That's it. There are no weak "links" there. The chain is too short for there to be many "weak Links" The dragonFly connects to The Napa Acoustics amplifier with a single AudioQuest "Big Sur" 1.5 meter, 3.5mm mini phone plug to RCA cable* The speaker cables are 6ft long Sewell "Silverback" speaker cable. That's it! and while the system sounds great for a near-field desktop system, one of the best "office" systems I've ever heard, but It doesn't hold a candle to the Martin-Logan Vista ESLs in my main system! So while you might have fooled yourself into believing that speaker size doesn't matter, and tiny speakers can sound as good as big ones, I think you'll find yourself a majority of ONE!

In other words, Frank, your ravings have little of no credibility with just about anyone here. And when you make asinine proclamations like the one you made above, It  just confirms what many of us think about you: I.E. a nice guy who's so full of it that his eyes are brown. 

 

[gmgraves]

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

To give just one example that I have mentioned over and over again - the quality of metal to metal contacts which are exposed to the atmosphere. This is crucial for getting optimum sound - it was probably the number one reason for first nailing Wow! SQ three decades ago.

Frank, no connections SHOULD be exposed to the atmosphere. RCAs should be gas tight. The pin should fight tightly to the inside of the jack, and the shield should fight tightly over the barrel of the jack. Spade-lugs should be screwed down tight on both the amp and the speaker terminals. If you are paranoid about such things, you should probably apply Stabilant 22A to all of your connector interfaces. If you find that this makes a difference, you've got bad interconnects because quality interconnect plugs and jacks don't need it. I used to Stabilant treat my interconnects every time I broke and remade a connection. I stopped when I realized that it didn't change the sound at all!* I just make sure I squeeze the barrels on the cables a little when I'm mating connectors to insure a tight fit and I make sure my spade lugs or banana plugs tight fit on speaker and amplifier. 

* yet Satbilant does work. My Alfa had a flakey tachometer. Sometimes it would work. sometimes it wouldn't. I would take it out and try to clean the connector's mating parts with contact cleaner, put it back together, and still, it would be intermittent. So I got the idea to try Stabilant. After all, if the stuff has a Military spec number, a NASA spec number and an SAE and Automobile Manufacturer's Association part number, it must do something, right? So I painted each metal mating surface with the Stabiant and that was 10 years ago. The Tach has never failed again. 

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

Umm, just about everything ... it was one of the late 50's albums, with the full big band backing. The sound was "tiny", the tonality of all the instruments was way off the mark, and Frank's voice was so far from being 'right' - I was quite disturbed that such an ambitious rig could miss the mark so much.

 

These classic albums should have Big Sound: the big band is in full cry; rich, enveloping 50's recording texture and Frank's voice should present all the distinctive trademarks that it had, while retaining that intimate, communicative phrasing that he was famous for.

Could that have not have been the recording? I own the set of Franky's capitol years, and some of them are pretty thin sounding. One has to keep in mind that the recording tape used in those days (Scotch 206, and the Ampex equivalent) was pretty primitive and a lot of recordings made in those days haven't survived the years very well! 

 

 

 

[gmgraves]

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

Two things normally got wrong for cheap speakers: they're driven by cheap amps, and they're plunked down on a convenient surface, with no effort made to stabilise them. Take care of those two areas, and the sound can start to blossom ...

Blossom, Shlossom! Genrally speaking, one can't make a purse from a sow's ear, and one can't get high-class sound from cheap speakers by driving them with Pass amplifiers and blu-tacking them to stands!

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

You still can't get that I have listened to large numbers of systems with mega speakers - to make sure that I had good reference points - and the number that had any postive impact on me can be counted on the fingers of one hand ... usually the first test track told me the story, and I lost interest in hearing further. A rig has to be able to present a soundstage as big as what was recorded, and nearly everything fails on that alone.

Frank, I believe that you have listened to all kinds of systems. And I agree that just plunking down the change for a big system doesn't insure great sound. Some actual thought has to be put into choosing compatible products. For example, one shouldn't pair a phono cartridge with sharply rising top end with speakers that have an over abundance of treble. I don't car ho much such a system costs , it's not going to sound right. Conversely, a component with weak bass is not going to sound satisfying on the bottom bo matter how good the sub-woofer is. 

I also think that you have an idea in your mind what constitutes good sound and if a system doesn't sound like you want it to, you won't like it.

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

Speakers only need to be big for the bass driver to produce a decent FR, that's the only reason.

Of course, but don't forget that the bottom end is a large part of the reason we listen to music. It is not unimportant. I have heard systems with good "stand' type speakers like this made by Magico, Sonus Faber, Dynaudio and KEF, etc. and yes, they do many things well - above 60 Hz! But to be real high-end contenders they need subwoofers, and not just ONE either. They need two. The days when all the bass was in the left channel of LP are gone. Digital can have bass in both channels.

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, jabbr said:

 

Have you been to a nightclub recently? Because if you really have then you earn real streetcred points ?

But no, if your eardrums would've been destroyed in a matter of minutes then you couldn't have spent any time in a real nightclub?

 

Jus' sayin' because I do believe @gmgraves has actually been to all the places he claims to have been -- which is why he is still an avowed bachelor ... ? ... no, scratch that because in my experience young women congregate wherever music is playing ... ?

Fat lot of good that will do you unless you are a handsome, buff young man. Me, I'm none of those things...

[gmgraves]

4 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

As I've mentioned several times, I tried that route decades ago - and, it doesn't work; in the sense of maintaining the integrity to a high enough level over a longer term. The only proven solutions, for me, is soldering, and using a silver paste or paint treatment, the latter done extremely carefully. And I always do this first thing - I made sure the current NAD setup worked when I first got it, by plugging it together as one normally would, but it sounded pretty hideous - right! Get in there and sort out those connections ...

I'm sorry Frank, I just don't believe it. I could see it maybe making a teeny-tiny difference, but basically a tertiary effect, not the game changer you make it out to be. I have found that most of the "earth-shattering" tweaks that most audiophiles rave about are wildly over exaggerated and the real effect is usually barely discernible (if it's there at all). 

[gmgraves]

4 hours ago, fas42 said:

Bass, as most audiophiles look at it, is not that important

Speak for yourself!

[gmgraves]

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Would make sense if I hadn't heard that particular CD sounding as good as it had done on my setups! Those classic Sinatra efforts are very, very impressive - good show off material for a well sorted rig.

Well, I have all of them on LP as well as on CD, and while I like to hear Sinatra sing, I'm not impressed with Capitol Records early stereo pop efforts at all. You and I must have wildly different standards for what constitutes good program material. I know that you like the kind of pop material that I would warp into plant holders (LP) or make a hanging mobile out of (CD) but would never listen to.

[gmgraves]

18 hours ago, fas42 said:

Still trying to get through ... the job of the chain is to sustain a 100 lbs pull, without failing - if a single link is only at the 95 lbs strength level, then the chain will simply not do its job. Just think of it like this - a good connection "adds" another 5 lbs of strength to that link - Bingo!! Success!!!

You can't get through, Frank, 

because you never say anything. You talk constantly in vague circular generalities. As STC said in another thread, you've produced no pictures of your setup, no specifications and no third party verification of how magnificent your system sounds.

Good connections is nonsense again. Decent RCAs give excellent connections. One just has to make sure that they are good and tight tight. 

 

18 hours ago, fas42 said:

Each thing on its own is "tiny", but if not right does enough damage - you lose the quality you're chasing ...

And the sum of all of these things is pretty small too. Like I said, a tertiary effect at best. Except for the idiocy of soldering one's components together (I hope you are using silver solder. Hate to think that tin and lead is making that chain of yours weak) I'll bet that every audiophile on this forum has done the same things you have done. After all, there's only so much one can do. 

 

18 hours ago, fas42 said:

I live in the world where a rig has something like 90 to 100 lbs "pulling" capacity - and I work on what is holding it back from reaching the 100 mark, solidly. It might seem a bit bizarre that it is so essential to reach a very specific standard - but that's just the way it is ... I have spent decades looking at this, and I haven't found any shortcuts.

You live in a world where it's all in your head, Frank, I'm sure that you think that your conjuring and voodoo have resulted in a system that is second to none.

[gmgraves]

2 hours ago, fas42 said:

George, you've just told me how good a playback system can sound, - the ol' Stubblepine thing. All you have to do is transfer that quality back to your home situation ...

This is what you don't seem to understand. I ALREADY HAVE!!!!!!!

[gmgraves]

21 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

If you have, why can't you listen to any type of album and enjoy them as a musical experience - in the same way as if you were present with the musicians, and not heard via a PA system?

I can't enjoy any type of album as a musical experience, because for me, the music is coming from speakers and headphones, and not swirling around inside my head! And a poor recording is simply not enjoyable! 

 

I never hear any music via a PA System because I walk-out if I see PA speakers anywhere near the musicians. If the speakers are hidden, and I see microphones (other than my own) I ask the management what is their purpose, if management says for broadcast of for recordings, OK, but if they say it's for sound reinforcement, I ask for my money back, if any, and I walk out. I usually tell the manager that if i wanted to listen to music from speakers, I could just stay home! I don't know where you get the idea that I hear musicians through a PA system???!!!