My best demo albums

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If I want to listen to female voice purely for the joy of the texture of that type of "sound maker" I would use any album by someone like Doris Day ...

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13 hours ago, semente said:

I do have maybe a handful of audiophile recordings which I use for evaluation purposes (one of them is of two loudspeaker designers talking in an anechoic chamber) but long gone is the time when I used to listen ad nauseam to the same three or five audiophile-approved tracks trying to indentify changes that resulted from all the fruitless fiddling and tweaking.

 

 

This is equivalent to testing a car's handling by driving it in a straight line down a perfectly made highway - ummm, how many ways can one say, Duummb ...

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2 hours ago, miguelito said:

One more fantastic album which has been carefully remastered:

 

Jean-Michel Jarre - Essentials and Rarities

 

I was just reminded of one that was practically worn out by us, from repeated playing ...

 

 

At solid volume levels, this is magical stuff - huge spaces, tremendous impact; there is so much going on ... I remember listening to this at an audiophile's home with huge, very heavy speakers, Krell amplifier - it sounded a disasterous mess, miles from getting anything right ...

 

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Off topic? ... let's see now ... in the OP,

 

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So which albums do you love listening to that do a great job demonstrating your system’s abilities?

 

Hmmm, Zoolook ticks both those boxes - I wonder what some people's definitions of "off topic" are ...

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18 minutes 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

 

 

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

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4 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Again, this has nothing to do with this thread.

 

And none of your reactions have been also ... to repeat, a previous poster mentioned Jarre, and this reminded me of my experiences with the album I linked to.

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1 hour ago, kumakuma said:

 

I've highlighted the section in your post that I thought was off-topic.

 

 

 

And I can go with that ... the reason I made the comment was to emphasise that the qualities of the recording help to highlight the capabilities of a rig, for better or for worse. We're talking about "demo" material here, which in my mind should be that which differentiates what one has, from that of others - an audiophile recording which may be "so well made" that it sounds good on a transistor radio is of little help ...

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13 hours ago, semente said:

 

I won't go into the artistic merits or their absence f JMJ's music.

 

But from a sonic perspective, as I've described in my previous post where I defined observationist sound assessment through listening, using his music to evaluate sound is like using Nemo to evaluate video instead of a National Geographic documentary...

 

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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.

 

The conflicts in what you are saying are right there - Jarre is "difficult to reproduce because of its complexity (you can have (multiple) voices playing different things simultaneously) and extreme dynamic swings"; if a rig can "handle" Zoolook then reproducing orchestral and choral with a " hundred instruments and as many voices" is a pushover - the 'grandeur' of what you hear from those two different styles of music is of the same order, no matter what one may think of the 'artistic merit'.

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6 hours ago, gmgraves said:

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. 

 

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.

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On 8/12/2018 at 8:49 PM, semente said:

For a show off piece I suggest playing this vibrant jazz track LOUD, though beware that when it comes to system performance it'll sort the men from the boys ? (video not available in Europe for some reason):

 

 

 

Europeans can listen here:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56KtmUqQIYk

 

 

Yes, this is good material ... what I would focus on when listening to this is how well defined the drummer is in his space, and whether every part of the work on his kit comes through with full integrity.

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45 minutes ago, semente said:

 

I confess my ignorance regarding JMJ's music, having probably heard just a couple of tracks back in the day. But if I remember correctly his vocals would have been recorded in a studio and probaly close-, multi-mic'ed. He was also very fond of the synthesiser. If this is true, then I think you have missed some of my points.

 

We've agreed before that we have different goals and expectations: I strive for an as flat and wide as possible frequency response, both of which seem secondary to you.

I also don't believe that you can achieve the loudness levels you have reported with a pair of small budget standmounts without producing high levels of some types of distortions which I'd find very objectionable.

 

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.

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1 hour ago, semente said:

 

How can you tell if Jarre's albums work?

It's all synthetic sound and special effects which have no resemblance with anything that one can experience live and use as a gauge for comparison... Surely your assessment will be driven by your taste, by your (pre)conception of what it should sound like.

 

You can strive to extract as much information as possible from the recording, and this will be audible, but you won't be able to determine, for instance, if the tonal balance is reasonably natural or realistic. But I have already assumed long ago that this is not a priority for you.

 

In the same way as one can tell if the sound of violin, or piano has the qualities that meet expectations - people tend to write off synthesized sounds as being "below par" - and that's usually because they are reproduced on mediocre equipment. On a rig that's up to par they have a complexity and texture that fully satisfies, easily matching 'live' instruments - when albums containing these types of sound are played on gear that's operating below standard they shrivel up into listless dronings - they are, ummm, not 'working'.

 

Realism is the whole point of the exercise - on every recording, for example, where the human voice is heard it should always strike one as being that of a living, breathing person - assuming it hasn't been manipulated to sound otherwise; Billy Holliday recordings should connect you to the person, rather than the caricature one often hears.

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1 hour ago, semente said:

 

Well, I am way past that level, my rig is already so competent and my expectations so high that I cannot live with the compromises of toy speakers. If you can't perceive the theoretical and audible limitations of small standmounts then I'm affraid we are playing in different leagues and any attempt at debating these issues will be as barren as a mule...

 

As someone who has heard multitudes of very expensive speakers sounding pretty hideous I have no time for playing games of being pretentious about what's needed in audio. It's what's delivered on the ground that counts - and if you have never heard small speakers produce sound that's as big as a football stadium, so to speak - well, that's an experience you might have some day ...

 

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 ...

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4 hours ago, gmgraves said:

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

 

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.

 

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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?

 

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.

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3 hours ago, gmgraves said:

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.

 

 

 

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 ...

 

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.

 

Speakers only need to be big for the bass driver to produce a decent FR, that's the only reason. Just check out the size of some of the PA  speakers used in nightclubs, etc; these tiny things can punch holes in the side of walls, destroy your eardrums in a matter of minutes - yes, they're as rough as guts in terms of quality, but that's only because such things don't matter, in those places. The same principle still holds in the home - size is only relevant if one is trying to plumb the depths of very low bass.

 

 

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2 hours ago, jabbr said:

 

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

 

 

Sprung!!! .. Nope, not in eons - I was going to say hotel or pub, but I wasn't sure if all people could relate to that; I was thinking of a tiny hotel visited a year of two ago, tiny Tannoy sized speakers pumping out a volume which meant you had to scream into the ear of the person next to you to have any chance of them hearing you ...

 

 

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1 hour ago, gmgraves said:

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.

 

 

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 ...

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1 hour ago, gmgraves said:

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!

 

Ummm, you can ... that's exactly what I did with my first rig, the one that "showed me the way".

 

1 hour ago, gmgraves said:

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.

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.

 

Bass, as most audiophiles look at it, is not that important - one thing that strikes me with most audiophile rigs is how poorly they do the bass line - irritatingly non-realistic is how they usually come across. I put a full bore pipe organ spectacular on, and they fall way below a decent standard - the only systems I've heard get it adequately right have been my own ...

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1 hour ago, gmgraves said:

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! 

 

 

 

 

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.

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20 hours ago, gmgraves said:

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). 

 

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!!!

 

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

 

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.

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20 hours ago, gmgraves said:

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.

 

What I'm after is the Big Experience - everything else vanishes but the energy and drive of the music being created. And pop music can do this just as well as classic - I've mentioned before that I cycle between totally different genres, from one listen to the next; each has its own "specialness", but all convey convey the magic of what music is about ...

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14 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

 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. 

 

The point of soldering is to make the joint truly gastight. I can get the same qualities that the soldered joints provide simply by refreshing the contacts - but this is very short term. Contact enhancers nominally do the same thing, but they deteriorate in a different manner - still not a long term solution.

 

14 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

 

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.

 

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 ...

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7 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

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

 

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?

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9 hours ago, gmgraves said:

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! 

 

Well, I'm sure it doesn't happen for everyone. but for me the music is "swirling around" the room - if the rig is up to scratch. That is, the experience matches the sensations, the way my mind and body feels when I hear live music - a lesser presentation drops back to conventional speakers doing their thing at two points in the room. If you get it really sorted, even those "poor recording"s come good - the overwhelming sense of there being living, breathing people behind what you hear is that which is uppermost.

 

9 hours ago, gmgraves said:

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???!!! 

 

Didn't mean to imply you did - some people jump on me when I don't put that in; so it's just there to clarify the story.