Step by step surgery

[fas42]

49 minutes ago, Archimago said:

 

As much as intellectual discussions can be interesting, there comes a point where unless our beliefs / theories / faiths translates to the real world and in the realm of the internet, produces actual results by means of meaningful (and honest) sharing, it will certainly "collapse".

 

The marketplace of ideas consists of a dust bin with countless "good ideas", beliefs, testimonies throughout the history of human existence left forgotten and devalued. That is of course as it should be.

 

People will continue to bump into this acoustic behaviour, until eventually it will be taken more seriously - might take 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, etc ... it's rare now because it requires attention to detail that the vast majority of people aren't interested in, or can't relate to - only the "fussy ones" will make it happen, and they may not have the 'talents' to translate what they have achieved into the wider world.

 

So be it ...

[fas42]

1 minute ago, Racerxnet said:

 

Closer to what? What reference is used for calibration? Does it match a screen cap? 

 

Closer to creating an image that "rings true", no matter what is being shown. Many TVs have a caricature colour cast over them, and I find that irritating - if a news crew clips shows the reactions of people in a bush fire zone, I want everything in the frame to match how I know the colouring should be; every successive clip that flicks on, one after the other, will have a different colour cast, depending upon what the smoke haze, or fire glare was at that moment - but they all "feel right".

 

1 minute ago, Racerxnet said:

 

Sorry Frank, without any data for the RGB, gamma, and gamut tracking, you have nothing that verifies the content will be seen as intended. It is what it is. Your picture shown of a whale or whatever it is means nothing. That's not fighting, but telling the truth.

 

MAK

 

If shots of everyday scenery, that I can compare with what I see out the window, by turning my head, get a tick - then any numbers obtained add nothing to the story

[fas42]

20 minutes ago, Racerxnet said:

You are correct Frank,

 

None of the broadcast companies, film producers, or others use calibration. Just shoot from the hip.

 

MAK

 

Of course the people shooting the material should be using calibrated gear - then they can choose to develop a style for their production, colour cast, blurred or sharp, strong colour or muted, high or low contrast, etc. The point is, I don't my TV imposing a version that some software thinks is correct, if I then find that some broadcasting is irritating me - I got the previous set in that state, where all broadcasting worked well, and I want the current one to do the same.

 

IOW, the TV is transparent to the material ... hmmm, sounds like that might be a good idea for audio ... will have to think about it. 😀.

[fas42]

Okay, I'm going to give responding to this another go ... 😁

 

On 1/14/2020 at 4:37 PM, Archimago said:

 

Well, I guess I just don't experience it like that at all. If I'm interested in high fidelity reproduction of what's on my record/CD/file, I literally do want to hear all the recording has to offer. And since this is sound, frequencies seem rather important. 😁

 

First noted this about 15 years ago - was using an amp with the usual treble and bass controls; when the amp was not firing, the effect of the tone controls was obvious; when I temporarily lifted its performance to a decent level, I found it almost impossible to detect that swinging of the pots from one end to the other was doing anything significant to what I was hearing.

 

Quote

 

Surely, if you're interested in sounds being perceived as "real", you would want less of the brain to be using it's compensation mechanisms (eg. because the fundamental frequency might be missing!!!). If this is the case, one might as well seek out lossy encoded music - after all, the brain's psychoacoustic mechanisms can "fill in" the missing frequencies and it still sounds great. But don't we already have higher quality lossless?

 

A technically poor recording is harder to replay at a good enough standard - so, yes, the better the recording the easier it is for the brain.

 

Quote

 

As for this "SQ I'm interested in", I fear there's no way to ascertain what it is you're actually interested in since you're not describing this in detail nor showing by example what you're talking about.

 

Ummm, this is only the SQ that I have described in 100's of posts, in terms of its characteristics - if what it's about is not clear by now, I give up ... 😉.

 

Quote

 

 

Frank, if I may suggest... I see that you are not a physician and you literally have it backwards. From our discussion so far, it appears to me that you have not been able to describe the issues you "diagnose". This is literally more like the homeopath who believes that certain diagnoses exist and that numerous "special" preparations (which are difficult to describe) and successive tinctures of apparently highly diluted prescriptions result in remarkable outcomes ("sounds real!").

 

Sigh ... put on a recording that you find particularly objectionable to listen to - you will say, "It's a bad recording!" ... I will come in, and say, "Right, I can hear all sorts of distortion being excited, in the playback chain, by the nature of that recording". They're the symptoms of an 'unhealthy' playback system - I now have specific aches and pains to work on ...

 

Quote

We can talk more of this if you really believe in your analogy... But notice that your local doctor is not afraid to use instruments, tests, and various other objective measures; even a simple stethoscope or blood pressure cuff, not to mention complex autoimmune panels, genome sequencing or MRI - to verify the diagnostic impressions, often before prescribing anything.

 

So what are you using to verify your impressions (diagnoses)? Do any of your techniques incorporate placebo controlled trials to confirm the intended outcome? Have you conducted "multicentre" tests to achieve consensus with others?

 

Strangely enough, I do use a multimeter - Oh, horror!! 😜 ... but the vast majority of symptoms don't need any measurin' - if something is audible that shouldn't be there, then you have a problem.

 

A specific example, which I have mentioned several times in posts - my original Big Mutha amplifier, 35 years ago, showed distortion appearing in the treble above a certain volume. Carefully working through it, it turned out that the unit's power supply was not good enough; this was resolved after various attempts at simple tweaking, by completely restructuring the smoothing capacitor area ... problem solved.

 

Everything I do is based on the same principles that, say, makes you decide that a radio needs a better aerial  - not good enough aerial, audio is too distorted; better aerial, the distortion goes away.

 

Quote

 

Again isn't this all self-referential and may have nothing to do with the reality of others or even of the real world?

 

Some people like, for example, grotesque "bass" - I could call it, the "home theatre car door slam" effect - in the shot, all the people get out of the vehicle, one by one - and firmly close the door. And each time, a wrecking ball gives the walls of the room a solid whack ...well, last time I got out of a car I didn't hear anything like that happening ... 😉.

 

Quote

 

What "'sense' of the bass" are you talking about? "Clean" and "extension" are different dimensions and whether you have a preference towards a "clean" (distortionless) treble of course doesn't mean someone else might not prefer "extension" - as an audiophile, I prefer both and don't see why one would care to pick one over the other. 😱

 

Lack of distortion always comes before extension, for me. Well done deep bass is expensive, so I don't worry about it.

 

Quote

 

Sorry, I think you're very wrong about this. Could it be that you're personally not sensitive to the effects that a room makes?

 

So, you would trouble listening to live music if the room wasn't "right"?

 

Quote

 

I highly doubt a picture would be useless! The way the system is laid out, maybe a close-up of where time was spent to arrange something to create dramatic differences along with written description would act synergistically I think. Living in the material world, concrete demonstrations IMO are way more powerful than intellectual ruminations. There's nothing like showing something that works and having the person experience it for themselves...

 

The most effective add-on would be sounds ... examples of SQ in the right zone; examples in the wrong zone - I have done that on occasion, but the comments thereafter demonstrate a desire to disregard the aspect that matters, and not be intelligent about the point I'm trying to make.

 

Quote

 

To be able to teach others techniques to optimize sound quality in their set-up is important, and sorely missing in much of the audiophile press because they would have us buy stuff. If you have something to offer, then I for one would love to see it laid out in a clear fashion.

 

Agree.

 

Quote

 

It's not hard to get AdSense up and running. I bet you can get it done in an hour if you want especially if you're in the States. I recall having to jump through a few hoops here in Canada due to international financial transactions.

 

I will check it out ...

 

Quote

 

Like my point about "clean" and "extension" above. You can have both. The blog is a place you go to express DEPTH and your own meditations on various topics. The forums are great for INTERACTION, but like you say these are often "minor thoughts". Thoughts you really want others to know and potentially build upon should go in the blog. Have it act as your landmarks for reference. If you have something unique to say, put it there because that's likely as much of a legacy as anyone can hope for in the digital world.

 

 

Theory's good ... but it's always been a struggle to go back to activities where the 'novelty' has worn off - I used to be a voracious reader, until one day I stopped reading halfway through a volume, and to this day have no interest in reading, unless it's to find out information ...

[fas42]

1 hour ago, Archimago said:

 

Sorry man, I can't follow this as it clearly makes no sense. You're claiming that there is a special setting at which gross frequency manipulation with treble and bass controls suddenly is no longer audible? That's an extraordinary claim and you know what they say about extraordinary claims and the level of evidence needed.

 

There is a 'setting' of SQ where the mind no longer takes notice of FR variations - of course it actually does, but subjectively you "still hear the same thing" - go back, again, to listening to live music - if there is a dip in the FR somewhere because of room effects, your brain doesn't tell you, "Uh oh, I'll have to shift my position - it doesn't sound right" ... and the same brain processing switches on if the replay quality reaches a certain standard.

 

Quote

 

This is an important one: So in your worldview, there is no such things as bad recordings? And do you believe there is a setting for a system such that all recordings sound good and do not excite "distortions"?

 

 

Yes, indeed it is. This attitude developed over many years - even when I was achieving a very high standard, I still had recordings that were "no good" - only to get a shock when enough of the integrity of the setup further snapped into shape, because of some new refinement; and the recording came good.

 

So, the motto has been precisely that, for some years now ... "There no such thing as a bad recording". Note, it is not a "setting", for the playback chain - it's developing the awareness of when the system is adding distortion to the playback, and then doing what's needed to eliminate or reduce that unwanted artifact to the point of being inaudible.

 

Quote

 

Like I said, these are nice examples that you can highlight on your blog with case write-ups. Write them out in detail so people can understand what was done and consider for themselves. Vague descriptions like these will not sway anyone that your solutions are meaningful.

 

Have you read through, on the blog, A More Ambitious Upgrade - Part 1, onwards?

 

Quote

 

 

Subjective judgment you're making. I agree that often the effects are overdone. But if that's what was intended by artists, movie producers, etc... I can object that it doesn't sound good but I don't expect my system to "filter out" what was on the soundtrack.

 

The point is that the effects should not be exaggerated by characteristics of the playback - the car door slamming sequence showcased that the particular rig was overcooking that area.

 

Quote

 

Again, very subjective judgment. Fine if you don't care for a system that extends down to 20Hz. Many audiophiles want that and they get joy out of hearing/feeling the frequencies on their organ recordings and movie explosions. If you're not worried about deep bass, that's your prerogative - some people can't hear above 12kHz and say there's no point having tweeters that hit 20kHz as well. But if you're not worried because of personal financial limitation (ie. you can't afford a system that goes that low cleanly), then please don't use that to oppose the opinion of others that low frequencies are of value to them.

 

This is where the "missing fundamental" behaviour comes in ... there is an obsessive audio enthusiast further up the road than the friend, who has massively heavy, sealed subwoofers - we ran a frequency sweep and could clearly hear extension to the bottom of the range, and, it was extremely clean. The whole ensemble was running through a DEQX, which had been repeatedly calibrated, and it was set up as an active system, amplifier per driver. So I pulled out my test, pipe organ CD - this should be good, eh ... 😉 ... Ummm, no. It wimped out, the majesty and glory of that sound, live, went missing - the notes may have been there, but it didn't work - hit Stop pretty quickly, with that one.

 

Quote

 

Yes. I would not want to listen to a string quartet in an echoey cellar, and Diana Krall singing in my bathroom will do nothing for me. 

 

Again, you are using extreme examples ...

 

Quote

 

Sure. Include sounds. The more complete the "picture" of what you're doing the better.

 

OK.

 

Quote

 

Fine. And I see from a previous post that you have bad fatigue.

 

Anyhow, I hope you feel better and I don't think there's anything more to add unless there's "actionable" information to address. I hope at some point you can provide more concrete details on your blog. Like I said, pre- and post- images and sounds would be great. Case examples would be fantastic, to demonstrate your technique and results. I would have difficulty taking many of your comments seriously otherwise.

 

There's no "better", ever - I just have to pace myself, and that way I keep out of trouble.

 

The biggest problem is that unless you are live in a room with a system, that can produce this subjective presentation, and can demonstrate how the illusion collapses if you "pull a small stone out from under one of the supporting pillars" - then these are all just words. There are members on this forum who understand how precarious it is achieving the necessary SQ - I've been at it a lot longer, and have learned a lot of 'tricks' on the way.

 

The best "doctor" is the one who can understand, almost immediately, what is wrong with you as you start talking - this only occurs when he's been "on the job" for a long time; an intuition develops, and he cuts through many testing procedures, "because he's been there before".

 

[fas42]

On the TV side of things, I must say I'm getting pretty happy with this new set - a very slight adjustment to get a touch better balance on skin tones; and changed how I adjust the settings between bright daylight, and night viewing.

 

So, what the point of worrying about a simple TV? Well, it's all about the ease of taking in whatever happens to be showing - it's now in a zone that no matter what the image style is, that it "always works" - I have got might close to not being able to pick that the set is doing anything that even slightly jars, with what's being displayed. Super poppy colour, totally muted tones, all ring true - the set is "disappearing" as much as it can while I'm viewing.

 

Hmmm, what was the magic performed to get here? ... Well, steady step by step adjusting of the completely normal controls, until everything was in the "sweetest" zone with regard to the intrinsic limitations of that TV ... 😝.

 

[fas42]

Still with the TV, since the picture is probably very close to optimal, thought I would try out what can be done with its sound ... 😝.

 

Not going into the set, ever - this is merely to see what can be squeezed out, while treating it as a sealed box. The previous set had forward facing speakers, while this is the "speakers squashed somewhere around the back", guaranteeing it's much harder work to get "clear sound". When first trying it out I played with the usual set of EQ sliders to get a decent overall sense to the sound ... (wait, didn't he say FR doesn't matter?!!) ... ummm, that only switches on when the SQ is above a certain standard; below that, normal considerations apply. So, fairly reasonable clarity now, considering the torturous path for the sound.

 

Using an Aldi Blu-ray as the transport, HDMI - immediately, the TV broadcast EQ slider settings were not good for this, need to cut the treble - okay, not too bad - let it cook for a bit with The Doors, LA Woman ...

 

More volume than the previous telly, not much bass, but is doing nicely with tracks like,

 

 

No trouble running at maximum level, set has better sorting of the audio chain, no rattles and obvious physical problems - as to be expected, treble dirt is the main worry. So I try a couple of things to reduce video processing, but just like the previous set it doesn't like having an OSD of track time - which I have to kill for each succeeding track; makes an obvious difference when you switch it off.

 

Next tweak, separate the power feeds to the player and TV to some degree, by running them off different extension cords - again a clear gain of treble clarity.

 

What have I got with this couple of tweaks? Pretty good sound from outside the room, sounds nicely immersive from a distance. Directly in front, still ready to sound a bit rough. Piano tone can be quite reasonable, but goes off too easily - pretty good retrieval of acoustic, is promising there ...

[fas42]

Just got a call a call from N., the audio co-conspirator in the next township ... will be having a session this afternoon, and it looks to be largely in the vinyl arena - last time, LPs already were "in the zone", so hopefully it will be "better still".

 

In the sessions over the years, it has been demonstrated many times on his rigs that when either vinyl, or digital hits a peak of SQ, that the nature of the medium disappears from your awareness, and all you hear is the captured performance ... as it should be. There is no intrinsic "softness" to vinyl, no intrinsic "harshness" to digital - these are just the typical distortion characteristics of sub-par setups ... and these anomalies disappear when sufficient sorting has been performed.

[fas42]

Quite happy with with what the Aldi TV set is producing in SQ, that is, using internal sound system and speakers, with source from a Blue-ray machine, used as transport. Bit more tweaking of settings, to try and reduce internal chatter of the TV, from driving the display and processing any changing video content being fed to it. Last go was that pipe organ CD I mentioned, that bums out on audiophile rigs, 😝. Not bad, did Widor's famous Toccata rather well, full, rich sound, no obvious problems - most obvious lacking was, yes, big bass frequencies weren't there, 😉 - but it didn't really matter ...

 

Bev thought, not too bad - but she wants it "bigger"; more volume, heft, all the usual stuff 🙂. All gains were on maximum, nicely fills the house ... I'm pretty sure I'll have a go at recording what it sounds like - and post it.

[fas42]

A good listening session, down the road - vinyl came out trumps ... again!! Looks like N. has got this side of playback under good control - highlight was

 

 

This was mighty close to as good as it gets, I reckon - silky string tone, huge thunder from tympany, dense, immersive sound, climaxes clean as a whistle - who wants to go to a concert hall when you can get it at home, 😉

 

CD was not quite there - changes had been done, so it should have been better - plenty of oomph in the sound, but the last degree of "bloom" was missing - a decent 2nd.

 

Last in the roundup was the media player - he had done work to give the valve buffer, necessary to not load the output of the player, shielding but the quality was a bit up and down - the dreaded lurgy of digital "grayness" was in evidence, and seemed to vary. Plus, the gains weren't optimum - the Naim amp had to be set to max volume a lot of time, to get decent levels.

 

Luckily, last thing, some inspiration hit - could there be some static problem? Yes, there was ... some experiments with earthing, and using anti-static material clearly showed there was something going on - something for him to fine tune before the next round, 🙂

[fas42]

2 hours ago, Archimago said:

 

Hmmm. You're describing a perceptual phenomenon here. How do you know this happens to everyone? Remember, I was responding to your claim that you can find a situation where even gross treble/bass tone changes make no audible/perceptual difference!

 

I can't be sure at all; in fact, I'm certain that there would a percentage where this 'trick' would fail; it's an interesting side-effect that I have observed for myself, and I suspect for many others. I have certainly experienced the counter to the claim that FR is so important - in situations where a DEQX has been used by a skillful operator to "perfect" the response to within some minute percentage of dead flat - ummm. the rig didn't right in the before, and didn't sound right in the after - the after was merely a variation of the before, and no more "interesting".

 

Quote

 

Sorry, I've never experienced such phenomenon, nor to be honest would I really want to be so insensitive to sound changes! This doesn't mean I can't enjoy the music mind you, so long as the frequency anomaly isn't extreme.

 

Again, this in a region where what you are listening to has the 'energy' of live music - personally, FR anomalies is the last thing that crosses my mind when I listen to live music; OTOH I'm sure that there also people who are very sensitive to this - this would not be a good thing to have, IMO 😉.

 

Quote

 

Sure. But if you're not able to define the "distortion" you're talking about, then how do you eliminate it? Again, if you use the "doctor" analogy, you have not demonstrated the "pathological etiology" of the disorder you're talking about. How do you know which treatment to prescribe?

 

This forum is filled with posts from people who have zero problems with hearing every rig sounding different from the next. They can't all be right, if they all sound different - the ones that sound most different from what the most accurate playback sounds like, are the most distorted, by definition 😁.

 

The "distortion" is that which is often called the signature sound of the rig - that's what has to be eliminated. How do you know what causes it? In my case, mostly experience ... I have done this sort of thing so long that I developed quite an instinct for it - I listen for a minute, and say, there's a bad connection somewhere. I have been wrong many times, but if the first "diagnosis" doesn't pan out, then you move onto the next most likely.

 

There are a myriad of reasons for why a system is not up to scratch - poor mains supply, poor filtering and shielding of parts of the system from the environment, inadequate power supplies, inadequate decoupling in key areas of the circuit, poor earthing practices, vibration sensitivity, too much contact noise, sensitivity to static build up ...list long enough yet? 😜

 

Quote

 

Not every word, but even that 1st "Part 1" post is lacking in background and I have no concrete context as to accept what you're claiming. How can a person continue to read the other parts without understanding what you're saying?

 

Like I say, you should really just summarize everything in a few posts. Start from first principles. From there, build your case. And pictures do help keep readers interested plus allows the reader to better contextualize! For example, what does this cheap system with NAD CDP and amp look like? Show me this Sharp "boombox speaker" since you didn't even publish a product model in that post!

 

 

Every time I post pictures, they laugh ... there you go, spent 2 secs with Google Images, after  typing in "sharp mini hifi" and got,

 

 

Forget about the woofer box, the rest of it is as close to what I bought as to make no difference. Rip off the silly bit of plastic on the front of the cabinets, and you have as boring a two way speaker box as has been seen in audio shops, since forever. What made me go with them is that the drivers have the cojones to handle 200W of power, stamped on them by the makers of the drivers - spec'ed to handle being savagely abused by people partying, I would suggest.

 

Quote

How do you know it was exaggerated? What if this was how the soundtrack was produced and the equipment accurately replicated the intent?

 

This was at an audio show, in a high end home theatre demo - a projector worth about $100,000 on a huge screen, audiophile grade speakers, volume that pulverized you with ease - everything was BIG - BIG action flick, BIG colours, BIG sound, BIG faces on the screen - helicopter goes overhead, you duck 🙂 - consuming caseloads of beer type of situation ...

 

Quote

 

Sure. Maybe. How do I know? Unless you tell me what pipe organ CD you used, what track sounded bad, which sub(s) this guy has, what kind of system he's using, perhaps even what the room looks like... This is "hearsay" testimony. You do realize that the value of a comment like this is limited, right?

 

This is the sort of response I always get - you know when you look at the latest attempts at making an artificial head, talking, come across as human, and there are so many giveaways that it ain't? You're asking me, what words were spoken, what was the lighting like ... and I'm thinking, WTF ...

 

Quote

 

And why shouldn't I? You said rooms don't make a difference. Also, you said that it's possible to optimize a system so that tone controls no longer had an effect! I find those statements extreme and invitations to counter with obvious examples...

 

 

Again, if you couldn't stand someone, say, picking up an acoustic guitar and playing it with great skill in a particular room, then don't run your rig in it. That's as fussy as I find you need to be ...

 

Quote

Okay. As I've said above. Please clearly highlight these "pillars" which I interpreted abstractly as elements of your "first principles" in your writings so everyone is clear as to what you're saying and doing...

 

The essential pillar is the whole playback chain has to have sufficient integrity, and robustness, such that it presents as if live music, and not merely a hifi system. Yesterday I visited the audio friend down the road, and his vinyl was "in the zone" - it got a tick. Digital was reasonable, but couldn't pull it off - enough clues, slight misdemeanours that made you never forget that you were listening to equipment.

 

Now, with the vinyl, all he would have to do is, say, slightly mess up with the operation of the phono pre-amp, and the "magic" would have disappeared - as it has often been like when he played LPs, at other times.

 

Quote

 

Sorry, disagree. The idea of a doctor being able to diagnose based on first impressions and only on intuition (without digging deeper) can only go so far and with only certain conditions. Trust me on this one...

 

"Only so far", yes ... but in the real world, for 90% of the time, how does a skilled general practitioner operate?

[fas42]

59 minutes ago, Archimago said:

 

For a good GP, he / she takes a history and listens first?

 

Can't think of a situation when there's actually a significant problem and one can "understand, almost immediately, what is wrong with you as you start talking". Unless of course the person has clear physical signs like typical lesions of chicken pox, a black eye or obvious fracture - probably a good number of those should be going to the ER!

 

Okay, enough with the doctor analogies, then ...😉.

 

Quote

As for the Sharp mini hi-fi box, as you can imagine, I would not have had any specific idea what the speakers you're referring to looked like until you showed me that picture. In fact, it appears that's not even a picture of your actual set-up but some girls room? (BTW, you don't honestly believe "200W" printed on the front is meaningful and even refers to actual power handling to make you "go with them", do you?!)

 

All speakers of boomboxs look the same, under any bit of fancy plastic - a carcass of folded up chipboard, with two speakers mounted on the front panel - exactly the same as my small B&W speakers of 30 years ago, exactly they used thicker chipboard, and were good enough to throw in some foam acoustic material. I'm not particularly interested in speakers, because they're only a very small part of the story of getting good SQ ... my friend yesterday expressed it very well - cheaper speakers need more conditioning, from cold, of their suspensions to sound decent; if time matters, get better speakers.

 

I said, "stamped on them by the makers of the drivers" - you know, the place where it says 4R, 8R, on the magnet assembly - makes sense why, the chip amplifiers can do 100W, need some margin to stop the drivers frying, and taken back under warranty - the construction of the drivers is as good as the old B&Ws, very meaty magnet on the bass/midrange. nice suspension surround.

 

Quote

Typing into Google "sharp mini hifi" yielded pages of images and while it might have been a 2 second job for you, look at it through the lens of others. In fact, perhaps this is the key point about what you're saying and why I suspect many don't get it... You need to be considerate of the perspective of what others might be thinking. Can they truly follow where you're coming from and share the same basic beliefs from which you're approaching this?

 

Again, I've repeated over and over and over that the speakers aren't so important - if I post photos of what's unimportant do you think they will understand better what I'm saying?

 

Quote

 

As you can imagine... I don't follow and find many of your beliefs, both simple and complex are being expressed without adequate logical connection. I think that's all I can say.

 

 

The logic is remarkably simple: to goal is for a system to deliver the sense of hearing live sound; some people believe you have to spray lots of money in all directions, and have something that looks spectacular to achieve this - I've found that this has nothing to with it; what counts is locating the flaws in the system, not matter how expensive the individual components are, and eliminating them - unless you do this, your money is largely wasted, if your goal is as above. Get the "sorting out" right, and you will be rewarded with very special sound - that which is on the recording, rather than the playback rig's interpretation of it.

 

The audio friend I just visited has an audiophile acquaintance who has done it the flash way - a monster Gryphon integrated amp, Audio Research DAC, the "best" music server, Magico speakers is the latest round - ummm, he reckons the friend had the best sound many years ago, when the kit cost perhaps a 1/10 of the current configuration.

[fas42]

2 hours ago, Archimago said:

There are some things I can agree with:

 

Good to hear ... 😉.

 

Quote

 

Sure. It'll be nice to have "live sound" - but only if the recording is supposed to sound that way.

 

Agree. No need to spend lots of money.

 

The recording will end up sounding that way, unless the producer goes to a huge amount of effort to "wreck" the sound - what one ends up with, is hearing all the elements in the mix precisely as they were dealt with, to form the whole. I have in mind here a recording with Metallica and Lou Reed, where the former are thrashing away in the background, distortion guitar going full bore - and in the foreground Lou is sitting comfortably just behind the speakers, singing softly and intimately, to just me. Now, this has nothing to do with what it would sound like, live - but it's what's on the recording.

 

Quote

 

Sure, it's only as good as the limiting factor in the audio chain. And if there are distortions preventing the optimal sound, should deal with it.

 

 

Sure. getting the most expensive stuff doesn't mean it sounds the best. Many things like DACs and music servers are IMO not limiting the sound.

 

Good so far ... 🙂

 

Quote

But it's this comment that still gets me with your beliefs:

 

Plus this quote from the comment above:

 

Naw man. This devaluation of speakers simply does not jive in my corner of the universe. In fact, this is such an important foundation to the overall belief system that unless this is resolved, there's no way to even begin to understand anything else! Want to try being more specific about this?

 

How this started is because my first "good" rig used an expensive CDP, expensive amplifier, and cheap speakers - being a logical kind o' guy, I think!!, this said to me, "Ain't so important to use really, really good speakers!" ... it all built from there.

 

What do you lose with down market speakers? Worst from the SQ perspective is that the suspensions of the drivers.and the crossovers, are not as refined as expensive ones - this means they have to be driven hard from cold, to "warm them up" - for many people this would be a decisive reason not to go there, and that's fine. But I'm interested in what can be achieved, if one takes into account these sorts of issues.

 

Also what is a hindrance is that the cabinets are not "meaty" - thick, non-resonant, weigh half a ton, all help; anyone for some Wilsons? 😝 But If one takes some care you can effectively give the "flimsy" cabinet that comes with the drivers of a cheap speaker most of the characteristics that count for good sound. Without paying the manufacturers for all that meat ... this is what I did with my "beginner" setup.

 

What you may not believe is that low cost speakers can deliver intense, powerhouse sound - bowl you over with completely clean sound energy, immerse you in the music event - but I have consistently heard this happen ... what normally lets down the side is using an amplifier that is comparably in cost to that of the speakers - which won't work. The amp wimps out, and everyone blames the speakers - most people have it back to front ...

[fas42]

It's all in posts made over the years - I'll hunt them dowm, and quote them in a post here, for now ... give me some moments ...

[fas42]

Thing is, I want to trigger the brain cells, not the retina cones - if I "post pictures", at least one or two will slavishly copy exactly what's shown, having missed the intent of what's going on, and get it wrong in some area. Then they will indignantly post, "Frank's all BS! I did exactly what's in the pictures, and it made things worse ,,, he hasn't a clue!!" ... I can see it coming, from miles away ... 😜.

 

An ounce of brain processing is worth more than a lb of thick textbook, full of pretty pictures, 😉.

[fas42]

To warm up the audience a bit, first "dump", from

 

.

This was easily found, using "B&W"  as the search term, and me as author, in the forum's search.

 

Note opus101 responding - he's onto what one needs to do - there is a discussion elsewhere where we share thoughts, etc.

 

[fas42]

And a second dose,

 

 

Found, the same way as previous, this time using "concrete" as search word - plenty of good posts in the results page, describing aspects of what I did, my thinking, etc.

[fas42]

49 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

 

 

I had no idea Frank was using these

 

 

 

Plasma loudspeakers get around one major problem area when using dynamic drivers - the suspension system is too crude in the latter; solutions are to thoroughly warm them up before assessing, or to use some planar technology devices instead ... hopefully the plasma stuff won't kill you ... dying to hear good SQ doesn't turn me on ...

[fas42]

Still foolin' with the Aldi telly, being used as a set of digital speakers - Kii, watch out, 😝. Still squeezing a bit more SQ out of it - currently playing

 

 

Doing very nicely with the treble - good sense of the acoustics in the tracks, separation of voice and instruments working well ...

 

Played some Brendel on piano, just before, at max volume - do have issues with plastic vibrating, somewhere, with big piano notes; need to locate them and damp.

 

What's been done? Key was to switch off the EQ settings, by setting them all at 50 - major gain from this; must be using the DAC chip for doing this, so was degrading quite substantially. Next, improving the mains supply noise by inserting a hugely long extension cord, to attenuate muck before it gets to the set - Bev got a shock from how much this cleared up the sound, 😉. Also worked out another refinement to try and stop the TV's video circuitry from being tickled while playing - still hoping to somehow completely kill this, not sure how, as yet.

 

Still quite a bit more to experiment with - aiming to minimise to as low a level as possible any impact of voltage, and current fluctuations on the power in.

 

[fas42]

A bit more of the Meitner interview - and talking about whether vinyl playback can hit "the zone" ... N. down the road has been working, and working, on myriad refinements to his, at the core, just pretty good quality LP setup for year after year - nothing has really changed in the technical sense for years, except he went to a better Ortofon cartridge at one point. And it has gone from being "Nahhh ...!!" to "Wow!", back and forth. Currently in the latter status - quite special listening, digital definitely has to scramble, to match the subjective presentation ...

 

What's the point? That the technical issues, as mentioned by Meitner, can be circumvented if enough care goes into ensuring that the best balance is achieved with what one has at hand ... good enough to deliver SQ that makes you forget the medium; you are connecting to the musical message, fully.

[fas42]

Can't remember - will check with him soon, and get back to you.

[fas42]

Finished watching the Meitner interview - lucky fellow, he's still powering; the creative juices are flowing nicely, and his energy reserves are backing him up fully - ahh, that would be a nice place to be ... 🙂.

 

Noted some words and concepts: "hygiene", which is another way of saying "integrity"; "art" ... hmmm, where would that come from? 😝 ; and "driving is the go" - yes, I find longer distance driving to be a meditative process; some people go fishing, I'm happy to be behind the wheel, "with no particular place to go".

[fas42]

Back to tweaking the video of the recent acquired TV - had left it untouched for a few days, and was building up a sense of the colour balance not being as good as it could be; the sum of every program, clip and different shot was indicating a slight colour cast, still ... from my experience from the previous set, this said it was all about the Green - so, nudged it up 0.5 %, 1% was too much.  ... Definitely better, an outside sports broadcast had eucalyptus leaves in strong sunlight right next to the talking head - the shade of grey green was now even more on the money.

 

Why bother? Because, it makes the viewing that much more comfortable; the subtle colour cast was just enough to start bugging me - and, I had the means to cancel it out - there is an optimum set of numbers for this set, and I'm happy to spend the time to nail them ... the bigger the set, the more any incorrectness will nudge you, in the corner of your eye.

 

Obviously, this relates to how I hear audio sound - I allow it to "sink in", and if I feel there's something wrong ... well, it is wrong - I have the 'evidence' that there is something yet that can be done to make it better - and all my years of experience have shown me that there is always something that can be tweaked; where this 'fails' is when the effort/money to get it better becomes pointless, with respect to the intrinsic value of the system.

[fas42]

Surgery can be done to the source material, too - if the 'damage' is fairly straightforward ... Archimago posted that this latest  Pet Shop Boys track was looking pretty yucky, so I thought I would have a look at it. Downloaded a decent audio format version from YouTube - after a couple of gos, got the settings pretty right for undoing the compression, with the result,

 

 

Note the original version has been attenuated 8.5dB, to allow for the expansion of dynamic range - one major gain is clarity of the big reverb of the drum beat, which is highly squashed in the original.

[fas42]

Had another go at extracting decent sound from the big Aldi TV yesterday - was up and down in the exercise; at its best, did a very nice job of a recording with orchestra and pipe organ, good authority from the organ, and respectable bloom from the string section, etc, backing. A nice touch ... clearly hearing the mechanicals of the organ being activated, just before the first note rang out.

 

Where are the issues? The usual suspects - stopping the telly processing video content is key, as mentioned before; so some means of freezing the image is still to be found; the workaround of hitting a button on the remote every time a new track restarts the OSD, to cancel it, is tooo painful. And power supply quality and static noise - playing with adjusting where the units are plugged in, and what else is using power; and carefully dressing how the cords are organised moves the quality from irritating to acceptable, and back again.

 

I aim to get a good standard, without doing "bigger stuff" like inserting mains filtering accessories, etc - which means, it ticks the boxes when heard from the other end of the house, and, is not obviously misbehaving when standing directly in front of the set.