Fas42’s Stereo ‘Magic’

[fas42]

On 2/27/2021 at 1:00 AM, botrytis said:

I think Frank needs to be right all the time. I have seen this in many other audiophiles, it is not just Frank.

 

Now if Frank would actually acknowledge there is more than one way to skin a cat, we would be good to go.

 

You belong to that class of people who cultivate selective blindness, and deafness - a very, very large fraternity, 😉.

 

I have stated so many times, pointed to people who aim or achieve what I do, using a different approaches - but you make sure you never take note of this ... gets in the way of being able to have a go at me, as you just did, doesn't it? 😀

[fas42]

On 2/27/2021 at 2:35 AM, botrytis said:

I mean, that is why there is so much audio equipment and types out there. There is no right way to do this hobby, only one that is right for you. After that, then one can figure out the rest. What one does with their equipment may not be what is best or works for others.

 

Choose what you're after ... some people buys very expensive camera gear, every lens that's available, chase the next model that comes out - and end up with just snapshots, all the time. Others use a phone camera, and take a shot which wins a photographic competition. Both are valid activities  - at either end of the spectrum - I'm interested in the latter version of activity.

 

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My wife would laugh at paper stacking. She would say, change the bloody equipment already. She is very logical, would listen and then say what is exactly on her mind. She also has better ears than me, I seem to have the better taster.

 

You can't understand what's going on ... I chasing answers to getting a result - you use what's available - fancier equipment doesn't solve the puzzle.

 

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I think Frank needs to go to a big audio event, like Munich, AXPONA, or RMAF to really appreciate the diversity. Also, meeting other audiophools (I mean that with respect since I am one) is fun and educational.

 

Couple of decades ago, that would have been a waste of time. These days, some rigs are together enough, at a show, to demonstrate good sound - but the duds still outweigh the few good ones.

 

[botrytis]

32 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

You belong to that class of people who cultivate selective blindness, and deafness - a very, very large fraternity, 😉.

 

I have stated so many times, pointed to people who aim or achieve what I do, using a different approaches - but you make sure you never take note of this ... gets in the way of being able to have a go at me, as you just did, doesn't it? 😀

Well, I am open to things and trying different options. I think you are too into thinking you are right, no matter the cost. It shows.

 

As I said, there is more than one way to do things. I just think hitting your head against a wall continually, doesn't fix things and just gives one a headache.

[botrytis]

24 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Choose what you're after ... some people buys very expensive camera gear, every lens that's available, chase the next model that comes out - and end up with just snapshots, all the time. Others use a phone camera, and take a shot which wins a photographic competition. Both are valid activities  - at either end of the spectrum - I'm interested in the latter version of activity.

 

 

You can't understand what's going on ... I chasing answers to getting a result - you use what's available - fancier equipment doesn't solve the puzzle.

 

 

Couple of decades ago, that would have been a waste of time. These days, some rigs are together enough, at a show, to demonstrate good sound - but the duds still outweigh the few good ones.

 

 

 

Are you sure? You would be amazed. There are enough good sounding systems to get an idea of what to do and what not to do.

 

See, you are just poo-pooing anyone's suggestions to you that doesn't say, 'See Frank, you are a genius!'. Sorry Frank, you are not.

[Racerxnet]

41 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

You belong to that class of people who cultivate selective blindness, and deafness - a very, very large fraternity, 😉.

 

I have stated so many times, pointed to people who aim or achieve what I do, using a different approaches - but you make sure you never take note of this ... gets in the way of being able to have a go at me, as you just did, doesn't it? 😀

Is there any stats or testing done to qualify what you SAY you achieve, other than blathering on. In other words, who has listened to your system and can verify what you state?  No spin Frank, just give an honest yes or no. Put your money where your mouth is. 

 

Has anyone noticed that the thread dies and gets pushed to the bottom until Frank comes along and posts endlessly to himself. 

[fas42]

3 minutes ago, botrytis said:

Well, I am open to things and trying different options. I think you are too into thinking you are right, no matter the cost. It shows.

 

As I said, there is more than one way to do things. I just think hitting your head against a wall continually, doesn't fix things and just gives one a headache.

 

I'm right as regards my goal ... extracting the maximum from any recording I happen to put on; if your goal is to use your system to prove that some recordings are good, and other are unlistenable to - then I'm afraid you're wrong.

 

Of course there are multiple ways - if you don't have DIY skills in this area, then it's fine to buy gear that's been sufficiently debugged to do the job - unfortunately, the level of useful debugging is not indicated by the price.

 

6 minutes ago, botrytis said:

 

 

Are you sure? You would be amazed. There are enough good sounding systems to get an idea of what to do and what not to do.

 

The systems that work well are generally very expensive - there are solutions beyond throwing lots of money at it; and that's the area I'm interested in.

 

6 minutes ago, botrytis said:

See, you are just poo-pooing anyone's suggestions to you that doesn't say, 'See Frank, you are a genius!'. Sorry Frank, you are not.

 

You're the one with the problem when you say that - I just happened to stumble upon a solution, decades ago - and have been refining that knowledge ever since.

 

[fas42]

2 minutes ago, Racerxnet said:

Is there any stats or testing done to qualify what you SAY you achieve, other than blathering on. In other words, who has listened to your system and can verify what you state?  No spin Frank, just give an honest yes or no. Put your money where your mouth is. 

 

 

 

Members of family, friends, a few audiophiles - the audio friend up the road has steadily evolved his setup to getting lots of ticks, after having come a couple of times to hear what I was doing. It's taken him many years, to get to the point where he almost instinctively knows what to do next - I never said this was easy, 😉. Last listening session, he remarked on how he is still using the same gear as he had 10, 15 years ago - all the progress has been in understanding how to extract the most out of those purchases.

 

Just yesterday, Bev said, Yet Again, "This is BS!!" ... that is, we're listening to gear that cost, all up, about $US300; which is pumping out this big, big sound ...

[Racerxnet]

41 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Members of family, friends, a few audiophiles - the audio friend up the road has steadily evolved his setup to getting lots of ticks, after having come a couple of times to hear what I was doing. It's taken him many years, to get to the point where he almost instinctively knows what to do next - I never said this was easy, 😉. Last listening session, he remarked on how he is still using the same gear as he had 10, 15 years ago - all the progress has been in understanding how to extract the most out of those purchases.

 

Just yesterday, Bev said, Yet Again, "This is BS!!" ... that is, we're listening to gear that cost, all up, about $US300; which is pumping out this big, big sound ...

I asked you specifically about your system being listened to by anyone else, not N up the roads system, not your wife who will back your position (out of love for you). But someone, preferably several, with the interest of seeing what they may, or may not learn from your decades of experience. In other words, can you prove that your system is much better than the ones you so easily cut down, many of which you never heard. The burden of proof is on you, and without any qualifying factors to verify your position, it is a repeating pile of dung. Try adding some credibility to what you are trying to convey.

[fas42]

Yay, Internet's back ... technician turned up, and knew what the problem was, without a word being said. Which is, the NBN boxes are junk, they fall over with a couple of power outages - not very nice, if one is relying on them to connect to the world. Apparently they're working on a "better box"; which hopefully is not too far away ...

[fas42]

1 hour ago, Racerxnet said:

I asked you specifically about your system being listened to by anyone else, not N up the roads system, not your wife who will back your position (out of love for you). But someone, preferably several, with the interest of seeing what they may, or may not learn from your decades of experience. In other words, can you prove that your system is much better than the ones you so easily cut down, many of which you never heard. The burden of proof is on you, and without any qualifying factors to verify your position, it is a repeating pile of dung. Try adding some credibility to what you are trying to convey.

 

Nice to know that N., and my wife, are not people ... 😝.

 

The point is not that "my system is better!" - rather, that what I work towards is hearing what's on the recording. Any rig which adds makeup to that content is not being accurate - but many audiophiles don't see it that way; they want the recording to sound like "they think it should"  - so, they are likely to be disappointed; because my setup won't mimic how their particular rig sounds, only better ...

 

I've given you multiple recordings, tracks which present extremely well, if correctly played back ... so, the ball's in your court - how do those items come up on your rig? If they sound a bit of a mess, or unpleasant - then I'm not going to think that your system is well behaved.

[Racerxnet]

39 minutes ago, fas42 said:

I've given you multiple recordings, tracks which present extremely well, if correctly played back ... so, the ball's in your court - how do those items come up on your rig? If they sound a bit of a mess, or unpleasant - then I'm not going to think that your system is well behaved.

Frank, you are the one making claims which you cannot substantiate. Unfortunately, the ball is yours. I do not do youtube at all for assessing my system.

 

I believe in the room as part of the whole package. I use REW and other measuring software to help. I have rebuilt the crossovers, soldered in new tubes for the DAC, use reasonable IC cables, made high pass interconnect cables based on Gary Koh's suggestions for better coherency of the bass columns. All that and a ton more. What I hear may be more accurate than you. Then again, maybe not. What I don't do is tell you your playback is inferior to mine because "I know better with 35 years of doing this".. 

50 minutes ago, fas42 said:

The point is not that "my system is better!" - rather, that what I work towards is hearing what's on the recording.

How are you assessing this and qualifying that you made any improvement other, than spouting this on the forum. 

 

53 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Any rig which adds makeup to that content is not being accurate - but many audiophiles don't see it that way; they want the recording to sound like "they think it should"  - so, they are likely to be disappointed; because my setup won't mimic how their particular rig sounds, only better ...

See the above statement. There is nothing to qualify or back up what has been written. Can we use the Harmon curve, step response, impulse response, and phase as part of the replay chain to have a better sounding system? If the answer is No, then if your system was engineered with these tools, why can't we use them as well? 

[fas42]

37 minutes ago, Racerxnet said:

Frank, you are the one making claims which you cannot substantiate. Unfortunately, the ball is yours. I do not do youtube at all for assessing my system.

 

Neither do I. As said before, it's a torturous route to put YT clips onto the active speakers - so, it hasn't happened once, yet.

 

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I believe in the room as part of the whole package. I use REW and other measuring software to help. I have rebuilt the crossovers, soldered in new tubes for the DAC, use reasonable IC cables, made high pass interconnect cables based on Gary Koh's suggestions for better coherency of the bass columns. All that and a ton more. What I hear may be more accurate than you. Then again, maybe not. What I don't do is tell you your playback is inferior to mine because "I know better with 35 years of doing this".. 

 

All good things. I would be certain that in some areas of tonality your rig would do an excellent job; better than the Edifiers, say. It can't be otherwise, since the quality of the parts used does determine some of the attributes of the sound heard.

 

What I got 35 years ago was 100% invisibility of the speakers - this is magic stuff, and everything since has built on that auditory phenomenon. A few others know of this possibility, and understand what I'm talking about - what I'm interested in is persuading people to pursue this also; inferiority in something is not the point - it's understanding that the tweaking never ends, if one wants to achieve this.

 

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How are you assessing this and qualifying that you made any improvement other, than spouting this on the forum. 

 

Because, firstly, the signature of the recording dominates; that of the rig disappears - this can never be perfect; but you can get mighty close - as I mentioned in a recent post elsewhere, N.'s latest improvements yielded a sound so close to what I currently get with the Edifiers, it was a bit scary! With totally, totally different setups ... this is a giveaway that you have eliminated most of the replay signature.

 

Secondly, the speakers completely disappear - my actives don't do this yet, but there are encouraging signs, at times, that they're getting into the region. This means that the detail on the recording is so clear, so accurately reproduced, that one's brain reconstructs the meaning of everything it hears to the point that a completely convincing illusion is thrown up. Now, the audio gear doesn't have inbuilt AI to know how to do this, 🤪 - so, it has to be what's on the recording.

 

Quote

 

See the above statement. There is nothing to qualify or back up what has been written. Can we use the Harmon curve, step response, impulse response, and phase as part of the replay chain to have a better sounding system? If the answer is No, then if your system was engineered with these tools, why can't we use them as well? 

 

Those methods certainly can help, but they don't answer how to deal with audible anomalies that are caused by other factors - which are normally never measured. A lack of overall integrity of the playback chain could possibly be detected by some of those measuring tools - but I haven't seen anything that convinces me that just relying on numbers from them will deliver optimised SQ.

 

Again note, my biggest concerns with the Edifiers, still, are to do with blocking interference factors - no-one measures that ... and that tells the story ...

[Racerxnet]

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

Those methods certainly can help, but they don't answer how to deal with audible anomalies that are caused by other factors - which are normally never measured. A lack of overall integrity of the playback chain could possibly be detected by some of those measuring tools - but I haven't seen anything that convinces me that just relying on numbers from them will deliver optimised SQ.

 

Again note, my biggest concerns with the Edifiers, still, are to do with blocking interference factors - no-one measures that ... and that tells the story ...

But again, your story has no factual basis to it. Just because you say it is so, does not make it as such. What interference problems? Can you elaborate and show results that moved the rig in the desired direction. If you are the judge, jury, and executioner within your closed system, or thread at CA, you have no chance at improving anything. It needs peer review to REALY determine if the outcome meets any credibility.

 

Find some way to prove your point. 

[fas42]

3 hours ago, Racerxnet said:

But again, your story has no factual basis to it. Just because you say it is so, does not make it as such. What interference problems? Can you elaborate and show results that moved the rig in the desired direction. If you are the judge, jury, and executioner within your closed system, or thread at CA, you have no chance at improving anything. It needs peer review to REALY determine if the outcome meets any credibility.

 

Find some way to prove your point. 

 

Well, if you have been reading the Edifier thread, I have repeatedly said that noise on the mains caused audible changes in the SQ - are you disputing that this can happen? Are the very high percentage of audio enthusiasts who invest in various types of mains conditioning, filters, regenerators - including the owner of this forum - all deluding themselves, when they say it makes a difference?

 

If we agree that improvements in SQ are possible by reducing the the non-perfect aspects of the AC waveform, then why should it be necessary to "prove" that this can happen?

 

What I really should prove is that improving the SQ beyond a certain point brings about a quite unexpected, and dramatic improvement in the subjective experience - anecdotal evidence for this is everywhere in audiophile writings; including accounts by members on this forum. This to me is the really important thing to understand in this whole game - why it happens, and how one can guarantee that it always happens. Unfortunately, I'm not in a position to do this - I don't know enough, and I haven't the energy to pursue finding answers more vigorously.

[Confused]

4 hours ago, fas42 said:

What I really should prove is that improving the SQ beyond a certain point brings about a quite unexpected, and dramatic improvement in the subjective experience - anecdotal evidence for this is everywhere in audiophile writings; including accounts by members on this forum. This to me is the really important thing to understand in this whole game - why it happens, and how one can guarantee that it always happens. Unfortunately, I'm not in a position to do this - I don't know enough, and I haven't the energy to pursue finding answers more vigorously.

I think there is a subtlety here, which might be at the heart of this matter.

 

I could easily post about some past experiences, where I have changed kit or made some kind of adjustment to my system and then declare something like "Some recordings that I had previously dismissed as being harsh or unpleasant to listen to suddenly sounded natural and so much more real".  This would be a factual an honest recollection of events, I have indeed had some recordings that irritated in some way, and then after "sorting" something in my system they snap into shape and the real magic of the recording came though.  

 

Furthermore, I see endless posts on this forum from individuals that are effectively following the fas42 methodology, that is listening and subjectively observing "distortions" in the reproduction, and then tweaking the system by a whole variety of means to eliminate the subjectively observed anomalies.

 

What I do not see in the posts of others is that an optimised system will eliminate all unpleasant anomalies from all recordings to the point that the listener would no longer be aware of them.  I have mentioned before that I agree with the philosophy of assuming the recording is good, and seeing if system changes can eliminate what is subjectively annoying, but this is a step removed from thinking that all recordings can be reproduced free of annoying anomalies with a sorted system.  In fact, you have stated this yourself, mentioning that so called audiophile recordings sound bad, and dynamic compression being problematic.  These points are highly subjective in terms of what annoys, for example, I do not like overly compressed recordings, but I do not like recording s with tonal imbalances.  Of course, one could claim that my subjective annoyance with tonal imbalance is due to distortions in my rig, but then when I find the same annoyance when I play the track on my headphone rig, or my iPhone with Sony WH1000's, or in my car, or anywhere else and I find the same issue, I am inclined to stop worrying about it and put it down to the recording.  (As an aside, I was reading a report of a remastered album at the weekend, where apparently the engineer responsible for the final master had massively jacked up the treble as a result of his own hearing loss)

 

"I listened to some old favorite tracks that I had previously dismissed as being terrible recordings, and found that they now sound great", is an order of magnitude different to "my system will make all and any recording sound subjectively wonderful".

 

Plus the stuff about how treble can be turned to the max and still sound fine, and stereo imaging will remain intact even with the listeners head adjacent to one speaker.

 

So within these subtleties we have claims that many will be inclined to accept as a subjective observation, and other claims that fall into the "extraordinary claims" category.

 

So, can you point to any posts or anecdotal evidence which back up the latter, more extraordinary claims? 

 

Without this it remains one person's claim against all others.  If there are indeed a few more "fas42's" out there, then maybe there is something to investigate here?

 

By they way, this is a request for links to similar claims from others that are more at the "extraordinary" end of the scale.  I know that you do not agree with some of the points I have made above, we have been there before, it is documented earlier in this thread, and I am happy to agree to disagree, we all observe things a little differently from a subjective point of view.  But finding a few more fas42's would be interesting.....

[Racerxnet]

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

Well, if you have been reading the Edifier thread, I have repeatedly said that noise on the mains caused audible changes in the SQ - are you disputing that this can happen? Are the very high percentage of audio enthusiasts who invest in various types of mains conditioning, filters, regenerators - including the owner of this forum - all deluding themselves, when they say it makes a difference?

 

If we agree that improvements in SQ are possible by reducing the the non-perfect aspects of the AC waveform, then why should it be necessary to "prove" that this can happen?

In the above paragraph nobody has disputed what the regenerator etc can do. And in that case, you are using proven technology which has been around for some time. This counters your point that only you know how to get the best SQ, from 35 years of messing around with audio reproduction. If fact, it is an engineered solution, for a specific application. 

 

11 hours ago, fas42 said:

Those methods certainly can help, but they don't answer how to deal with audible anomalies that are caused by other factors - which are normally never measured. A lack of overall integrity of the playback chain could possibly be detected by some of those measuring tools - but I haven't seen anything that convinces me that just relying on numbers from them will deliver optimised SQ.

 

Again note, my biggest concerns with the Edifiers, still, are to do with blocking interference factors - no-one measures that ... and that tells the story ...

The above quote contradicts your point.. Nobody measure this, and then you imply that we need to clean up the AC waveform. The circular logic, if you want to call it logic, shows that you really have no magic at all. We all understand to some degree, what can be done to improve the playback chain. Some are better at it than others, but those people don’t throw their weight around and knock systems into the dirt over jealousy. 

 

Everyone has some strengths and weaknesses, so some may chose to pay for the services and tech needed to resolve specific issues with the playback chain. We live in an imperfect world with imperfect solutions. In your case, a 100 ft extension cord may be YOUR answer. For others, it may be to purchase services to measure/test the waveform and add an isolation transformer and filter, install dedicated lines from the service panel on the same phase etc. 

 

What I am suggesting is that if you are concerned about main noise in the line, there are solutions already available. You are reinventing the wheel. 

[Racerxnet]

20 minutes ago, Confused said:

By they way, this is a request for links to similar claims from others that are more at the "extraordinary" end of the scale.  I know that you do not agree with some of the points I have made above, we have been there before, it is documented earlier in this thread, and I am happy to agree to disagree, we all observe things a little differently from a subjective point of view.  But finding a few more fas42's would be interesting.....

Are you assuming that most of us do not attempt to maximize the replay?? Maybe it’s the fact that Frank makes extraordinary claims without any peer review to substantiate his claims. We all listen to our systems, and wonder if there is more we can do. Look at all the names who post here, and there are all the fast42 tinkerer’s. 

[botrytis]

6 minutes ago, Racerxnet said:

Are you assuming that most of us do not attempt to maximize the replay?? Maybe it’s the fact that Frank makes extraordinary claims without any peer review to substantiate his claims. We all listen to our systems, and wonder if there is more we can do. Look at all the names who post here, and there are all the fast42 tinkerer’s. 

 

Frank really can't tell us what he does because he is living in his own mind. Maybe I am being harsh but he needs to explain step by step.

 

He is not the first audiophile that does this and won't be the last. 

 

Frank seems to like saying well, 'You are not an audiophile because you don't understand what I am doing.' If one does not explain it is hard to get people to understand.

[Confused]

20 minutes ago, Racerxnet said:

Are you assuming that most of us do not attempt to maximize the replay?? Maybe it’s the fact that Frank makes extraordinary claims without any peer review to substantiate his claims. We all listen to our systems, and wonder if there is more we can do. Look at all the names who post here, and there are all the fast42 tinkerer’s. 

Quite the opposite.  Indeed I stated this in my post; "I see endless posts on this forum from individuals that are effectively following the fas42 methodology, that is listening and subjectively observing "distortions" in the reproduction, and then tweaking the system by a whole variety of means to eliminate the subjectively observed anomalies."

 

To be fair, there are of course a wide variety of methodologies used amongst those that frequent this forum, those that like to measure, REW etc, those that base equipment choices on the measurements of others, those that subjectively try different kit at dealers or A/B test at home.  Plus many others, it is a broad church as they say.  

 

Ultimately we are all trying to achieve similar things, optimising replay, either against objective or subjective metrics, maybe both.

[Racerxnet]

24 minutes ago, Confused said:

post; "I see endless posts on this forum from individuals that are effectively following the fas42 methodology, that is listening and subjectively observing "distortions" in the reproduction, and then tweaking the system by a whole variety of means to eliminate the subjectively observed anomalies."

I guess I object to the fas42 methodology. There have been countless others before Frank having a better understanding, better explanations with reasoned logic, and quantifiable results thereafter. 

 

Call it a more appropriate measure of improved performance. I am not picking on your naming convention, just that using Frank, as a sole nomination for this quest for better performance, is a mischaracterization. Others have achieved far more. There appear to be very few who follow Frank at a single site like CA. You would think if the following was so great, Franks, blog would be growing and the news would spread to other sites. That is NOT happening, and he has been banned from others due to thread crapping. 

[Confused]

10 minutes ago, Racerxnet said:

I guess I object to the fas42 methodology. There have been countless others before Frank having a better understanding, better explanations with reasoned logic, and quantifiable results thereafter. 

 

Call it a more appropriate measure of improved performance. I am not picking on your naming convention, just that using Frank, as a sole nomination for this quest for better performance, is a mischaracterization. Others have achieved far more. There appear to be very few who follow Frank at a single site like CA. You would think if the following was so great, Franks, blog would be growing and the news would spread to other sites. That is NOT happening, and he has been banned from others due to thread crapping. 

Maybe I was not clear in my earlier post. 

 

Frank was stating that his claims are backed up by "anecdotal evidence for this is everywhere in audiophile writings".  

 

My point is that I have never seen the more extraordinary aspects of Franks claims, such as you can have a system on which ALL recordings are free of subjectively irritating anomalies, or that stereo image remains stable when your head is adjacent to one speaker, etc. as every being backed up by others, or indeed anyone.  Maybe Frank is aware of others?

 

Frank is stating that his claims are backed up by others, I am asking for links that back up his more extraordinary claims.

 

And no, I do not see Frank as the the sole nomination as a mentor for for the quest for better performance, there are vey many nominations for that one, some with very different approaches.  I am referring to his methods here of course, simply because this is the topic of this thread.  Other methods are available and indeed may be preferable.

[botrytis]

10 minutes ago, Confused said:

Maybe I was not clear in my earlier post. 

 

Frank was stating that his claims are backed up by "anecdotal evidence for this is everywhere in audiophile writings".  

 

My point is that I have never seen the more extraordinary aspects of Franks claims, such as you can have a system on which ALL recordings are free of subjectively irritating anomalies, or that stereo image remains stable when your head is adjacent to one speaker, etc. as every being backed up by others, or indeed anyone.  Maybe Frank is aware of others?

I can state that only omni-directional speakers have this ability - like Ohm F's, MBL and others like this. I do not think Frank has ever heard any of these, I could be wrong (it does happen).

10 minutes ago, Confused said:

Frank is stating that his claims are backed up by others, I am asking for links that back up his more extraordinary claims.

 

And no, I do not see Frank as the the sole nomination as a mentor for for the quest for better performance, there are vey many nominations for that one, some with very different approaches.  I am referring to his methods here of course, simply because this is the topic of this thread.  Other methods are available and indeed may be preferable.

Well, that is what happens when one believes their own line of fluff.

[Confused]

6 minutes ago, botrytis said:

I can state that only omni-directional speakers have this ability - like Ohm F's, MBL and others like this. I do not think Frank has ever heard any of these, I could be wrong (it does happen).

I listened to this system at a show back in 2016.   (German Physiks HRS-130 loudspeakers) The sound stage was very impressive, the effect was quite spooky, but in a good way.

I never tried the head adjacent to one speaker test though.  A missed opportunity, but I will remember for next time.  (the equivalent show is back on for autumn 2021, assuming no surprises from the pandemic) 

[botrytis]

46 minutes ago, Confused said:

I listened to this system at a show back in 2016.   (German Physiks HRS-130 loudspeakers) The sound stage was very impressive, the effect was quite spooky, but in a good way.

I never tried the head adjacent to one speaker test though.  A missed opportunity, but I will remember for next time.  (the equivalent show is back on for autumn 2021, assuming no surprises from the pandemic) 

 

 

The drivers are based on the Walsh driver theory but using carbon so they are quite Brittle. They are spooky, I agree.

[fas42]

Again a very thoughtful post,

 

7 hours ago, Confused said:

 ...

 

... . I have mentioned before that I agree with the philosophy of assuming the recording is good, and seeing if system changes can eliminate what is subjectively annoying, but this is a step removed from thinking that all recordings can be reproduced free of annoying anomalies with a sorted system.  In fact, you have stated this yourself, mentioning that so called audiophile recordings sound bad, and dynamic compression being problematic. 

 

I have never said that 'audiophile' recordings are bad - rather, they have been engineered to sound good on typical audiophile systems; and the result is that they sound somewhat boring, IME, or, bizarre - an example of the latter is a piano drowning in a swimming pool of reverb - the result, for me, is that I have little interest in listening to them again.

 

Dynamic compression is an issue - it means that the recording can have a very aggressive, in your face, posture - it's not pleasurable to listen to. But this can be put in the category of the mastering being deliberately, rather than accidentally, distorted.

 

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These points are highly subjective in terms of what annoys, for example, I do not like overly compressed recordings, but I do not like recording s with tonal imbalances.  Of course, one could claim that my subjective annoyance with tonal imbalance is due to distortions in my rig, but then when I find the same annoyance when I play the track on my headphone rig, or my iPhone with Sony WH1000's, or in my car, or anywhere else and I find the same issue, I am inclined to stop worrying about it and put it down to the recording.  (As an aside, I was reading a report of a remastered album at the weekend, where apparently the engineer responsible for the final master had massively jacked up the treble as a result of his own hearing loss)

 

Which one, may I ask?

 

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"I listened to some old favorite tracks that I had previously dismissed as being terrible recordings, and found that they now sound great", is an order of magnitude different to "my system will make all and any recording sound subjectively wonderful".

 

An order of magnitude? Steady on, my good fellow 🙂 ... it's part of the same behaviour; one finds out that one can push it right to the very edge, if enough efforts are made.

 

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Plus the stuff about how treble can be turned to the max and still sound fine, and stereo imaging will remain intact even with the listeners head adjacent to one speaker.

 

Yep, that would be the hard one for many to take ... the 'miracle' for me is that all the good stuff happened in one hit - the system was right on the edge, and then flicked over into the good zone, one morning. Of course this was, unbelievable, for me as well 🙃 .

 

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So within these subtleties we have claims that many will be inclined to accept as a subjective observation, and other claims that fall into the "extraordinary claims" category.

 

So, can you point to any posts or anecdotal evidence which back up the latter, more extraordinary claims? 

 

Without this it remains one person's claim against all others.  If there are indeed a few more "fas42's" out there, then maybe there is something to investigate here?

 

At times I do wonder what the point of mentioning things is - I have linked a number of times to these very accounts ... which apparently everyone is very careful not to notice, or react to 🤪 ...

 

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By they way, this is a request for links to similar claims from others that are more at the "extraordinary" end of the scale.  I know that you do not agree with some of the points I have made above, we have been there before, it is documented earlier in this thread, and I am happy to agree to disagree, we all observe things a little differently from a subjective point of view.  But finding a few more fas42's would be interesting.....

 

(Sigh ... ) ... here we go again ... to make the point that I have noted these people a number of times, I will merely link to my posts.