Fas42’s Stereo ‘Magic’

[fas42]

A minor note to add: the 'crappiest' MP3 files, say from YouTube, can be rescued to a large degree simply by outputting to WAV, and then upsampling to the "right" level - I used Audacity for this. I spent a good part of a day investigating this some years ago - but ultimately this is pointless - just acquire a clean version of the track!

[fas42]

Just came across this ... 🙂.

 

If you're going to do a "dedicated sound room", then do it properly! This is a listening den, 😄 ...

 

 

 

[fas42]

Just to comment a touch further on the PGGP software - and set things into perspective a bit more ...

 

@austinpop made an early post,

 

In that, the list of good things that one gets:

 

Quote

 

1. Density. Instruments and voices have far more realistic body and dimension to them
2. Timbre. Instruments sound like real instruments. When a drum gets thwacked, you sense the volume of the instrument, the texture of the "skin" being struck, whether it's fingers or mallets being used, etc.
3. Soundstage. PGGB portrays a holographic, 3-dimensional sense of the performance space.
4. Coherence and detail. There is just a wealth of detail that rises out of the lowered noise floor, that you just didn't notice before. You hear new things in your recordings, new sounds, new bass lines.
5. Bass articulation. The presentation has a tighter, more articulate bass.

And what's amazing is that the biggest impact on SQ in many cases has been on 1FS (redbook) recordings that had been languishing for years in my library. Many of my 1FS albums are now sounding as good as, or even better than, some more recent hi-res purchases.

 

 

So, is this magically 'distorting' the source data, so that the content comes over so much better - or is it simply providing a tool which allows the playback to do a better job of truthfully presenting the content of those captures of musical events? ... IME, I would suggest the latter ... 🙂

 

That is, it's a tweak - in the same way as hundreds and thousands of other tweaks are employed on the huge range of rigs out there ... and a highly effective one, if you have the right hardware that can benefit from the nature of this tweak.

 

Meaning? Well, it's a way of extracting more accurate reproduction of recordings one already has - but, it's not a magic elixir that is the only method of generating a better representation of one's album ... it is, Yet Another Way of making a playback system do its job properly - and is not a necessary tool for making this happen ...

 

OK, 'nuff said, 🙃

[fas42]

Another nifty setup, doing it effortlessly,

 

 

The styling of the room? ... er, not my cup of tea ... 😁.

[Confused]

On 4/19/2021 at 12:44 AM, fas42 said:

Just came across this ... 🙂.

 

If you're going to do a "dedicated sound room", then do it properly! This is a listening den, 😄 ...

 

 

 

I was going to be miserable and mention that this room does not look good, from an audiophile perspective that is. 

 

It has a highly reflective hard floor, nothing to deal with first reflection points, and so on.  (Yes Frank, we know that you think this does not matter if the system is sorted, but I'm one of those pesky audiophiles that can't help thinking about these things)

 

I was also going to mention that the sofas do not look particularly comfy, and that the room has no table on which to place a suitable beverage.  (This is important)

 

But then I spotted that this is not actually a real room but a computer generated rendering?

 

It does look quite cool though, I have to admit.

[Confused]

15 hours ago, fas42 said:

Another nifty setup, doing it effortlessly,

 

 

The styling of the room? ... er, not my cup of tea ... 😁.

This is an interesting one.  I agree this sounds good.  However, I think there is a problem here, checking one track, the system does sound identical to the recording.  And I mean absolutely 100% identical.  So it is either a very good system, and a very good recording of the said system, or the audio track is basically just the recording, and not a recording of the system at all.  

 

A bit cheeky if you ask me!

 

As an example, try the clip from just after 31 minutes, versus the below.

 

 

[fas42]

5 hours ago, Confused said:

This is an interesting one.  I agree this sounds good.  However, I think there is a problem here, checking one track, the system does sound identical to the recording.  And I mean absolutely 100% identical.  So it is either a very good system, and a very good recording of the said system, or the audio track is basically just the recording, and not a recording of the system at all.  

 

A bit cheeky if you ask me!

 

As an example, try the clip from just after 31 minutes, versus the below.

 

 

Yes, very cheeky, if so - will look at it more closely, later today.

[fas42]

23 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Yes, very cheeky, if so - will look at it more closely, later today.

 

Indeed, looks like it's a fantasy channel - creations of ideal systems, working as well as they, umm, should ...

 

Pity ... because they do represent what is possible - when the reality, on the ground, is that they normally fall well short. Subjectively, these clips convey what the experience can be like when a system works at a very high level - which is something that happens extremely rarely.

[fas42]

Quick comment on

 

Chris's comments on listening to Rage Against The Machine albums are what's interesting - now, I have zero knowledge of this group; but the comments apply to most albums of creative rock/pop musicians ... there are sonic wonderlands on this sort of material, which very, very few listeners ever appreciate. As he says, it requires a system in fine tune to be able to distinguish what's going on - on a normal rig, all you might hear is "noise", 🙂 ; and the intricacy of the mix is completely lost on the listener ... that so few people understand what's on some of these recordings, to appreciate ... is a very great pity ... 🤒.

 

 

[fas42]

A thought on how there are two different worlds in audio land ... a car analogy, 😆, is that in one world it's "all about the car"; roads, and the world you travel through, are merely a means of demonstrating, to yourself, how good, how special your vehicle is; and that's the primary focus; the joy is in exploring how each variation in your car changes how you experience the different roads - in the other world, the car is merely a means to an end, to be able to enjoy the experience of the road without the sense of the vehicle getting in the way; your primary goal is to "drink in" the specialness of the places you visit, the car just does the job of doing this, with no fuss, or drawing attention to itself ... and that's fine, to have those two worlds ...

 

A problem arises, however, when the people in the former world confuse their take on the audio landscape as being the 'correct' one - and that somehow the other world is of lesser value; or perhaps doesn't even really exist ... 😉.

[fas42]

I am still having problems with the PGGB thing ... a recent post,

 

Quote

So, how does PGGB sound? Words such as entrancing, arresting, incredible and simply 'luddy amazing come to mind and I am so pleased that PGGB is now available for others to try so they can also hear this. Rather than me dreaming up superlatives to try to describe the PGGB effect I urge people to try the trial license and hear for themselves.

 

There is, no "PGGB effect"!! 🤨 ... What's happening is that the playback chain is getting closer to doing the job properly - reproducing what's on the recording! ... If this gets out of hand there will be divide between the Have's, and the Have Not's - the former are the only ones who get to enjoy the "good stuff", because they have the right hardware, and are willing to pay for all the extra hardware, especially storage, to make it happen.

 

This disturbs me ... a normal system, at a decent price, should do the job properly - hence, "my crusade" ... 😆🤪. Good music listening should for everyone; and not just only for those who want to play with bigger toys ... 😉

[fas42]

On 4/21/2021 at 3:11 AM, Confused said:

 

It has a highly reflective hard floor, nothing to deal with first reflection points, and so on.  (Yes Frank, we know that you think this does not matter if the system is sorted, but I'm one of those pesky audiophiles that can't help thinking about these things)

 

 

Just to comment on these thoughts ... first of all, the first good rig I used was in a room that was carpeted; and the current one is also - but where a lot of my major movement occurred was in a long, polished floor, room, with a line of large windows down one side, and odds and ends of bookshelves, and wood paneling on the other. Comments were made on how it was "terribly wrong!" - but my ears didn't suffer ... 🙃.

 

Just remind yourself that you don't get fussed if you come across live music happening in some random place, with "horrible acoustics" - your mind can hear past all of this; it's easy to tune into what matters - the music. But, fiddling to the n'th degree becomes become very important, if the playback rig generates audible anomalies, in its own right - you need to do everything that you can to mold the listening environment, to distract the listening brain from being made aware of the disturbing, unrelated to the music, distortion ...

[fas42]

A point worth repeating, about "magic" replay, is that there is no "best volume" - from the maximum that the system can cleanly do, right down to the lowest gain setting that is still audible, with your ear right next to the speaker driver - what you hear always sounds, 'right' ... the presentation, and sense of the musical event doesn't change - it's equivalent to being near live, acoustic music; and then steadily walking away from that, further and further, until you can no longer hear it - the sense of it being 'real' is never lost, doing this.

[fas42]

Well, it's interesting at times to come across how some music appeals to people - I just looked at the thread

 

 

for the first time - this album means nothing to me; I can't recall ever being aware it existed ...

 

Curious, I looked up a couple of YouTube clips of the music ... hmmm ...

 

Ahh, this is what I would call, a 'difficult' recording ... to me, it's monotone, everything homogenised to a single 'colour', a 2D presentation, 'tiny' even - I found it hard work to be interested in anything that was going on in the song. Which means - drum roll, please! - it would be a good test recording - for me!! 🤣 ... The goal would be to make what I hear entertaining enough to want to put it on again, sometime in the future ... 🤪 😁.

[fas42]

Another post that says, why hasn't the audio industry got its act together - well before now ... ?

 

 

Huhh??! ... Sung voices not sounding purely pleasurable ??? ... We're in 2021, people - why on earth should this still be a problem for listeners, nearly 40 years after the introduction of CDs, etc ...

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

15 hours ago, fas42 said:

Another post that says, why hasn't the audio industry got its act together - well before now ... ?

 

 

Huhh??! ... Sung voices not sounding purely pleasurable ??? ... We're in 2021, people - why on earth should this still be a problem for listeners, nearly 40 years after the introduction of CDs, etc ...

 

Don't worry, none of this makes you irrelevant :) On the contrary.

[fas42]

Forgive me for continuing in this vein, but here's another post that tells the story,

 

Okay, it's all about the sense that "everything is in place" - this is the magic, or rather part of it, of what happens when digital playback nails it; and which for one reason or another is mighty hard for most people to attain.

 

People need to wrap their heads around the fact that most rigs inject a solid dose of disturbing distortion, irrespective of what the published numbers imply, or how expensive the components are, or how famous the companies and designers are ... an excellent solution is to carefully assemble what's needed, and then spend the time debugging the setup - this is one method that leads to, "magic replay". The normal method, of simply buying bits "good enough", is still far too much hit and miss - the slightest 'mistake' in how it's done could result in 'failure' ... but the good news is that more and more gear is coming onto the market which is 'robust' enough in design and implementation to not cause problems - as is, apparently, this item.

 

[fas42]

Noting this thread ...

 

Only vaguely aware of these speakers - so checked out a couple of YT videos of them running, and those setups using them sounded fine - so, nothing intrinsically wrong with them ...

 

But this is Yet Another Example of how people have things back to front with audio ... they spend money to throw in some maaagiic bit - and expect their listening experience to be transformed ... folks, as I have said many, many times, it just doesn't work that way ... 🤨.

 

It's The System, Stupid ... to use that tiresome car analogy, if I have a bomb of a car, and then replace the engine with the finest Porsche engine ... will it behave like a Porsche? Ummm, no ... it will just be a very powerful bomb, which will likely kill me the first time I try something fancy ...

 

No-one expects a car to be vastly better, as another 'fixit', if they add the most expensive tyres to it, say - it's the balance of the parts in it that decide whether it works as a package ... but the audio world dreams of magical solutions, which make all the bad stuff in what they hear go away; with a snap of the fingers - and opening of the wallet.

 

The irritatingly tiresome thing about audio playback is that it depends on absolutely everything being right, for there to be specialness in the presentation - I've being doing this for over 30 years, and I have yet to find a shortcut to my method; which is to be scrupulously careful, and particular about the whole shebang ... the delivery to the front door That Solves Everything just ain't gonna happen ...

[fas42]

And of course this is a big part of the story,

 

Mighty good rule of thumb: the better the intrinsic potential of some new part in the system, the more one should investigate every option in terms of how it is set up, and conditioned ... some of the "worst" speakers I have ever heard were Wilsons - I might have been tempted to sue the owners for inflicting hearing damage on me, they were so ear-shreddingly aggressive in their sound ... 😜.

[fas42]

I'm intrigued ... a supposedly 'NOS' DAC is criticised for not sounding, well, NOS -

 

So, what is this, "NOS sound" ... ? Is it a distortion which is different from a "non NOS sound"; which in turn is another version of distortion ... or is there actually, gasp!!, a DAC that just delivers what's on the recording? We are told over and over again that DACs have inaudible distortion - yet all DAC sound different 🙃 ... my poor head will explode with trying to process the concept that current DACS will generate ultra low levels of crap with the wanted signal, as given by measurement; that is, it can't be heard- yet they all 'distort'; since they sound different.

 

Ah, dear ... this big ol' world is just too complicated for poor me, 😵 🤩

[fas42]

At the other end of the spectrum of what's possible ... a million dollars spent; and the sound is so wrong,

 

 

This is the type of thing that I find disturbing - all the money, and effort; for this result ...

[fas42]

Why does the audio world really need a huge kick up the bum ?!! ... Because, people still regularly post things like this,

 

A "rare combination" ... ??? WTF !!

 

That is, it is close to impossible to buy, still, gear that just delivers distortion free SQ, straight off the rack - what ... a ... joke ...

[fas42]

Every now and again, I check out this YT channel - just to see there has been a general lifting of the standard of ambitious rigs put together without optimising; can they achieve decent sound?

 

 

Nope !!!

 

The Buddy Guy track is a mess ... all the same old flaws, as bad as they have ever been ... 😒.

[Confused]

5 hours ago, fas42 said:

Every now and again, I check out this YT channel - just to see there has been a general lifting of the standard of ambitious rigs put together without optimising; can they achieve decent sound?

 

Nope !!!

 

The Buddy Guy track is a mess ... all the same old flaws, as bad as they have ever been ... 😒.

Did you notice that the human voices prior to the system playing did not sound particularly good either?  Echo in the room, lots of hiss and noise, plus other issues.  (particularly from about 6 mins)

 

I agree that this sounds poor.  As ever, I suspect that we might not agree as to why. 

 

It has to be said though, if these guys want to keep posting recordings of systems on YouTube, it would be nice if they made a little more effort with the methodology and quality of the actual recording.

 

Lets try and agree on an overall rating.  Not sorted!

 

As an aside. I have listened to a Mola Mola Tambaqui in real life and it sounded excellent.  A different system and a different day though.

[fas42]

50 minutes ago, Confused said:

 

As an aside. I have listened to a Mola Mola Tambaqui in real life and it sounded excellent.  A different system and a different day though.

 

Yes. It's always the system - rather than a particular component, "not being good enough" ...