Fas42’s Stereo ‘Magic’

[fas42]

In one sense I find it quite astounding that people can't latch onto the concept that it's all about listening to the recording - not, trying to hear "differences between equipment", and making sure that there's a pecking order, that guarantees the more expensive the gear, "the better it sounds" - the nuttiness of audiophilia is assuming that more upmarket components add sparkly bits to what they're hearing, "enhancing" the experience - whereas if a touch of rationality is applied, it's pretty obvious that all we can reach is full, subjective transparency to the recording. Which it turns out, is good enough ... "Oh no, it's not!!" they exclaim, "I have a really fantastic rig here, and it makes lots of recordings sound awful!" ... ummm, that it's a "fantastic rig" is in your head ... there's another reality, where the recording always "sounds the same", when listened to on a whole variety of competent systems, each made up of different bits. But many audio enthusiasts don't want that ... they see their setups as painting kits, ready to create distinctive masterpieces with the raw ingredients of the "right" recordings, 😉.

[Confused]

On 2/25/2020 at 11:07 PM, Racerxnet said:

 

So we have connection points being soldered, and switches being bypassed. There are 2. But, I have to ask if recent gains in technology have relegated your process moot at this time? Are the Neutrik connections (balanced) with gold plated pins inferior to soldered joints? How about gold plated RCA connectors (unbalanced)?

 

" Connectors are a critical part of any audio cable, because if the cable isn't well-joined to the connectors, or if the connectors don't make firm electrical contact with the jacks, it doesn't much matter how good the cable is. Our LC-1 cables are terminated with the Taversoe RCA plug, a high-quality RCA plug with an all-metal body and shell specifically designed for the perfect dimensions for use with LC-1. Its all-metal body, crimped tightly to the shield braid, completes the shielding assembly from cable end to cable end, to ensure that the cables do not become an entry point for noise. These plugs are gold-plated on all jack-contact surfaces, and employ a set of leaf-spring style grippers on the outer RCA ring which apply just the right amount of force to the jack to grip it firmly without overtightening."

 

You can say "Ah hah", the statement above proves my point. And I can say, they have addressed this through better engineering!

 

Do they solder all connections in the recording studio, or are they using balanced connections where needed. And if that solid engineering mitigated the problems, is it well suited for playback and the audiophile?

 

 

 

Yes I can, I understand that you enjoy this hobby as much as everyone else. 

 

MAK

An interesting post.

 

If I look at my own system, I can see this in two different ways. 

 

Firstly, my Devialet amp mitigates the need for many interconnects.  Indeed, it is possible to run it just with mains in & wifi, so all that is left to connect is speaker cables.  Picking up on some of Franks earlier posts re problems with switches and  potentiometers  etc.  the Devialet has none.  Volume, tone control & switching is pretty much all solid state electronic.  It also has a pretty robust AES/EBU (XLR) input.

 

So some progress maybe?  Or maybe not?  On the other hand, I use SOtM's sMS-200Ultra and tX-USBultra.  Well regarded by some for sound quality, but I have to say that the SOtM kit has just about the worst & flimsiest USB sockets I have ever encountered.  Just how much this matters for "sorting SQ" I am not sure, but it does offend my engineering sensibilities a little. Plus it does seem a little crazy plugging in a £100 USB cable into a socket that probably cost £0.05p.  It is just a little annoying.

[sandyk]

3 hours ago, Confused said:

An interesting post.

 

If I look at my own system, I can see this in two different ways. 

 

Firstly, my Devialet amp mitigates the need for many interconnects.  Indeed, it is possible to run it just with mains in & wifi, so all that is left to connect is speaker cables.  Picking up on some of Franks earlier posts re problems with switches and  potentiometers  etc.  the Devialet has none.  Volume, tone control & switching is pretty much all solid state electronic.  It also has a pretty robust AES/EBU (XLR) input.

 

So some progress maybe?  Or maybe not?  On the other hand, I use SOtM's sMS-200Ultra and tX-USBultra.  Well regarded by some for sound quality, but I have to say that the SOtM kit has just about the worst & flimsiest USB sockets I have ever encountered.  Just how much this matters for "sorting SQ" I am not sure, but it does offend my engineering sensibilities a little. Plus it does seem a little crazy plugging in a £100 USB cable into a socket that probably cost £0.05p.  It is just a little annoying.

 FWIW, I have had to replace numerous gold plated RCA sockets over the years that gave intermittent problems. The majority of them are poorly constructed and do not like too many reinsertions.

[fas42]

3 hours ago, Confused said:

An interesting post.

 

If I look at my own system, I can see this in two different ways. 

 

Firstly, my Devialet amp mitigates the need for many interconnects.  Indeed, it is possible to run it just with mains in & wifi, so all that is left to connect is speaker cables.  Picking up on some of Franks earlier posts re problems with switches and  potentiometers  etc.  the Devialet has none.  Volume, tone control & switching is pretty much all solid state electronic.  It also has a pretty robust AES/EBU (XLR) input.

 

Yes. An integrated system, a simple system will climb up many steps on the SQ ladder, automatically. Solid state switching is the way to go; it's all about eliminating connections that rely on metal to metal pressure, with air present. Unfortunately, it will always be the last key connection that hasn't been "sorted" that will undermine everything else - this rule remains absolutely unshakeable.

 

Quote

So some progress maybe?  Or maybe not?  On the other hand, I use SOtM's sMS-200Ultra and tX-USBultra.  Well regarded by some for sound quality, but I have to say that the SOtM kit has just about the worst & flimsiest USB sockets I have ever encountered.  Just how much this matters for "sorting SQ" I am not sure, but it does offend my engineering sensibilities a little. Plus it does seem a little crazy plugging in a £100 USB cable into a socket that probably cost £0.05p.  It is just a little annoying.

 

Yes, the USB connectors ...if I absolutely had to use these, I would put a great deal of effort in determining whether these have a part to play - which I suspect they will - and then do what was necessary to get around this.

[fas42]

15 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 FWIW, I have had to replace numerous gold plated RCA sockets over the years that gave intermittent problems. The majority of them are poorly constructed and do not like too many reinsertions.

 

Gold doesn't cut it - in typical audio implementations anyway ... I went through the exercise decades ago exploring this - and they do cause the SQ to degrade, quite quickly. The presence of air adds a type of gunk to the surfaces over time which causes issues, and that was confirmed by careful cleaning, and listening to a pristine insertion.

[fas42]

Just had a bit of an "Ah-ha!" moment ... that some people need listening to audio to be a type of intellectual exercise - that if it's "too easy" to absorb the music, then it's a sign of an inferiority of the playback ... it needs to be more 'chewy', to have plaudits dispensed ... interesting ... 🤨.

[gmgraves]

20 hours ago, fas42 said:

In one sense I find it quite astounding that people can't latch onto the concept that it's all about listening to the recording - not, trying to hear "differences between equipment", and making sure that there's a pecking order, that guarantees the more expensive the gear, "the better it sounds" - the nuttiness of audiophilia is assuming that more upmarket components add sparkly bits to what they're hearing, "enhancing" the experience - whereas if a touch of rationality is applied, it's pretty obvious that all we can reach is full, subjective transparency to the recording. Which it turns out, is good enough ... "Oh no, it's not!!" they exclaim, "I have a really fantastic rig here, and it makes lots of recordings sound awful!" ... ummm, that it's a "fantastic rig" is in your head ... there's another reality, where the recording always "sounds the same", when listened to on a whole variety of competent systems, each made up of different bits. But many audio enthusiasts don't want that ... they see their setups as painting kits, ready to create distinctive masterpieces with the raw ingredients of the "right" recordings, 😉.

Are you overlooking the fact that on a poor system, it is often impossible to tell the difference between a great recording and a poor recording? At some point of sustained awfulness, all cats are gray. The better the system, the more the differences between good and poor recordings are highlighted. In other words, on poor systems, all recordings sound equally bad. Sure, a good system puts poor recordings in bold relief, making it difficult to listen to other than the creme de la creme of recordings, but that puts the onus on the record companies to make better recordings. Take it from me, it’s not that difficult. Take it from me or our friend Mario Martinez!

[fas42]

17 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

Are you overlooking the fact that on a poor system, it is often impossible to tell the difference between a great recording and a poor recording? At some point of sustained awfulness, all cats are gray. The better the system, the more the differences between good and poor recordings are highlighted. In other words, on poor systems, all recordings sound equally bad. Sure, a good system puts poor recordings in bold relief, making it difficult to listen to other than the creme de la creme of recordings, but that puts the onus on the record companies to make better recordings. Take it from me, it’s not that difficult. Take it from me or our friend Mario Martinez!

 

Depends upon what you mean by a "great recording" ... to me, it's when the essence of the music making comes through with full force, and nothing about the nature of the recording itself irritates. Bizarrely - from the POV of some, 😉 - many recordings by "audiophile labels" strike me as somewhat less well done - because the art of what the recording engineers were trying to do is too obvious - and annoys me.

 

IME, when technical shortcomings of the recording can be unconsciously discarded by the brain, then one doesn't need to worry about how great the recording is. Obviously, capturing a musical session with the highest degree of fidelity should always be the goal - but having a situation where it's "difficult to listen to other than the creme de la creme of recordings" to me is akin to wearing a hair shirt; not my cup of tea ... 🙂.

[sandyk]

6 hours ago, fas42 said:

Yes. An integrated system, a simple system will climb up many steps on the SQ ladder, automatically. Solid state switching is the way to go; it's all about eliminating connections that rely on metal to metal pressure, with air present. Unfortunately, it will always be the last key connection that hasn't been "sorted" that will undermine everything else - this rule remains absolutely unshakeable.

 That is simply not true. All Solid State switches have an "ON" resistance which needs to be taken into account. The closest you will get to that ideal is using solid state devices to operate Telecommunications grade relays such as in the .pdf at the link.

http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/105262.pdf

Even this results in a few problems due to capacitance between PCB traces which often need to be relatively long, and can then reduce HF separation, especially if the same relay is used for left and right channels in a stereo system, even if you connected the cables directly to the PCB instead of using RCA sockets. This is still the case even if you place an "earth"  track between the PCB traces due to the close proximity between traces.

[fas42]

45 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 That is simply not true. All Solid State switches have an "ON" resistance which needs to be taken into account. The closest you will get to that ideal is using solid state devices to operate Telecommunications grade relays such as in the .pdf at the link.

http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/105262.pdf

 

I agree, Alex - it is not trivial to get this to have no marked effect; at one time I researched all the solid state switches out there, suitable for audio usage - and they do exist, 🙂. What does really matter is the linearity of that resistance, depending upon the voltage across it - that's the critical parameter.

 

IME, contact noise from metal to metal surfaces pressing against each other is far worse than non-linearities from a non-ideal solid state switch in a good design - I hate the sound of poor connections, I have learned their signature intimately - and I can't abide it, 😝.

 

Edit: I have spent lots of time looking at using relays, and remain to be convinced. The best ones for the job use mercury, and how long will they be around ... ?

 

Quote

Even this results in a few problems due to capacitance between PCB traces which often need to be relatively long, and can then reduce HF separation, especially if the same relay is used for left and right channels in a stereo system, even if you connected the cables directly to the PCB instead of using RCA sockets. This is still the case even if you place an "earth"  track between the PCB traces due to the close proximity between traces.

 

 

It's all just a design exercise ... do it properly, and there won't be a problem.

[sandyk]

39 minutes ago, fas42 said:

The best ones for the job use mercury, and how long will they be around ... ?

 I presume that you are referring to something like a Clare mercury wetted contact relay.?

 They are expensive, bulky, often only have single contacts and were often used in switching applications in Telecommunications.

 I wouldn't call them ultra reliable either.

[fas42]

1 hour ago, sandyk said:

 I presume that you are referring to something like a Clare mercury wetted contact relay.?

 They are expensive, bulky, often only have single contacts and were often used in switching applications in Telecommunications.

 I wouldn't call them ultra reliable either.

 

Yes, that type of thing - years ago I read up all I could find about using relays for audio, and there were a couple of articles, etc - which I can't recall now - which mentioned the pluses of the wetted contacts. And that is, being wetted with liquid metal is effectively a type of soft soldering - the liquid excludes any remaining gas, and improves the effective contact area - the contact resistance, long term, will be more stable.

 

It's not the ability to be switched a huge number of times that matters; it's that the contact resistance should be better behaved.

[Confused]

9 hours ago, fas42 said:

Yes, the USB connectors ...if I absolutely had to use these, I would put a great deal of effort in determining whether these have a part to play - which I suspect they will - and then do what was necessary to get around this.

 

This point has me thinking.  As I stated before, I do not like the USB sockets on my SOtM kit, they just seem very flimsy to me.  The connection does not seem that positive either, the USB plug kind of falls into the socket, rather than firmly locating in a positive way.  I am sure that a majority of people investigating the SOtM socket quality would conclude that a higher quality socket would be better.

 

That said, I have never experienced a single drop out, click or pop in my system with the SOtM kit in play.  So I would have to conclude that that they work, in terms that the signal delivering the virtual 1's and 0's is robust enough through the connection to deliver them to the upstream kit.  The SOtM sockets may seem flimsy, but demonstrably they are working in terms of actually making the required connection.  So would a better socket, or even hardwiring deliver improved sound quality?  In the absence of any obviously dropped data, I am not so sure, but I can also imagine a scenario where maybe the USB eye pattern or similar is somewhat compromised, and so there would be a loss of sound quality, albeit at the margins.

[Confused]

6 hours ago, fas42 said:

Bizarrely - from the POV of some, 😉 - many recordings by "audiophile labels" strike me as somewhat less well done - because the art of what the recording engineers were trying to do is too obvious - and annoys me.

Ah, but if you get your rig properly sorted you will find these annoyances drop away and you will be able to enjoy the essence of the music.🙂

 

Joking aside, I am not to keen on "audiophile" recording either, but nothing to do with the recording method, its just the type of music I like is not the type of music to get the "audiophile recording" treatment.  Each to his own I guess, there are no "audiophile" rules here, and for sure plenty of people do not like the music I like.  Vive la difference, you might say.

[Confused]

On 2/27/2020 at 4:45 AM, fas42 said:

In one sense I find it quite astounding that people can't latch onto the concept that it's all about listening to the recording - not, trying to hear "differences between equipment"

I like listening to the differences between equipment.  I make no secret of this, I enjoy it, I find it fascinating.  Furthermore, it is a means to an end, to move towards my own personal goal.  

 

8 hours ago, fas42 said:

Just had a bit of an "Ah-ha!" moment ... that some people need listening to audio to be a type of intellectual exercise - that if it's "too easy" to absorb the music, then it's a sign of an inferiority of the playback ... it needs to be more 'chewy', to have plaudits dispensed ... interesting …

I am not quite sure what has inspired this thought.  Can you expand on this?  There might be some interesting insight here.

 

From my personal perspective, in a way I am trying to make listening to music the opposite of an intellectual exercise, except in terms of perhaps thinking about the music itself.  I am always looking to improve my "rig", but this is to achieve my goal which is pretty much as I quoted yourself stating above, it's all about listening to the recording, or rather I might say listening to the music.

 

I am always looking for more detail, clarity, accuracy, getting powerful bass but at the same time eliminating bass issues, faithful reproduction, all of these "audiophile" things.  But this ultimately is not the goal, none of these singular points indicate success.  For me, success is when I am happy in my mind that that my "rig" is sorted as far as possible, that the equipment I have selected in those previous comparative tests work well together, and then when I sit down to listen to some favourite music I simply forget about the "rig", I quite simply get drawn into the wonder of the music.  This is success for me.  Failure, is when I sit down to listen an find myself distracted by some aspect of the reproduction, to the point I stop enjoying or thinking about the music, and my thoughts turn to issues with the system.

 

To be honest, in many respects this sounds pretty similar to your concept of a "well sorted rig".

[fas42]

1 hour ago, Confused said:

 

This point has me thinking.  As I stated before, I do not like the USB sockets on my SOtM kit, they just seem very flimsy to me.  The connection does not seem that positive either, the USB plug kind of falls into the socket, rather than firmly locating in a positive way.  I am sure that a majority of people investigating the SOtM socket quality would conclude that a higher quality socket would be better.

 

Have never actually used kit with USB for serious sound, so I would be guessing ... I would probably go "extreme" and run cable between each end, and hardwire the conductor links - so the connectors are completely bypassed ... does that make a, significant, difference? If so, then decide whether to improve the connector arrangement to a point where it's good enough; or sacrifice the niceness of having the "proper arrangement" and completely discard the connectors - do proper hardwiring.

 

1 hour ago, Confused said:

That said, I have never experienced a single drop out, click or pop in my system with the SOtM kit in play.  So I would have to conclude that that they work, in terms that the signal delivering the virtual 1's and 0's is robust enough through the connection to deliver them to the upstream kit.  The SOtM sockets may seem flimsy, but demonstrably they are working in terms of actually making the required connection.  So would a better socket, or even hardwiring deliver improved sound quality?  In the absence of any obviously dropped data, I am not so sure, but I can also imagine a scenario where maybe the USB eye pattern or similar is somewhat compromised, and so there would be a loss of sound quality, albeit at the margins.

 

Doesn't matter whether the digital operation is perfect - bare metal to metal contact, the ability of the body of the connectors to slightly move when plugged in, could all add up to injecting some analogue noise into the equation - just enough to cause an audible effect somewhere.

[gmgraves]

19 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Depends upon what you mean by a "great recording" ... to me, it's when the essence of the music making comes through with full force, and nothing about the nature of the recording itself irritates. Bizarrely - from the POV of some, 😉 - many recordings by "audiophile labels" strike me as somewhat less well done - because the art of what the recording engineers were trying to do is too obvious - and annoys me.

 

IME, when technical shortcomings of the recording can be unconsciously discarded by the brain, then one doesn't need to worry about how great the recording is. Obviously, capturing a musical session with the highest degree of fidelity should always be the goal - but having a situation where it's "difficult to listen to other than the creme de la creme of recordings" to me is akin to wearing a hair shirt; not my cup of tea ... 🙂.

Good recordings sound like live music played in a real, acoustic space. Bad recordings sound like s__t! Why is that so difficult of a concept for you to grasp? But a poor playback system can make excellent recordings and terrible recording sound equally bad! Case in point. When I was in college, my room mate had an RCA Victor “portable” record player. It was “stereo” and consisted of a textured, vinyl-covered wooden case containing a record changer, a flea-powered, single-ended amplifier, one 6-inch speaker, facing forward; and a second vinyl covered box with another 6-inch speaker latched to the front of the same box. To play, one would separate the second box from the first and using the attached cable move the two boxes about 5-6 feet apart, lift the lid, put a record on the enclosed record changer,  and turn the changer on. The record would fall onto the platter, the heavy, non counter-balanced arm would cycle over the lead-in groove, and drop onto the record. It would then start to simultaneously play and destroy the record with it’s 400 gram pickup weight. It made all records sound the same.... unlistenably distorted and lousy with the approximate frequency response of a telephone! No bass below 150 Hz no treble above 5 KHz, and it was dreadfully painful to listen to it!

 

[gmgraves]

23 hours ago, sandyk said:

 FWIW, I have had to replace numerous gold plated RCA sockets over the years that gave intermittent problems. The majority of them are poorly constructed and do not like too many reinsertions.

Amen to that! As I understand it, the RCA socket was invented to allow the TV tuner on the early RCA model 640 TVs (which was on a separate chassis from the rest of the TV) to be disconnected from the IF amplifier portion of the TV receiver. It was never designed for any other purpose. That certainly explains why the damned thing makes the hot connection before the ground connection (and vice versa). On the bench, while being serviced, that wouldn’t matter with a TV tuner! But somehow we Americans got lumbered with the thing for audio, and unfortunately the rest of the world followed suit! In Europe, they had the DIN connectors, and here in the US, if one bought, for instance, Quad electronics, one had to use DIN to RCA pigtail adaptors to interface with US spec equipment. But DIN connectors were much better than RCAs, especially when stereo came along (one four-pin connector for both channels).

[Allan F]

51 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

Good recordings sound like live music played in a real, acoustic space. Bad recordings sound like s__t!...

 

I would agree with the following amendment:

Good recordings sound, as much as possible, like live acoustic instruments played in a real space. As you know, George, this is Harry Pearson's classic definition of "the absolute sound". It is an ideal or goal that is never attained, but the closer the sound of a recording approaches it, the higher its fidelity. And high fidelity is what it's all about!

[gmgraves]

Just now, Allan F said:

 

I would agree with the following amendment:

Good recordings sound, as much as possible, like live acoustic instruments played in a real space. As you know, George, this is Harry Pearson's definition of "the absolute sound". It is an ideal or goal that is never attained, but the closer the sound of a recording approaches it, the higher its fidelity. And high fidelity is what it's all about.

Well, of course, I’ll agree with that. Perfection is not attainable in anything. I just didn’t see the need to underline or caption the obvious.😉

[Allan F]

19 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

Well, of course, I’ll agree with that. Perfection is not attainable in anything. I just didn’t see the need to underline or caption the obvious.😉

 

Well, I'm not sure that it's obvious to you know who. 🙂

[fas42]

13 hours ago, Confused said:

I like listening to the differences between equipment.  I make no secret of this, I enjoy it, I find it fascinating.  Furthermore, it is a means to an end, to move towards my own personal goal.  

 

And that's fine. My pleasure is in hearing what's been captured in the recording, and the equipment is merely a means to that end ... to be naughty, I could say that the rig is just a single 'sound', costing a lot of money, usually - whereas every recording is a different sound, and they're dirt cheap to acquire - I'm way in front!! 😝

 

13 hours ago, Confused said:

 

I am not quite sure what has inspired this thought.  Can you expand on this?  There might be some interesting insight here.

 

Again this goes back to nature of live, acoustic music making - no matter how intense the crescendos, etc, there's an ease with which one can just soak up what's going on in the aural world ... IME, audio replay can achieve that same ease; and that's one of the markers of competent replay.

 

13 hours ago, Confused said:

From my personal perspective, in a way I am trying to make listening to music the opposite of an intellectual exercise, except in terms of perhaps thinking about the music itself.  I am always looking to improve my "rig", but this is to achieve my goal which is pretty much as I quoted yourself stating above, it's all about listening to the recording, or rather I might say listening to the music.

 

Yep.

 

13 hours ago, Confused said:

 

I am always looking for more detail, clarity, accuracy, getting powerful bass but at the same time eliminating bass issues, faithful reproduction, all of these "audiophile" things.  But this ultimately is not the goal, none of these singular points indicate success.  For me, success is when I am happy in my mind that that my "rig" is sorted as far as possible, that the equipment I have selected in those previous comparative tests work well together, and then when I sit down to listen to some favourite music I simply forget about the "rig", I quite simply get drawn into the wonder of the music.  This is success for me.  Failure, is when I sit down to listen an find myself distracted by some aspect of the reproduction, to the point I stop enjoying or thinking about the music, and my thoughts turn to issues with the system.

 

Also yep.

 

13 hours ago, Confused said:

To be honest, in many respects this sounds pretty similar to your concept of a "well sorted rig".

 

Agree ... the argument is, to what degree can this be taken. All my experiences over the years say this can be taken virtually as far as you're game to try - and the recordings you want to listen to will support you, 100%, on that journey.

 

The first level of goals, for me, are easily stated: every recording I have 'works' as a satisfying, emotional journey; that the playback system completely disappears as an identifiable source of what's going on; and that I can choose any volume to listen to it, from whisper quiet to as loud as my ears will tolerate, while still getting ticks for the first two requirements ... there, that will keep me busy for a while ... 🙃.

[fas42]

1 hour ago, gmgraves said:

Good recordings sound like live music played in a real, acoustic space. Bad recordings sound like s__t! Why is that so difficult of a concept for you to grasp?

 

What I've found is that it doesn't need to be in a "real, acoustic space" - the acoustics can be 100% artificial, but it still is a very powerful, enveloping journey, listening to what's going on. Recordings by Jarre are a case in point - they can sound execrable on a sub-par rig; but get it right, and it's pure magic, all the way ...

 

My approach is, if the recording sounds really bad, then the playback system needs 'fixing' - why do I say this? Because, it ... always ... works.  Which would you prefer, that some precious recordings will always sound crap, no matter what you do - or, if you go to enough effort that then the magic of the music making within will emerge like a butterfly from a chrysalis, to delight you?

 

Quote

But a poor playback system can make excellent recordings and terrible recording sound equally bad! Case in point. When I was in college, my room mate had an RCA Victor “portable” record player. It was “stereo” and consisted of a textured, vinyl-covered wooden case containing a record changer, a flea-powered, single-ended amplifier, one 6-inch speaker, facing forward; and a second vinyl covered box with another 6-inch speaker latched to the front of the same box. To play, one would separate the second box from the first and using the attached cable move the two boxes about 5-6 feet apart, lift the lid, put a record on the enclosed record changer,  and turn the changer on. The record would fall onto the platter, the heavy, non counter-balanced arm would cycle over the lead-in groove, and drop onto the record. It would then start to simultaneously play and destroy the record with it’s 400 gram pickup weight. It made all records sound the same.... unlistenably distorted and lousy with the approximate frequency response of a telephone! No bass below 150 Hz no treble above 5 KHz, and it was dreadfully painful to listen to it!

 

 

And then there are extremes ... we all know that, 😁.

[fas42]

34 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

In Europe, they had the DIN connectors, and here in the US, if one bought, for instance, Quad electronics, one had to use DIN to RCA pigtail adaptors to interface with US spec equipment. But DIN connectors were much better than RCAs, especially when stereo came along (one four-pin connector for both channels).

 

The Naim integrateds my local audio compatriot uses has DIN, and they definitely do a much better job ... but he still has gone the next step of hardwiring - because it makes a difference.

[fas42]

42 minutes ago, Allan F said:

 

I would agree with the following amendment:

Good recordings sound, as much as possible, like live acoustic instruments played in a real space. As you know, George, this is Harry Pearson's definition of "the absolute sound". It is an ideal or goal that is never attained, but the closer the sound of a recording approaches it, the higher its fidelity. And high fidelity is what it's all about!

 

There are plenty of recordings mastered with a mix of spaces - and you can count them, one, two, three, four, say. With good playback it's no problem tuning into each space, one after the other, round and round, if you wish ... if this is the context of the recording, it doesn't jar; it's just part of the 'art of the recording'.