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Fas42’s Stereo ‘Magic’


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10 hours ago, Confused said:

I am still unclear as to what you mean by this.  Can you describe or explain what type of anomalies you are referring to specifically, in particular the more common types of distortion that disturb you?

 

OK, let's get this thread back on track, 😉.

 

Audio rigs, irrespective of cost, can commit a wide variety of sins - and I look for signs of any of these, in the rigs I come across. Of value, I will refer to specific instances I came across in the last audio show, without naming brands, 🙂.

 

* The bass player is 100 feet tall, the other musicians are 1 foot tall effect: One of the most expensive rigs at that show suffered from this, the bass line was booming around the room, to satisfy some people's desire for this.

 

* The sound disappears when it gets too low in volume:  Digital is quite notorious for this, the music vanishes when the particular sound element drops below a certain level; if you bring a CD that you know well this sounds quite bizarre, whole chunks of the mix simply cease to be there; it's a glass 2/3rds full experience

 

* Edginess:  Everyone knows this one - a track will set your teeth on edge, and you're busting to have it finish - a typical response might be, "Well, it's a bad mastering" ... umm, no; it's faulty playback. A room of a famous English brand was almost putrid with this quality; how the people could stand listening to it, I don't know

 

* The midget syndrome: the quality seems reasonable, but it's so tiny ... one room had a piano recording playing; I could have picked up the instrument and put in a suitcase; quite a few rooms might as well have had a transistor radio on, for the level of subjective impact it had

 

* The PA pummelling trick: "I've got balls, and I'm gonna show it ..." - the sound is aggressive, in your face, takes no prisoners - fit for a bar, where everyone is talking at full volume

 

* Horn systems which sound, well, horny: Famous brand, with high priced domestic units, which displayed all the traits once the volume was pushed a bit

 

* General congestion: Any sort of complicated mix, with some driving rhythm - the SQ just falls to bits; a midfi unit could do just as good a job. Pretty generic problem at the show; the standout setups dealt beautifully with tracks like this

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34 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Actually an accurate system does do this...

 

I'm sure you remember GIGO from your time in the computer industry.

 

I'm afraid you're wrong... 🤨. What a well sorted $100,000 system does is bring out the music captured at the time, without distracting you with inadequacies of the recording technique; what a poor $100,000 system does is present an assortment of the flaws I mentioned in my previous post.

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12 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

I'm afraid you're wrong... 🤨. What a well sorted $100,000 system does is bring out the music captured at the time, without distracting you with inadequacies of the recording technique; what a poor $100,000 system does is present an assortment of the flaws I mentioned in my previous post.

Huh?

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1 minute ago, STC said:


I think we should know by now that whatever magic sound he was referring to l, that happened 35 years ago, happened with a proper hifi system. He is still chasing for that sound with Philips, Sharp and laptops which will not materialize but he somehow believed that it did on several occasions. 
 

Sometimes, I also ask myself whether my tiny phone could produce the same sensation as my main system if I ignore the volume. It is funny that I can actually equate the same sound with the main system. It is just the state of the mind. But to believe that it is actually the same as the main system is just delusional. 

 

ST, you work so hard at confusing yourself - it's fascinating to watch, 😉.

 

One important aspect of the SQ goal is that the speakers become impossible to detect; this is when the fully immersive presentation occurs, and the acoustics of what's on the recording completely dominate - this has happened on the original system, on variations since, including the DIY amp, on the Philips HT rig - only on the NAD and Sharp combo has it not hit this particular high point. But on the latter it hasn't really mattered, because it can still throw a very deep and detailed soundstage, with tonality in a very good space - Led Zep I, say, comes over beautifully, with tremendous clarity of the spatial effects.

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3 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Huh?

 

My POV is that the $100k rig needs sorting just as much my budget combinations - if everything is equally dealt with, then of course the higher quality of the more expensive gear will easily be heard to be superior to the cheap stuff. But if the exercise of resolving issues is not carried out, then the lower priced rig will win, in terms of making recordings satisfying to listen to.

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2 hours ago, sandyk said:

Well recorded Stereo can sound very good indeed. However if recorded in say Dolby Surround, then down converted to Stereo, a good system can extract quite a good Surround sensation from just 2 stereo speakers, including with movies such as Avatar and many others, as well as quite a few Video performances such as The Eagles- Hell Freezes Over, and some from Queen such as The Game .


I disagree. Dolby surround is stereo plus surround. The stereo sound is always there whether it is 2.0, 2.1,5.1,7.1, 9.2, ATMOS, AURA3D, WFS and etc etc. You need stereo to produce the frontal stage as close as the original event.  Stereo is the simplest way.

 

When you refer to downsampled version of DTS or Dolby, how do you know it is the downsampled version?  Dolby surround is object based. Stereo recording is channel based. 
 

Most of my collection that I like were from original motion picture sound. The audio CDs will be in stereo. However, the videos or movies will have the songs in surround. how the downsampled the original version for stereo is depends on the mastering engineer. 
 

Can they sound more 3 Dimensional because they were downsampled? If so why as the front stereo is now supposedly produce the sound meant to come from the direction of the surround speakers. How do you think these can make the 3D sound? Are you referring to object or channel based audio?

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45 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

That said, IMO, a great system can bring out the best in a recording to the extent that old favorites can be "rediscovered' but agreed, it will be warts and all.

 

Yes, that's the basic process ... the difference, for me, is that I have determined, over many years of working with this, that the "warts and all" can be made to be less and less subjectively distracting - the mind can be coaxed into "tuning into" the 'space' of the recording, and accepting and compensating for the recording issues.

 

Here I can think of a very specific track, which I've mentioned a couple of times - a BBC magazine cover disk, with a historical recording of the first performance of a classical piece ... if the system is not "in the zone", then it sounds like an old fashioned, over the kitchen radio, effort; get the tweaking good enough, and it, yes, 'magically ' transforms into a group of musicians doing their thing - now, if the state of the rig slides backwards what I hear goes back to sounding pretty mediocre; the fact that I know that it can sound better doesn't help one bit to compensate, if the SQ at that moment is not there to support the "illusion".

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18 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

ST, you work so hard at confusing yourself - it's fascinating to watch, 😉.

 

Not as confused or delusional as you are Who is trying to convince the world that the laptop speakers can sound as good as the B&W. ;)  

 

18 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

One important aspect of the SQ goal is that the speakers become impossible to detect;

 

You made this statement so please explain why that is so start with:-

 

Speakers wired out of phase, can make the speakers disappear. Can I now say the SQ goal has been achieved?

 

18 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

 

this is when the fully immersive presentation occurs, and the acoustics of what's on the recording completely dominate - this has happened on the original system, on variations since, including the DIY amp, on the Philips HT rig - only on the NAD and Sharp combo has it not hit this particular high point. But on the latter it hasn't really mattered, because it can still throw a very deep and detailed soundstage, with tonality in a very good space - Led Zep I, say, comes over beautifully, with tremendous clarity of the spatial effects.


This is irrelevant if can’t explain the earlier. Anyway, I take it here the best sound sound you had was from the proper hifi system. That is the final word about your 35 years journey. 

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3 hours ago, STC said:


Now you are are talking like a typical audiophile. It is a normal behavior to find that your system not to sound optimum and lacking once your initial euphoria of getting a new toy is gone. 
 

Dr Henry Augus Bowes identified this as audio neurosis in 1957. It is your brain reminding you that the stereo sound is not natural.  

 

Silly boy ... what the original system had, and I have described this numerous times, is the exceedingly annoying characteristic that the peak SQ would only sustain for about a quarter of an hour, even less. The quality of the presentation would slowly sag, until it reverted to normal stereo, while you listened - the solution, every time, was to switch everything off, let the power supplies, etc, drain and reset - switch on again, and full SQ was restored. I could do this as an endless repeating sequence, all day long if I wanted ...

 

Frustrating? ... you betcha!!! At that time I had very little understanding of what could be going on - took years to get a better handle on things ...

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35 minutes ago, STC said:

 

 

You made this statement so please explain why that is so start with:-

 

Speakers wired out of phase, can make the speakers disappear. Can I now say the SQ goal has been achieved?

 

 

Good thing I'm using the word "frustrating" at the moment ... 🤣.

 

Okay.

 

(takes deep breath ...)

 

Here's an exercise: go and read the set of posts here, that I've pointed to a number of times already, on AS ... 10 times, before you go to bed ... promise?

 

https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/177403-linkwitz-orions-beaten-behringer-153.html

 

 

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10 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Stop the sophomoric posts people. 

 So my posts were sophomoric?  one delusional guy took us a ride for over thousands of post when all along he was describing the sound of an average high fidelity equipment and another one with damaged hearing siting with headphones lecturing me about downsampled Dolby. and my posts got deleted. 
 

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21 minutes ago, STC said:

 So my posts were sophomoric?  one delusional guy took us a ride for over thousands of post when all along he was describing the sound of an average high fidelity equipment and another one with damaged hearing siting with headphones lecturing me about downsampled Dolby. and my posts got deleted. 
 

Settle down. This is audio. It’s a hobby. 
 

Posts from more people than you were removed. 

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20 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Settle down. This is audio. It’s a hobby. 
 

Posts from more people than you were removed. 

 
That is the point. This is audio. Not about someone’s  mental condition or belief. I have always been open to others opinions irrespective of the equipments or background. Disagreement is normal when things involve subjectivism but that doesn’t take away the hard evidence. 
 

For three years, the Premium member Fas42 gave the impression that the magic sound was possible with laptop speakers or the Philips and sharp system. Now it turned out  that he was describing to a system that was made of B&W speakers and Perreaux Amplifier. The hobby has developed to hallucination. 
 

And another man with damaged hearing who listeners with headphones is describing 3D sound from downsampled Dolby. This is audio and I respond to that. But it was too late that I forgot that his post was liked by the forum owner otherwise I would have refrained from commenting as I believe that never argue with idiots because onlookers may not able to tell the difference. 
 

 

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11 minutes ago, STC said:

 

For three years, the Premium member Fas42 gave the impression that the magic sound was possible with laptop speakers or the Philips and sharp system. Now it turned out  that he was describing to a system that was made of B&W speakers and Perreaux Amplifier. The hobby has developed to hallucination. 
 

 

The trouble, ST, is that you kept insisting that I was saying that laptop delivered special sound - and I kept on correcting you on this; what my interest was, the optimising, tweaking of all the little settings to get a better standard than the default, went straight past you - I merely was doing a variation on what, say, PeterSt does for a living.

 

 

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