Fas42’s Stereo ‘Magic’

[fas42]

45 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

What I fully understand, Frank, is that your “method” cannot engender the improvements to cheap speakers and mid-Fi electronics that you assert that it does. As an engineer, I am fully aware of what soldering interconnects, for instance, will do and it’s not much. In fact, it’s such a minuscule improvement (if any at all), that in most cases, it’s inaudible. And the other things that you say you do, are likewise subtle to non-existent audible improvements. You say it’s cumulative. Even giving you that, it’s impossible for these “tweaks” of yours to give the magnitude of fidelity improvement that you boast. It simply cannot be, and the least believable of all is What you say your boom-box speakers will do !

 

Ahh, that NAD integrated is midfi - shame on Audio Connections selling the thing, they should be shot for that evil deed!

 

Yes, it's cumulative ...unlike the majority of audiophiles who fall off the chair with amazement at how changing the brand of cable "transformed the sound!!", I work at steadily eliminating the little irritants in the sound, the giveaways that it's only a hifi system - this little by little, whittling away of the nasties is what has worked for decades for me ... the fidelity improvement comes about because the listening brain no longer has to 'fight' the presentation of the sound - walk through any audio show to hear the number of rooms with indigestible sound, irrespective of the cost of gear being used to create the "mess" ... what one ends up with, using the right approach, is where the word "effortless" comes readily to mind.

 

You know, I can look at the mid/bass driver of the original B&Ws, and do the same thing with the Sharp "boom-box" unit - and in terms of the look and feel of the construction, and heft of the magnet - I would pick the Sharp driver as being the better of the two ... 😜.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

13 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Ahh, that NAD integrated is midfi - shame on Audio Connections selling the thing, they should be shot for that evil deed!

 

Stop referencing Audio Connections [High End Retailer]. Joe will send out the audio police for misrepresenting them. He would be the first one to tell you your gear is mid-fi and likely, so is the sound.He would however offer to optimize your system, fixing your mess, for very minimal cost.

[fas42]

1 hour ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

Stop referencing Audio Connections [High End Retailer]. Joe will send out the audio police for misrepresenting them. He would be the first one to tell you your gear is mid-fi and likely, so is the sound.He would however offer to optimize your system, fixing your mess, for very minimal cost.

 

Hmmm, sense of humour is ... ???

 

The story is, many, many years ago we visited Joe, looking for an audio combo for my stepson - he wanted a plug n' play rig; his interest was in the music, not in any of the tweaking side of things. We had a price limit to work with, we looked at everything in the store that was in the range, and the NAD CDP and integrated, along with some Aussie made column speakers were easily the best on the day - and he was happy with them. The NAD stuff turned out not to be particularly reliable, and after several rounds of getting things fixed, he decided to biff them ... ah, towards me, thank you!

 

The amp was pretty tired, the CDP was flakey on burnt CDR - but after some fine tuning, now many years later, showed up why we picked them out of the crop, when they still had their showroom shine.

 

Having visited Joe's store on many occasions, and having exposure to how his gear was sounding on the floor ... I wouldn't be jumping up and down too much about what "he could do for me", 😉.

[gmgraves]

2 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

IOW, any music that is produced by non-acoustic instruments to some degree, or done in a manner where the instruments were not actually all simultaneously playing, or not in a space where an audience couldn't listen in the conventional manner - is automatically disqualified, by definition 🙂. ... Sounds like a huge percentage of our recording history would be instantly junked, if you were in charge, George - and would the crowds be carrying you aloft in gratitude, after this heroic deed ... ?

Frank, I explained that artificially and/or electronically produced studio-bound music is outside of my wheelhouse. I don’t really care what pop music sounds like, so I’ll leave that to others to judge good vs bad recordings. 
The only point of connection is that whether classical or pop, good recordings sound good and bad recordings sound bad and no audio system can fix a bad sounding recording, whatever the genre.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

2 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

 but after some fine tuning now many years later,showed up why we picked them out of the crop, when they still had their showroom shine.

 

So, you are saying Joe sold you a fine budget system that has lasted for years.....but it just needed some magic tweaking. I don't think we would expect anything less from you Frank.

 

2 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Having visited Joe's store on many occasions, and having exposure to how his gear was sounding like on the floor ... I wouldn't be jumping up and down too much about what "he could do for me", 😉.

 

Frank, I think it has been already mentioned here but it is quite possible that your perception of what sounds good may be *very* different to everybody else. Specifically, It may be that your perception of lifelike reproduction may not accord with most other people.I don't think we can blame Joe for that !

[fas42]

2 hours ago, gmgraves said:

The only point of connection is that whether classical or pop, good recordings sound good and bad recordings sound bad and no audio system can fix a bad sounding recording, whatever the genre.

 

You refuse to recognise that my method is about revealing everything that exists on the recording, while adding the absolute minimum of  playback chain character - the recording is not 'fixed', rather, it's 'rescued'. And that turns out to be something that is really quite special - because music is mainly laid down by creative people, rather than those obsessed with having all the i's dotted, and t's crossed.

 

2 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

Frank, I think it has been already mentioned here but it is quite possible that your perception of what sounds good may be *very* different to everybody else. Specifically, It may be that your perception of lifelike reproduction may not accord with most other people.I don't think we can blame Joe for that !

 

I differentiate audio gear that sounds spectacular with the "right recordings", from that which consistently makes me feel that I'm in the presence of the musicians, or in fabulous landscapes of sound which constantly tantalise and delight - again, for me, it's all about being immersed in the texture of the sound, where nothing ever irritates or strikes me as "not quite right" ... and I agree, this is not what a significant number of the people in the audio enthusiasts groups seem to be interested in, IME.

[Blackmorec]

10 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Why I have such a different attitude from nearly all of you is purely because of the history of how the illusion manifested for me - it didn't slowly creep up on me, one painful, in money terms, iteration at a time - bit by bit building up a sense of what a particular recording could sound like. Rather, I didn't notice any particular 3D aspect to the presentation - it just sounded like very pleasant stereo sound, but which now and again irritated me because I could hear distortion artifacts caused by the playback chain. They were most certainly not part of the recording, because if I did some tweaking which had only a temporary effect, the issues in the sound went away ... so I kept working on those areas ...

 

Until one day ... bang!! The full 3D thing was there, and it was working at maximum strength, immediately - there was absolutely nothing that was halfway house about it ... and then it slowly faded away ... ... and years of frustration, and excitement at making advancements followed, 😉.

 

Taking tremendous care with the speaker alignment, etc, will work - and I understand why: the brain needs enough of the clues in the sound to be clear, and for any sounds which contradict the message in the recording to be at a minimum. Get the balance of these two conflicting sound components in what the ears pick up to be beyond a certain point, and the listening mind flicks a switch - an "aural hologram" manifests ... which can only survive if the balance is maintained - as soon as it drops below the necessary standard, it all evaporates.

 

I got there by making sure that the clues in the recording were clear enough - not by "perfectly" setting up the speakers in the room ... different technique, but end results are the same. Where I gained, compared to the usual methods, is that those audible clues were still perfectly evident no matter where I was in the room - translation: the "sweet spot" was everywhere.

Hi Frank, I get all that and I agree that once a certain level is achieved, the sound takes on a fully 3 dimensional presentation whereby the speakers appear to be utterly silent as a source, while the room fills with instrumental and vocal sound sources. Said differently, what you hear from the system moves from 2 discreet loudspeaker sources, to multiple sources representing all the different instruments and vocalists in the mix. But, BUT, that’s not at all the end of the road. That 3 dimensional presentation can be improved upon....and quite markedly.....like I’ve said before; its not the end of the road.  There’s greater texture, body, layering and depth and the feeling that sounds are being made by the instruments. Sounds get far more complex, there’s more inner information...notes start with a pinpoint source, bloom into their natural acoustic then decay directionally, creating a beautifully convincing rendition of the recording venue and the instruments within it. 

[fas42]

4 minutes ago, Blackmorec said:

Hi Frank, I get all that and I agree that once a certain level is achieved, the sound takes on a fully 3 dimensional presentation whereby the speakers appear to be utterly silent as a source, while the room fills with instrumental and vocal sound sources. Said differently, what you hear from the system moves from 2 discreet loudspeaker sources, to multiple sources representing all the different instruments and vocalists in the mix. But, BUT, that’s not at all the end of the road. That 3 dimensional presentation can be improved upon....and quite markedly.....like I’ve said before; its not the end of the road.  There’s greater texture, body, layering and depth and the feeling that sounds are being made by the instruments. Sounds get far more complex, there’s more inner information...notes start with a pinpoint source, bloom into their natural acoustic then decay directionally, creating a beautifully convincing rendition of the recording venue and the instruments within it. 

 

Agree entirely ... I know that what I do get from a particular setup is never the full story; there are moments when a particular chance combination of conditions fall into place, and there is an elevated level again to the SQ. Where I fall down is that I have never had the right combination to generate higher SPLs, for one reason or another there hasn't ever been the headroom that is possible, that I've heard elsewhere - and, the speakers haven't been refined enough to create an absolute purity of tone when a single note, say, is played; classical guitar is where I've noticed this.

[kumakuma]

4 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

You refuse to recognise that my method is about revealing everything that exists on the recording, while adding the absolute minimum of  playback chain character - the recording is not 'fixed', rather, it's 'rescued'. And that turns out to be something that is really quite special - because music is mainly laid down by creative people, rather than those obsessed with having all the i's dotted, and t's crossed.

 

 

The underlying assumption behind this is that all music is well recorded.

 

I disagree with this.

 

Not all music is well recorded and "revealing everything that exists on the recording" can't "rescue" such recordings.

 

The listener may be able to forgive the poor sound quality and listen past these flaws but this is because there is something about the music that draws the listener to it, not because the system has been tweaked to the nth degree.

[Allan F]

11 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

IOW, any music that is produced by non-acoustic instruments to some degree, or done in a manner where the instruments were not actually all simultaneously playing, or not in a space where an audience couldn't listen in the conventional manner - is automatically disqualified, by definition

 

No. There is a reason for using acoustic music as a reference to determine a system's fidelity. Unless your are actually present, In the case of amplified or electronic music there is no way of really knowing what the original performance sounded like. Therefore, there is no basis for comparison of the recording to the source material. That is even truer when instruments are recorded separately and then mixed to produce the final recording.

[gmgraves]

3 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

The underlying assumption behind this is that all music is well recorded.

 

I disagree with this.

 

Not all music is well recorded and "revealing everything that exists on the recording" can't "rescue" such recordings.

 

The listener may be able to forgive the poor sound quality and listen past these flaws but this is because there is something about the music that draws the listener to it, not because the system has been tweaked to the nth degree.

Exactly! This is something that Frank either doesn’t understand, or - and this is more likely - he has painted himself into a corner with his weird assertions, and can’t back out of without looking foolish (as if his insistence that his “method” can “rescue” bad recordings doesn’t make him look foolish enough!).

[gmgraves]

8 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

You refuse to recognise that my method is about revealing everything that exists on the recording, while adding the absolute minimum of  playback chain character - the recording is not 'fixed', rather, it's 'rescued'. And that turns out to be something that is really quite special - because music is mainly laid down by creative people, rather than those obsessed with having all the i's dotted, and t's crossed.

 

 

I differentiate audio gear that sounds spectacular with the "right recordings", from that which consistently makes me feel that I'm in the presence of the musicians, or in fabulous landscapes of sound which constantly tantalise and delight - again, for me, it's all about being immersed in the texture of the sound, where nothing ever irritates or strikes me as "not quite right" ... and I agree, this is not what a significant number of the people in the audio enthusiasts groups seem to be interested in, IME.

Again Frank, you are telling us that your method achieves two diametrically opposite concepts. A more resolving system does NOT make poor recordings sound as though the listener is “in the presence of the musicians”. A more resolving system makes the shortcomings of the poor recording practices stick out like a sore thumb! If you want all recordings to be “listenable”, you’ll want a poor system, like an all-in-one table-top player which homogenizes every recording to the point where one can’t tell the difference between a good recording and a bad one. One way to achieve this is to listen only to low resolution MP3 recordings exclusively (32 Kbps or lower). That will surely give you your goal and everything will sound the same, good or bad. After all, cheap and dirty s the great leveler. Gee, that describes your playback kit perfectly, doesn’t it?😉

[fas42]

6 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

The underlying assumption behind this is that all music is well recorded.

 

What makes it work is that all music is well enough recorded - that is, enough detail has been captured for the brain to interpret what the fine detail means, and it can separate that which belongs to the musical event as heard by the microphones, and that which is noise and distortion, that doesn't belong.

 

6 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

The listener may be able to forgive the poor sound quality and listen past these flaws but this is because there is something about the music that draws the listener to it, not because the system has been tweaked to the nth degree.

 

The listener does forgive the poor sound quality and listen past these flaws, but this occurs at a completely unconscious level  - one can't decide that it's worth listening to, and that makes all the difference - no matter how much one know that a particular recording can sound better than it does at that particular moment, it doesn't do an ounce of good in terms of being able to enjoy it.

 

It is the tweaking that makes the difference - I can draw on a specific example from a recent visit to the local audio friend ... he has a collection of Oscar Peterson tracks on one CD, spanning his career. A very early piece was played ... yuck!! Scratchy, very unpleasant piano; zero pleasure in listening to the track ... our response? "Right, there's a problem here, somewhere!" ... took about 10 minutes to track down a couple of areas where things had shifted, degraded from their optimum status - replayed the very same track - ahh, much, much better! It was still obviously an early track, if you listened carefully for various signs of such - but the music now came through; the connection was back with what the musicians were creating.

 

Now, I am also certain that there will be a certain percentage of people who cannot, because of how their brains are wired, hear this behaviour - but amongst the people I mix with, I haven't found anyone who doesn't pick the improvement in listening, when I find the sound to be "correct".

[fas42]

5 hours ago, Allan F said:

 

No. There is a reason for using acoustic music as a reference to determine a system's fidelity. Unless your are actually present, In the case of amplified or electronic music there is no way of really knowing what the original performance sounded like. Therefore, there is no basis for comparison of the recording to the source material. That is even truer when instruments are recorded separately and then mixed to produce the final recording.

 

The magic that happens when the final result is a mix of recording events and methods is that this is still clearly evident - if there are completely different acoustics used, and some sound elements are acoustic and others are completely manufactured, this is fully transparent while listening. The voices and drums will sound natural, but the synthesizers and guitars will be in a "completely different world" - how they would sound as a single element listened to via headphones, say. The overall effect is not a hodge podge - it just sounds like it would be like standing right next to a group playing, with no PA "homogenising" the sound.

[fas42]

2 hours ago, gmgraves said:

Again Frank, you are telling us that your method achieves two diametrically opposite concepts. A more resolving system does NOT make poor recordings sound as though the listener is “in the presence of the musicians”. A more resolving system makes the shortcomings of the poor recording practices stick out like a sore thumb!

 

Wrong. What you're talking about is the halfway house that most ambitious rigs end up in, and I have, unfortunately, experienced their versions of the truth far too many times - typically, the "poor recording practices" glare at one, and the finer detail of the music itself is severely screwed up, or completely absent - I'm amazed at how effective the systems are at 'remastering' the recording, the event is almost unrecognisable at times.

 

Quote

If you want all recordings to be “listenable”, you’ll want a poor system, like an all-in-one table-top player which homogenizes every recording to the point where one can’t tell the difference between a good recording and a bad one. One way to achieve this is to listen only to low resolution MP3 recordings exclusively (32 Kbps or lower). That will surely give you your goal and everything will sound the same, good or bad. After all, cheap and dirty s the great leveler. Gee, that describes your playback kit perfectly, doesn’t it?😉

 

Gee, you better tell Bryston and Dynaudio that their premium products are so bad that fas42 gave a tick of approval to a rig using them - obviously, they've degraded down to the AM radio status, and no-one's noticed, 😜.

[fas42]

Just now, fas42 said:

 

Gee, you better tell Bryston and Dynaudio that their premium products are so bad that fas42 gave a tick of approval to a rig using them - obviously, they've degraded down to the AM radio status, and no-one's noticed, 😜.

 

In the same vein, you should tell MBL to stop producing junk - it was a visit to this show, 6moons.com - industry features: Sydney's Super-Fi Show 2004 , that inspired me to get back on the saddle - I foolishly thought that the MBL rig did a quite excellent job of presenting the recording; but the truth must be that it was of MP3 quality, for me to have liked it, 😉

 

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

Frank you constantly change your story and/or contradict yourself

 

12 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

my method is about revealing everything that exists on the recording, while adding the absolute minimum of  playback chain character - the recording is not 'fixed', rather, it's 'rescued'.

 

If you now say you cannot fix the recording, you are NOW in the same camp as everyone else except, you and you alone have the special powers to selectively ignore the bad bits apparently because you have improved on the good bits to the extent that magic happens. Now Frank, before you prattle on about 'how the brain works', knowing something about the subject myself, you are alone in your assertions. That has implications from a brain functioning point of view.

 

 

Quote

 

 

 for me, it's all about being immersed in the texture of the sound, where nothing ever irritates or strikes me as "not quite right" ... and I agree, this is not what a significant number of the people in the audio enthusiasts groups seem to be interested in, IME.

 

For the record (pun intended) you are NOT agreeing with me when you say "it's all about being immersed in the texture of the sound, where nothing ever irritates or strikes me as "not quite right" ... and I agree, this is not what a significant number of the people in the audio enthusiasts groups seem to".

 

Again Frank, you are only doing what everyone else already does but claiming magic outcomes which nobody else experiences.

 

45 minutes ago, fas42 said:

It is the tweaking that makes the difference -

 

Only for you Frank

 

Quote

 - ahh, much, much better! It was still obviously an early track, if you listened carefully for various signs of such - but the music now came through; the connection was back with what the musicians were creating.

 

Again Frank, you are doing just what everybody else does. Nothing special. Making the playback improved is distinctly different from being able to "rescue" all and any recordings by your so called "method", the same method that everyone employs.

 

 

Quote

Now, I am also certain that there will be a certain percentage of people who cannot, because of how their brains are wired, hear this behaviour - but amongst the people I mix with, I haven't found anyone who doesn't pick the improvement in listening, when I find the sound to be "correct".

 

"Improvement" is not "fix" is not "rescue" and bad recordings still sound bad.Only you perceive otherwise and this speaks more to how yours and yours alone, "brain is wired" as you put it.

 

 

28 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

The magic that happens

 

In your mind.

 

[Racerxnet]

48 minutes ago, fas42 said:

our response? "Right, there's a problem here, somewhere!" ... took about 10 minutes to track down a couple of areas where things had shifted, degraded from their optimum status - replayed the very same track - ahh, much, much better! It was still obviously an early track, if you listened carefully for various signs of such - but the music now came through; the connection was back with what the musicians were creating.

 

Frank, can you bring your laptop to Triplexxx's home, and have him vouch for your magic while logged onto the site? What we gather, is that you didn't specify what you did to correct the issues. Your statement says nothing about the process. Jiggled wires, drank a few beers, inhaled some weed???

 

How come this friend never registers here to tout the improvements? Inquiring minds want to know.

 

MAK

[fas42]

2 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

If you now say you cannot fix the recording, you are NOW in the same camp as everyone else except, you and you alone have the special powers to selectively ignore the bad bits apparently because you have improved on the good bits to the extent that magic happens. Now Frank, before you prattle on about 'how the brain works', knowing something about the subject myself, you are alone in your assertions. That has implications from a brain functioning point of view.

 

So, Bregman and all the people continuing research in the areas of brain functioning that he pointed to, are wrong, in your opinion?

 

2 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

 

For the record (pun intended) you are NOT agreeing with me when you say "it's all about being immersed in the texture of the sound, where nothing ever irritates or strikes me as "not quite right" ... and I agree, this is not what a significant number of the people in the audio enthusiasts groups seem to".

 

You said, "your perception of lifelike reproduction may not accord with most other people.", and I said "I agree", because, I'm about "being immersed in the texture of the sound, where nothing ever irritates or strikes me as "not quite right" " and a related observation is that "this is not what a significant number of the people in the audio enthusiasts groups seem to be interested in, IME" - make sense? 🙂

 

2 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

Again Frank, you are only doing what everyone else already does but claiming magic outcomes which nobody else experiences.

 

 

Only for you Frank

 

 

Again Frank, you are doing just what everybody else does. Nothing special. Making the playback improved is distinctly different from being able to "rescue" all and any recordings by your so called "method", the same method that everyone employs.

 

Yes, my overall intent is the same is everyone else - the "magic outcome" occurred completely unexpectedly - and, sigh, I keep pointing to the fact that a very small number of other people have also achieved this - but you don't want to acknowledge this ... because, it would get in the way of shutting down a nutter ... 😝.

 

Improving the playback rescues the recording - this pattern consistently repeats, so at some point one gives in, and accepts what the universe is trying to tell you, 😉.

 

 

[kumakuma]

6 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Yes, my overall intent is the same is everyone else - the "magic outcome" occurred completely unexpectedly - and, sigh, I keep pointing to the fact that a very small number of other people have also achieved this - but you don't want to acknowledge this ... because, it would get in the way of shutting down a nutter ... 😝.

 

 

Who?

 

I haven't seen single person here agree with you.

 

 

[fas42]

17 minutes ago, Racerxnet said:

 

Frank, can you bring your laptop to Triplexxx's home, and have him vouch for your magic while logged onto the site? What we gather, is that you didn't specify what you did to correct the issues. Your statement says nothing about the process. Jiggled wires, drank a few beers, inhaled some weed???

 

How come this friend never registers here to tout the improvements? Inquiring minds want to know.

 

MAK

 

Ahh, back to the laptop, are we ... 🤩 ?

 

Can't remember the specifics of that occasion - this was using a media player for source and DAC, Naim amp, and Tannoy bookshelves; the area which keeps giving the biggest problems is the interface between the player and amp, so this was most likely the culprit - it's always a juggling act between battery charge, gain of the source, and the physical link - a long term solution has not evolved as yet.

 

N. has a life, and plenty else to keep him busy. Like bringing up a son. He is very capable in doing the fine detailed, technical things to try and improve SQ, and this is his hobby, his relaxation - having you lot haranguing him is unlikely to be a big turn on ... 🙂.

[Racerxnet]

2 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Who?

 

I haven't seen single person here agree with you.

 

 

 

I just asked him the same question?????

 

Crickets!

 

MAK

[fas42]

2 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Who?

 

I haven't seen single person here agree with you.

 

 

 

It may pain you to realise that some people exist outside of this forum ... 😉.

[Racerxnet]

29 minutes ago, Racerxnet said:

Frank, can you bring your laptop to Triplexxx's home

 

The question was an easy solution, with no outlay, other than have someone vouch for your position. Your excuse is to be expected. I doubt we would bother him, other than to see the reply given in response to your bloated claims. Your backpedaling is not working.

 

MAK 

[kumakuma]

11 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

It may pain you to realise that some people exist outside of this forum ... 😉.

 

So we're back to relying on just your word that pigs can fly, unicorns exist, and miracles can happen...

 

Sorry, but I don't think anyone here is buying what you're selling.