Fas42’s Stereo ‘Magic’

[fas42]

7 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

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.

 

Man, the attention span is amazing  ... okay, "One more time ... ", as someone once said,

 

 

[fas42]

29 minutes ago, Racerxnet said:

 

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 

 

And horses can fly ... 🙂. If one was conjuring up a cock and bull story, going on for year after year, how difficult would it be to fake getting a confirmation from "someone"; if one was motivated enough to keep up the farce?

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

 

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.

 

 

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, 😜.

More and more you convince all in this thread that your idea of what sounds good and what the rest of thinks is good sound are miles apart. Nothing personal, you understand, but I am completely convinced that you have no Idea what real, live, acoustic music sounds like, nor are you able to discern a good recording from a bad one. It’s the only answer that fits with your descriptions.

[fas42]

Just came across this post which says it all, just past the above linked post, though with Blackmorec's perspective on it,

 

 

The only disagreement is about far this "trick" can be pushed, as a function of recording quality; and what's necessary to be done to the setup to achieve it ... Many Roads to Rome ...

[Racerxnet]

2 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

And horses can fly ... 🙂. If one was conjuring up a cock and bull story, going on for year after year, how difficult would it be to fake getting a confirmation from "someone"; if one was motivated enough to keep up the farce?

 

Well, you certainly are NOT getting anyone to confirm your magic. I think you keep this up because you like the attention it provides. Admitting that this is a farce destroys your game, and you cannot let that happen, or the attention disappears. As has been said by others, we have all tweaked our system to provide benefits throughout many years. GIGO

[Racerxnet]

2 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Just came across this post which says it all, just past the above linked post, though with Blackmorec's perspective on it,

 

 

The only disagreement is about far this "trick" can be pushed, as a function of recording quality; and what's necessary to be done to the setup to achieve it ... Many Roads to Rome ...

Except that Blackmorec realizes that the room is a very important part of the equation and you don't. World's apart from your reality. You try to pick and choose certain parts to fit your narrative. How sad!

[kumakuma]

23 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Man, the attention span is amazing  ... okay, "One more time ... ", as someone once said,

 

 

 

I don't have the time to go through 352 pages of posts so provide links to the posts that confirm your contention that it is possible to "rescue" flawed recordings.

[fas42]

1 minute ago, gmgraves said:

More and more you convince all in this thread that your idea of what sounds good and what the rest of thinks is good sound are miles apart. Nothing personal, you understand, but I am completely convinced that you have no Idea what real, live, acoustic music sounds like, nor are you able to discern a good recording from a bad one. It’s the only answer that fits with your descriptions.

 

What many want, is for the system to sound "like a hifi" - I have noted this on many occasions - if it sounds natural then they start to become edgy, and lose interest ... no matter what they say they want, the reality is that it has to have a touch of spectacularness, for them to be genuinely interested.

 

That's not my bag. Which is why I hate PA setups, and stage shows that use sound reinforcement - completely ruins the experience for me. We both like how natural comes across - you just don't believe that it's possible, whereas I'm used to getting that result from systems.

[Racerxnet]

1 minute ago, fas42 said:

you just don't believe that it's possible, whereas I'm used to getting that result from systems.

 

Who's systems?? Care to share who is following your recipe?? Crickets again....

Show some proof...

[fas42]

4 minutes ago, Racerxnet said:

Except that Blackmorec realizes that the room is a very important part of the equation and you don't. World's apart from your reality. You try to pick and choose certain parts to fit your narrative. How sad!

 

Note this bit ... please,

 

Quote

Many Roads to Rome ...

 

Blackmorec got there by doing a lot to the room. I didn't. Which means I don't consider it necessary.

 

Because one believes some factor is essential, doesn't then make that a universal truth ...

[Racerxnet]

1 minute ago, fas42 said:

 

Note this bit ... please,

 

 

Blackmorec got there by doing a lot to the room. I didn't. Which means I don't consider it necessary.

 

Because one believes some factor is essential, doesn't then make that a universal truth ...

 

You could take your laptop into a bathtub and claim magic. The universal truth is, we know it sounds like crap and the room is very important. 

[fas42]

11 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

I don't have the time to go through 352 pages of posts so provide links to the posts that confirm your contention that it is possible to "rescue" flawed recordings.

 

Okay, first of all are we happy that other people achieve completely "invisible" speakers?

[Racerxnet]

1 minute ago, fas42 said:

 

Okay, first of all are we happy that other people achieve completely "invisible" speakers?

 

Yes, and they didn't have to solder wires, eliminate switches, add garden rocks to them or such. They purchased what they have and made do with solid engineering practices.

[fas42]

1 minute ago, Racerxnet said:

 

You could take your laptop into a bathtub and claim magic. The universal truth is, we know it sounds like crap and the room is very important. 

 

Your ability to get your logic mashed up is quite remarkable ...once again, you try and link my using a laptop to listen to music clips as being equivalent to it sounding like a well sorted, proper rig - well, that's not what I have ever said.

[fas42]

1 minute ago, Racerxnet said:

 

Yes, and they didn't have to solder wires, eliminate switches, add garden rocks to them or such. They purchased what they have and made do with solid engineering practices.

 

What Pano achieved is way beyond the usual standard. And he only achieved it by doing a lot of work, in this case, to the speaker itself.

 

What people don't wish to take on board is the underlying concept that the SQ that the listener is exposed to is of a certain standard. How one achieves that standard is highly variable, and depends upon a huge number of things being "good enough" - if the speaker is not good enough then that has to be fixed; if the electronics driving them is not good enough, then that has to be fixed - you do what it takes ...

[Racerxnet]

1 minute ago, fas42 said:

 

Your ability to get your logic mashed up is quite remarkable ...once again, you try and link my using a laptop to listen to music clips as being equivalent to it sounding like a well sorted, proper rig - well, that's not what I have ever said.

 

You don't own a rig from what I gather, and if I look back, I am certain that you were sorting the laptop. Again, how are you working on a proper rig to confirm to others that your magic works. See below where you choose to ignore the question.

 

14 minutes ago, Racerxnet said:

 

Who's systems?? Care to share who is following your recipe?? Crickets again....

Show some proof...

 

You intentionally refuse to answer the questions posed, due to the inability to be truthful.

[Racerxnet]

1 minute ago, fas42 said:

 

What Pano achieved is way beyond the usual standard. And he only achieved it by doing a lot of work, in this case, to the speaker itself.

 

What people don't wish to take on board is the underlying concept that the SQ that the listener is exposed to is of a certain standard. How one achieves that standard is highly variable, and depends upon a huge number of things being "good enough" - if the speaker is not good enough then that has to be fixed; if the electronics driving them is not good enough, then that has to be fixed - you do what it takes ...

 

 

Are you smarter than the engineers designing the products we pay for? If so where are the goods to show this attitude.

[Allan F]

For those who, like me, have had their tolerance for this spewing of unmitigated nonsense exceeded, you may want to adopt the approach that I have chosen:

[kumakuma]

21 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Okay, first of all are we happy that other people achieve completely "invisible" speakers?

 

No idea and that isn't what we're discussing.

[Teresa]

On 3/21/2020 at 5:06 PM, fas42 said:

Ahh, so the crazy idea is that a 3D soundscape is possible - or is it, that an extremely high percentage of recordings can be satisfying to listen to ... hmmm?

 

A 3D soundscape is quite possible only with correct speaker placement. Most of us have done this, you have not.

 

In my experience a percentage of recordings don't sound realistic mainly because they were not made to sound realistic and/or poorly engineered. I don't find such recordings enjoyable to listen to and there is no magic on Earth that can transform poorly engineered recordings into correctly engineered recordings.

 

20 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

You said "there is an inverse relationship between the sound quality and musical quality of his early recordings and his later recordings"...

 

Have you never heard the quote the better the performance the worst the sound quality, the better the sound quality the worst the performance?

 

14 hours ago, fas42 said:

You refuse to recognize 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'...

 

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.

 

IMHO there is no rescuing poorly made recordings, they might be made to sound better but more of their flaws are revealed.

 

If you want to truly be in the presence of the musicians and the venue they perform in then you need the "right recordings" which are made that way. 

 

10 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.

 

Thanks, I agree completely with this.

 

8 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.

 

I would also add once one gets acoustic music to sound realistic, then electronic music should sound excellent. And to compare acoustic music to an audio system one must use correctly made recordings and listen to live music in the flesh.

 

5 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! 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?😉

 

Since Frank thinks he has made all recordings sound great. I believe has not heard realistic sound from an audio system and is instead making all of his music sound the same in the ways you suggest by lowering the sound quality to that of the poorest music in his collection.

 

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

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.

 

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".

 

I would agree your brain works different than ours.

 

2 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

Frank you constantly change your story and/or contradict yourself

 

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...

 

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

 

"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.

 

In your mind.

 

I agree it is only in his mind, as what he is pushing is illogical.

 

1 hour ago, kumakuma said:

I haven't seen single person here agree with you (fas42).

 

Simple reason, no one likely agrees with Frank (fas42).

 

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

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

 

If you don't want it brought up you should never have posted about it.

 

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

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

 

People exist outside of this forum but I doubt any of them agree with your nonsense.

 

1 hour ago, kumakuma said:

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

Agreed.

 

1 hour ago, gmgraves said:

More and more you convince all in this thread that your idea of what sounds good and what the rest of us thinks is good sound are miles apart. Nothing personal, you understand, but I am completely convinced that you have no Idea what real, live, acoustic music sounds like, nor are you able to discern a good recording from a bad one. It’s the only answer that fits with your descriptions.

 

Yes, this is very evident from Franks posts.

 

1 hour ago, Racerxnet said:

Well, you certainly are NOT getting anyone to confirm your magic...As has been said by others, we have all tweaked our system to provide benefits throughout many years. GIGO

 

I don't believe anyone can confirm his magic. I also believe all of our audio systems sound more realistic than Frank's when playing recordings that are made that way.

 

1 hour ago, Racerxnet said:

Except that Blackmorec realizes that the room is a very important part of the equation and you don't. World's apart from your reality...

 

I agree. IMHO correct speaker placement and taming room problems are that most important if one want realistic sound quality from well engineered recordings.

[fas42]

31 minutes ago, Racerxnet said:

 

You don't own a rig from what I gather, and if I look back, I am certain that you were sorting the laptop. Again, how are you working on a proper rig to confirm to others that your magic works. See below where you choose to ignore the question.

 

I've got enough "stuff" in the house to assemble about 4 or 5 rigs if I wish to. Plenty of speakers, about $10,000 worth. But I'm only interested in the one setup that I'm working on at the time - which happens to be the NAD and Sharp combo ... for a lot of reasons that's not happening at the moment, mainly too much else in life on the plate.

 

31 minutes ago, Racerxnet said:

 

You intentionally refuse to answer the questions posed, due to the inability to be truthful.

 

My systems. And the friend up the road is the only one who is directly applying my type of thinking - he sometimes has gone further than what I would have tried ... at the moment, his vinyl rig is well and truly in the magic zone - no TT at the last audio show I went to is even vaguely close to what his SQ there is like.

[fas42]

26 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

No idea and that isn't what we're discussing.

 

Completely invisible speakers is part of the recipe for getting "bad" recordings to come good - the current NAD setup somewhat overturns that, because it can handle even hard core difficult recordings, without actually manifesting full invisibility ... close enough to be satisfying to listen to, so I've been slack on going the next step, 😉.

[Teresa]

7 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Completely invisible speakers is part of the recipe for getting "bad" recordings to come good...

 

One only gets completely invisible speakers with correct speaker placement, which you don't believe in.

 

Invisible speakers improves imaging, sound staging, ambiance, etc. So bad recordings will sound better with correct speaker placement and taming room problems. But improving the image and soundstage of bad recordings does not make them magically sound like properly made recordings.

[fas42]

43 minutes ago, Racerxnet said:

 

 

Are you smarter than the engineers designing the products we pay for? If so where are the goods to show this attitude.

 

Where the manufacturers don't do enough is to make sure all the little details are just right - the fussy ones go the extra distance, and deliver the results - but you pay for that effort.

 

We as consumers can get around that by modifying and improving where there are shortfalls - if one knows where to look.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

2 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

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

 

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

Well, obvious straw man - but, wrong about what Frank? That you have magic tweaks or that through rewiring your brain you can hear whatever you want?

 

2 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

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" " ...... - make sense? 🙂

 

It makes sense that your perception of lifelike reproduction may not accord with most other people .

 

 

2 hours 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 ... 😝.

 

Now you are presuming I have an ulterior motive because my experience accords with everyone else.... except you. Sounds a little like a conspiracy theory.

Oh which Nutter?

 

2 hours ago, fas42 said:

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, 😉.

 

The universe is indeed trying to tell you something but you do not seem to be receptive.🙄