Fas42’s Stereo ‘Magic’

[fas42]

36 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

So, with few exceptions , whether sorted or not, you prefer modified ghetto blaster sound over high end systems.....which brings me to

 

 

 

 

Actually, I prefer the sound of the recording ... others prefer the 'seasoning' which typically comes with high end rigs; which is why every one of them normally sounds so different from the next - of course, one can pretend to oneself that one's own seasoning is The One, that which is actually the sound of the recording, and everyone else's is wrong, or just not as good - so, the trick is to not share notes ...

 

"Bad" recordings are excellent spotlights on those distinguishing characteristics - otherwise, all "transparent" rigs would make the "badness" sound identical, from one to the next.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

26 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Actually, I prefer the sound of the recording ... others prefer the 'seasoning' which typically comes with high end rigs; which is why every one of them normally sounds so different from the next - of course, one can pretend to oneself that one's own seasoning is The One, that which is actually the sound of the recording, and everyone else's is wrong, or just not as good - so, the trick is to not share notes ...

 

"Bad" recordings are excellent spotlights on those distinguishing characteristics - otherwise, all "transparent" rigs would make the "badness" sound identical, from one to the next.

 

...and so the circle goes round 🙄

 

you prefer "the sound of the recording" on a modified ghetto blaster, that is your '"seasoning". Others prefer the sound of high end quality gear, which sounds to them much closer to real life, not the "seasoning" of a ghetto blaster.🙂

[fas42]

Interesting ... I've been fighting a blockage in the kitchen sink for a couple of days now - I've tried chemicals, blasting with high water pressure from both ends, a manual pipe drain cleaning tool with a huge length of coiled spring, and a sharp tooth at the end - and have got nowhere. Next step, levering up a huge lump of concrete atop the nasty bit, underground, and seeing what gives ...not quite sure which is the more frustrating 'blockage' - that, or this. 🤣

 

High end quality gear does so much damage to natural sounds, usually - I'm sure people are ecstatic when something like a solo piano being played starts to sound vaguely like the real thing ... who am I to disrupt such pleasures? 🙂

[Confused]

7 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Okay, for me the "hifi" quality of the sound just screams at me, so I feel it should be obvious to others, 😝.

 

The vocals? Terrible; extremely "boxy" sound; just one weird sort of echo chamber she's in - a caricature of a woman's singing voice. That alone kills any chance of finding pleasure in listening.

 

Bingo!  Yes, that weird kind of "echo chamber" sound.  This nails it I think, this is the problem.  Certainly for me this "echo chamber" sound is absolutely the thing that ruins the sound of this ambitious rig.  This begs the question, how to sort?

 

 

7 hours ago, fas42 said:

How to sort? Hmmm, to me it's such a mess, because cables and other bits have been added and added, one thing on top of the other, to try and fix individual aspects to the sound, that someone found issue with. So, I would start by removing everything but the bare minimum of components to get sound, unplug everything else; use the simplest, most straightforward cables to hook things together; stabilise the speakers; take great care that every cable in the area of the system was well spaced from every other - and then listen. And keep listening. I would want the simplest, and most 'hygienic' 😁 starting point I could get, and then react to what I heard then.

 

This puzzles me?  Would simplifying the front end and reducing cable count actually reduce the "echo chamber" sound?  I suspect it might influence resolution, fine detail, this kind of thing, but I am struggling to understand how that relates to what I am hearing in the video.

 

Personally, what I am hearing is a good system in a room that is generating significant echo and reverb.  I suspect that if the same system was in a different room, the sound would be massively different.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

13 minutes ago, fas42 said:

High end quality gear does so much damage to natural sounds, usually

 

The designers and engineers make it that way Frank. They haven't yet figured out the special sauce and "seasoning" to make ghetto blasters sound real.🤣🙄

 

[Confused]

As an aside, this is a picture from the National Audio show in the UK.

 

Defiantly an audiophile rig I would say, although I am not sure if it is an "ambitious" one, there is hardly a box or cable in sight!  This was back in 2016, but I remember this system well.  I visited more or less every room in the show, but the system below was the "best sound in show", at least to my subjective ears.  I was very impressed with the G2's, I spent a lot of time in that room, listened to a variety of music, everything sounded good to the point that I started to forget about the rig and just drifted into enjoying the music.

 

More per these links, on the off chance that anyone is interested:

 

https://hifipig.com/national-audio-show-whittlebury-2016-show-report-part-1/

https://hifipig.com/national-audio-show-whittlebury-2016-show-report-part-2/

https://hifipig.com/national-audio-show-whittlebury-2016-show-report-part-3/

 

 

 

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

2 minutes ago, Confused said:

I was very impressed with the G2's, I spent a lot of time in that room, listened to a variety of music, everything sounded good to the point that I started to forget about the rig and just drifted into enjoying the music.

 

I suspect for Frank the G2's would cause "so much damage to natural sounds"  😁..... all those silly people voting them the "best sound in show" 🙂

 

 

[Summit]

8 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

The current active speakers are so far pretty impressive, in raw form - have done a couple of tests, and they seem relatively impervious to what I used to worry about. This may change as I improve the resolution of the playback quality; I'll do something about it if that time arrives.

 

The earlier stuff? Too busy sorting other areas, so I used the simple workaround of switching everything off, when I wanted to hear the setup's full potential - one could drive oneself batty trying to sort internal engineering, and the exercise of constructing a full Faraday cage for everything, I didn't want to contemplate.

 

The rules of thumb I use are: no sharp corners to anything I do, in the electrical sense; all conductors follow shallow curves going from one place to another; zero bits of leads or other metal going nowhere left attached to anything, IOW, if anything is changed, don't leave bits of wire dangling. And, anywhere cables can be twisted, or twisted together I do so, as tightly as possible - with the current speakers, the cable connecting right to left is twisted to the point where I can't twist it tighter. How important is this? I don't know ... when the system is working as well as I can reasonably get it, I might try unloosening the twist, and seeing what that tells me, 🙂.

 

“The current active speakers are so far pretty impressive, in raw form..”

“..others prefer the 'seasoning' which typically comes with high end rigs..”

“..of course, one can pretend to oneself that one's own seasoning is The One,..”

“High end quality gear does so much damage to natural sounds..”

 

The quotes above (all from today) make it clear (to me) that you actually consider your sound system to sound more truthful than 99% of all High End systems. This along with all the posts about how unimportant it is to set up the speakers properly, and that audiophile records all sound bad and many other controversial beliefs ... are just weird. I mean, you do realize that this goes against pretty much what all the people on an audiophile forum strive for, regardless of taste and budget?

[fas42]

3 hours ago, Confused said:

Bingo!  Yes, that weird kind of "echo chamber" sound.  This nails it I think, this is the problem.  Certainly for me this "echo chamber" sound is absolutely the thing that ruins the sound of this ambitious rig.  This begs the question, how to sort?

 

Again, simplify what's there. For me, the characteristics that immediately identify the SQ as being that of an ambitious rig are there in abundance; the first time I came across YT clips of audio show rooms I heard this distinctive signature.

 

I went to the trouble of DL'ing the best quality audio of the source material clip, and listened with a good player on my laptop. This showed what the piece was really about - very warm, smooth vocals, rich backing with decent air and texture. The album title of Moonlight Serenade now rang true ...

 

Quote

 

 

 

This puzzles me?  Would simplifying the front end and reducing cable count actually reduce the "echo chamber" sound?  I suspect it might influence resolution, fine detail, this kind of thing, but I am struggling to understand how that relates to what I am hearing in the video.

 

The microphone doesn't lie ... the camera is picking up the distortion of the playback, and underlining it - if you were there in the flesh the automatic compensation that many audiophiles make to what they hear from playback would kick in, and it would sound like a "good hifi". I listen with a different ear, and to me it would sound very badly out of whack - well off target.

 

Quote

 

Personally, what I am hearing is a good system in a room that is generating significant echo and reverb.  I suspect that if the same system was in a different room, the sound would be massively different.

 

Perhaps to yourself and others ... but for me, the signature that the clip emphasises would always be obvious - the tonality is 'twisted', and room fiddling won't make it go away.

[fas42]

2 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

I suspect for Frank the G2's would cause "so much damage to natural sounds"  😁..... all those silly people voting them the "best sound in show" 🙂

 

 

 

Note that David finds it impossible to comprehend the key point - it's not components that determine the SQ; it's the integrity, or lack of it, of the entire playback chain that really matters ... the G2's could sound execrable, or brilliant - it's always, it depends ...

 

Along those lines, I heard the Kef Blades, and the LS50s, at that show - sounded like a pile of poo; but it was pretty obvious the blokes doing the demo had no interest in doing better.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

13 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Perhaps to yourself and others ... but for me, the signature that the clip emphasises would always be obvious - the tonality is 'twisted', and room fiddling won't make it go away.

Fiddling with hamburger will  not make it fillet mignon 

[fas42]

2 hours ago, Summit said:

 

The quotes above (all from today) make it clear (to me) that you actually consider your sound system to sound more truthful than 99% of all High End systems. This along with all the posts about how unimportant it is to set up the speakers properly, and that audiophile records all sound bad and many other controversial beliefs ... are just weird. I mean, you do realize that this goes against pretty much what all the people on an audiophile forum strive for, regardless of taste and budget?

 

What I worry about is getting certain key elements in what I hear right - from experience, I know that if I do this that my ear/brain will trigger to the cues being of the right order, and that "missing gaps" will be filled. This trigger fired with my first, genuinely audiophile system, and I've extrapolated that experience to less ambitious combinations - where I have a huge advantage is that I know exactly what I'm after in the sound that I hear, and years of doing it gives me insight about what to try, what to consider, when I listen to reproduction.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

6 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Note that David finds it impossible to comprehend the key point - it's not components that determine the SQ; it's the integrity, or lack of it, of the entire playback chain that really matters ... the G2's could sound execrable, or brilliant - it's always, it depends ...

 

Which it is why it is key to have the whole playback chain as quality .indeed the g2s do sound brilliant .once you introduce ghetto quality into the chain the whole thing degrades 

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

3 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

What I worry about is getting certain key elements in what I hear right - from experience, I know that if I do this that my ear/brain will trigger to the cues being of the right order, and that "missing gaps" will be filled. This trigger fired with my first, genuinely audiophile system, and I've extrapolated that experience to less ambitious combinations - where I have a huge advantage is that I know exactly what I'm after in the sound that I hear, and years of doing it gives me insight about what to try, what to consider, when I listen to reproduction.

We all enjoy hamburger with special sauce sometimes 😃

[fas42]

Note that the special sauce has the taste of completely invisible sources of the sound, no matter where one is in the room - in its best form. The NAD and Sharp never quite got there, nor have the Edifiers ... yet. But that gives me very well defined goalposts ...  🙂.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

3 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Note that the special sauce has the taste of completely invisible sources of the sound, no matter where one is in the room - in its best form. The NAD and Sharp never quite got there, nor have the Edifiers ... yet. But that gives me very well defined goalposts ...  🙂.

Special sauces always leave their distasteful signature wherever you are seated in the room.

Best to have quality gear.

[Summit]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

 

What I worry about is getting certain key elements in what I hear right - from experience, I know that if I do this that my ear/brain will trigger to the cues being of the right order, and that "missing gaps" will be filled. This trigger fired with my first, genuinely audiophile system, and I've extrapolated that experience to less ambitious combinations - where I have a huge advantage is that I know exactly what I'm after in the sound that I hear, and years of doing it gives me insight about what to try, what to consider, when I listen to reproduction.

 

Do you really think that you are the only one on the planet who knows what to listen for, and who has many years of experience in matching and fine-tuning hi-fi systems? 

 

Frank for heaven's sake which key elements can fill the "missing gaps" and what do you mean by missing gaps in this context?

[Confused]

2 hours ago, fas42 said:

Along those lines, I heard the Kef Blades, and the LS50s, at that show - sounded like a pile of poo; but it was pretty obvious the blokes doing the demo had no interest in doing better.

 

I does happen.  I visited a show a couple of years ago, Cyrus were demonstrating their latest kit, and happened to be using the Blade 2.

 

I did not like this system at all, it was a terrible sound to my ears.  It didn't sound like poo though, more mid range and treble than you get with poo.

 

I am not sure what you are referring to by "at that show".  Out of interest, where there any speakers you liked there?

[ray-dude]

At the risk of being the person intruding in a passionate debate at a dinner party...

 

At RMAF and my local dealer, I have heard amazing systems that are the pinnacle of a sound that I sought for decades, but they hold only intellectual interest for me now (which is remarkable, given how passionately I sought out those heights for so many years).  They are truly a world class HiFi experience of listening to music, but only hint at what I've come to think of experiencing and participating in an in person performance.

 

I shared the experience before that even when walking down a street, I can tell whether it is a live performer in a coffee shop or whether it is recorded playback.  Needless to say, the distortion through walls and glass with street noise raising the noise floor is atrocious HiFi, but I know it to be real, and one draws me in, and the other does not.

 

With traditional HiFi rigs, the analogy I use is moving from looking at a photo of a forest to an even better photo of a forest to a full 100" 4k HDR OLED photo of a forest, where you start to get an inkling of what it is like to look through a window at a forest.  If you work hard enough, the "through a window" feeling becomes more and more prevalent and the window gets more clear and larger and you start to get the barest hint of being in a forest with no window at all.

 

I compare that to walking through a forest, where even with scratched up sunglasses that cast a yellowish tint, I am unambiguously IN A FOREST, and all my senses have shifted to a completely different of experience and engagement and feeling of being alive.

 

That difference is not due to fidelity of the image.  It is the amalgam of sensory inputs that cause my brain (which has been trained by Darwin and 53 years of hard knocks) to switch to "this is real, pay attention" mode.  It takes precious little to break that sense of reality and go back to trying to get a better and better photo, then a better and better window.

The last several years for me have been about starting all over, and trying to get that sense of reality from the ground up.  It has been devastaingly humbling, but incredibly rewarding.  So much that I put on the first tier "this can never be compromised" I've realized just doesn't matter once my brain kicks into "this is real" mode.  Back to my earlier analogy, given a choice between listening to Carly Simon live in a noisy coffee shop with the crappiest acoustics and listening to Moonlight Serenade on a $1M PinnacleFi system, find me in the coffee shop, completely engaged and over the moon delighted for the experience, leaving afterwards inspired and elevated by the artistry.

 

I listen to the mega Wilson and YT setups and I'm blown away by how incredible they are (truly...after decades of tweaking and tuning I know intimately what an incredible achievement and performance level they are delivering), but it is now a intellectual interest rather than a passion.  I'll happily give up 90% of what they deliver, to get that sense of reality (the walking in the forest experience) that they struggle to deliver (at least for my brain).

 

All that being said, the reaction of people when they hear my rig is decidedly bimodal: there are those that have a proverbial red pill moment and want more and more of that reality rush, and others that are scratching their heads going "I thought you had a nice stereo system...what's up with this?"  The former group has had their brain click in on that sense of reality, the later is focused on what I was willing to give up to get that sense of reality.  The sharp divide I've seen in my living room really highlights how differently our brains get triggered, and the different response we all seek in music.

 

[Summit]

4 hours ago, ray-dude said:

At the risk of being the person intruding in a passionate debate at a dinner party...

 

At RMAF and my local dealer, I have heard amazing systems that are the pinnacle of a sound that I sought for decades, but they hold only intellectual interest for me now (which is remarkable, given how passionately I sought out those heights for so many years).  They are truly a world class HiFi experience of listening to music, but only hint at what I've come to think of experiencing and participating in an in person performance.

 

I shared the experience before that even when walking down a street, I can tell whether it is a live performer in a coffee shop or whether it is recorded playback.  Needless to say, the distortion through walls and glass with street noise raising the noise floor is atrocious HiFi, but I know it to be real, and one draws me in, and the other does not.

 

With traditional HiFi rigs, the analogy I use is moving from looking at a photo of a forest to an even better photo of a forest to a full 100" 4k HDR OLED photo of a forest, where you start to get an inkling of what it is like to look through a window at a forest.  If you work hard enough, the "through a window" feeling becomes more and more prevalent and the window gets more clear and larger and you start to get the barest hint of being in a forest with no window at all.

 

I compare that to walking through a forest, where even with scratched up sunglasses that cast a yellowish tint, I am unambiguously IN A FOREST, and all my senses have shifted to a completely different of experience and engagement and feeling of being alive.

 

That difference is not due to fidelity of the image.  It is the amalgam of sensory inputs that cause my brain (which has been trained by Darwin and 53 years of hard knocks) to switch to "this is real, pay attention" mode.  It takes precious little to break that sense of reality and go back to trying to get a better and better photo, then a better and better window.

The last several years for me have been about starting all over, and trying to get that sense of reality from the ground up.  It has been devastaingly humbling, but incredibly rewarding.  So much that I put on the first tier "this can never be compromised" I've realized just doesn't matter once my brain kicks into "this is real" mode.  Back to my earlier analogy, given a choice between listening to Carly Simon live in a noisy coffee shop with the crappiest acoustics and listening to Moonlight Serenade on a $1M PinnacleFi system, find me in the coffee shop, completely engaged and over the moon delighted for the experience, leaving afterwards inspired and elevated by the artistry.

 

I listen to the mega Wilson and YT setups and I'm blown away by how incredible they are (truly...after decades of tweaking and tuning I know intimately what an incredible achievement and performance level they are delivering), but it is now a intellectual interest rather than a passion.  I'll happily give up 90% of what they deliver, to get that sense of reality (the walking in the forest experience) that they struggle to deliver (at least for my brain).

 

All that being said, the reaction of people when they hear my rig is decidedly bimodal: there are those that have a proverbial red pill moment and want more and more of that reality rush, and others that are scratching their heads going "I thought you had a nice stereo system...what's up with this?"  The former group has had their brain click in on that sense of reality, the later is focused on what I was willing to give up to get that sense of reality.  The sharp divide I've seen in my living room really highlights how differently our brains get triggered, and the different response we all seek in music.

 

 

I am of the same opinion that music should be experienced. There should be tempo, rhythms, melodies and glow. It's not like a static photo no matter how transparent the windows get.

 

I have not heard your stereo, but I can imagine roughly how it sounds like, i.e. superb in many ways, maybe not as good in others. This is true (in reality) for all types of stereo systems, no matter which one we choose, there are always others that are better in certain individual aspects.

 

Some think that details and transparency are most important of all, others that it is PRaT, still others the tonality. Many are not so extreme and prefer a more balanced sound * where nothing has been sacrificed to achieve that last bit of clarity or bass control. They will not give up 90% for the last 10% in the room feeling, for example.

 

I mainly choose devices and systems that make the music sound live, musical and cohesive. It certainly sounds like something that everyone would choose, don't it? But according to my experience and definition, it is not so. Many people choose the opposite, which can be technically very good, clean and nice and you can hear the smallest detail, but where is the glow, the feeling and the groove.

 

*Good at everything master of none

[gmgraves]

On 7/30/2020 at 1:16 AM, opus101 said:

On 7/30/2020 at 1:16 AM, opus101 said:

 

Did you try not connecting the scope probe at all and only connect the grounds between the 'scope and DUT? When you connect/disconnect the grounds notice any thickening of the trace?

No.

[gmgraves]

21 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

I know it's difficult to follow logic, David, so I'll spell it out:

coming from you, that would, indeed, be novel!

 

[gmgraves]

17 hours ago, fas42 said:

Yes ... two of the systems at that ultra high end show a decade and a half ago, the one that you may, or may not, have gone to ... a little clue - the Len Wallis effort didn't get it right ...

 

But that misses the point. Which is, that expensive gear is not the problem - rather, it's the lack of sufficient, or knowledgeable sorting having been applied.

 

 

Again. What’s to sort out? You buy decent equipment, you connect it together using the cables of your choice keeping power and signal cables apart, and you play music through the equipment. Short of going into the components themselves and changing the circuit topology, what else is there to “sort”?

[Teresa]

On 7/29/2020 at 5:34 PM, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

Of course, the better the "rig", the less it will sound like Frank's favorite ghetto blaster🤷‍♂️🙄 ...

 

I agree. I would not want my audio system to sound like the junk Frank peddles. I prefer sonic realism, tonal accuracy, wide / deep soundstage to actually be provided by my audio system when playing sonically accurate recordings. Unlike Frank's wishful thinking which will not get me there. It has to sound real period! I wish someone from Australia would visit Frank and reveal him for the fraud I believe he is. 

 

22 hours ago, fas42 said:

I know it's difficult to follow logic, David, so I'll spell it out:

 

You,

 

Me: I have posted often that I came across a prime example of how rigs in raw form can deliver exceptional sound, if all the circumstances are right; a Bryston and Dynaudio combo at the last hifi show, which also delivered PA levels of SPL - it sounded exactly like my "favorite ghetto blaster", 😉.

 

As an exercise, I'll leave it to a bright boy like yourself to add the next line ...

 

As an addendum, I have been making a list of @Audiophile Neuroscience certified junk brands, because they fit the metric that they deliver SQ just like the "favorite ghetto blaster" - as a service, I can post the list, so people know whose products they can ignore, 🙂

 

You don't get it! We don't want equipment that sounds as bad as your "favorite ghetto blaster", understand? I'm sure most of us prefer equipment that sounds like real music.

 

A list of equipment that doesn't deliver the awful sound quality of you "favorite ghetto blaster" wouldn't be junk brands but good brands.

 

17 hours ago, fas42 said:

...The aim is to hear the recording, not the playback chain...

 

That's our aim not yours. You want an audio system in which all recordings are listenable and sound to you like your fantasy of live (in the flesh) music. Do you ever hear live acoustic music?

 

Once you actually get your equipment to a level of realistic playback you will be able to hear what is actually on the recording (both good and bad). Right now you are listening to a playback chain that makes most recordings sound equally mediocre.

 

15 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

So, with few exceptions , whether sorted or not, you prefer modified ghetto blaster sound over high end systems.....which brings me to" Of course, the better the "rig", the less it will sound like Frank's favorite ghetto blaster

 

Bingo! 😄

 

15 hours ago, fas42 said:

Actually, I prefer the sound of the recording ... others prefer the 'seasoning' which typically comes with high end rigs; which is why every one of them normally sounds so different from the next - of course, one can pretend to oneself that one's own seasoning is The One, that which is actually the sound of the recording, and everyone else's is wrong, or just not as good - so, the trick is to not share notes ...

 

No you don't, you prefer "seasoning" otherwise you would know that all recordings do not sound the same. Most  audio systems strive to be the most sonically accurate at their price point. High end components and speakers don't have to compromise on parts and construction and, of course, will sound more accurate. Which is the goal of must audio equipment manufacturers.

 

14 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

...and so the circle goes round 🙄

 

you prefer "the sound of the recording" on a modified ghetto blaster, that is your '"seasoning". Others prefer the sound of high end quality gear, which sounds to them much closer to real life, not the "seasoning" of a ghetto blaster.🙂

 

Bingo again! 😄

 

14 hours ago, fas42 said:

 ...High end quality gear does so much damage to natural sounds, usually - I'm sure people are ecstatic when something like a solo piano being played starts to sound vaguely like the real thing ... who am I to disrupt such pleasures? 🙂

 

That is not true!!!! High end equipment strives for timbre accuracy and sonic realism. It is low-fi equipment that damages natural sounds. 

 

12 hours ago, Summit said:

“The current active speakers are so far pretty impressive, in raw form..”

“..others prefer the 'seasoning' which typically comes with high end rigs..”

“..of course, one can pretend to oneself that one's own seasoning is The One,..”

“High end quality gear does so much damage to natural sounds..”

 

The quotes above (all from today) make it clear (to me) that you actually consider your sound system to sound more truthful than 99% of all High End systems. This along with all the posts about how unimportant it is to set up the speakers properly, and that audiophile records all sound bad and many other controversial beliefs ... are just weird. I mean, you do realize that this goes against pretty much what all the people on an audiophile forum strive for, regardless of taste and budget?

 

That is why I don't take Frank @fas42 seriously.

[fas42]

10 hours ago, Summit said:

 

Do you really think that you are the only one on the planet who knows what to listen for, and who has many years of experience in matching and fine-tuning hi-fi systems? 

 

Frank for heaven's sake which key elements can fill the "missing gaps" and what do you mean by missing gaps in this context?

 

Definitely not the only one 😉 ...it was over a decade ago that I came across someone who understood what I was after perfectly, and since then I regularly find others with a similar mindset - and of course right now you have @ray-dude, 🙂. But most people chase the "wrong things", and end up with rigs that have very lopsided SQ - they do some things very impressively, and fail miserably at the simple job of reproducing what's on the recording.

 

The key elements are that a variety of disturbing anomalies are absent from the sound - caused by things like electrical interference, and self generated noise artifacts, they send strong signals to the brain that the sound is "fake" - and the listening mind rejects the musical message ... no illusion forms. But with them absent from what the ear/brain picks up, the mind, completely unconsciously, decides to accept that the sound is 'real', and automatically compensates for any irregularities; this is the "filling of the missing gaps" bit - the latter are all the things that people spend so much time trying to perfect, to no avail - the disturbing distortion content is still present - and it still just sounds like a hifi system.