The myth of "The Absolute Sound"

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, barrows said:

While I appreciate the intent, the myth of "The Absolute Sound"  concept is terribly flawed on its own and should be discarded.  For those who do not know, "The Absolute Sound" is way of describing the performance of a home audio system to deliver: the sound of acoustic instruments playing in a real space.

 

Why is it a myth:

 

1.  A very few people are equipped to make such observations of sound quality, including most reviewers.  To judge a playback system based on this criteria would require the audient have been at the recording venue and hearing the exact piece of music being recorded, in the live room (hall, theater, church, whatever) (not the mic feed).  How many people actually have this experience with the music they use to evaluate gear?

 

2.  Even if #1 above is met, from what perspective do we consider the result "Absolute"?  Which row in the hall, for example?  Any live performance sounds very different from different seats in the house.

 

3.  Even without #1 and #2, why would only acoustic instruments be valid for determining sound playback quality?  Given that a much larger percentage of recorded music contains some instrumentation which is electrically enhanced, electric, or even electronic in nature, it is entirely arbitrary and unrepresentative to have this limitation in how we evaluate audio playback systems.

 

I would also posit for further discussion, that even the idea of attempting, for a playback system or a recording, to reproduce a live event is flawed in theory.  A live event has the power of immediacy, presence, and being fleeting and in the moment, and has much of its power rooted in the interaction between musician, audience, and Music.  The second that a moment has passed it will never BE again.  Any attempt to reproduce the live experience after the fact is flawed in its approach.  A recording will always be a recording, just that.  I would suggest that instead of trying to reproduce a live experience, a recording should instead attempt to be the best recording of music possible, a separate entity from a live experience of music, acknowledged as valuable in its own right, but understood to be a different thing from live music creation.

 

Our systems should be evaluated on the basis of how much they allow each of us to connect with the music that is important to us, individually, and not on the basis of some impossible tp evaluate "standard" which does not even really exist or relate to most music in the world.   

I disagree. The idea of The Absolute Sound is certainly no myth. A stereo system is a music reproduction system. It is reproducing nothing if it does not sound like live, acoustical music playing in a real space. Starting with a live recording, any step along the way, from the microphone to the listener’s speakers (and, of course, the listener’s room) that changes the sound of an acoustic instrument, has broken the chain, and the “Absolute Sound” is lost. Implicit in the accepted definition of the term is the knowledge that as a goal, the Absolute Sound is an unattainable one. No matter how much money and technology is thrown at this goal, everyone knows that no recording, indeed, no playback system is capable of the perfect reproduction of music. However, just because a goal is unattainable, is no reason to abandon striving for that goal. All goals must be defined. Some are difficult to define completely. An example would be those people who aspire to be “Christ-like” in their lives when all anyone knows about the Christ figure is what the Christian New Testament tells us about Him and honestly that’s not a lot. 

But with music, we do have a pretty complete picture. Everybody knows live music when they hear it. We audio types hear live music and marvel at the sound. We hear things that we have never heard reproduced in our homes, things that we know that we will never be able to hear from our systems. But that doesn’t mean that we should stop trying to attain that level of playback accuracy. That’s what the idea of the Absolute Sound is all about. An unchanging standard against which our efforts to attain audio perfection are measured.

[gmgraves]

54 minutes ago, barrows said:

In@gmgraves:  So then, considering for example a symphony orchestra, exactly which seat would provide the so called "Absoute" reference then?  Do you see the problem?  There is no "Absolute".  Not to mention the additional problem of even many orchestras using sound reinforcement these days.

What I see is that you are looking at the question in the wrong light. The seat is not important. 

Like most people, I suspect that you know what a live trumpet sounds like, and you know that when you hear a recording of a trumpet, that it never has the bite or the presence of the real thing. But recreating that sense of realism is the avowed goal of high-fidelity. I’m sure there are many instruments that we all know the live sound of, but few aspects of those instrument’s actual sound make it from our speakers. Now, enough of those sonic signatures exist, even on a cheap table radio, for us to recognize these instruments when we hear them, but they don’t sound real, even on megabuck systems. Whether it’s the microphones used in the recording, or the recording gear or process, most of the time, the realism is not captured. Add to that the distortions added on playback, and the “Fi” we get in our playback is still severely limited. There must be a standard by which to measure our progress, and it can’t be that it “sounds good”. It must be a comparison to the real thing or the entire construct is flawed.

Quote

 

And also: 

 

So then a system reproducing electric or electronic music is reproducing nothing?  That is too narrow a view as to the definition of music for me, but I suppose it could suffice for a very few.  I certainly do not want Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" to sound like "live, acoustical music playing in a real space".

Again, you are looking at this wrong. If the playback chain is accurate to the sound of real instruments, playing in a real space, then it will be accurate to the sound of electronic or electric music as well. It cannot help but be because it means that the playback system is adding nothing and taking away  nothing from the signal it’s fed. The type of music being listened to doesn’t matter. Get the acoustic stuff to sound REAL, and by real, I mean that reproduced is indistinguishable from the actual instrument being reproduced, and all music will be accurate to the original, or absolute sound.

Now, to be honest, here, with what I call “Studio Music” where it is all electronics and over-dubbing and different tracks laid down at different times and often in different venues, the reality is that if you weren’t there at the mix, listening through the same studio monitor speakers in the same room as those who made the mix, you will have no idea how the producers and artists wanted their music to sound. In that case there really is no “Absolute Sound”. That’s why I personally don’t think that this kind of music should be used to evaluate audio gear. If no one has ever heard this performance (because it doesn’t exist outside of the studio), how can one judge the “Fi” of the playback? But, then, that’s just my opinion.

[gmgraves]

37 minutes ago, firedog said:

References to Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir don’t work with George....

Doesn’t matter. If a system can reproduce all acoustic instruments perfectly, then all music, no matter it’s origin, will be reproduced without adding or subtracting anything from the recording/transmission. Of course, not being privy to the actual recording session, even perfect playback of the finished work’s signal will not guarantee that the playback will be what the artists and producers heard on playback, but it will sound like the signal that represents the performance. In “Studio Music” there are simply too many layers of separation between the performance by the musicians and the final production.

[gmgraves]

21 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

As I've said many times, the recording process has always worked well enough - the real shortcomings are in the integrity of the playback chain ... in simple terms, the the system must be able to go "loud" without 'collapsing' - if one knows what is possible, then it's very easy to hear the sound quality being compromised by the flaws in nominally capable rigs.

The flaw in this thinking is that fas42 is assuming that things like microphones are perfect transducers. They are not. He is also assuming that mic preamps, mixing boards and audio recorders, both digital and analog are likewise perfect, distortion-free devices. This too is a falsehood. Both ends of the system are seriously flawed because the arts and science of electronics and acoustics are nowhere near perfect, and the must be to perfectly reproduce the sound of live, acoustic instruments realistically!

21 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

 

100% agree.

 

[gmgraves]

5 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

A simple formula applies, if wanting a sense of "real space" ...

 

If the rig has less than the necessary integrity, then as many channels as one can engineer, by whatever means, will be necessary; if the rig has at least the necessary integrity then 2 channels will be perfectly adequate.

 

😉 ...

Bell Laboratories, in the 1930’s determined that perfect stereophony was attainable with only two channels. They started with one microphone and one speaker for each instrument in the orchestra. The speakers were placed in exactly the same place on stage that the instruments that they represent occupied in the pick-up venue some distance away. Then they started to consolidate larger and larger groups of instruments into sharing one channel, until at last, there were just two microphones in front of the orchestra, and two speakers in the listening venue.

[gmgraves]

3 minutes ago, danadam said:

That begs the question, how can one tell what to change next in order to come closer to the "Absolute Sound", the recording or the playback system? 🙂

Both. I started doing my own recording many years ago because I figured that unless I knew what the original performance sounded like, and made that recording myself, Then I had no control over what my system sounded like because I had no reference. How can I know whether or not my system is neutral and accurate, if I didn’t know what The music I was playing was supposed to sound like?

[gmgraves]

21 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

 

better tell Kal...

I’m sure that Kal knows about those Bell Labs experiments.

[gmgraves]

21 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

The recording chain is not "perfect" - and never will be ... however, the sins that are committed there are not the ones that 'sabotage' the quality of "realness" that most aspire to hearing. This is clearly so when one listens to a succession of different recordings, that come from different eras, using various techniques and all sorts of qualities of gear - each recording causes you to enter a different "listening world"; it's almost a shock at times at how much it changes with each new album you put on ... but what happens is that one's hearing very rapidly adapts, and it still "sounds like the real thing". An analogy might be meeting someone you know, who has changed by the passage of years, or is wearing completely unfamiliar clothes, or makeup - the underlying person is still exactly as before, and never comes across "as fake" - the person is always a real person, not an android ...

I’m just responding to your assertion that “As I've said many times, the recording process has always worked well enough.” Because I seriously disagree. The recording process has not always “worked well enough”. Most recordings are, in my estimation, incompetent. This is not because the people involved don’t know what they’re doing, but because of (in most classical music) an often ego-driven belief that they can make recordings that are “better than real” (hint: they can’t). Or, with pop music, their efforts are being guided by other than musical choices (such as the desire to make their recording louder than anyone else’s or their desire to play with their electronic toys, or some dope-addled pop star’s desire to experiment with a new “sound”).

21 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

This is what a system capable of convincing playback presents - all the technical issues of the recording 'vanish' - and this is because human hearing is remarkably adaptive, given the 'right' qualities in the SQ.

Well, Frank, the problem with this statement is that you have never convinced many of us here, that you would know a “convincing playback” system if you heard one! Based on your description of your own system, that you could manufacture a silk purse from that collection of sows’ ears is an extremely dubious proposition. 

21 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Every audiophile who has had a shock hearing a recording they thought they knew well sound dramatically more impressive on a 'magic' rig is experiencing this - the system is not distorting the recording to make it "sound better"; rather, it's adding less disturbing artifacts, allowing you to be subjectively more aware of the intrinsic qualities of what was captured.

Equipment improvements can provide that shock, and that’s for sure. Recently, I had such an “epiphany”. I listened to one of my own recordings of Ravel’s “Daphne et Chloe”, the complete ballet with a full symphony orchestra and a full chorus. Now, I have listened to this recording many times, and I know it intimately, or so I thought. I plugged my HiFiMan Edition X, v.2 headphones plugged into a Chord Hugo 2 DAC/headphone amp, and my jaw dropped. I heard layers of detail and an “unpacking” of heretofore homogeneous sound that I was simply unaware even existed in that recording! So yeah, I agree with your characterization of the possible magic that we’re talking about here.

[gmgraves]

21 hours ago, barrows said:

Sure, but at what distance?  In what room?  Played how?  Which trumpet?  These all can sound very different.  This is my point, that there is no absolute.

You still don’t get the concept, do you? Well, I can’t explain it any clearer than I have.

 

[gmgraves]

21 hours ago, barrows said:

Yes, this is why most do not have any reference for the "Absolute"  My GF is a working musician, and I have the occasion to be in the studio with her, hear both the live in the room sound of her voice, and the mic feed, as well as the recording.  Live performances by her as well.  And sometimes i will use some of her work as a reference, but I want it to sound fantastic, not necessarily "accurate"!   

 Music recording is an art medium in itself, hence what you term "studio" (which is 95% or more of all recorded music) which really is a creative art form of its own, separate from, while being related to live music performance.  While some purists might suggest that such things are not "real" music (certainly they are not live music performances) this is such a narrow view, and leaves out so much very, very powerful and valuable music, that I would never live in such a deprived world.

Ah, but now you have brought the concept of taste into the discussion. Like the man said, “there’s no accounting for it”. That you, or others might not want “accurate” is another issue; one with which I have no complaint. My only horse in this race is that there is an absolute sound and that is the sound of real, acoustic instruments heard in a live space. Modern technology can’t reproduce that sound, and the ear can’t be fooled (for long) into confusing the two.the idea of the Absolute Sound is the pursuit of closing that gap, and believe me, it’s a worthwhile one, even if it might be, ultimately, unattainable.

[gmgraves]

38 minutes ago, barrows said:

Wait, what?  Hahaha, I am assuming this is a joke, and it illustrates my point.  I listen for pleasure, so changes to my system which increase my pleasure are changes for the better.  I would rather evaluate changes on this basis, than on the basis of some (virtually impossible to have a true reference for) theoretical "absolute".

 

I would love it if you could provide some examples of such "adequately mic'ed" recordings?  I have one example which might pass muster:  Charlie Haden and Antonio Forcione's "Heartplay" from Naim recordings...  Still, not being present at the sessions, I admit to really not knowing what this recording "should" sound like, despite my experience with guitars and basses.

Since commercial recordings are not made to be accurate (not even so-called audiophile recordings), the best one can hope for are “passably mic’ed” recordings. That’s why I decided years ago to make my own. I have recordings that truly are “state of the art”, and guess what? They aren’t difficult to make, don’t require mega-buck equipment,  and they could have been made 50 - 60 years ago. All that’s required is that the recording company to WANT to make them! That they so rarely do, tells me all I need to know about the real world of commercial recording.

In the late 1950’s there was a small company called Everest recordings that more than occasionally got classical recordings correct. They were basically two people: Harry Belock, the president of Belock Instruments and his recording engineer, Bert Whyte (along with a couple of assistants). Try Bert Whyte’s recording of Copland’s “Appalachian Spring” with Walter Suskind conducting the London Symphony. Recorded with just two microphones, even today, 60 years later, it still sounds great. Tidal has it as a “Master” title, and the recording, while not immune to the physical ravages of time, has survived fairly well. I’m not saying that the recording is perfect, mind you, but it does go to show what can be done with a pair of decent (Neumann U-47, cardioid, IIRC) condenser microphones, simple mike preamps and a half track 1/4 inch recorder (I seem to recall that Bert favored a big, pro Magnecord in those days) running at 15 inches per second!

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

Who cares about the original sound field?  It betters the stereo paradigm by a fair bit, at least for classical music.

 

By that I mean two things.  Objectively, by having sound sources better able to reproduce the enveloping surround and a center channel to improve imaging.  Subjectively, on an “absolute sound” scale, it delivers clearly more realism.  

I do, for one. In classical music, it is part and parcel of the concert experience. To be able to even partially recreate it on one’s home system is to be magically transported to the place where the performance is taking place. I.E it is an inseparable part of High-Fidelity and the reason why stereophonic sound was invented in the first place!

Of course, if all one listens to is pop and rock, then I can understand the indifference because, by definition, the original “sound field” doesn’t exist anyway. That’s fine. That music is not trying to recreate a performance, but rather to create one that hasn’t existed before. There are lots of recordings of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony recorded by lots of orchestras, but The Rolling Stones original recording of “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” was the first and before they recorded it, it didn’t exist. Do you get what I’m saying?

[gmgraves]

29 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

How about putting real, acoustic instruments in a live space, like on a stage in a concert hall - but behind a visually opaque curtain.

 

Then, substitute similarly concealed recording & playback equipment.

 

What would the audience think?

 

or what did they think...

 

 

Acoustic Research used to do that at their  Broadway Showroom in NYC in the middle '60's. They called it their "Live vs. Recorded"  demonstration. I heard it as a teen a number of times. They had a pair of AR3a speakers on a slightly raised stage with a scrim across the stage behind which was a string quartet. You could see the quartet's shadows against the scrim, but you couldn't actually see the musicians. They would either be actually playing or, just going through the motions while a recording of their playing played through the speakers. The idea was that one couldn't tell the difference between the sound of the AR3a's and the real thing. It might have worked for the middle-aged Wall Street types who seemed to frequent the place, But I could tell which was which with my back to the stage. You see, I was 16 years old and easily hear the tape hiss... Today? Not so much.  But the music they chose, was chosen because it didn't really stress the speakers and the real and the reproduced did sound remarkably alike. I still say Kudos to Villchur et al for having the cahones to publicly run a demonstration like that!

[gmgraves]

6 minutes ago, barrows said:

I never said, or asserted, any such thing!

And I never intimated that YOU did. I just said that there are some audio types who do not want accurate sound. Many just like big bass and bright, splashy highs that sound spectacular as opposed to accurate. 

 

By the way, when making a recording, I don't have to have an accurate aural memory. I'm right there and slip off the headphones and listen to the real thing WHILE  I'm recording it!

But the reality is you don't need a great aural memory to remember that real and reproduced sound different. And we, as the audio community, are "there" when they no longer do!

[gmgraves]

2 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Nope ... that's the great thing about the music recording archive that we have - there's enough information on every one of them for most of us to be able to enjoy a subjectively captivating listening experience.

Again Frank, that's your unsupported and, I must say, unfounded opinion. 

2 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

The real myth is that "your high fidelity system" is in fact, accurate - it's not, and not by a long margin - less than pristine recordings make all the shortcomings of the playback chain extremely obvious - unfortunately, that's where that dreaded 'sorting' is required ... 😜.

And "your" system is about as far from High-fidelity (short of a portable radio) as one can get. Accuracy, like Fidelity is to a degree. There's always room for improvement until there is no gap between real and reproduced. No one believes that we are there yet, and it's more than possible that we will never get there (although I'm not saying that it's impossible).

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, barrows said:

I am not sure what you mean here?  A sound field (or sound stage) created in a studio, is still a sound stage, and an accurate reproduction of it is still something to evaluate in a music playback system (of course to have an "accurate" reference for it, one would have to listen to the monitor feed the engineer used to create that soundstage-but this is not different from the need to have the same accurate reference for the sound stage of a symphony orchestra).  Ditto for a recording of a live Rock Band if they actually care enough about their performance sound to and have the engineering chops to create such with the the PA at hand; I have seen a few rock acts which indeed create a remarkable sound stage and sense of space within a theater environment from a PA system, although I do realize this is somewhat rare.  

And by no means do I only listen to pop and rock (as previously mentioned)...  I have been working a bunch today, and building a new I2s input adapter for my discrete DSD DAC project, so the only thing I listened to today was some 4x DSD from Rachel Podger/Brecon Baroque over coffee this AM.

Perhaps you’ve never seen a pop/rock/(and often “studio jazz”) recording being made. There is no actual soundstage, (although there is obviously a “virtual one”). The drummer, for instance, in the studio, might be on the extreme left of his fellow musicians, but when the mix is finished, he might end up on the extreme right, or in the center, or perhaps, the high-hat will be on the right, and the kick drum might be in the center. The reason is because the physical location of the musicians does not matter. The engineer/producer will “pan-pot” their pickup (actual microphones or contact mikes, or direct instrument feeds) to wherever “in the mix” they are wanted. And truly, with such arbitrary and totally electronic placing of instruments and voices, who, indeed, would care about the “sound field”. It’s meaningless. With pan-potting, there is no image depth or image height, just left-to-right juxtaposition.

[gmgraves]

14 hours ago, fas42 said:

Yep, that's what happens ... the 'miracle' is that this can be the case for just about every recording you have,😊

 

 

Permit me to doubt. There are certain things that I listen for in a recording, and believe me, if they ain’t there, they AIN’T THERE and no amount of tweaking one’s playback system will put them there, either! The way you talk, one would think that you could put an acoustically recorded 78rpm shellac record from the 1920’s on your stereo and it would come out of your ghetto-blaster speakers sounding like a state-of-the-art 24-bit/192 KHz digital recording, in stereo, yet!

[gmgraves]

7 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Ummm, how it works, subjectively, is that the stereo speakers completely cease to exist as anything to do with the sound - the "phantom images" are a soundscape that completely take over the environment you're in, which are locked in solidly, well, as if they were on a stage, 😉. The speakers are then merely two lumps of interesting or otherwise furniture in the room, which have nothing to do with what you are hearing - you could be tempted to toss them out the door, because they are mildly annoying to the experience of "seeing" the sound, 😄.

Oh, brother! Would that it were true, and not Frank living in his fantasy world again (still?)!

[gmgraves]

4 hours ago, semente said:

 

I agree that impact is one of the areas where domestic reproduction of recordings falls short of the live experience.

 

But Mario of PlayClassics' recording of a drum kit does sound close to what one would hear in a club if played back at (almost) realistic levels (the limiting factor is not so much the distant mic'ing but the system's ability to play loud without distortion). We are back at the need to compensate for stereo's shortcomings.

Have you had the chance to listen to his demo suite with the flamenco, the piano and the drums?

 

I have. Mario’s recordings are all excellent because he (A) knows what he is doing, and (B) is not constrained by any shackles imposed by a “corporate sound”, or a need to tailor a sound to any particular market or clientele. Mario makes recordings that sound as much like real music playing in a real space as is technically possible, because he can and that’s the sound he wants. 

[gmgraves]

2 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

You also keep forgetting that this is exactly what happened for me over 3 decades ago. Which meant that I spent a decade taking the recordings that delivered this to play on the best systems I could easily access, back then - to check what was going on. And was always disappointed.

 

The point is not that ancient recordings, yes, even at shellac level, or earlier again, sound pristine. Rather, that the sense of what was going on in front of microphones is powerfully conveyed; a full strength dose of the "I'm there!" vibe happens in the room ... a particularly telling track I have is from one of those BBC cover disks from a magazine; it's the debut performance of an Ireland composition, with the man himself in charge. Below par status, it's a small AM radio experience; at decent playback quality, it comes alive, the majesty of the piece rises up, and delivers the specialness, the power of a symphonic work - in the listening.

Frank, Frank, Frank... I’m forgetting nothing. I simply don’t believe you. Now don’t get pushed out of shape here. I’m not intimating that you are lying or are making this up. I firmly believe that YOU believe what you say to be true. But if the path to audio nirvana were as simple as you seem to think it is, others would have stumbled upon it ages ago. To my knowledge, no one else has ever asserted what you spend your days here asserting. That tells me that there is something else, other than an audio epiphany going on here with you.

[gmgraves]

4 hours ago, esldude said:

Yes, and one of the myths, apparently not so, is the old Italian violins "project more forcefully" in a hall.  I do believe the winning violin was carbon fiber, and likely much louder.   Dare I mention carbon fiber is an environmental problem versus wooden instruments. 🤐

That is correct. The winning violin, made by the Boston firm of Luis & Clark was, indeed, carbon fiber. The thing about the old Cremonese violins is that they make an incredible sound. Listen to the Rozsa Violin Concerto written for Jascha Heifetz with Heifetz playing his 1714 Stradivarius named the “Dolphin” on RCA Victor, and then listen to the Telarc recording from the 1980’s with violinist Robert McDuffie playing a good, modern violin. Notice the way the Dolphin sings. No matter what Heifetz asks it to do, it never sounds harsh or strident. It retains that crystalline top end with a sonorous midrange that just drips with honey! Now contrast that with McDuffie’s instrument. The playing is good, but the violin just doesn’t have that unflappable tone throughout it’s range that the Strad produces effortlessly. This is what these instruments are all about and why they are priceless!

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

On a serious note, one of the worst myths, for the industry as a whole, is that 'magic' amounts of money have to be shelled out, to get a kick arse experience ... umm, no. One of the most damaging aspects of this is that outsiders think that the enthusiasts are deranged - and dismiss the whole exercise of trying to get better sound as pretty silly.

 

It's the industry's loss ...

Not a myth. Good equipment is expensive. OTOH, much of the time, it doesn’t really need to be as expensive as it sometimes is, but that’s often down to marketing decisions such as a solid CNC machined aluminum fascia a half an inch thick that costs thousands of dollars each to make, or the fact that the company in question is so small, the they have to pay as much as 10X what a larger company would pay for the same resistors, capacitors, transistors, ICs, etc. because their purchased volumes are so low.

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

or selecting thru dozens or hundred of caps, etc. to find ones that are really close to spec., or matched...

This is a marketing ploy, and not at all necessary to SQ. Having designed and built many amplifiers, both valve and SS over the years, I can say with confidence that +/- 10% for resistors and +/-20% for capacitors make absolutely no difference to performance. After all, before about the mid 1970’s, engineers used slide rules to design electronics. Slide rules are very imprecise, most resistors were 10-20%  off of their designated values and the design calculations were “guestimates” at best.

[gmgraves]

2 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

This sort of fussiness is completely unnecessary, IME - yes, it may help when one is right on the boundary of getting the SQ good enough; but it isn't a key requirement. But one area where maximum fussiness as regards parts quality counts is power supplies - huhh??!! Well, unfortunately, most audio gear is far too twitchy to the quality of the mains coming in, and the stability, noisiness of the voltage rails feeding the key circuitry ... the first competent rig used a monster Perreaux power amp - and the power supply was a key weakness for it. Hence, over time it was steadily butchered, to become visually a mess - to sort this issue.

On that we can agree.

[gmgraves]

16 hours ago, sandyk said:

 Hi George

 I disagree as far as Input capacitors go such as high quality Polypropylene etc. , in that the type and tolerance of the capacitors can cause some imaging problems, or even quite noticeable differences in SQ.

 I feel certain that Alex Crespi would agree too, with their range of MusiCap Film + Foil capacitors.

 

Kind Regards

Alex

Never noticed that tolerance on cap values made any appreciable difference. Cap types, OTOH, are very important. Polypropylene caps replace paper and Mylar caps, and Polystyrene to replace ceramic.

The biggest rebuild I ever did was to “resto-mod” a Harman-Kardon Citation I preamp. Using low-noise film resistors, premium low DA caps, Alps pots, gold-plated single-hole RCA jacks, etc. I kick myself every time I think about allowing myself to sell it. It sounded unbelievably great. It was pretty too. I had the oiled walnut cabinet for it!