Article: The Value Proposition In Computer Audio: Nuts, Bolts, and Building Blocks - Building a Home for Your Player Software

[fas42]

8 hours ago, mentt said:

 

Well the last 3-10 % of SQ is usually the difference between enjoying the listening to music and not enjoying the music at all. And that is in the end the most significant difference...

 

I agree with this ... when the SQ is 97% or so there, every annoying deficiency of the playback system keeps on nagging one; the 'signature' of the playback chain builds up as an ever present 'veil'; meaning that certain recordings can't be listened to with pleasure, because the characteristics of the recording and playback chain clash - the easy excuse of "bad recording!" is casually uttered, to explain the "inconvenient truth" away ...

 

Get the last 3% in place, and the transformation is, subjectively, huge - no longer a rig of equipment in front of you, trying its best; but a musical event, effortlessly presented.

 

Highly sub-optimal devices like car radios are fine, because one's expectations are completely different - you can enjoy watching kids mucking around on the tennis court; but when a highly ranked player is not at their best it can be quite frustrating to see them making one bad shot after the other.

[fas42]

22 hours ago, bluesman said:

So with tongue only halfway in cheek, please help me to understand this. On what scale does one measure SQ? Is it a linear function? What’s the unit of measure? With what do you measure it? And, most importantly, if you’re already at 100% (which must be the case, unless you’re either suffering mightily while using your own system or not listening at all), will you be using your current system forever?

 

Pretty straightforward ... how close is the SQ to the point where you are no longer conscious of the 'machinery' in your room doing its thing, and where the captured musical event dominates your awareness of what's going on, soundwise. 100% means that you've got that happening ...it can get better, because this level of subjective presentation requires the brain to compensate, unconsciously, for misdemeanours that stop it being 100% accurate in a technical sense - better means the brain needs to do this even less.

 

Yes, the problem if you are sensitive to these aspects is that conventional quality ambitious sound is highly irritating - you become aware of what it's doing wrong, and you "can't stand it!". And, yes, the answer sometimes is that you give away the game of high end sound entirely; this is something I did for about 10 years, some time ago - you drop back to mid fi listening, because then you are no longer concerned about SQ; it's "kitchen radio" listening.