Fatigue free listening

[PYP]

11 hours ago, Rexp said:

I'm starting from scratch to build a second system in a different country, so far I picked up some cheap powered Edifier speakers that sound ok. 

 

This may be simplistic, but the most effective change I made when I was tracking down noise and bad sound, was to have a dedicated electrical line installed.  Some systems also respond well to a transformer isolation unit to feed all equipment.  These need not be expensive.  

 

I always think a budget is best served by purchasing used gear from a reliable, trusted source (The Music Room comes to mind) that tests the equipment before putting it on the market.  

 

In my experience, there are high-end dealers with great equipment that sounds quite bad.  Some of these places have little idea how to set up a system and some haven't played the speakers long enough to fully burn them in.  I've heard my own speakers sound underwhelming at a high-end shop.  

 

Since you have already settled on speakers, you might want to ask folks specifically about gear that best serves those speakers and give them idea of your upward limit on budget.  Good luck.  Hopefully, you will find the search is fun.  

[PYP]

15 minutes ago, fas42 said:

So, either wait till enough designers "geddit"; or buy expensive gear and add-ons that had enough thrown at them to get them over the hurdle; or, do some personal 'fixes' - the latter is enough to gratify me, 😀.

 

Which designers are you thinking about who don't design well?  

 

I've certainly been to high-end stores that don't know how to setup a system and/or use equipment/speakers that aren't broken in, but from my own experience, there is a lot of very good gear at many different price points and excellent sound quality is not hard to come by.  Just looking at the setups of the folks on these threads, who are very happy with the sound, tells us there are many ways to get great sound and that it happens often.  

 

To generalize from a few videos played back on a computer doesn't seem a realistic view of the current state of playback.   

[PYP]

1 hour ago, Rexp said:

I posted the videos because one might be able to hear whether a system sounds fatiguing (thread topic) or not. Which video sounds fatiguing to you? 

 

Well, not being familiar with the music, nor the room, nor the recording setup, I'm not sure what I'm hearing.  I do know that the speakers on my iMac aren't great.  Personally, I'd only be comfortable rendering a judgement if I heard the system live and with music I know well.  

[PYP]

2 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

The majority of the designs don't do enough to prevent mains noise, and interactions between components degrading SQ - no matter how expensive they are. Which is why the standard tweak of adding mains conditioning, or filtering; or even just changing the power cord, for pete's sake! - makes a difference. There's a reason for the huge, after market upgrade, 'snake oil' industry ... because it's needed, 🙂.

 

 

These days it's much easier - twenty years ago, it was a desert. Things had to progress - but the last audio show I went to told me how far we still had to go ... awful sound abounded - completely unnecessary.

 

 

You can hear what the rig is getting wrong - no matter how brilliantly it may be on some selected recordings, if a very expensive setup makes a mess of some recording enough to make it obvious over YT say - then it has issues.

 

I think my reply above to @Rexp applies to what you wrote.  I admit to being uncomfortable with broad generalizations regarding anyone who dedicates themselves over decades to something like audio design.   Many are musicians and/or have studied electronics/materials/physics, etc.  I would want to hear their product in my home before judging their work.  

[PYP]

7 hours ago, fas42 said:

I listened to a couple of videos posted by that chap, whose video is the first posted by @Rexp above. This is one I found that checks the boxes, which is in sharp contrast to some of the others - so, it's not his recording device, room, etc, etc ... when it sounds, "off".

 

 

 

If the only variable that changed was the gear itself, you would have an apples-to-apples comparison with the other videos.  At any rate, this doesn't sound good to me and I couldn't live with it even short term.  Now, that may just be my iMac's speakers or something else not related to the sound of the equipment.  And that is my point:  using a video to evaluate equipment will not provide an adequate basis for evaluation.   

 

Having given my opinion, I'll stop posting about this topic.