What do you want from PC Audio

[Ashley James]

Shenzi I don't know if this one crossed the Atlantic, but it is a must have for a certain brand of audiophile in the UK.

 

To my recollection the term originated with Audio Bigot and some sort of critic, Reg Williamson who regularly dashed off angry letters to Hi Fi News each time Martin Colloms dared to suggest anything could compete with his Quad ESL63s. He referred to poor Martin as Mr Pace Rhythm And Timing Colloms! Reg was also adamant that all CD players sounded the same and sent abusive letters to reviewers who thought otherwise!

 

I'd forgotten about this until I happened upon a Forum where the term was being used to describe properties in which a certain make of hi fi is reputed to excel. I chuckled to myself and wondered if they knew its origins. In the main, people who take their hobbies seriously tend to be averse to humour, especially if they take things to such extremes as to risk becoming victims of it.

 

Ash

 

[mpmct]

I spent last evening at the local pro-audio shop, and met

the second owner. Both are electrical engineers, they confirmed.

 

One has worked all his life at the electrical utiility company here,

'designing systems', whatever that means.

 

I got a long explanation, with white-board squiggles inlcuded,

about things I still don't understand: impedance, load, resistance,

and on and on.

 

Both of these guys repeated various things written here,

and some other things too:

 

"The high-end audiophile cable business is sad.

It's entirely un-based in reality. It's fantasy.

Cables can be made to 'distort', but none can

be made to be more 'true' to anything, except for

the electrical realities."

( One of the guys really had a field day with audio

cable that claims to be 'directional'. )

 

"The speakers are only matched in importance by

the quality of the microphone used in the recording."

 

"Recording and mastering is an art, not a science."

( They demoed some recordings they just did for a local

classical performing group, and their experiments with

mic placement etc. )

 

"The gear that audiophiles obsess over, if it is in fact

'better' than pro-audio gear, ignores the fact that the

final bits have been through many cycles of 'lowly' pro-audio gear

before it ever reaches the audiophile."

 

"Active speakers systems have advantages that

can't be matched with passive, but the active x-over

can be well made, or not, and that matters too."

 

They both appreciate all the bits they can use on the

recording/mastering side, but suggested that the possible

differences on the delivery end were small, if they exist, in terms of

audibility. They are actually experimenting with recording

in 16/44 versus 24/96 ( and higher I think ), to find out

for themselves if even on the recording end, there is much

to gain by the higher bits -- in terms of the realities of final delivery.

 

They have M-Audio hardware and speakers.

They demoed a lot of stuff for me with the ~$200 M-Audio

DAC they use for both recording and playback,

and a recent version of M-Audio active monitors, I would

guess with ~8" woofers.

 

Impressive, is all I'm going to say by way of the subjective.

 

[mpmct]

The pro guys knew nothing about iTunes, believe it or not.

So they downloaded it, I showed them the iTunes equalizer.

They were impressed. They demoed their hardware equalizer/mixer

( or whatever that thing is properly named ), and compared its

functionality to the iTunes equalizer. They said: "Use

the iTunes equalizer to tweak your recordings if you like,

there's everything to gain, nothing to lose." ( As Ashley wrote. )

 

 

 

 

[tfarney]

Sounds like you heard these...

 

 

 

I haven't heard them, but they have a good reputation in pro circles, particularly among small production studios and home studios where there small size and affordable price (about $1500 a pair, street) is very attractive. I don't know if their class D amps fit the description of the generic Chinese stuff with relatively high distortion levels that Ashley describes above. They're not analog Class Ds, but digital amps. That might be a critical difference. I'd love to hear them, and in the meantime, I'd love to hear more about your impressions of them.

 

Tim

 

[mpmct]

 

Tim,

 

These are the monitors they are using:

 

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/StudiophileBX8aDeluxe.html

 

And this is the USB interface:

 

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/FastTrackPro.html

 

I'm making those IDs by sight only, but I'm pretty sure.

 

I'm hesitant to describe what I heard, because it was a very brief audition,

and I haven't heard, as far as I know, the shoutiness/harshness that

both you and Tim OCD have described -- even after having owned

the same speakers as Tim OCD once did, in the never-ending adventure.

 

I'm also interested in learning more about what Ashley has mentioned

about hashiness ( forget his exact adjective ) in the upper registers, from class D amps.

And I don't have a clue as to differences between implementation from

one switching amp to another. I am currently using Bel Canto class Ds,

and don't hear anything troubling in that regard. As a matter of fact, a couple

of years ago when I changed from Arcam recent vintage monoblocs to

the BCs, the only difference I *think* I might have heard is a slightly

more rounded/warmer sound from the BCs in the midrange.

But I could have been imagining that difference, I would never

go out on a limb with that. ( Before I had them at home, I had

read that the BCs were 'tube-like' in the mids. Mea culpa to the power

of suggestion. )

 

Having qualified exhaustively, I'll just say the M-Audios sounded very clean,

clear, and balanced, both at moderate levels, and what were probably

slightly higher than 'natural to the recorded moment' levels.

The speakers were casually positioned close to a wall behind, and on a

console top, not on stands. So maybe for those reasons they sounded

a little 'boomy' to me. But then, I'm a 'boom-a-phobe', as I've admitted previously.

 

I would love to get a pair at home and live with them for a few days.

As I would the ADM9.1s, and on and on. Just me maybe, but I have

never been able to judge what I finally think about any gear, until I have

the luxury to live with it for at least a few days.

Of course that's a tough one, practically speaking.

 

 

 

 

 

[tfarney]

Wow. I just assumed you were talking about the DSP Reference series 8" speaker. Those are REALLY affordable!

 

Tim