Interesting Article: Are You on the Road to Audio Hell?

A great article but I ask every Audiophile this very simple question. Do you remember those teenage parties , where you had a laugh with some friends , made some new ones , got drunk, ate some food & if lucky scored with someone you fancied? If you answered YES to that question I will guarantee you that the stereo in the background sounded terrible but you didn't care because you were having fun! We all need to get back to that initial feeling again & stop being Audiophile W**Kers!!! Life is too short!!!!

 

Yes, life is too short. That's for sure. That's why you need the best system money can buy, I think this is a fun hobby though. It's what you make of it. If it weren't, I wouldn't be bothered.

 

What? Are you talking about crosstalk? What magazine is this?

I prefer tubes for the obvious and over stated reason of preferring second order harmonic distortion during breakup but to state that one amplifier design is inherently better or easier to make "perfect" is to ignore the tons of engineering that goes into your average HiFi amp. Its a lot like the "watts is watts" statement used to imply that powerful solid state amps are inherently better than tube amps.

Anyways in 20 plus years I've yet to come across the perfect amp. Came across many that claimed that title, and usually had some BS measurements to prove it, but all fell short. I would still however love to read that article.

 

However, I find the memory is "warmer" the better I can rehear that music today.

 

I love the statement about a speaker that is suited to a specific type of music. This simply means all speakers then are all deficient and wrong. I agree they is no perfect speaker.
I always bought music I knew intimatly so I would have atleast a general idea of a speakers abilities. Ofcourse getting the salesmen to use components that are yours (esp. If they were bought their) or similiar is a battle of futility.
I feel its just experience , taste, and DNA that determines what we like and what we are able to hear. JohnM.

 

I've not finished this interesting article nor had a chance to really think about it, but here's one thing that got my attention, the boldfaced parts in particular:

"(This is one of the undisputed areas where the superiority of LP to CD is evident, in that there is an unmeasurable, but clearly audible, sameness - a sonic conformity of sorts - from CD to CD which does not persist to a similar degree with LP).

A significant part of the attraction to CD is its conformity to an amusical sense of perfection and repeatability: no mistakes in performance and a combined recording and playback "noise" lower than the ambient noise existing in any acoustical environment where real music is enjoyed. (This should not be taken as a "sour grapes" apology for LP surface noise.) We all know listeners whose entire attention in the audio system evaluation is directed to the presence of noise or the need for absolute sameness from playback to playback rather than on the playback of music. Their common complaint is "this recording didn't sound that way the last time I heard it." Have you ever considered that the search for perfection and the need for conformity are head and tail of the same coin, doubtless minted in the worst part of our human character? It remains only for us to be aware of how these "virtues" operate on us, how we are used by them, and in turn make ourselves into something that much less human. . . . [T]he playback equipment must ensure the individuality of each recording. Otherwise, boredom - a very close relation to conformity and a direct descendant of colourised, sanitized, sound - will result. This stuff is as subtle as it is insidious; it will always be there for us to grapple with; and we must or we will end up like the tranquilizing acoustic wallpaper much of our music is rapidly becoming ... or worse."

A rather tendentious, questionable argument, IMO.

 

I agree it is questionable, but this was written in the early 90s and I think CDs were not as good back then in the earlier days of their production. I think this is much less true today.

 

I don't understand. LPs are superior to CDs

 

Well - there are a few Integrated amps with a near perfect harmonic spectrum. Those do come at a hefty price = 10 grand and more. Still there might be some mis-matches with certain speaker loads. Active powered speakers with FPGA, LAPC optimized amps + speakers as in Technics new Reference Line, Linn's Akubarik etc. offer better sound in real life homes. Forget about expensive cables, use Blue Tooth and a simple CAT-5 cable while still being able to optimize the sonic characters to your system/room taste..

 

no to all seven... I live in peace.

Thank you Zen master Hakuin for the koan, what is the sound of one hand (clapping)?

happy listening!

 

I answered No to all those questions but now I have AC/DC in my head singing, "I'M ON THE ROAD TO AUDIO HELL.....DON'T STOP ME!"

And I also nominate the author of that article for Prose Hell!

 

No to all of them.

I don't have enough gear to do comparisons.

But I did try a number of speakers and chose the ones I liked best based an the music I like.

 

That guy had his tl;dr phaser set on stun!

Wouldn't linking to or briefly excerpting from that post have been enough? Copy/pasting the whole (copyrighted) thing seems dubious.

 

I enjoyed that.

 

So if there are two systems. On system A everything sounds great to you and on system B 3/4 of your favorite music sounds like crap but it all sounds *more* different from recording to recording...... system A is audio hell and system B is audio heaven? I think I have a very different idea of heaven and hell.

I'd like to see some hard evidence that there is always a direct correlation between "accuracy" and maximum audible difference. I would bet that there are a number of distortions that will exaggerate audible differences.

IMO direct A/B comparisons are best and most efficient way to determine differences and preferences and is a valuable tool in auditioning anything.

I don't care one bit about "accuracy." (I'm sure most of you already know that ) Why should I? Why should anyone put a premium on accuracy over aesthetic excellence unless there is something intellectually appealing about accuracy that has nothing to do with aesthetics?

My philosophy is really really simple. If it sounds good it is good sound. So all things audio should serve good sound. Everything else is academic. YMMV

 

+1!!

 

You must be joking.

 

And here I thought audio hell was not having enough free dough to buy a piece of new equipment since my Oppo, and I can't even remember how long ago that was.

 

If you lower the distortion on the playback system, you will get closer to the source. Closer to the source means that, the playback will be more true to the vinyl, CD or whatever, at a certain level the playback will actually mirror the source.. Technically this also will mean that the differences there are on the source will be easier heard. E.g. records played with a very distorted amp, or a very bad needle will sound more similar, picture also pink noise to a very clear tone.

What we like is something completely different, if we have a philosophy it could be anything, it´s really only if we have a philosophy to achieve very low distortion the above will coinside. What we ourselves think as good sound, might not be something aiming to have low distortion at all. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with any path we choose. Me I´m on the path to very low distortion, has been for many years.

 

Bingo.

In my advancing years, my solution is to listen to my hi-fi in the kitchen. You can't get too analytical when you are enjoying music through ceiling speakers. Even when friends come over to listen to my system, only part of the time are we in the living room with somebody sitting in the sweet spot between big speakers. Mostly we are in the kitchen, moving around, drinking, eating and laughing.

 

Raylinds - to be fair this article was written by Peter Qvortrup and Leonard Norwitz (AN's US dealer at that time and classical composer and now a reviewer for enjoythemusic.com where it is also published). But to be fair to Audio Note this was written written in the early 1990s perhaps late 80s. And it is Peter's 4th or 5th language which tends to flower as a result.

Still the article never mentions Audio Note and the main idea can be used with any gear. Obviously, Peter and Leonard eel their gear does contrast better than your average bear and well - I bought AN J's ten years ago - became a reviewer - heard lots of stuff and in August bought the bigger brother AN E. So I am kind of biased in favour of this article and since that article Peter himself spent many years working hard on improving digital because far too much music that he loves is only available on CD. AN CD replay is really interesting on these contrast fronts as well.

I think back when he wrote this there simply were no truly elite level CD players and the CD itself was blamed for a lack of quality playback. I reviewed a CD player from him - the 2.1x http://dagogo.com/audio-note-uk-cd-2-1x-mk-ii-cd-player-review and I would take it over a lot of turntables even for the same money. Audio Note is basically THE go to CD replay for vinyl lovers who hate CD but want or need a CD player. You need it from a guy who owns 30,000+ records and who is a partner at a record making label gearbox records http://dagogo.com/audio-note-uk-cd-2-1x-mk-ii-cd-player-review

 

If you had read my comment you had realized that I was talking about active speakers with Blue Tooth, where the amp/preamp/DAC and network streamer are INSIDE. You really cannot even use cheap or HighEnd multi K dolar cables, since a you got as WIRES is one power cable for 1 of the two speakersthe one that got all the electronics on board. This speaker sends a signal to the other speaker with aptx/Blue Toth or airport - in case you stream fies from a mobile device.
I did NOT say or mean that expensive cables/power Chords etc. are a waste and hence should be forgotten.You can get High End sound with these new type of HiFi rigs.So if you pay 12 grand for the new high efficient horn speakers you can count how much you save on paraphernalia when you compare their vale vs a tower with seperates, that al need decent and costly cables + powercords.
One example - Horn loaded speakers with 50 watt amps, that mostly run in CLASS A and 40o watt powered subwoofers each - 1.000 watts into speakers, that are 102 db efficient. Inside is a DAC and a Pre-amp, that allows you to play up to 3 anaog sources on top. If you use them you should get good quality cables imo..avatgarde acoustics ZERO 1 http://www.avantgarde-acoustic.de/zero1/_en/zero-einfach.html
This was one of the first new High End soltios, now you can even get a great setup MERLIN from musical fidelity with speakers and a turntable for under 2 grand or buy the new Technics Reference for 4 grand..The choice is yours..

 

I would still like to see some hard evidence that less distortion *always* means more differences between different recordings. It's just some vague theory based on very anecdotal evidence at best. I am quite skeptical of the claim made in the article.

Absolutely agreed. Like I said, I must have a very different idea of audio heaven and hell.

 

Yes, those are very interesting.

 

Point 4. WTF?