I have a big problem. My stereo is too good, too accurate. I can't stand it sometimes.

It's about music. I stopped the chase and am so much happier. Right now its: Mac mini, NuForce DDA-100, PSB Alpha B1, PSB Subseries 1, Canair speaker cable. I try and forget the (electronic) instruments / machines and concentrate of the music. It's about the music.

 

If you're like me, a little bit of this may be a function of age. I love The Hollies, Bill Monroe, and violins as much as I ever did, but regardless of recording quality, any music or even speech with a "high lonesome" or otherwise screechy element becomes seriously uncomfortable for me pretty quickly -- and I don't even have the super-sensitive audiophile ears. I don't know if the sounds themselves have become less pleasant because of changes in my neuro-processing-whatever or if I just used to be better at tuning out sensory distraction a decade or two ago.

I imagine those slight natural shifts in the physical processing of sound would be much more jarring for someone with acute hearing, expert-level listening and analysis skills, and a world-class hifi.

 

Listen to the crappy recordings on your vintage system and save the good stuff for the Tannoys.

Gee, I got taken to task the other day for complaining that a lot of commercial stuff sounds lousy on some new speakers and was told curtly I must be imaging things, because "all recording engineers try to make things sound their best." Yeah, right. And a lot FAIL!

 

Switchable tube buffer through the tape loop on the preamp?

 

I was reading somewhere that with resolution getting higher and higher in home screens, watching porn videos will become less pleasurable because people will focus on small imperfections like moles on the skin rather than the rest.
So the question is: are you listening to porn music?

 

Well now we know a mere mortal can marry a saint (Steve's wife)

 

Steve, I am curious to know if you have decided on a direction to relieve the problem.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!

 

Altec 604s. I thought they were really famous.........

http://alteclansingunofficial.nlenet.net/Duplex.html

 

Famous enough - many of us know of the 604s.

 

To a certain extent, this actually is due to presbycusis, the loss of high frequency hearing that accompanies aging to one extent or another. Whatever your upper frequency limit of hearing is, sounds with frequencies around that, particularly sounds like cymbals that are likely to have energy both just below and just above the point where you really can't hear, can sound painful if they are above a certain loudness threshold. Now remember that it's not an all or nothing effect, neither the upper limit of your hearing nor the volume at which some sounds will become annoying, but it's a real phenomenon well described in audiology and psychoacoustics. I don't know how old people here are, but hearing loss is extremely variable. I'm 60, and I can hear a 16 kHz tone if it's boosted about 10-15 db compared to 1 kHz, but I can't hear a 20 kHz tone anymore even with a 60 db boost (and I'm unwilling to try more due to concerns about damaging equipment.)

Also remember that if you have some hearing loss due to acoustic trauma, that will put a "notch" in your hearing curve at about 8 kHz, whcih means that that distortion/unpleasantness that I mentioned above, that occurs around the frequencies where you don't hear well, may also be occuring with sounds in the 7 - 9 kHz range when they get above a certain loudness

 

Well Steve, your only Human ya know!
I've usually voice my set up using, at the time, my best sounding (recording wise) cd-years ago it was the first Montrose album, then it went to Van Halen's S/T, for the last few years it's been JohnnyA's 'Get Inside'. I find that, even though it's compressed, the frequency balance is a great 'average' to balance my Stereo with. It seems to have worked as all other albums seem to sound on the average, more enjoyable. But if I tried to balance the system by using say a classical or Jazz recording it flopped big time when playing other genres of music.
Happy Thanksgiving.
the beave

 

I hear you.I'm near the end of my quest.Throw in a set of vintage 50s or 60s alnico speakers for a bit.

 

Sometimes its the musicality that we want at the end of the day.

 

For almost a year now, my diy'd tube gear and a modded SAE power amp have been in cold storage. For convenience sake, I have a very respectable Onkyo TX-8050 in it's place. This facilitates home recording much more easily. As I am currently on a HIPAA sensitive project, my only source of music 8.5 hrs a day/5 days a week is a CD walkman (and my planar cans, which go a long way to making this situation tolerable) and LPs recorded to CD or pressed CDs. Yes, I am enjoying the music; listening to a whole lot of it, actually. Nevertheless, I expect when I do finally return to my "better" gear and listening to vinyl during the day I suspect I will have the same reaction I did when I first heard the "good" system first put together... ... ... "Freakin' beans!! Glorious!" I am very much looking forward to that day and revisiting some of the music I am currently only hearing via CD/Walkman.

 

I have a very accurate system. Using Role Audio Kayaks.. All litz cabling. etc.. Suggestion.. Get a Barcus Berry Sonic Maximizer.... The 262 can be had for a song. You may be in for a very pleasant re-introduction to your system. Switch it out when you want to use your system for evaluating.

 

I hope you had a chance to watch some of the parades and have fun with your kids today!

Glad to hear the interconnects helped your system.

Is that because, if you voice a system to a representative example of CD or even LP mastering, most things, even your mastering, will sound better, but if you use your mastering (Warm with midrange) you can over compensate and everyting else can sound too clinical? What do you use to compare or voice a system?

I have a Fisher 500C, Large Advents and a Shure V-15 V in my system, so clinical and too much accuracy is not something worry about.

 

Well, you could always turn up the suck knob.

 

Very good post. I keep seeing a lot of people complaining about "too bright" or "shrill" and hearing fatigue but rarely do I notice the same effect from the same sources. This explains the reasoning behind it very well. When I hear remasters where filters are applied on the high end and the bass boosted, I immediately find a distaste for it while others love it, sure there's tape noise, but I can also enjoy the rest of the upper frequencies especially from the cymbals.

 

I'm a bit embarrassed here , I owned the Altec 15's then 18's for two decades and still don't recall the 604's .

Thanks for the link . What vintage were they ?

 

I have a miniature version of Steve's problem (not saying my solution will work for Steve). After I go and visit TonePub's studio I found it hard to go home and listen to my own gear, the stepping back down to reality was painful. My cure was to stop listening to music the rest of the day. By the following morning I'm perfectly happy with my rig once again.

 

The 604 was first introduced in its earliest iteration in the forties but the in-demand iterations were made in the late fifties to early seventies. OEM versions were used in the Urei monitors and in several other products.

At one time something like 75% of albums were mixed down and mastered on 604s.

Altec also made a bass-only version without the coax horn, same cone and magnet and voice coil and that was used in both sound reinforcement and musical instrument apps.

 

There's another thread going on another site (AA) that's trashing this one. It's entertaining if anyone's remotely interested.