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

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Steve Hoffman, Nov 23, 2013.

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  1. ServingTheMusic

    ServingTheMusic Forum Resident

    Location:
    SoCal
    I did indeed! :cool:
     
  2. action pact

    action pact Music Omnivore

    Sure, but that says nothing about their listening habits, which is what ServingTheMusic was speaking to.
     
  3. rbp

    rbp Forum Resident

    Get rid of the bed. :)
     
    Steve Hoffman likes this.
  4. ServingTheMusic

    ServingTheMusic Forum Resident

    Location:
    SoCal
    I was recently at a high end dealer event. The folks who showed up were well heeled Meridian, Wilson, MBL etc system owners. I went around the room and asked them about their music collections not one had over 500 albums. Some had as few as 200!

    I know a large number of MUCH more modest system owners who like me, have somewhere around 5000-6000 albums.
     
  5. action pact

    action pact Music Omnivore

    My friend whom I mentioned above has only a few hundred LPs too, and I can explain why. 1.) Only clean records sound good on his highly resolving system, so he is very picky about what he buys, and most of what he buys are '50s and '60s recordings. 2.) His main interest is 45s, which he has a lot of (hence the Newcomb on his desk!).
     
  6. 80sjunkie

    80sjunkie Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dallas, Texas
    Not sure this is a technical issue, which may or may not be good news. Sounds like the best switch to use is the one in the head that switches between work and enjoyment.

    I'm in IT, and I support computers, networking, storage and stuff. At home I use nothing I support at work, and I don't get the latest tech. For my personal enjoyment, I don't need that stuff. Could I wear a Google Glass, implant a chip in my wrist to start my car, and set up a Kinect and projector to simulate a cool Iron Man computer interface? Yes. But I don't. It's not necessary for for my needs, and I don't put cool tech before my needs. Some put the tech cart before the horse, while I finally just got a smart phone last week. Just a personal preference.

    Sometimes I don't want to deal with tech at all, so I work on my car, something I know nothing about. Just works a different part of my brain and has so far saved me a ton of money.

    I read that world class chefs and car designers also don't always enjoy the best of the best of stuff for personal use. I get the sense they know what's important and "good enough" in the sincerest meaning of the term. It's like being able to prepare the best $100 steak while still being able to enjoy a decent $20 pepperoni pizza.

    I'm sure you could put together a second system that you could enjoy if you let yourself.
     
  7. Ash76

    Ash76 Wait actually yeah no

    Just get your hands on the masters of whatever's not up to par and improve them to your exacting standard for us all to enjoy
     
  8. John Buchanan

    John Buchanan I'm just a headphone kind of fellow. Stax Sigma

    ....and that's exactly why I don't have a Stax SR-009. And, I'm not the only one - see Birgir's (Spritzer on Head-Fi) words of wisdom regarding these. The Tannoy equivalents reside at Casa Buchanan (the Stax Sigma Pro or Sigma/404) and the more revealing, but still listenable for 95% of albums, Lambda Nova Signature (the least spiky of the whole Lambda series). The Sigma series is still revealing enough to hear tape faults (i.e. the faults that are present at the beginning of the deluxe remaster of "And It Stoned Me" from Moondance). The Sigmas have the greatest swing factor of all Stax, despite them not being measurably even close to the Stax SR-007, which did "parts" of the sound better, but I wasn't as interested in the song any more. And that's why I sold them in favour of keeping the Sigmas.
    Oddly enough, I heard an unamplified piano and voice performance in a small, but reverberant, hall and the Sigma series absolutely trumped the LNS in nailing that sound, despite being less accurate in technical parts of the sound. That is what I want.
     
  9. Ctiger2

    Ctiger2 Senior Member

    Location:
    US
    That's why they say ignorance is bliss...
     
    Thurenity likes this.
  10. action pact

    action pact Music Omnivore

    I've been following that credo for nearly 50 years...
     
    enocaster likes this.
  11. moops

    moops Senior Member

    Location:
    Geebung, Australia
    Steve, I reckon your work requirements of "listening at a super critical level" are starting to intrude on your "listening for enjoyment at home" time.
    Having a super accurate system that hides nothing and exposes everything, especially the not so great stuff, warts and all, isn't helping.
    It's a tough one.
     
    Steve Hoffman likes this.
  12. Baron Von Talbot

    Baron Von Talbot Well-Known Member

    You are too well trained to find flaws in already great sounding master tapes, so you just pick up flaws o one like me would notice even on a great system. Did watch that great George Clooney movie Oh Brother where Are Thou last night and boy that guitar and 3 guys singing in a box mic sure sounded great to me. Don't know if downsizing would change the problem. Maybe take a break from critical listening or even playing average or bad sounding records at home over the main rig. Plug on your old Macs or Marantz amps or Fisher Receiver etc. and a vintage Thorens/Dual et al tt and see if you can enjoy the music more that way. The real good sounding stuff you can still play over that perfect system.
    Hope that helps..
     
  13. jackson123

    jackson123 Forum Resident

    b27659fed9b4166aafe0d6b9d5e2f0f0f6f1d85448a07398dad91783ff8f79da.jpg
     
    subzro, sound chaser and Ortofun like this.
  14. Bennyboy

    Bennyboy Forum Resident

    There are limits to how 'realistically' our art should be presented to us by technology.

    Since all art essentially revolves around the manipulation of smoke and mirrors to fool our brains, it doesnt make any sense to pull back the curtain and reveal the mechanics of such tricks.

    Technically more advanced does not mean imaginatively more fulfilling.

    HD TV and 48fps cinema as a prime case in point - its just too obvious where film sets are used and costumes and make up are dodgy. The illusion is lost.

    So with music. Yes, once you get to a certain level of fan geekery and obsession with a band or musician, where can you go? Sure, its nice to know about how their work was created, it adds texture of context. But you still need to be able to listen to the music as it stands, and to be transcended by it, not grounded in the sordid detail of whether the bass player had a runny nose that morning or how many chairs there were in the studio.

    I say leave the ultra resolving rig for work, get a decent mid-level system and turn your internal audio snobbery setting to 'off'. Kick your shoes off and don't overthink things.
     
  15. James Glennon

    James Glennon Senior Member

    Location:
    Dublin, Ireland
    I've been harping on for years on the forum about not liking the sound of a lot of the reissues that others rave about. Everybody talks about how detailed, accurate and analytical they sound whereas my experience has been that they leave me 'cold'. I have gone on about the reissues lacking musicality and how they don't make my feet tap. The 'emotion' of the music seems to have disappeared and it has to be the most important aspect.

    When I listen to The Beatles music on modern gear it leaves me cold, my 'memory' of their music (not sound) was that it was lively, energetic, fun and most of all danceable! Now I can hear every detail and nuance but it doesn't make me jump and down.

    Let's get back to the music and get away from the sound!

    JG
     
    Scott222C, TLMusic, Dave and 3 others like this.
  16. moops

    moops Senior Member

    Location:
    Geebung, Australia
    Totally agree, those "trial by waveform" type threads are a black hole for the enjoyment of music.
     
    PopularChuck and Dave like this.
  17. o0OBillO0o

    o0OBillO0o Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Hampshire
    Good topic.

    Options:
    1. The Hard Button: Remaster the music you like, there is a point of diminishing returns and a culminating point of resources.

    2. The Red Pill: Enjoy music on mass market systems such as Sonos or Bose-- or even listen in your car/truck.

    3. Everything comes in threes, the Easy button: don't spend time or money on what you already have. Tone controls, EQ, or other audio filters that you own.

    My practice is using a Yamaha RXV1800 AVR in a special configuration using a McIntosh MEN220,MC275(pair) and Klipschorns

    The MEN220 is key here as it has a "Mellow" setting :)
     
  18. Brother_Rael

    Brother_Rael Senior Member

    My tuppence worth, for what it's worth is usually pitched at guys several notches down the audio ladder, but the question is the same.

    How do like your music to sound? Forget work, that's the day job and different criteria apply. Here you're just a regular guy looking to kick back at the end of the day and listen to some tunes. What kind of sound do you like?

    Whether you like tubes, solid state, vinyl, digital, you've probably got some combination in your gear that'll work. All you need to do is have some fun and work out what it is!

    Like the guy above who works in IT, I do as well as a business analyst, but I never use any of the stuff at home. Visio at home? Ick!!

    I hope you find the combination that works. Nothing worse than not being able to sit back and just enjoy the sheer pleasure of listening to some really great music.
     
    moops likes this.
  19. Always works for me, but just one glass for Steve, he loves mono.
     
    dhoffa85 likes this.
  20. klonk

    klonk Forum Resident

    Location:
    Switzerland
    For exactly the reason described by our host I currently have two systems in my room. One for the perfect recordings and the other for the less stellar recordings with good music on it.
     
  21. Jim T

    Jim T Forum Resident

    Location:
    Mars
    That is why I've been very happy with my mediocre systems, for the most part. I don't find most music recorded well, especially much of the older stuff which is too compressed, and vinyl of varied pressing quality. The new vinyl is a huge improvement. And, yes, I do have older recordings that are excellent.

    I now have great attention to who Masters what and have much greater success with my music purchases that way. Recommendations by others here is a great help.

    Because cd quality seems to be all over the place I can see why people spend good money on a great disc spinner and/or a great DAC. My old AR 58's are good enough for me and go to 30 hz in my main room and give me plenty of detail with good recordings, even vinyl and cassettes. Go figure.
     
    John Carsell likes this.
  22. RobHolt

    RobHolt Forum Resident

    Location:
    London UK
    Steve, present company accepted, you'll know better than most how the final output served-up for public consumption is greatly compromised. Open the system window too wide and you get to hear the results of this compromise in all it's glory.

    I often prefer listing to music on a good table radio with a decent sized loudspeaker inside it - a good old Grundig or similar.
    When fed the limited quality radio signal, it's a good enough receiver to allow the enjoyment through while masking the bad stuff.

    A hi-fi is no different.

    There are several ways to tackle the problem.
    The first is to have several systems - something small and limited in capability but pleasant sounding, together with something much more capable for the good stuff. Or cheat and have one system but several loudspeaker option since, controversial I know, the loudspeakers really influence this stuff hugely assuming reasonably competent electronics - which most are.
    The second is for the home user not to be EQ/processor phobic. Far too many audiophiles suffer unsatisfactory sound because they ideologically refuse to tamper with the sound. It's pure nuts. It can't solve a problem, but it can make results on less than great masters more palatable.

    Third option is accept the limitation often found in the software and seek a system which is 'good enough' but no more. This is difficult for audiophiles since it must also involve abstinence from audio forums and the press - since these just encourage feelings of inadequacy and place you back on the upgrade treadmill ;)

    There is also the question of terminology. Is a wide open system truly 'better'?
    Arguably something able to still thrill with a great recording while masking the worst apsects of the poorer ones is the mark of a truly great and capable system. In addition to my main hi-fi using Quad electrostatics I currently run a vintage AR4xa/Marantz receiver and Rega Planar 3.
    It's more than capable of thrilling and entertaining but doesn't pull apart poor masters in quite the way the Quad system can. It's arguably the more capable system.
     
    Last edited: Nov 24, 2013
  23. Deuce66

    Deuce66 Senior Member

    Location:
    Canada
    I sort of feel that way about my SPL Phonitor headphone amp, it's clinically precise compared to anything else I've ever heard.
     
  24. jeffrey walsh

    jeffrey walsh Senior Member

    Location:
    Scranton, Pa. USA
  25. jupiterboy

    jupiterboy Forum Residue

    Location:
    Buffalo, NY
    I listen to a bunch of music that is not well recorded, and I have a bunch of records that are not the best pressings or have been played by previous owners and have slight damage. Almost every new pressing I buy has non-fill issues. All this is an indication to me that I am at that point, where I hear the music but also the needle in the groove/the wow of any off-center drill and all the defects.

    I want to be able to hear the greatness of the great recordings I have, but don’t want the weaker sisters to sound so weak. One thing that helps is having only enough speakers and amplification to reach listening level. The onset of distortion keeps me out of that range where the defects are right in my face.

    I read on a forum that if your system makes The Beatles sound bad, you have a bad system. I think this gets at the idea.

    Recent wire changes, honestly, have taken me a step closer to a one-size-fits all system.
     
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