Passing Judgement on Audio Quality

Yup, especially with a lot of today's gear -- there are fewer lemons, tolerances are tighter. lots of even budget gear is very solid, a properly set up system in a good room will sound great, where great equipment, indifferently arranged in a poorly constituted room for audio reproduction, well....you said it.

 

I think that there are a number of layers to this question about ‘evaluating’ audio quality. A classic mistake is to buy equipment based on reviews ie using other people’s ears. Another thing I have experienced is a person buying a hifi item based on a review, word of mouth, or ‘it was a bargain’. Then they call me to ask my opinion, which is nice, but as I have to say; “what does it matter what I think, you’ve already bought it! “. or “ you are the one who has to listen to it, not me! “


I like your analogy of hifi to a car....or a bike. Many crave certain supercars with high power (high revving) V12 engines, while others prefer the torquey feeling of an American V8 muscle car. Some makers married the tuned American V8 into European style sporting chassis. Similarly I own a Buell motorcycle which combines American V twin muscle with a sporting chassis in preference to a higher revving 4 cylinder sports bike engine. I like the Buell because it delivers a much nicer feel of ‘real world’ power, not race track power.

If I seem to have gone overboard with the motoring analogy consider the type of music you like, the quality of the recordings on vinyl, CD or by streaming. How good are the music files of your chosen server? This aspect is rarely mentioned when equipment is being promoted by its makers, although this is sometimes redressed by better reviewers.

As your system gets to a certain level of resolution the quality of the software becomes ever more significant. I used to think that all vinyl LPs were equal until my dealer pulled a disc out of his rack that just blew my perceptions out of the water. I later found that a fair number of my records could be consigned to the don’t use bin. All is not lost though as the range of cartridges and stylus profiles available today mean that you can buy a top turntable, arm and very good cartridge, but step back from the edge by choosing a slightly less analytical stylus profile. You can also tune your system by careful selection of an amplifier which focuses on musicality rather than the last degree of resolution. I have done this to make more of my records fun to listen to.

Similarly with CD my old Marantz CD10 player was considered high end at one time. Even if it has been surpassed in some areas, it can be a bit over critical of CDs made from poor files or less dynamic equipment. The CD10 is currently awaiting repair so I am now making do with an old Arcam DVD player which is both very good at CD replay and kinder to lesser CDs.

I think the important thing to remember when selecting music and the particular recordings for auditioning a piece of equipment is not to only select music that will probably sound good or spectacular, but to take recordings that might prove challenging or ‘testing’ for the system, as well as the records or CDs you regularly play regardless of their absolute quality simply for pleasure of course.

 

1-Agree totally

2-Disagree totally

3-Agree totally.