The source. The ultimate determinent of sound quality?

Kinda like chevelle and chevette? If you're inhaling exhaust fumes, both will do the trick.

 

To the OP: It sounds like both of your sources, turntable and CD player, aren't giving you what you hope for. Maybe it's not the sources at all. I looked at your profile but couldn't figure out what speakers you have. It could be many things. It could be that your room is 'dead'; it could be your speakers are too close to the back and side walls and not really breathing. It could be you need better speakers to bring the music alive. The source is important but I'm not convinced that's where your problems lie.

If your sound is sounding like a 'carboard box' I think it's either a speaker issue or a room issue, not a 'source' issue.

 

G'day mate, no, my systems are as good as I can make then. A lot of my audio gear is DIY to very high standards.

I actually find your inference ever so slightly hurtful. My room acoustics are slightly variable but basically good, so that is not the issue as I see it. Some 'program sources' really do justice to my gear and others don't, that's all. They are indeed the 'ultimate determinent'. Regards, Felix.

 

I guess you didnt read the link I posted, its just not me, but many find that term "Mid-fi" quite meaningless.

Maybe better if I ask you....what exactly denotes "Mid-fi"? What is the websters definition?

For most im gonna guess, anything that costs significantly less than they own, is by definition mid fi?

Where does "hi fi" start?

 

Here we go again and again and again......

 

Hard to find a system that will treat all music with a sugar coating and if it does, you wouldn't be happy. Accepting that your system will playback your music and highlight its varying qualities - good or bad - is part of the gig. I find it all the time with some material. Biggest change if you wanted to make one would be to the speakers, that's going to give you the most immediate difference. Everything else is a sliding scale from the amps down to the very minimal differences that cables and interconnects make.

 

I must have missed it.

You know, your post just after the one about "mid-fi being good for CD" and high-end being good for SACD or whatever unsubstantiated claptrap it was and how you made the same comment there. Did I miss it? Must've done.

It was as deserving of your comment above as KT's was. In the interests of balance...it taking two to tango and all.

 

When you get meaningless comments like "mid-fi is good for CD" you kind of set yourself up for them. Really just shows up your own lack of awareness IMO.

 

Right here from your link "high-end products produce a powerful intimacy with the music"

 

Haha good one, seriously.

I know what the link says, but the whole idea of labeling stuff, but having no real indications or definitions of what the labels mean, kinda sounds like just an underhanded way to bash anyones stuff that is less that stellar.

By that definition, I could call practically anything "High end". Ive seen some refer to their systems in here as highly resolving, and high fidelity or high end, but frankly the actual sound quality of most systems in the forum run the range from great to mediocre.

I prefer to think that we all have "Hi-fi" systems, simply of varying sound quality. The actual "Mid-fi" connotation for some reason wreaks of something. The whole hobby is far too subjective to apply labels to something that someone just doesnt care for, didnt cost the right amount, or isnt the right "name".

Ive heard higher priced stuff that seriously excelled in a few ways, but lacked in others. Is that "Mid fi" with a "High end price tag" or what?

 

Ktomb you could also call any depiction of the human nude "porn" but we all know "porn" when we see it, same (for most of us here - I hope anyway) when we hear hi-end.

 

Trolling
This is when members deliberately try to antagonize or criticize others to get a reaction, frequently by posting incorrect information, posting blatantly stupid questions, wisecracking, or other nonsense. If you note this behavior, please do not “feed the trolls” by responding in the thread. Obvious trolling behavior is considered a serious offense.

 

I actually kinda agree with you!...I think its the huge range of stuff that most arent sure about that is up for debate. True high end, very few in here have it, many assume they do, or at least I get the impression they think they do....not sure..

 

It's a percentage for most systems with a somewhat movable cutoff point, depending who you talk to, and what decade you are refering to.... How's that for constants? But still I think most of the time if you scan a posted system here you can tell quickly. I think the majority of posters we actually hear from here are largely Hi-Fi mixed with vintage. Hmmm, now what is vintage?

 

With all due respect we're kind of guessing in the dark here. I can't really tell much about your equipment from your profile. We have no idea about your room or speaker placement or the acoustics therein - none of this is mentioned in your post. I really can't tell from your initial post if you feel you have an actual issue you are trying to resolve or if you're just talking in generalities to create a discussion. Most replies seem to be addressing how important the source is, so maybe I misunderstood what you're looking for.

 

I'm not weighing in on equipment stuff. I still have a lot of things I need to buy for my system before I dare say it is high-end. But I recently upgraded my turntable, amplifier and phono preamp. Before that I was just going from a crappy Sony turntable into an old Denon AVR 1400 AV receiver.

I got enough enjoyment out of my crappy turntable and AV receiver that I knew I wanted more and I was spending thousands of dollars on new vinyl and listening to it like I was addicted.

I could tell some albums were fantastic compared to others even with that crummy system.

But it took a Parasound Halo amp, a Clearaudio Concept TT with MC cartridge and a Phenomena II phono amp to "reveal" some of the limitations of those albums.

For instance, I loved listening to Interpol's Antics on that old setup. On the new setup, it just sounds tragic compared to certain MoFi releases and better pressings. But listening to the albums I thought sounded really good on my lesser system sound even better. It's a total tradeoff for me. I just can't help but notice my ignorance was a bit of bliss. Now my albums are separated more by their quality. I ask myself, what is going to sound really good when I put it on?

Listening to things like Van Halen II becomes really annoying because Eddie's guitar is soooo buried in the left channel. The soundstage on vinyl gets bigger with better source equipment. The source gets exposed. But I will say I have a lot of older pressings that hold up in soundstage and depth just as well as newer recordings. I certainly have learned a lot about who mastered certain vinyl because I do have those pressings that sound terrible compared to a reissue.

But my experience is a resounding yes that you are limited by your source recording/mastering. I just hope you aren't saying that the majority of your collection sounds ordinary. Because even though not everything I play sounds as good as my best stuff, few things just sound downright terrible. Some things lack low end, some are too bright, some lack a great overall soundstage, sometimes the singer sounds muddy but the instruments sound fantastic, sometimes the drums don't sound great, but few things just sound bland and lifeless that I put through my system. A few things sound absolutely terrible and make me want to throw them against a wall rather than make the mistake of playing it again.

 

Um no that's why God made Dre Beats.

 

The source is obviously the starting point for playback. There isn't much of anything you can do to improve that recording, sadly.
But there is something you can do to make it more enjoyable. And that is not adding additional distortions via the rest of the playback system.
Speakers are the worst culprit, adding phase distortions to the already questionable recording. Perhaps headphones would be best on those recordings?

 

I keep reading the thread title as, "The source: The ultimate DETRIMENT of sound quality."

 

I don't agree with you. Poor electronics and poor digital makes more of a mess.

 

Poor electronics and poor digital can certainly make a mess. But you have a difficult time finding something that makes more of a mess than even darn good speakers if you spent at least $20 on your electronics.

Probably no speakers are better than +/- 2 db in room FR. And few will be reliably under 2% distortion. Nor will many keep phase within +/- 45 degrees of what is proper. You really have to get some exceptionally poor digital or electronics to be worse than that. And while there may be other subtler artifacts electronically, those artifacts of speakers are without any doubt very, very audible. Any bottleneck in the whole chain can limit sound quality. But I see no way speakers and microphones are not the biggest limitation. Likely speakers more than good quality microphones.

 

Fundamentally yes.

If you approach the idea of a hi-fi system as delivering everything possible from the recording, with nothing added or subtracted (notional perfection) then the source material has to set the ultimate limit. But hi-fi is a subjective thing and systems are far from perfect so that gives us plenty of wriggle room.

For example, your flat and cardboardy sounding CDs would sound even more that way on the theoretically perfect hi-fi, but what about if we deliberately introduce some imperfections such that some less desirable attributes of the recording are masked?
Suppose we introduce some response errors to warm up the sound a little, use a bass heavy loudspeaker to fill-out the bottom end, use an omnidirectional loudspeaker to give some false depth and space?

We might have made our system technically 'worse' but at the same time more flattering to the rather flat and brittle source.

So you have to answer this in terms of ultimate fidelity, in which case the answer is yes.
Or in terms of 'which rendition do you prefer' in which case the answer is 'not necessarily'

 

In my experience, the main factor on sound quality is the amp+speaker combination.

 

My philosophy of listening is like the John Lennon lyric:

"All I want is the truth...
just gimme some truth..."

If the recording was bad, that's the way it is. You listen to Gary U.S. Bonds' "Quarter to Three" on a million-dollar system, it's still gonna sound like crap. But as long as it's honest crap, and the system doesn't detract from the recording, I'm good with it.

 

Crimping or ultrasonic welding has more potential than using solder, which just adds more non similar metal interfaces.

My list goes

Music
Musicians
Recording process
Mixing and mastering
Playback room
Playback speakers
Everything else.