Keeping it simple when the sound has a strong phantom center image and my speakers seem to mostly disappear.
When my brain gets tricked by where the sound is coming form.
How do you know when a stereo sounds good?
When do you know your system is pleasing to listen to? How do you conclusively prove to yourself that your system sounds good to you? How do you determine that you enjoy listening to music through your stereo? Do you have a suite of measurements that removes all shadow of a doubt that you are getting good sound, sound that you enjoy? Please share.
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Sorry but this phantom image between speakers is not even the beginning of acoustic control...The stereo sound must be out of the speakers and filling the room or around you and even coming from back of your head in some recording....All recording albums are different, but if the sound is ONLY between speakers, your stereo system is not optimized by acoustic at all.... Your room is probably under controlled...
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When you find yourself thinking back to how great Led Zeppelin and other former favorites used to sound so good and instead you are listening to Steely Dan who you never gave much thought to previously. Bottom line; when you find yourself much preferring artists that you never know existed before you spent 20k or similar putting a nice system together. |
@mahgister Of course all that too. I'm just describing the beginning of what I find enjoyable with a well implemented audio system.
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@roxy54 dude, chill, seriously. Why this animosity for what I thought was a pretty straightforward queston? |
+1 |
This is an interesting question - I can relate. A few years ago I was wondering the same thing. My system sounded really good (it sounds even better now) and I wondered if it sounded so good because I hadn’t heard anything else for quite a while. Every upgrade had raised the SQ but I had no idea how it compared to other systems. My answer to this dilemma was to go the AXPONA in 2018. I treated myself to an indulgent audio vacation and I was on a mission to broaden my perspective. Bottom line - I was very pleasantly surprised. My system sounded as good as at least 90% of the systems I heard at the show. Many systems had cabling that cost more than my entire system along with very expensive speakers and exotic components. I heard several systems that cost in the low to mid six figures that flat out sounded worse to my ears than my mid 90’s vintage Krell and Thiel setup. They didn’t sound as natural, they didn’t image as well, and there was nothing that made me think "Wow."
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When presented with a proposition that is demonstrably false, I’m probably obtuse as well. As @roxy54 noted, this self-awareness factoid - despite being a falsity in itself and a convenient deflection by the OP - does not address the primary and fundamental error and is completely irrelevant and/or has no meaning in the context.. It seems that I am in the minority of people who recognise speech that is intended to persuade but has little regard for truth. |
@dekay Me too. When having a restroom break is the last thing you want to do. |
I get what you’re asking. But it’s close to impossible to answer. If it sounds good to your ears then it’s good. You can listen to other systems in other rooms and it will surely sound different. But is it better? Possibly but the only way to tell is to listen to it in your room. Not always feasible. For me, I’m over the top with my system and that’s all that matters. |
When my mind stops wandering as it usually does, and I am captivated by the performance, music, or noticing something wonderful about a composition that I thought I knew well. Presently, I am disappointed with the system that I have, and need to rethink my approach. So yes, I know when I am NOT happy too. |
I get your point thanks! My deepest reespect to you....
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It is like asking "How do you know if/when you are enlightened?" For a Buddhist follower, it is a difficult question to answer other than saying, "You know when you know."
Jokes a side, let me try to answer from my point of view. I know my setup is performing at its very best when it reproduces human voice male/female just like they are in my listening room. For my tastes, stereo sounds great when Ella, Lady Day, Louis Armstrong, Jim Reeves, Lata Mangeshkar, Nana Mouskouri, Luciano Pavarotti, Dame Kiri te Kanawa, and many other artists sounds alive in my room. Of course, there are other measures as well. But recognizing and relating to the voice of your favorite artist should be something most everyone can do.
This should not require any special training or skill such as hitting the race track and getting used to driving a Porsche! Some actually require such training as they do driving a Porsche. They are bit handicapped with driving disabilities. But most folks should be able to recognize and enjoy the voices of their favorite artist from their stereo set up. Hope this helps. |
Any system i ever listened to was sounding good to at least ONE person or listener, the owner with or without my favorable opinion... This is common place observation... But reading the answers it seems nobody had realized that almost all answers ONLY repeated an instance of this common place fact... Then these answers could never said anything valuable about an objective criterion which anyway CANNOT and could not be "gear with good measurements"...Or the pricier gear....All gear at any price or quality levels, NEED acoustic control and treatment at the end anyway....
The OBJECTIVE way to produce an answer is then by listening experiments in your own room with ACOUSTIC principles... Play with them.... COST=zero Upgrading, even if the "upgrade " affected really positively some aspects of the sound experience, upgrading COULD NEVER rival or compensate for the impact of a negative or positive acoustic room settings... |
You know when a stereo sounds good when the instruments start sounding like instruments. When a guitar sounds like strings vibrating and wood resonating, and so on and so forth. When you walk by a closed door of a room where the system is playing and you're not sure right away whether it's someone inside playing live or a recording. |
Difficult one... First when everything sounds better than before. Totally absorbing and one doesn't want it to be interrupted by anything. Musicians are in the room. Second thoughts....doubt creeps in, is it really doing what I paid all that money for. What about all those reviews. Wish I could hear the reviewers system to know if its all BS. Is it my ears? Comparisons with friends systems help, but in the end I think it could be only experienced reviewers who are able to listen to many systems in their own room that could reach a state of objectivity here. Ted, would be very interested to hear your views.
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+1 |
Actually a pretty good question. When I opened my shop in 1973 I asked the same questions. SO, luckily, I had a shop full of gear from high-end manufacturers (and some middle-range and some used high-end stuff). SO, I brought in my trumpet and my guitars. FIRST, I hooked up a basic system and swapped out speakers one pair at a time. Took me almost a month. I never had to pick up an instrument during this phase. It was pretty obvious that my favs from college--stacked Advents--were, to be kind, not that good. Nothing against Mr. Kloss--he was clearly a genius and his speakers were terrific for the time. BUT, next to other stuff they showed their weaknesses easily, as did many others that we carried. Rather than bore you with the whole journey, what I learned was that different designers had different price points, thus compromised as you would expect. This ain't a charity--this stuff was made to be SOLD for MONEY. No money, no stuff. Following an extended listening process, I was lucky enough to sell Audio Research and Magnepan products. We also had Marantz and McIntosh for a while--long story. In the end, there was no doubt--the Audio Research stuff on the Maggies were a revelation in reproduced sound IF the source material was solid. Now, this combo did NOT sound as good in some customer's rooms for whatever reason, but we had lots of good stuff for them as well. Given the better rooms, that combo was clearly the most accurate and remains so today. Cheers, and happy listening. |
@ted_denney You should pose the same original question on ASR and Whatsbest and writeup a comparison of the responses. That would be entertaining! Cheers, Spencer |
Sadly we’ve got some angry birds here as well. Very strange in a hobby that’s all about enjoying your stereo, which is wholly subjective, there are people who have a significant problem with this, to the point of religious fervor. Fanaticism. |
When I am enjoying the music and not the system. A lot of people will refer to this as “when the speakers disappear and all you hear is the music ”. You sound like you are entering the cheating stage of audiofile. You are in love with music but a new sexy “system” is giving you a look and you start to wander and think that an affaire with “system” will be fun and “music” will never find out. Don’t overthink and and step over to the dark side. Enjoy the music and appreciate what you have. |
When what you hear makes you realize just how brilliant the music and musicianship are -- that the skill and artistry of composers and musical performers sufficiently justifies humanity, despite so much of all the rest.
Of course, the music and musicianship need to be pretty great for that to happen. |
hilde45 You said: "It's like asking the question, "Am I in pain?" That's not a question I can make sense of without some kind of science fiction scenario." Can you elaborate on that paragraph? I don't understand what you are trying to say. I know I'm in pain from the time my feet hit the floor in the morning, but that's from playing competitive basketball for 40 years. |
My first little "system" was an 8 track player that apparently had an amplifier and a couple of speakers. What did I know, I was a teenage kid. All I knew was that I could listen to the music I liked in my bedroom and not have to listen to the country music my parents listened to, or all the commercials on the radio. It pleased me. Over time, my systems have continued to improve in sound quality. Why do I need to "conclusively prove" that my system sounds good to me? Could it be better? Yes, of course. Is it good enough? For now. Am I spending time obsessing over what little thing I could do to eke out that extra bit of sound or spending time listening to music? I prefer the latter. Listening to my system is one of the things I look forward to most, so it clearly pleases me. |