The closest approach...really

hi detlof:

i like your approach of assessment by committee. however, if it were possible to remove the potential for misperception, namely, the human brain, the result would be an improvement.

measurement to the rescue ??

what about something as simple as spectral analysis.

here is a simple paradigm:

have musicians perform in a room, and take a spectral analysis (printed of course), of two minutes or so of a performance. record the performance (hopefully, a decent recording). then play the recording through a stereo system and take a spectral analysis of the stereo system's reproduction.

one now has 2 print outs. they can be compared.

of course this is not perfection. the quality of a recording comes into question, and the issue of what instruments to record is also a factor. it's a start, i think.

the whole idea is to make evaluation of a stereo system less dependent on human hearing.

Hi Ggavetti,
You are quite right I feel, with your three headings, where to my mind taste boils down to value judgements of what we have percieved. Also taste can be educated, but only if you agree upon a common benchmark in your judgment of a rig, but as you so rightly say, many audiophiles build up their systems without regard for what is "real" and why should they. We are free to follow our predilections and also my passion for "reality" is nothing but that.

Mrtennis,

Spectral analysis in the way you suggest would indeed be interesting. We once dabbled a bit in it, but gave it up, because we had endless discussions, whether disparities in the results were mainly because of the room, the placement of the performers or faults in the recording process etc.
Those experiments would have needed more scientific rigour, more intelligent planning and much better equipment than we were willing to invest in. We obviously must have thought that using our brains discussing lively with each other was more fun with our particular bent of minds.

By the way, there exists at least one well known manufacturer I know of in the high end, who prides himself that his entire chain of fiendishly expensive gear has been developed without any human hearing involved. I don't want to mention names, but his stuff sounds singularly sterile to my ears. To my mind it needs both, measurement and ears. However not only ears, but also "science" needs to be met with a healthy dose of scepticism, because often enough we only BELIEVE that what is measured has its sights on the parameters we try to assess and what has been highly praised as relevant to sound has later been proved to be a misconception.

Interesting discussion. While I can understand the pursuit of best sound reproduction available (within the constraints of your budget if you have one) what I can't understand is how does one know when the pinacle has been reached and that further pursuit is merely a fine tuning to ones taste? We all know that absolute fidelity to the real thing is impossible, but we really don't know how close you can get.

In essence then my questions boil down to what is a reasonable expectation in the first place? How does the novice establish a goal with some specificity? When should he realize he has obtained his goal and quit spending money in pursuit of the unobtainable? Is all of the pursuit of the 'obtainable' by equipment synergy and ancillary equipment (tweaks) really effective or is it just mental masturbation reduced to actual practice?

Personally speaking, many years ago I had a very satisfying system then I started reading TAS and Harry Pearsons description of 'imaging' and thought I was really missing something essential. So I did the equipment upgrading routine, flat FR, phase correct, time correct, Class A, tubes glore, equalizers, subwoofers, monitors, electrostats, panels, ad infinitum. Never got there folks! Now I'm back to a very satisfying system(s) and am happy as hell. Sans illusions, I actually have more fun playing with the toys than ever before.

Guess I'm an audiophile agnostic...........what are you? :-)

Hi Newbee,
Again you touch upon most important points I find. If you have your perception of live music as a benchmark, then of course - as you rightly suggest - that goal is out of your reach. But then you want to get a close as possible and it is as with expensive cars. Every extra HP above the say 350 will cost you unproportunately more than the first 200. If you are able to hit 100kmh in 5.2 seconds in say an M5 Beemer, to get down to 4.8 will easily cost you another 50 grand more and if you are not satisfied with that, well you can get the Bughatti from Volkswagen which clocks the hundred easily under 3.5 but that will cost you more than a million Euros. The high end ain't much different. It depends on what you strive for, on your pocketbook and last not least on your wife.
When I was a novice, I had only one specifity. I wanted it to sound "real". I ran to all sorts of live events and wanted the same at home. I first fell to the hype of all sorts of salespeople, but contrary to your experience Newbee, I became a tad wiser through TAS. Knowing the real thing intimately and probably having an ear for it, I understood at once what HP meant with terms like transparency, imaging etc. I learned that correct phase made for better soundstage, that ELS, at least say in regard of string quartets came closer to reality than any cone speakers I heard at that time. So I slowly got not "there", but closer, because my ears were full of the sound of real music. I had a benchmark which I found I could trust, my own ears, trained on all sorts of live music. That is why I would tell a novice to first get a grasp on what real music sounds like before he starts spending money and I would probably lend him my earlier copies of TAS, where HP developed a language to grasp in general terms what we were hearing or not.
Besides, Newbee, having had a look at your system, permit me to doubt your statement of being an agnostic. You are not in my terms. You ARE an audiophile, because to my ears, your gear is knowlegeably and wisely chosen, wisely because you
are as fast as it goes and do not have to hit the 100 under 5!
Cheers and happy listening,
Detlof

Hi Detlof, Although my post had no one person in mind other than myself and my musings, your post reminds me of things I should have said even though they might appear redundant to yours and Mr T's.

I gained most of my appreciation of live music in the first five rows of Orchestra Hall near center because I perferred the balance of sound there BUT mainly because I could hear instruments with great specificity, minimal halls sounds other than bass reinforcement.

What has impressed me was what is natural vs what is artificial. Natural is tight/crisp sound with correct timbre, little affected by room acoustics. That it is not artificially bright, something that so often occurs in audiophile speakers, electronics, or associated stuff, when the manufacturers are trying to replicate the natural clarity of the live performance by 'inhancing the apparent detail' in a recording and/or audio equipment.

So my quest in audio has always been for a 'natural' clarity. As you say, and Mr T sez as well (although I can't understand how he can differentiate timbre so well in the back of the hall with all of the acoustic sounds of the room intruding - I guess he just has finer ears than mine) learing to appreciate the sounds of live music.

That pursuit of clarity put me at odds with the some of the valued audiophile goals, perhaps as suggested by HP and others, which when followed seemed to produce sounds with unrealistic high refquency response more often than not. Seemed as if I was always troubled with attenuating/smoothing the mid's and highs and occasionally reinforcing some upper bass warmth present in the symphony halls I most often visited. Perhaps my ignorance was a barrier to understanding Harry's POV and observations. But that was my life with a crown of thorns if you will. Nothing seemed balanced and natural as I wanted it to be.

NOW the plug (for my hole)! Last fall I purchased some Silverline Boleros based on a couple of professional reviews, some user reports, as well as an in-store and subsequently in home audition. The reviews all seemed to conclude that the speakers had a mid-range dip which made the speakers a bit polite which was suggestive of many British speakers. Just not the reviewers admitted cup of tea, but recommended for folks who wanted to get past audiophillia and focus on music, or folks who had a bright room.

In any event whereas I was expectiing a 'dullish' speaker this was no dullish piece of work whatsoever. No rolled high end at all. A SOTA tweeter, without FR enhancement to impress, maintained the crispness of tone that made the midrange crisp and the bass tight, natural attributes of the live sound. Don't get me wrong, this is not a SOTA speaker but it's the best I have ever heard, certainly in my house, and for the very first time ever, I feel that I have a window opened wide for the assessment of the performance of electronic's and ancillaries, not to mention recordings. I've spent the last year re-visiting all of the stuff I have in the house/attic and I'm amazed at the value in some of these old electonic bombs and wantabees which I had previously discounted/discarded.

The really funny part of my reaction to these speakers is that contrary to every other speaker I have owned which set off a buying frenzie focused on better electronics etc this time I'm so happy with the results of three set's of electronics I've set up to drive them that I fail to see the need of finding perfect delivery in one electronics system. I know in advance what music I want to listen to and what kind of delivery I want and I use the appropriate component combinations connected alternatively by three sets of cables and banana plugs.

Now, for me, audio AND music is FUN! Not just an expensive and frustrating persuit!! No more unquenchable thirst for the next best component to come down the pike. I really like what I have and am contented. Now, if that is not the opposite of the typical 'audiophile' attitude, which to me is represented by the endless pursuit of minute sonic detail thinking that that next cable etc will be the last, I don't know what could be. I was an 'audiophile'. No more - now I'm really back to being a music lover. Maybe I never was an audiophile, just a long nightmare, and one day I woke up, ala JD on Dallas. :-)

Perhaps I'm just dreaming now.........................