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What is the standard for judging a systems sound?

It is often said in these threads that this hobby is all about the music. That live music is the only meaningful standard for comparison when determining the quality of a stereo system. While these words sound good, are they really true?

A violin should sound like a violin, a flute should sound like a flute, and a guitar should sound like a guitar. Many purists will immediately say that amplified/electronic music cannot be used as a standard since a listener can never really know what the intention of the musician was when he/she recorded it, and what that sound should be.

Even something as simple as an electric guitar has multiple settings from which to choose. Electronic keyboards have hundreds of possible voices, so how does the poor audiophile know how the tone was supposed to sound?

These are valid concerns. Back to the purists!
“That’s why only unamplified classical music can be used as a standard!!!” On face value that looks like an acceptable statement. Consider some facts though. In my immediate family we a have several musicians who play a few different instruments. We have an electric piano (due to a distinct lack of room for a baby grand), acoustic guitar, Fender Stratocaster electric guitar, a nickel plated closed hole flute, a silver plated open hole flute, a viola, and a cello.

I have a fairly good idea how each of these instruments sound. One comment I must make immediately is that they sound a little different in different rooms. Another comment, which demands attention: when I bought my first flute I knew nothing about flutes. I began fooling around with it and enjoyed the sound. I liked it so much a bought a better, as mentioned silver open-hole flute. This flute sounded much better than the first flute. The tone was richer (the only words I can think of to describe the difference).

The reason for that background information is to show that the same instruments in different room’s sound different, AND different models of the same instrument have a much different sound!

If we audiophiles are using live unamplified music as a standard there are still several important issues, which must be addressed. How do we really know what we are hearing? What instrument is the musician playing? Was that a Gemeinhardt or Armstrong Flute. What are the sonic characteristics of the specific instrument. Stradivarius violins sound different than other violins, if they didn’t people would not be willing to pursue them so aggressively. Better instruments (theoretically anyway) sound better than lesser instruments. The point here is that different versions of the same instrument sound different.

I have seen the same music reproduced in different settings. I have heard string quartets play in a garden in Vienna. I have heard the Pipe Organ in Stephan’s Dom. I have heard Rock and Roll in arenas and Performing Arts Centers. I have heard jazz played in small one room clubs, not to mention the above listed instruments played in the house.

Each one of these venues sounds different from the other.

When I am listening to a selection of music at home, how do I know how it is supposed to sound? None of the LPs sounds like any of the particular places I have heard live music, while none of those places sounded like any other either.

There is no standard by which to judge the quality of live music since no two venues sound alike. If everyone were to go to the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden and hear Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 would everyone hear the same thing? Even if they did, and that one concert became the standard by which all other recorded music was judged, would that be translatable to allow the judging of all other music?

I have never heard a cello reproduced as well as my sons playing in the living room. I have never heard better flute players sound better than my own terrible playing at home.

So what do we audiophiles really use as the standard by which recorded music can be judged?
128x128nrchy
nrchy's avatar
nrchy OP
2,124 posts
 
Zaikesman, consensus does have value, as do the opinions of everyone who reviews a piece of gear, as long as it is done with integrity. If you tell me the Mc Cormack amp sounds good I believe it does. Based on your comments I would tell someone else that the DNA amp you mentioned is considered to be a good amp. The issue is what have I really learned. I consider you to be a credible source for information, but ultimately what has your comment done for me?

This is certainly not to say your comments are worthless, but it does call into question the value of your comments. I’m not trying to be rude, I’m just looking at the way we think about our systems. Is your determination of ‘good enough’ going to agree with mine, or anyone else’s?

Each instrument has a specific sound. That instrument will have a specific, but different sound when it arrives at the soundboard. It will have a slightly altered sound again as it is put onto a CD or LP. Which version of that sound are we willing to accept as being good enough, or as a standard which any or all of us can accept for judging the quality of our system? Or is it even worth it to try to have a standard?

The whole issue from the outset is my own wondering whether there was a standard that everyone can use to judge quality of gear. Other than anyone’s opinion it doesn’t seem that there is a standard. I believe everyone (almost) who’s posts and ideas I am familiar with on AudiogoN when they say something sounds good. I’m sure they think it sounds good, so in their mind it does sound good. Some people are less likely to have enough credibility to have their statements accepted by me as being reliable. But none of these comments are based on an absolute standard.
zaikesman
3,017 posts
 
Of course. It's like asking to be able to depend on some sort of standard for how good food tastes, or which people are the most physically attractive. The only difference is that in audio, we are presumably trying to *recreate something* (more so in the case of live acoustic music), which by definition implies an original creation, a standard if you will. But since we can never be certain what that original was - only that we won't be able to perfectly capture and recreate it - things become, as we see in the high end, to a large degree simply a matter of taste. Still, the concept of standards does apply, for if we stray too far from a seemingly plausible attempt at faithful recreation in the pursuit of imposing idiosyncratic qualities, the majority of us will recognize this as no longer being high in fidelity - which gets us back to the question of fidelity to what? That's where the cognitive dissonance lies - the relatively peaceful acceptance of which is something essential to achieving, if not really the suspension of disbelief, at least the blissful ignoring of it. Which is to say, Don't sweat the whole concept so much that you can't hear around it, just enjoy as best you can! Some of my favorite 'lo-fi' recordings capture primarily a feeling, not the literal sound of a performance, and maybe not even the exact feeling I would have gotten had I been there in the room with the performers. Nevertheless, I have received the artistic feeling of that document listening over a high end system and over a table radio or a car radio. The most important part of the music can easily transcend fidelity for some mysterious and wonderful reason.
frogman
7,463 posts
 
Bingo, Zaikesman; the feeling "can easily transcend fidelity for some mysterious and wonderful reason". Brilliantly stated. My only qualification would be concerning the use of the word "fidelity". I would instead say: "...fidelity in the usual sense..." In other words, fidelity as usually defined by audiophiles; not necessarily the most relevant concern.

This is precisely the point. This feeling is the most important part of music making and likewise, the most important part of music reproduction. Can a component reproduce the feeling of the performance? This is in part what I mean when I refer to the "generic" sounds of live music. Although we tend to not think of the "feeling" in terms of "sound", the feeling has much to do with issues of microdynamics. The next obvious question will be: How do we know if that "feeling" was actually there at the original event, and not some sort of distortion caused by the record/playback process? Because just as with more usual concerns such as timbral accuracy and soundstage recreation, with enough exposure to the real thing, we can learn to recognize what is truth and what is a distortion.

The feeling of a good performance is a pretty powerful thing; the reason that it can transcend the LACK of fidelity of a table radio. It's not that the table radio somehow manages to reproduce the feeling because of some subtle electronic attribute, it's simply that the feeling of a good performance is difficult to destroy completely; it is that powerful. And this is what hangs up a lot of audiophiles IMO. We tend to focus on subtle differences in timbre and soundstaging, and overlook the magic. And where can we experience the most magic? At a live event.
zaikesman
3,017 posts
 
I often think that one of the reasons I find it so easy to enjoy the music on my crappy, stock car radio is precisely *because* it eschews literal fidelity, and I know that it does, so it frees me up not to worry about such concerns and just groove. But then again, there are often times and recordings where it fails somewhat by not being able to clearly transmit content important to the musical message, this mostly being dependent on the type and complexity or subtlety (sonically speaking) of the music in question.
zaikesman
3,017 posts
 
What a priceless 24 hours. This afernoon, I did some critical comparisons of the DNA-125 vs. my VTL's after leaving the SS amp playing all night to get it really warmed up. Then, taking a cue from Nrchy, I played a CD-R of some stuff that I recorded with a band I was in a couple of years ago. My familiarity with the sound of my own guitar and the singer who's been a friend of 20 years made for enlightening auditioning, and I have to admit that the results took the bloom off the rose somewhat as far as the SS amp is concerned. Such is the danger of first-day judgements. There are still things I think it points up that my tube amps don't do as well as could be wished for, but most of their flaws I was already well aware of. More significantly, I think I've decided upon further listening that the deviations of the SS amp are more detrimental to my musical involvement than are the deviations of the tube amps. I guess I'm back where I started, thinking even more about modding my tube amps, but an educational reaffirmation is exactly what I hoped for from this experience, so I'm not at all disappointed.

The funniest thing is though, last night I emailed the guy I bought the SS amp from, saying I may just wind up keeping it as a spare for emergencies, adding, "You never know with tube amps!" Well, no sooner had I completed this latest round of auditioning and decided I was on the right path with tubes, lo and behold one 6550 lets go with a light show! I think I caught it very quickly, so I'm anticipating nothing more serious than replacing the tube. But I was laughing ruefully...

P.S. - Update: No problems after replacing the tube. In fact, this turned out to be a blessing in disguise. When I got in there and started changing tubes and rebiasing, I began to notice some chassis reverberations making themselves heard through the speakers. Come to find that the NOS 60's Sylvania gold-pin 12AT7's input tubes I had upgraded to when I first got the amps, which I had liked for their treble extension and bass firmness, had become microphonic. Switching back to the previous GE's tidied-up the soundstage, toned-down some lower-treble brightness, and kept HF images from splashing forward - some of the areas the amp comparo had pointed up as wanting. The fun just never ends...
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