Talk but not walk?

"It would be interesting to talk to the drummer, if he still remembers it, and hear if all of that actually took place. Can it be that, by changing whatever is being tuned/tweaked the nature of what happened during the recording gets misrepresented?"

That's a frightening thought. That would mean that only one system and one set of ears is correct and all the others are misrepresenting.

jf47t,

It would not mean that all the others are misrepresenting, at all. In fact, changing anything in the system (from CD to composition of the air in the listening environment) could potentially have some effect on the perception of sound for the listener. After all, that is the purpose of tweaking/tuning. Altering what was initially heard. It still stands that the drummer would be the only one to know if he really hit something in a certain way that we imagine, after a heavily-modified process, as him changing angles of sticks to the drum or whatever else. There is nothing wrong with listeners adjusting sound to their liking, why wouldn't they enjoy even more. The simplest, for the end-user, way of adjusting is probably tone controls on an amplifier but there are many many more ways, including whatever kind of wood is used somewhere in the system.

Maybe one could say that virtually every system is misrepresenting (ears do not represent, though, they are a receptive link in the chain).

Remember how the room got bigger when you did something? It sounded more interesting/pleasing to you, at least that is how it read. Well, room was only one size originally. It has not changed since 1990 when the CD was recorded. Being able to manipulate the perception of the size of the room is misrepresenting the real room. Nothing wrong with that, but it is not a true representation of how big the room was during the recording, or what was adjusted during the mixing/mastering/some other process shortly afterwards. Many pieces of electronic equipment have modes "jazz club", "church", "stadium" which are aiming exactly for the same effect of changing listener's perception of the original room size. Of course, they may change other things in the process and not be acceptable to "audiophile" crowd, but they are aiming to be a simple and convenient solution for those listeners who would like the effect, but have no knowledge or time to do what you did by placing different things in different positions of your listening room. Both achieve similar result by different means. I would speculate that one does it conveniently while the other one does it less conveniently but without affecting other parameters. At the same time, both may misrepresent the size of the real room which is the only correct size.

What sound level (dB) do you listen to Hindu Love Gods at? I feel it needs a little bit louder setting, but am curious at what level do you feel you gain the best results.

grannyring,

I would second your question about modifications of the Pioneer receiver. In fact, I already got curious about it in my earlier post. I do not doubt it can be done, but it would be great to know what made the difference.

Addendum: I would also think that knowing the exact model of Pioneer receiver would be interesting to those who are more adept with technical aspect of its build.