Hi Jetter you said
"Michael, I believe I understand what you are writing, but maybe not. Several times I have been tempted to start a thread inquiring if anyone else has ever had or experienced systems, as I have, in the 60’s and 70’s, where the mid level components came together to produce a beautiful sound? A sound that was so special that anyone who came into the room commented on it. And the components were so mainstream that one would laugh today. The sound was so natural, and the room boundaries just melted away."
Yes, we are on the same page! There are more people moving back to that sound, or stayed in that sound, than all of high end audio. When HEA went discrete it also "squeezed" the sound. A lot of this is due to the new (in the 90’s) types of circuit boards, over built chassis, complicated drivers and dead speaker cabinets. HEA created a sound that left out a lot of warmth, natural dynamics, and spacious harmonics, in search of detail and black holes. The result, systems that can easily fatigue the ear and brain. Also systems that are limited with the range of recordings that can be played musically.
In the 60’s and 70’s playback was on the right path, and just needed a method of tuning plus the right tools to get things to that next level of performance. Systems, even un-tuned, could play large varieties of music with relatively simple adjustments. Some of the more basic receivers and matched speakers sounded amazing setup nicely, still do.
Remember when looking inside of the basic components you saw a tan colored circuit board, or one side green and the other tan? These gave a lot of that warm character. Same goes for those wood chassis and old transformers and cap designs. Those components breathed and gave huge soundstages with tons of easy to listen to music. And, you could sit anywhere in the room, or other rooms, and the sound carried in tone and balance.
Michael Green
