Articles You Feel Should be Shared

Inside Track: The Second Coming Of The Technics Sl-1200

David Price talks to Tetsuya Itani, to get the full story of how Technics brought its iconic SL-1200 turntable back…


If you go on measurements and data the Technics is one hugely impressive feat of engineering.

But as the designer himself says,

“Measurement is only a rough guide,” he says. “For example, the wow and flutter figure doesn't tell us about a deck's performance under load, playing a record groove with music, but only with a test tone. It's like a two-dimensional photograph when you're working in three dimensions. Our engineers have been on a learning curve. For example, when we developed the new flagship SP-10R, we found that when we get more sophisticated in our approach, the sound quality becomes much better…”

https://www.stereonet.co.uk/features/inside-track-the-second-coming-of-the-technics-sl-1200

The dreaded Fletcher-Munson Curve.

For something that has huge implications for those audiophiles looking for accurate playback, this information was surprisingly difficult, at least for me, to assimilate.

Many, many points covered here, including the history and motivation behind the research, and some surprising findings too.

Perhaps the main one being that there might be only one correct volume level to listen at if we want to hear all the bass, midrange and treble frequencies that exist in a recording equally as well.

Plenty of other great points in there too.

Anyway, this excellent presentation by AVGenius was the closest one that came to making sense to me.

https://youtu.be/dGQh5bwm_8s

The Cable Null Test  by Ethan Winer

WARNING : those with expensive cables may find the subject matter disturbing.

For the rest of those interested, if you're pushed for time you can skip to the last 3 minutes. 

https://youtu.be/ZyWt3kANA3Q

Here’s a great article published in SOS way back in 2011 recently posted by fellow member rauliruegas.

How the Ear Works by Emmanuel Deruty

Everything from Fletcher-Munson, Darwinist speech based EQs, high frequency hearing loss to the 140dB dynamic range of the human ear.

Grim reading in part, but incredibly useful when auditioning equipment.

"Not that I want to sound grumpy, but if you want to make a career out of sound engineering, mixing or mastering, stop smoking, get some exercise and turn that monitoring volume down. Otherwise, in 25 years from now, you're out of a job..."

https://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/how-ear-works#para4

2 hugely inconvenient truths in high-end audio.

It’s plainly obvious that the industry does not care for sound quality or for the whims of audiophiles. Not now, not ever. Like others before me I too have sometimes found CD sound quality to be inferior to that on YouTube. Can’t even blame the so-called loudness wars for the industry’s blatant indifference.
They just don't care about recording fidelity.

A shocking state of affairs.

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/what-in-the-world-is-going-on


Secondly, whilst some audiophiles will debate the merits of different amplifiers, CD players, DACs, interconnect and loudspeaker cables, the evidence from controlled blind listening tests suggests that these differences are largely imagined.

There are innumerable examples of this but here’s just one by the enigmatic author Mario Cavolo, a self confessed audiophile and no stranger to the high-end.

https://youtu.be/cjbZSemcMvU