Question on FR 66s

Dear Raul, I wonder what is your impression of say Soulution electronics with Magico speakers, Boulder amp or Burmester.
To my ears, Soulution/Magico has just about the cleanest, hyperdetail sound that you can get which to my ears would mean the least distortion. Boulder and Burmester (heard them with different speakers), also gave me similar impression although the actual sound are quite different.
Nevertheless, for my taste, I found Soulution/Magico rather unmusical. Impressive sound but it does not move me emotionally.
Acoustic music, vocal (especially when singing with vibrato) contains all kind of harmonics and the note is not a single frequency which in electronic terms, I guess could be construe as distortion.
I understand that one may say that all those natural distortion/harmonics are captured in the recording therefore stereo playback equipments should not add any more distortion beside whatever is presented on the recording itself.
In practice though, I find that electronics with a bit more distortion (say tubes vs solid state, very gross generalization here or digital vs analogue), the one with more distortion actually sounds more pleasing and actually give a bit more illusion of being there (but not neccessarily more accurate in absolute term).
One possible explaination could be that when mixing multitracks, multi mike recording or even those Mercury minimal 3 mikes mixing down to 2 tracks, may be we are losing some of those details and distortion that is created in our playback chain may give back some of that missing link.
This is all just a guess though as I have nothing concrete to back this up but wondering what is your take on this.

I used to use Esoteric D-05 and switched to Playback Design PD-5. PD measured far worse (according to Stereophile measurement, I did not see D-05 number but I assume it would be like other Esoteric products) than D-05 but sounds a lot more musical to my ear than Esoteric.

Back to FR topic a bit, I also notice that for example, Air Tight really sounds significant different from Koetsu when using Reed, Graham or JMW 10.5. It is very easy to hear Air Tight's characteristic sound with those arms. Mounting it on FR 64s, I think that the contrast between Koetsu and Air Tight is not as obvious. They are still different but less than what I remember with other arms, still sound great however. I don't know if anyone else has similar finding. However, I still have not really fine tune or optimize the setting very much so this is kind of preliminary finding. May be I still need to dial in the set up more though.
One the other hand, may be Koetsu really did not match well with other arms so the difference in sound could be from better matched Air Tight vs poorly matched Koetsu but FR really lifted the performance of Koetsu up to Air Tight level, perhaps.

Well, distortions can be also those which are created in the area above the eyes. When brain is clipping.

Dear Suteetat: It is almost imposible that almost any Q5/amp combination do not like it ( I only heard Q5/Boulder ) but we can ask for more than only " likle it ".

Now, you pointed out a main subject:

++++ " Impressive sound but it does not move me emotionally. " ++++

MUSIC has that unique characteristic that's to wake up our deepest emotions/feelings and if an audio system can't do it is because somewhere something is wrong.

The quest of what I'm trying to expose in your thread is to have that " impressive sound that moves us emotinally. I know we can get it: system low distortions and emotions are not against in between and when the system owns both certainly you are on " heaven " for the first time in your audio life, this IMHO is the Quest.

You are right that system with higher distortions like it us more than other with lower distortions. Why could be this?, not easy to say other that we are accustomed to those higher distortions all our audio life and it's not easy to switch to lower distortions. The point is that sometimes a good low distortion system link helps to lower the system distortions but at the same time could naked other system links that with the new low distortion link does not like what we heard.

Lower distortions is not a synonimous of top quality performance because depends on the audio item design, used parts in the design and excecution of that design, so we have to have the knowledge level and skills ( example: self test proccess. ) to know it that low distortion audio item is a " good " one can " transmit " MUSIC.

To achieve a system with lo low distortions and that " transmit " MUSIC is not only to choose " ingredients " the " best " or the high priced ones but is a proccess that take time and that we have to walk step by step and in that " road " we will find obstacles and you can be sure that sometimes we fall and we have to learn how to wake up again. So the proccess is at the same time a learning one and there are not rules for: plug&play but even that's complex is worth to take the adventure. We have to take the adventure with out misconceptions or pre-judgements even think " out of the box " always help and always help to know that not all what we already learned is necessary useful or true in that adventure.

++++ " Mounting it on FR 64s, I think that the contrast between Koetsu and Air Tight is not as obvious. " ++++

could exist different reasons for that and one is that in any higher distotions audio item differences always are less obvious.

I really appreciated you and Thekong your " concern " to know hwat I'm talking about with out any kind of ironic statements from your part or even some kind of gibe/taunt on what I posted. I say this because there are some gentlemans that everytime I touch the distortion subject in any thread they react in that way.

I always think that the best in our life is always ready to come, so the expectations growing up and the future is full of rewards depending what actions we take today.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.-

Dear Suteetat: Why I discovery the MM/MI alternative, the subwoofers necessity, the removable headshell tonearm designs, the DD alternative, the Digital alternative or that 12" tonearms are worst than 10" ones or the RIAA accuracy importance or the active high gain phono stage alternative against the SUT one or SS alternative against the " only " other tube one or the geometry alternatives we have to set up cartridge/tonearms or that cartrdige/tonearm is a little more important than TT as could be the phonolinepreamp, or, or, ....? ( btw, I have an answer/my answer for each one audio subject name it here. )

THINKING OUT THE BOX WITH OUT LEARNED PREJUDGES AND OPEN MIND TO TEST AND TRY ALMOST NON-ORTHODOX AUDIO PRACTICS.

I can tell you that I was one of the first audiophiles to brought Agon those and other " unique " subjects that as DISTOTIONS almost never were discussed here.

I think that you and me as many other audiophiles/music lovers wants to achieve and experiment the very top/last analog boundaries/frontiers in favor to enrich our MUSIC enjoyment but to get there first step is that mentaly we have to change we have to change our attitude and second step take ACTION on that new adventure to get there.

I'm seriously involved in that adventure for years at that level that even I design/build the audio link I need it if what is in the market can't help me to achieve those analog last frontiers.
I learned that analog has a lot more to shows us and that other than our self the main obstacle is our each one audio system because was builded with way different " needs " : So we have to start to build a new system that can helps to explore those great analog last boundaries that are waiting for waiting for showing each one of us the real analog that only a few can enjoy today.

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1200430667&openflup&10134&4#10134

that's what we are accustomed and if we just follow that AHEE trend we move/walk to no where.

How many years took to each one of us to be " here "? for how many years are we involved not only on music but in audio?: 10-20-40-50 years?. We can't wait that everything can change for the better in two months with system changes and only because Raul say so!!!
We all need time, need to understand and to take the right " road " to find out those analog last frontier.

Have fun.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.

So we had to reject those measurements other than the traditional ones that serve almost for nothing

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Hi Raul,

Thanks for the detailed description of you experience! However, it seems, in the end of the day, your conclusion still only depended on your hearing!

I am not sure how your method of testing could totally eliminate personal preference and be completely neutral. But even if you could, your conclusion “might” not apply to all of us, as most of us (at least I) would certainly have our own preferences.

several years ago when we designed the Essential 3160 " second to none " active high gain Phonolinepreamp…..

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This is exactly one case in point! If I remember correctly, several years ago, when your Essential 3160 was introduced, you did a tour to some well-known members of this forum. I am not sure how many of them bought it finally, but at least some of them decided to keep their original equipment, some way more expensive than the Essential.

I mention more expensive here not because I believe more expensive automatically means better sounding, but just to point out that those forum members could sell their equipment and purchase the Essential, should they wanted to, and still had cash left over in their pockets. So, price was not likely their concern.

Please don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to talk down on the Essential, as I have not auditioned it yet. As a matter of fact, I was following the development with interest. Only that there was no way for me to have a demonstration here in Hong Kong.

So, my point is that, while you believe the Essential is second to none, some forum members think differently! Are they simply wrong, or have less trained ears? I would rather believe they just have different preferences!

I found Soulution/Magico rather unmusical. Impressive sound but it does not move me emotionally

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Hi Suteetat,

I have exactly the same feeling as you regarding the combo, but I don't think this is a matter of less distortion. If any system failed to move you emotionally, then there is something wrong, or in Raul’s term, have distortion. Of course, all systems / equipment have distortion, it is just a matter of which set of distortion is more acceptable to you.

In practice though, I find that electronics with a bit more distortion (say tubes vs solid state, very gross generalization here or digital vs analogue), the one with more distortion actually sounds more pleasing and actually give a bit more illusion of being there (but not neccessarily more accurate in absolute term

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There has been this never ending debate on tubes vs SS, and Raul’s made it clear that he preferred SS.

Yes, tubes definitely have more “measurable” distortion. But, if you are old enough to remember, when SS equipment was first introduced, they already had lower “measurable” distortion than tubes, but they just sounded sterile and hard, compared to the tubes at the time! Of course, SS has improved considerable since then. The same thing actually happened to LP vs CD, the perfect sound forever, remember?

If I remember correctly, the audio industry started out measuring only THD, and when the result fail to correlate with people’s hearing / preference, they start measuring IMD. When that also failed, they found out that human hearing are more affected by odd order harmonics distortion rather than even order harmonics distortion. Till today, we still don't have a set of measurement that could tell us how a system would sound like to us!

So, our search for better sounding equipment goes on, depends on our own hearing and preferences. I would think, whichever system / equipment can move your emotions better, is probably the better system for you!