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Why does my laptop annoy me less than my rig?

I listen to a lot of music from the two itty bitty speakers in my PowerBook G4. And it gives me a lot of pleasure, even though it's distorted, there's no bass, and I'm missing most of the detail. Same goes for my clock radio. I like to wake up to rap. For some reason, it's amusing to greet the day with rhymed obscenities distorted and enclosed in a little piece of plastic. I also wake up to classical, and sometimes spend half an hour listening to a concerto through the clock radio before taking a shower.

Other times, of course, I listen to my main system. It's not a great system. It's called "midfi purgatory" for a reason: purgatory isn't forever, and I'm determined to buy and tweak my way into paradise. But it's still cost me a fair chunk of cash. Retail value is, um, let's see... close to $5K with stands and cables included. My clock radio was $10. So I could have bought 500 clock radios for the price of my system. (Thank God -- or Ebay -- I didn't pay retail!) And my system isn't bad for the money in any particular dimension of evaluation. It's very dynamic, bass is crisp, and pianos, as well as narrators, sound real. Certainly in any way of comparing audio system, my rig whips my clock radio (and laptop) by a ridiculous margin.

And yet... My clock radio never annoys me. Neither does my laptop. My system annoys the hell out of me! Strings can be thin and metallic, complex passages get muddled, cabinets resonate at certain frequencies if the volume is up, most music is fatiguing when played at realistic levels, and so on. I'm trying different things, of course, room treatment, swapping components, and so on. And the annoyance gets a little better, but it's still there.

I have a theory. The theory is that the clock radio is so far from realism, we just don't expect it. So there's no annoyance factor in its falling short of realism. But my system is just close enough that we really notice what's missing... that gap between our simulated acoustic instruments and those very instruments, live. Hence, the annoyance.

Analogy: HDTV on a big plasma or LCD is really cool. But I notice moving edges, and they really annoy me. In fact, in all such systems, I always notice something that isn't quite right and annoys me. The picture is much closer to just looking with the naked eye than a standard TV set is. And yet, standard TV sets don't annoy me for their lack of realism. I take them for what they are. Automatically.

I'm not about to give up on getting out of purgatory. But I wonder if my annoyance is an inevitable result of getting closer, but not quite arriving, at auditory realism. Any thoughts?
qualia8
baroque_lover
102 posts
 
This is disturbing; my advice to you would be to get back to basics. Purchase something that’s not too expensive that you can just listen to music on and not have to worry about the other variables.

Suggested system...

Pair of two-way floor-stander (Totem Staff, Arro, etc.)
Integrated (Sim I-5, MF, Plinius, etc.)
Source (Arcam, Jolida)

There has been a disconnection with you and the music, you care more about you’re gear than you do the music. There are effective ways to treat you’re room and it does help, but when you reach a point where the obsessive compulsiveness of you’re gear reaches the point where it’s not even about the music, you need to rearrange your priorities.
qualia8 OP
49 posts
 
Yeah, I am OCD. Big time! It's not just audio. Whatever I get into -- golf, stocks, chess, piano, running -- I get *way* into it. I've got mixed feelings about it, because I know it's borderline crazy, but it's how I got where I am, career-wise. I teach philosophy and you have to be OCD to keep thinking through questions where everyone else gets bored and moves on.

But I like the process of making things better, even if I'm frustrated throughout.

My only problem is that sometimes the OCD gets out of hand and I will spend a week doing nothing but one activity -- say, chess -- and will realize only a week later that all that time has passed and I've missed appointments, haven't answered emails, etc. Also, not all women are cool with it...

;-)
dred
21 posts
 
I have the same problem and after going through several amps, preamps, and speakers I am becoming convinced that the problem lies in the software.

If all I listened to was Diana Krall and similar great recordings I would be thrilled. But,95% of my favorites including easy listening and classic rock sound hard and bright compared to the same music played on a car stereo or an old vintage vinyl system.

Its hard to keep that old system running and reliable even if you have room for 2 or 3 systems.

Some of the tube components I have tried were even worse in the upper midrange.

Unfortunately, I have not found the answer, but I am open to suggestions.

Ed
phd
1,285 posts
 
Qualia8, I hope you don't believe that by my above post I'm promoting a Bose radio, far from it, I was being a bit sarcastic. I've never owned a Bose product however I was more or less agreeing with you & understand the concept of your comparison of a table top radio which is accepted as is, to your main rig which falls on more critical ears.

Dred, I too have gone through preamps & power amps trying to get a desired sound. It is also true that all recordings are not created equal. To switch in different components that do well with soft music & then change to components that will do rock is not practical. My solution was to use a quality preamp with tone controls, they are used sparingly. I can now play any music I want & enjoy it by adjusting the tone with my remote from my seat. Maybe not the ultimate audiophile solution but a practical one. I still have my mega-buck preamp as well but it has been put up in my closet for the time being.
qualia8 OP
49 posts
 
Dred: I have had the same experience with classic rock. I did most of my classic rock listening on my college roomate's cheap vintage setup, and it sounded great. We actually did what college roomates do and started a band doing classic rock covers. We both had massive Fender tube amps for our instruments, and naturally, that sounded great when reproduced through a tube amp. Distortion didn't really detract. It was just more of the same.

But now that I've got a really accurate setup, my classic rock stuff actually sounds worse: sterile and emotionally detached. (Current recordings by classic rock artists excepted. They sound pretty good, but still the magic is typically gone from the music. The best classic rock was made decades ago.)

And classical music recorded in the 80's seems to be thin as well. My 60's recordings are much better. Yes, there is only so much we can do on the reproduction end. A lot of the problems are on the recording end. And a versatile system, one where I could switch systems, or at least have tone controls (yikes!) would go a long way towards solving the problem.
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