wht is the difference between good and bad sound ?

Mr Tennis, I will answer your question as soon as you provide me with a concise definition of your terms. Please define 'good sound' and 'bad sound'. When I understand this I will have a basis for reaching a conclusion about what differences, if any, may exist.

hi newbee once i have defined the terms good and bad sound, the difference will be apparent to me.

you are asking me to answer my own question.

its obvious that such a question is philosophical and has no answer.

however, there are 3 answers to this question.

1) pure subjectivity as previously stated--an attiude toward the sound of a stereo system. if favorable, the sound is good, if unfavorable, bad sound.

this does not indicate what good/bad sound is because there would be disagreements as to the evaluation of a stereo system, and the same listener may alter his/her attitude toward the same stereo system over time

2) good and bad sound relate to intrinsic qualities of the sound a stereo system produces. the problem here is to specify what criteria conote good/bad sound ?

has anybody so far specified criteria for good sound ?

standards could be presented, but there may be more than one set of valid standards, so which prevails ?

here lies the essential problem, namely that inherently good sound is not an absolute state.

3) the affect of the sound of the stereo system upon the listener. thus the actual sound of the stereo system is not a factor but rather how a person reacts to it. surely we all have some awareness of what "good" is , so applying the concept of good, certain behaviors, physiological states and physiological states would determine whether a stereo system has good sound or bad sound. of course, how does one distinguish the affect of the music from the affect of the stereo ?

one would have to select sources which would be neutral as to content with respect to lyrics.

the probelm with this concept is the possibility that the same stereo system could produce inconsistent behavior bewteen listeners and among listeners over time.

thus one comes to the conclusion that there is no definitive answer to your question but rather the subjective state of personal judgment and opinion.

The difference between good and bad sound is mainly in the skill or luck of the person putting the system together. Neither the Toyota nor the Merc are bad cars, but you can drive a bad Toyota or a bad Merc. Of course there is gear that will always give bad sound, but it is rare. For me bad sound becomes a dense wall of sound where I cannot hear into it in arder to distinguish the sounds of different instruments and how they are being played, where I cannot hear the different textures each instrument possesses. This can happen with expensive gear more frequently that inexpensive gear can sound good, but both can sound good and both can sound bad. As I say the skilled or lucky audiophile can make good sound with a small budget, but this is not to say that he can make as good a sound with a bigger budget. The dense wall of sound effect occurs IMO when the brain cannot decode what it hears, ie the distortions are too unnatural or too numerous for the brain to make sense of them. Good sound can be distorted too, but if the brain can make sense of what it hears then it matters a lot less. Real music in real rooms is distorted too, but in a way where our brains have learned to cope.

hi redkiwi:

suppose someone likes what you call bad sound, either a) because someone else's brain can hear thru the dense wall of sound or b) likes the sound that you describe as bad sound.

in that case we are back to square one, which is one man's bad sound is another's good sound.

now back to the toyota. if a toyota is not a bad car, how can there be a bad toyota. doi you mean a toyota that needs repair frequently , or something else ??

Within the scope of subjective preferences, there are still qualities that could be universally accepted as bad. For instance, one could argue that odd order and IM distortion are bad although the significant amounts of even order distortion that tube equipment adds might be subjectively desirable. Jitter is always bad because there's no form of jitter that is musically satisfying. Huge, peaky resonances are also bad although small resonances are unavoidable and can be largely ignored.

I think the subjective aspect of Audio enters because it is impossible to acheive perfection. There's no such thing as a perfect listening room or perfect components. Different people balance the imperfect elements in ways that minimize the imperfections based on their own experiences, auditory systems and musical preferences.

Adding to the subjective nature of this persuit, recordings are made without any kind of absolute reference for the type of playback system that will be used. The recording engineer tries to balance the imperfections of his equipment, acoustics and artistic intent with what he thinks the typical system will reproduce.