All that is wrong with "HiFi"

This is a subject that has driven me crazy, especially since the obsessive drive for more "detail" has risen to insane proportions. But the departure from "musically correct" reproduction didn't begin there.

No. It actually began with the use of high feedback in the pursuit of vanishingly low harmonic distortion. This inturn led to the focus of designing solely by numbers as a dominating criteria instead of listening to what truly sounds good, and what doesn't. This has proven to be a mistake time and time again, but few have seemed to learn from it.

What I hear when I listen to the majority of modern hifi components and systems is a bright, hard and fatiguing presentation, often bordering on severe stridency while being harmonically distorted and/or threadbare, and noticeably lacking in musically engaging qualities. What you end up with is an over-hyped sonic microscope that is overly detailed and brutally revealing of everything that is wrong with the recording.

The problem compounding this is that nearly all of the so-called hifi components that I have heard over the last 40 years clearly displays one or more of the above traits to the level of distraction, especially since the majority of them often possess distorted and/or unrefined high frequencies. You may not be able to hear it as well as I do, but I am really sensitive to it.

To sum up this rant, I would like to say that I am looking to form a conglomerate of audio-oriented manufacturing associates with the goal of producing more musically correct components at reasonable prices.

 

This isn't a criticism that can be applied to the likes of Zu Audio speakers that accomplish a really nice balance of warmth, musicality, natural detail. No laser focus or bleached tonality.

 

This isn't a criticism that can be applied to the likes of Zu Audio speakers that accomplish a really nice balance of warmth, musicality, natural detail. No laser focus or bleached tonality.

I am glad that you are happy with them.

 

No problems here. Could live with Harbeth/Luxman combination for ever more or the multiple variations on that theme.

 

Not sure what you are listening to but my systems sound fantastic and I enjoy them immensely. Love my SPL, LessLoss DAC, Gold Note, Sonner Legato Unum's and Thorens TT. So sad for you.

 

Not sure what you are listening to but my systems sound fantastic and I enjoy them immensely. Love my SPL, LessLoss DAC, Gold Note, Sonner Legato Unum's and Thorens TT. So sad for you.

What is sad for all of us is the time and money we have to waste and spend (in this misguided industry) order to build acceptable sounding systems.

 

What is sad for all of us is the time and money we have to waste and spend (in this misguided industry) order to build acceptable sounding systems.

Took me no time at all. Worked with 2 great dealers build both my systems. You just seem like a grumpy person and this is based on your rants in several threads.

 

Took me no time at all. Worked with 2 great dealers build both my systems. You just seem like a grumpy person and this is based on your rants in several threads. I am out on you.

I once had a good dealer that bent over backwards to take care of his customers. But such a person is exceedingly hard to find these days.

Don't let my unique opinions and personality put you off too much. Many say that I am more likeable in person.

 

This is a subject that has driven me crazy, especially since the obsessive drive for more "detail" has risen to insane proportions. But the departure from "musically correct" reproduction didn't begin there.

No. It actually began with the use of high feedback in the pursuit of vanishingly low harmonic distortion. This inturn led to the focus of designing solely by numbers as a dominating criteria instead of listening to what truly sounds good, and what doesn't. This has proven to be a mistake time and time again, but few have seemed to learn from it.

What I hear when I listen to the majority of modern hifi components and systems is a bright, hard and fatiguing presentation, often bordering on severe stridency while being harmonically distorted and/or threadbare, and noticeably lacking in musically engaging qualities. What you end up with is an over-hyped sonic microscope that is overly detailed and brutally revealing of everything that is wrong with the recording.

The problem compounding this is that nearly all of the so-called hifi components that I have heard over the last 40 years clearly displays one or more of the above traits to the level of distraction, especially since the majority of them often possess distorted and/or unrefined high frequencies. You may not be able to hear it as well as I do, but I am really sensitive to it.

To sum up this rant, I would like to say that I am looking to form a conglomerate of audio-oriented manufacturing associates with the goal of producing more musically correct components at reasonable prices.

Many years ago, in the early 90s, I went to a dealer in Hudson Valley (Mount Kisco) who had a pair of the strangest looking loudspeakers I had ever seen. I had no idea what they were, but he played me an LP on them. I was gobsmacked. They didn't sound like any of the usual hyper bright moving coil multi-driver speakers I had heard. They sounded like nothing I had heard. Of course, I promptly figured out a way to buy a pair of them. The speaker in question of course was the Quad 63. In many ways it solved the problem of producing sound pressures in a room from input voltages that is inherently linear, and still remains amongst the lowest distortion truly phase linear speakers you can buy -- 60+ years after Peter Walker first started working on the concept (hence the moniker "63", which dates to his earliest notebooks).

My most recent speaker acquisition is many times the size of a Quad 63, and many times its price: the Soundlab G9-7c, which is over 9 feet tall and 4 feet wide. It has confirmed for me that the surest way to get off the hifi upgrade treadmill is to invest in musically accurate loudspeakers. The rest almost doesn't matter. Of course, as someone who had just graduated with his PhD in AI in the early 1990s, I could not afford the then Soundlab A3 that Gordon Holt raved about in an early Stereophile review. Those days, AI researchers were not paid 7 figure salaries, as they are now in the Bay Area! No one knew what to do with us! But, times have changed, and my bank balance certainly has! Hence, my ability to afford the G9-7c's.

I still have an original Quad ESL (57), which I listen to every morning. No, it's not as awe inspiring as my G9-7c's, which drops you into the powerful thundering sound of a symphony orchestra, but in its own charming way, the 57s still get the gestalt of the music right that defeats almost every other multi-driver dynamic loudspeaker that seem to try to dot all the i's and cross all the t's, but somewhere in the morass of getting all the detail right, the music making is lost.

Dealers who teach you about good products are rare and worth finding out, but it's more luck than anything else in finding them. It's usually the small shops, rather than the big glitzy ones, where you find the true gems.

 

I think the OP Soundmann is throwing a wild and inciteful text. Its not true. Its a perception by the OP, but does not reflect modern audio.
While its true there are poorly set up stereo. And some not so great equipment. And poor pairings of equipment. That does not by parts class high power amps connected to.speakers wirh heroic crossovers to a level as described by the OP. I have heard many that are beautiful. Or at least impressive and I see why the owner is satisfied.

That does not mean I gravitate towards that type of playback for my system. Obviously the OP is looking to create a different sound in his environment. But for the OP to so disparage a topology he does not care for is misguided and appears to be seeking similar trolling validation.

 

Being sensitive to it or not, apparently, you are listening to the wrong system(s).

Tom

 

If only you guys knew how hard it is to find non-fatiguing and musically correct components at the budget level!

 

Well, this particular post appears to have gone over like a lead balloon.

 

Not at all,

I for one laud the post. Lets go as I am all about this landscape being the future.

I know of three that fit the brief.

Kindest regards,G.

 

This is a subject that has driven me crazy, especially since the obsessive drive for more "detail" has risen to insane proportions. But the departure from "musically correct" reproduction didn't begin there.

What I hear when I listen to the majority of modern hifi components and systems is a bright, hard and fatiguing presentation, often bordering on severe stridency while being harmonically distorted and/or threadbare, and noticeably lacking in musically engaging qualities. What you end up with is an over-hyped sonic microscope that is overly detailed and brutally revealing of everything that is wrong with the recording.

I personally don't significantly disagree with you. But there is no objective right or wrong here.

I personally do not cotton to the sound you are describing. But for audiophiles for whom detail and extension at the frequency extremes are their personal sonic cues which most directly remind them of the sound of live music it is a perfectly legitimate subjective sonic preference.

 

It seems to me that there are too many of us that are always actively looking for obscure and expensive ways to tinker with our systems in the vain hope of squeezing a miniscule improvement in their perception of their system's sound quality.

Cables seem to be an obsession for many and vast and crazy sums are paid for these simple though important items. One guy is talking about spending a 5 figure sum on changing his supply of AC power to his system. These sums of money are likely better spent of improving main speakers, amps, etc of the system as these are more likely to make a real improvement in the sound that reaches our ears. Or spend it on concert tickets and listen to real music instruments rather than to vibrating paper cones that try to imitate music instruments!

 

If only you guys knew how hard it is to find non-fatiguing and musically correct components at the budget level!

What is your budget?

 

What is sad for all of us is the time and money we have to waste and spend (in this misguided industry) order to build acceptable sounding systems.

I found a dealer and heard his system presentation. I had never heard that from any other hi-fi system, only live music. It gave me a new target because I realized right then and there that it was achievable. The dealer knew how to get that sound and what components to choose. I have not looked back.

Great opening thread. I know exactly where you’re coming from.

 

No. It actually began with the use of high feedback in the pursuit of vanishingly low harmonic distortion. This inturn led to the focus of designing solely by numbers as a dominating criteria instead of listening to what truly sounds good, and what doesn't. This has proven to be a mistake time and time again, but few have seemed to learn from it.

damn you hit the nail on the head!, It is not produced by listening and refining listening session after session, but by using increasingly rigorous schemes and measures. (I often wondered whether they listened or not). They massively use feedback, all their numbers go back to the right place, unfortunately not the music...
Currently this trend has remained but it has been refined especially on the solid state, they have understood that feedback is harmful, now they use it locally (it always sucks), but don't use it at all, if you can! They can't do it... they say it is positive to listening, it puts their everything in the right place... the music is still somewhere else.

 

What is your budget?

Under $1K a component these days. Fortunately, the majority of the components in my systems were purchased when I had the money to do so.