Forget it Jake, it's Audiophile

[the sound of Tao]

Tim I agree with many things you see as usual but you’re also right in that here it is the use of the word synthesist separated out for those who aim to move away and distort from live music as sonic goals that creates the confusion and a misdirect for me because getting back to the reality what we are all doing is synthetic all the way once we record and modify the signal and change to various states of mechanical and electrical states along the way. I don’t know if the distinction of artificial helps but might.

I suppose I’m just suggesting for us that synthetic is a part and parcel of any design for everyone… but that doesn’t mean that what we synthesise can’t be aimed at being reflective of the original. That is the distinction I was trying to draw and why the word may not be the best for me. That some aim for authenticity within their synthetic approaches.

I agree very much that those putting systems together who don’t use live acoustic music as their sonic compass will more likely end up with a (for us perhaps wrongly) obviously synthetic sounding outcome because the compass is re-directed away from the original experience. So I was also then expanding to perhaps what for me is the bigger truth that all that we do is synthetic in this and we shouldn’t malign the word completely. This just the more encompassing domain of actual process in any recreation. But definitely where we are most completely aligned is that the successful (in my use of the word) synthesists will use live acoustic music as their benchmark and leave the obvious traces of their less natural distortions behind.

 

[tima]

Tim I agree with many things you see but you’re right in that here it is the use of the word synthesist separated out for those who aim to move away and distort from live music like goals for reality that creates the confusion for me because what we are all doing is synthetic all the way once we record and modify the signal and change to various states of mechanical and electrical states along the way. I suppose I’m just suggesting for us that synthetic is a part and parcel for everyone but that doesn’t mean synthetic can’t be reflective of the original. That some aim for authenticity in their synthetic approaches.

I agree very much that those putting systems together who don’t use live acoustic music as their sonic compass will more likely end up with a (for us perhaps wrongly) obviously synthetic sounding outcome because the compass is re-directed away from the original experience. So I was also then expanding to perhaps what for me is the bigger truth that all that we do is synthetic in this and we shouldn’t malign the word completely. This just the more encompassing domain of actual process in any recreation. But definitely where we are most completely aligned is that the successful (in my use of the word) synthesists will use live acoustic music as their benchmark and leave the obvious traces of their less natural distortions behind.

We do see things differently... and that's okay!

I don't malign synthesists or synthetic sound - one's basis of preference is not judged - it just is whatever one chooses ... or is led to, if one is the type to be led. If 'synthetic' suggests man-made, then it's all synthetic, including our notion of reality.

My notion of synthesist is one who puts it (his system and its sound) together for himself without using live acoustic music as the 'form' that guides himself. He may draw from it but is not bound to live music as a map for reproduction. A synthesist may want to enhance what he hears in the live venue - I hear folks who proudly claim their stereo sounds better than what they hear live and have no need to attend concerts. Two different approaches. I find audiophiles fall into one camp or the other.

 

[the sound of Tao]

We do see things differently... and that's okay!

I don't malign synthesists or synthetic sound - one's basis of preference is not judged - it just is whatever one chooses ... or is led to, if one is the type to be led. If 'synthetic' suggests man-made, then it's all synthetic, including our notion of reality.

My notion of synthesist is one who puts it (his system and its sound) together for himself without using live acoustic music as the 'form' that guides himself. He may draw from it but is not bound to live music as a map for reproduction. A synthesist may want to enhance what he hears in the live venue - I hear folks who proudly claim their stereo sounds better than what they hear live and have no need to attend concerts. Two different approaches. I find audiophiles fall into one camp or the other.

I’m still admittedly just not sure that’s the definition of a synthesist though. The essential aim of a synthesist is to bring parts together to understand it as a whole, whether their goal is to make a thing sound like one thing or choose another reference doesn’t change the act of bringing things together to be perceived as a whole.

Besides if you were right and I was wrong Tim then I’d have to go back and mark the last 10 years of my students landscape designs all over again I’m way too old to go there lol.

So… to change the topic, two synthesists walk into a bar and the first one says “I’d swear that cello was more prussian blue when I heard it in my head!”

and the second one says… “seriously Mr Messiaen I have zero clue what you’re talking about… but I’ll have a schooner of whatever you’re having” … in truth always nice to be able to explore a good natured exchange of ideas as we can here.

 

[Karen Sumner]

To me a pure audiophile is a person who collects so much boxes , cables power conditioners and what not, that they start to act as a room diffusor

I believe that person is known as an audiopile.

 

[DasguteOhr]

Bingo, gryphon and Magico or insert other the same speaker type

interesting I heard a wonderful SET recently and not having a lot of experience with anything other than 300B was deeply impressed by its quality especially the feeling you were getting a rendition of the instruments which fitted well with my internal reference of how I think they should sound , which I term “ natural” once again I demur on the electronica but appreciate that Stratocaster, Les Paul, etc have distinctive qualities easily detected by players , which escapes me ….

Listen to this with 300b /2A3 or other set amps, you get goosebumps all over your body, a transistor amp never can't this my opinion.

 

[ddk]

I can see there could be an expectation dichotomy here, at times I think ‘natural sound “ at first could be perceived as low fidelity only on more direct observation realise it is more deeply correct, in an example a live piano when heard is often taken for granted when heard Reproduced correctly there may be an initial reaction to take it for granted in the same breadth so to speak,
I have have been at many “audiophile” events where a “high fidelity” reproduction drew gasps of appreciation only to have me protest that the sound bore little representation of a real piano , pretty “tinkles” may sound flashy, but the complexity of real pianos is far interesting and complex and faceted than that >……

Brian’s comment had nothing to do with any dichotomy Andrew!
High-fidelity also means true to source or reality, fidelity, which is the essence of “natural sound” the term hifi is different and often has a negative connotation.

david

 

[PeterA]

Natural sound and high fidelity sound are often at odds with one another because Natural sound is often low fidelity.

Brian, it does not seem to me that you understand what is meant by Natural Sound. I am also interested in how you define Natural Sound and low fidelity, and in the system examples on which you base this comment.

 

[Atmasphere]

I regard myself as a music lover first and audiophile second. I just want the music, and I don't want to have to worry about how the system is going to portray it; the system exists only in service of music.

As a manufacturer, 'audiophile' means one who is picky about the sound and might need some handholding (sometimes a lot of handholding). Also is more likely to open up the product and see what mods can be done to improve the 'sound', or just to see what's in there. So we've always built our gear assuming it would be viewed from the inside out. Having also built guitar amps, I find guitar players to have a lot in common with 'audiphiles' insofar as picky is concerned (BTW I don't see that as a bad thing- that's what has kept me in business). I've often opened up audio equipment to see how I could improve it- that is how I got started. So clearly I am also talking about myself.

When I see 'audiophile' associated with recordings, I'm suspicious and won't buy 'til I hear it. Usually the sound is excellent/amazing if its an original recording but the performance either ironically hilarious or really forgettable. If a reissue it will do until I find the original. You can tell I'm talking about LPs here- a very audiophile thing to do

 

[microstrip]

Natural Sound refers to what one remembers from hearing acoustic instruments in a concert hall. (...)

Peter,

IMHO this nice sounding definition is ambiguous and useless for any useful high-end discussion outside an extremely small circle of people who share the same preference. Can you tell us who is the "one" in your definition and in what conditions is carried such appreciation?

 

[andromedaaudio]

Can you tell us who is the "one" in your definition

I m afraid wilson audio is not on their list

 

[microstrip]

Fransisco, I’m glad you like the power cable. Being happy with the sound is important. I do not see how one power cable can provide power for all of those components. I see a lot of power cables but you must be talking about the one that is gold and looks different from all the rest. I don’t know if the manufacturer refers to it as an audiophile cable or not. It certainly looks fancy to me from the photograph because of the color and those attached boxes and the very big metal connectors. If it comes in really nice packaging and it costs a lot, I would say it qualifies as being fairly fancy. Congratulations on the audiophile experience and I’m sorry you can’t afford the one power cable. Maybe you could trade your unused gear for it.

The spaghetti shown was just used temporary to listen causally to the Nodost Odin Gold power cable. Even if I could afford it, I would need a lot more ...

I paid $100 for a black plastic Furutech connector many years ago and it came in a cheap paper and plastic box. It was not fancy and ultimately I understood then it did not sound good. The plastic body broke when I over tightened one of the screws slightly.

Do you blame the connector or yourself for it?

If you are referring to our Lamm LL1 preamplifier, I would say yes it is expensive but no it is not fancy. It’s four black boxes in thin casework and they arrive in wooden crates, not a silver flight case. The whole aesthetic is actually pretty industrial and plain with no fancy brochure or marketing campaign. I would not describe it as fancy, but it is very functional and serves its purpose well. I just bought five matched replacement sets of tubes for the preamplifier. I don’t know if they are expensive. Getting them matched from the manufacturer is a choice that the end-user makes. It is not a requirement.

Curious. I see you associate "fancy" mainly with cosmetics. In this hobby I associate the word also with function. A four box preamplifier is as fancy as a one inch thick power cable. Or perhaps using over-specified components for the function.

BTW, fortunately my Lamm's have thick casework and a thick front panel, rounded corners and a nice recessed front panel - considering their price I am happy they are a bit more fancy than the spartan Audio Research SP8 that currently sits close to them. An no, getting the LL1 tubes matched from the manufacturer is a requirement, not an user choice.

You can call the experience of listening to such a preamplifier anything you want. I would describe it as akin to listening to music. There is pride of ownership, but not because it looks fancy on a rack.

If "akin to listening to music " for you means "essentially similar to akin to listening to real music" , sorry for me no sound reproduction can ever approach the complete real experience. But I can imagine you have pride of ownership on such a fantastic device!

 

[PeterA]

Peter,

IMHO this nice sounding definition is ambiguous and useless for any useful high-end discussion outside an extremely small circle of people who share the same preference. Can you tell us who is the "one" in your definition and in what conditions is carried such appreciation?

Fransisico, That is your opinion, and you stated it before. You wrote the term "natural" is useless and meaningless because it is so vague, and it means different things to different people, and is purely subjective, or some such. I can not explain why you do not know the meaning of the term when so many others do. Just listen to an instrument being played on a stage. Perhaps if you read the full comment in my post, the full definition and context, you will better understand what I mean by the phrase, Natural Sound. If not, I do not know what to say.

This is my definition. You are welcome to disagree and consider it useless. I can tell you that the "one" refers to the listener who is doing the listening. He is the same listener who is remembering the sound of acoustic instruments in a concert hall. He is the one determining for himself if the sound of the system seems natural or not.

I do not know what you mean by "conditions is carried such appreciation." I am talking about someone listening to an audio system and comparing what he hears with what he remembers hearing in the concert hall. At the highest level, the experience itself is similar. It is rare that the listener was actually at the same performance as on the recording. I am talking about the sound of what those instruments is like when they are played in a real concert hall. That sound should be remembered, and it can serve as a reference.

This is a case where you really should have quoted the full comment for a better understanding. Here is the full comment from my earlier post:

"Natural Sound refers to what one remembers from hearing acoustic instruments in a concert hall. Natural Sound is both convincing and believable. Real sound can be anything. Distorted sound from my television or telephone is still real sound, but it hardly sounds natural. Any sound coming out of any stereo system is real sound. Some of it is also natural sound.

I think natural sound is a more descriptive term."


Here is what you chose to extract: "Natural Sound refers to what one remembers from hearing acoustic instruments in a concert hall. (...)"

Natural Sound must also be convincing and believable. If it is not both convincing and believable, for whatever reason, it is not Natural Sound. Natural Sound is never low fidelity to the recording or to the real thing, as Bazelio is suggesting. That is something else.

 

[PeterA]

If "akin to listening to music " for you means "essentially similar to akin to listening to real music" , sorry for me no sound reproduction can ever approach the complete real experience.

I am sorry to hear that Fransisco.

 

[microstrip]

I am sorry to hear that Fransisco.

Don't be sorry Peter - perhaps some day I will also become a member of the blindfolded concertgoer association ...

More seriously, please understand that these are just our views about preference in an extremely individual hobby (just quoting a famous book ...).

 

[PeterA]

Don't be sorry Peter - perhaps some day I will also become a member of the blindfolded concertgoer association ...

Is this why you are saying that for you listening to music in your home will never approach the real experience? Are you hoping to see the musicians in front of you with your eyes wide open?

Forget it Tim, it’s audiophile

 

[microstrip]

Fransisico, That is your opinion, and you stated it before. You wrote the term "natural" is useless and meaningless because it is so vague, and it means different things to different people, and is purely subjective, or some such. I can not explain why you do not know the meaning of the term when so many others do.

So many others? You must be joking. We are just a few in this discussion and most of them just evidence how ambiguous the term is - everyone says its sound is natural. As far as I see no one has said that his sound is artificial or "hifi" - non "natural".

Just listen to an instrument being played on a stage. Perhaps if you read the full comment in my post, the full definition and context, you will better understand what I mean by the phrase, Natural Sound. If not, I do not know what to say.

This is my definition. You are welcome to disagree and consider it useless. I can tell you that the "one" refers to the listener who is doing the listening. He is the same listener who is remembering the sound of acoustic instruments in a concert hall. He is the one determining for himself if the sound of the system seems natural or not.

So, according to your words, it is an individual reference. Each of us has his view on what is or not "natural".

I do not know what you mean by "conditions is carried such appreciation." I am talking about someone listening to an audio system and comparing what he hears with what he remembers hearing in the concert hall. At the highest level, the experience itself is similar. It is rare that the listener was actually at the same performance as on the recording. I am talking about the sound of what those instruments is like when they are played in a real concert hall. That sound should be remembered, and it can serve as a reference.

Again, 90% of the reviewers and manufacturers claim they do it. Everyone, even manufacturers say their their reference is the sound or real music. I say - their own perception of real music.

This is a case where you really should have quoted the full comment for a better understanding. Here is the full comment from my earlier post:

"Natural Sound refers to what one remembers from hearing acoustic instruments in a concert hall. Natural Sound is both convincing and believable. Real sound can be anything. Distorted sound from my television or telephone is still real sound, but it hardly sounds natural. Any sound coming out of any stereo system is real sound. Some of it is also natural sound.

I think natural sound is a more descriptive term."


Here is what you chose to extract: "Natural Sound refers to what one remembers from hearing acoustic instruments in a concert hall. (...)"

Natural Sound must also be convincing and believable. If it is not both convincing and believable, for whatever reason, it is not Natural Sound. Natural Sound is never low fidelity to the recording or to the real thing, as Bazelio is suggesting. That is something else.

The whole comment is just a repetition on the mantra of what I quoted. Nothing new. Convincing and believable is just as personnel and vague as "real" or "natural" .

 

[microstrip]

Is this why you are saying that for you listening to music in your home will never approach the real experience? Are you hoping to see the musicians in front of you with your eyes wide open?

No, I am saying sound reproduction is a different kind of experience, and only our imagination and previous experience manage to fill the gaps between reality and sound reproduction.

Forget it Tim, it’s audiophile

 

[tima]

I regard myself as a music lover first and audiophile second. I just want the music, and I don't want to have to worry about how the system is going to portray it; the system exists only in service of music.

As a manufacturer, 'audiophile' means one who is picky about the sound and might need some handholding (sometimes a lot of handholding). Also is more likely to open up the product and see what mods can be done to improve the 'sound', or just to see what's in there. So we've always built our gear assuming it would be viewed from the inside out. Having also built guitar amps, I find guitar players to have a lot in common with 'audiphiles' insofar as picky is concerned (BTW I don't see that as a bad thing- that's what has kept me in business). I've often opened up audio equipment to see how I could improve it- that is how I got started. So clearly I am also talking about myself.

When I see 'audiophile' associated with recordings, I'm suspicious and won't buy 'til I hear it. Usually the sound is excellent/amazing if its an original recording but the performance either ironically hilarious or really forgettable. If a reissue it will do until I find the original. You can tell I'm talking about LPs here- a very audiophile thing to do

Thanks Ralph. Refreshing to read an interesting post speaking to the thread topic.

 

[tima]

So, according to your words, it is an individual reference. Each of us has his view on what is or not "natural".

Again, 90% of the reviewers and manufacturers claim they do it. Everyone, even manufacturers say their their reference is the sound or real music. I say - their own perception of real music.

I'm hesitant to engage with you because you have turned cheeky and negative, and seemingly pointless to no end. I will post only this one response.

Of course each person hears on their own, each person is unique and each person's gauge of what they hear is their's alone. Your responses here appear to offer that information as some sort of retort to what @PeterA is saying but it is obvious they are not.

What is not unique or individually centered is the orchestra on stage before us. We share the same object of our hearing. The product of that experience repeated multiple times is what each of us learns from listening to live acoustic music. Whether my product is different from yours is irrelevant, although we are not so physiologically different that there wil be radical divergence. The naturalist brings what he learns to the creation and assessment of his system of reproduction.

Side note: Using the term 'real music' suggests there is 'unreal music' or artificial music. Speaking like that introduces confusion. The terminology 'live acoustic music' is clear and does not introduce confusion - when live musicians perform in front of a live audience using acoustic musical instruments, the audience experiences live acoustic music. Listening to a stereo is not experiencing 'artificial music' it is listening to music reproduced by a stereo.

 

[Karen Sumner]

I regard myself as a music lover first and audiophile second. I just want the music, and I don't want to have to worry about how the system is going to portray it; the system exists only in service of music.

As a manufacturer, 'audiophile' means one who is picky about the sound and might need some handholding (sometimes a lot of handholding). Also is more likely to open up the product and see what mods can be done to improve the 'sound', or just to see what's in there. So we've always built our gear assuming it would be viewed from the inside out. Having also built guitar amps, I find guitar players to have a lot in common with 'audiphiles' insofar as picky is concerned (BTW I don't see that as a bad thing- that's what has kept me in business). I've often opened up audio equipment to see how I could improve it- that is how I got started. So clearly I am also talking about myself.

When I see 'audiophile' associated with recordings, I'm suspicious and won't buy 'til I hear it. Usually the sound is excellent/amazing if its an original recording but the performance either ironically hilarious or really forgettable. If a reissue it will do until I find the original. You can tell I'm talking about LPs here- a very audiophile thing to do

What we hear and what we seek in a hi fi system relates directly to our own experiences with music, and because we can't actually recreate live music through a hi fi system, and people have different levels of exposure to music, everybody brings their own perspective about what is important to them. To summarize this a bit more simply as it applies to the concept of what is hi fi and what is natural sound, I would say that if you catch yourself listening to more music rather than constantly scratching your hi fi "itch", you have a system that sounds natural to you. Getting a system to that point with as few detours as possible is challenging, however, given the tools with which we have to work.

An important tool in our arsenal is music media. One of the things we could do to make this hobby more inclusive is to reduce the amount of media prejudice that many of us have. I have a pretty sizable collection of original versions of LPs from such labels as EMI, RCA Shaded Dog, London-DECCA, Mercury, Nonesuch, Harmonia Mundi, BIS, DG, Verve, and Prestige. They bring me great pleasure every time I hear them, but these treasures are not widely accessible, and the repressing of some of these are clearly not as good as the originals. Some of this is due perhaps to the fact that the tapes from which the recordings are remastered have aged and are no longer in very good shape, and some of this is due to the fact that the remastering perspective was to make the recordings "pop" for people who expect that kind of stimulation. As Atmosphere expressed, there are also some balanced and satisfying examples of remastered originals, but it is a really spotty selection.

I am sure that many of you subscribe to Gramophone. Every month they review dozens of new classical performances, and almost without exception the performances and recording quality are exemplary, particularly on labels like DECCA and DG which for whatever reason have managed to figure out how to record and master digital music in a way that is very appealing to many live music listeners. There is an almost overwhelming flood of new and exciting performances by new artists that are being produced every month, and the music itself is exciting, fresh, riveting, and accessible via CDs (relatively expensive unit cost) or streaming (low unit cost, but relatively expensive infrastructure).

Accessibility and exposure to new music and the encouragement to explore different types of music on any type of playback system are important elixirs for the high-end audio cause.

. . . so much music, so little time . . .