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.

 

I was talking to a friend the other day who is not involved much with Audio forums, but he does have a great deal of knowledge and experience in the hobby. He told me that he thinks the problems with hi-fi are increasingly inefficient speakers and streaming. In other words, the direction in which we seem to be heading.

I think I agree on streaming. There are a lot of noise issues I had to get through on streaming before I was happy.

 

Streaming can be great, BUT it requires the same sort of attention to all details as listneing to music in high quality using Vinyl.

I just completed my dual Xeon music server, basically it does nothing other than push some zeroes and ones to the DAC, but boy it does so in a great way.

I agree on the low efficiency speakers....those are not great for good sound, at ETF last week the best system I heard was a 115 (or so) dB/W/m efficient setup powered by 1.2Watt of triode. The front end still needs to be good but it's the way to go IMHO.

 

<snip> It sounds like you disagree with his opinion. <snip>

I do. Just based upon my own experience. Honestly, a few years ago? I never thought this would be the case but here we are.

Tom

 

I believe this Le Bon quote illustrates the case with MQA.

Early on, some, not all, mastering engineers (many big names were supportive) were worried about MQA taking away their fees for mastering for different formats so they were natural MQA enemies. As well, some competing and far less successful codec designers on the then Computer Audiophile were jealous. This formed an unholy alliance that really added a lot of confusion, misinformation, and to be fair some elements of truth on some things and they created a tidal wave (no pun intended ) of ill will toward MQA. And honestly I feel that Chris Connaker knew his website was benefitting from the MQA religious war on traffic as well so moderation was not neutral. I did my best to counter some of the criticism of MQA on that forum but I was subject to endless personal attacks and was banned twice.

On the other hand, you had well-regarded technical people at the major labels who approved it for distribution. You also had two very good guys in Robert Harley and John Atkinson whjo listened to the sonics and found it to be an improvement. Separately Peter McGrath started using it on his recordings and found it valuable.

One can certainly disagree on the authentication process of MQA but the fact is MQA never implemented any evil digital rights management. And it was clearly a mistake for MQA to not explain at the launch that the process was audibly lossless and not purely lossless.

It’s like our national politics in many ways. Things and people are deemed “controversial” but when you dig into the actual facts, you find there is a genuine contrarian opinion with merits to its argument.

I can only urge members here to have an honest listen and decide for themselves.

If you don’t like It then definitely check out Qobuz. I love that service for streaming and can highly recommend the sound quality.

Lee the truth is the MQA fight was Mans Rullgard a ARM chip designer, Archimago an MD in psychiatry, Mitch Barnett a software engineer and me a CPA with a tax practice who was around when digital audio was a theory. We convinced people all aspects of MQA are bad.

You have got to stop spreading false information.

 

I think I agree on streaming. There are a lot of noise issues I had to get through on streaming before I was happy.

I got rid of noise issues by running my streamer off of a battery and using optical out to my reclocker…totally isolates the streamer from the rest of the system.

 

I got rid of noise issues by running my streamer off of a battery and using optical out to my reclocker…totally isolates the streamer from the rest of the system.

I solved it with an Ansuz ethernet switch, better cables, a Sortz noise control device on the router and the router plugged into a Shunyata PS8 power conditioner with Defender module.

 

View attachment 139843...

now we're talking !
I do prefer Red Breast, either 12 or 15.........

 

Great hifi doesn’t need to be expensive but you need to hear it before you realize what you’re missing. One of my lucky breaks 30+ years ago was listening to a pair of Quad ESL-63s at my local dealer. I had no idea speakers like that existed. The other was subscribing to a whole year of the Pittsburgh Symphony as a grad student in the mid 1980s for the equivalent of $5 per concert (student rate) that got me seated in the first 5 rows. Unforgettable experience of listening to great soloists of the caliber of Jessye Norman with her unforgettable performance of Richard Strauss’ Last Four Songs — I didn’t know a human voice could have such a dynamic range unamplified — and hearing Mahler performed with a full piece orchestra and chorus. That sort of early experience shaped a lot of my later choices.

 

I commented up thread about a friend telling me the two biggest issues with HiFi now are the proliferation of speakers demanding ever increasing amounts of power, and the adoption of streaming as the new format. This is interesting because I have also noticed that in the past year or so, members have started to immediately post official YouTube streaming videos of songs to use as references against which to judge system videos posted by members.

People point to the streamed video as the reference. It is what a recording is "supposed" to sound like. What happened to one's memory of the sound of live music? Is a digital stream the new reference? It seems to be for some.

In my opinion, this is one of the problems with HiFi today. An artificial construction of sounds is being used as a guide to judge system quality. It has blunted the discussion of system videos and moved the focus away from the sound of music towards a digital construct.

 

I commented up thread about a friend telling me the two biggest issues with HiFi now are the proliferation of speakers demanding ever increasing amounts of power, and the adoption of streaming as the new format. This is interesting because I have also noticed that in the past year or so, members have started to immediately post official YouTube streaming videos of songs to use as references against which to judge system videos posted by members.

People point to the streamed video as the reference. It is what a recording is "supposed" to sound like. What happened to one's memory of the sound of live music? Is a digital stream the new reference? It seems to be for some.

In my opinion, this is one of the problems with HiFi today. An artificial construction of sounds is being used as a guide to judge system quality. It has blunted the discussion of system videos and moved the focus away from the sound of music towards a digital construct.

Peter, you are conflating things. You cannot really compare a typical studio recording with live music. There is a lot of processing, addition of reverb, doubling of voices etc. etc. etc. that would not occur with, say, a good classical recording of a string quartet or solo piano.

So, for something like Peggy Lee, which is a manipulated studio recording, a comparison with the recording itself is a perfectly valid approach. Obviously this is limited as we can't ever really know what the recording itself is like but probably with good headphone playback is closer than most.

Perhaps another challenge you can try is to take the sound directly off your phonostage and record this onto a good 24/192 digital recording or R2R tape recording and then compare that through good headphones to the recording of your system through the speakers. You can then compare this with a good digital mastering on cd or 24/96 streaming (Qobuz etc.) to see if you have a big deviation from the analog system or from the speakers.

BAsed on your repost of the Peggy Lee song, the old TT/cart seemed to capture more of the high frequency details that are actually important on that song. Her voice projects more as well, which would be expected from what I have heard of other formats of the same song.

 

You tube streaming is great .
Put a great DAC / WADAX ( in the signal path ) and here you go , unlimited music choice .
About 1 in ten is a very good recording , luckily you don t have to discover it after you have bought the CD.
I have compared many physical CDs with their YT equivalent.

(May be i m just too deaf which is another possibility)

 

What is wrong with HIFI is that people are constantly moaning about SQ instead of enjoying the "imperfect " reproduction

 

What is wrong with HIFI is that people are constantly moaning about SQ instead of enjoying the "imperfect " reproduction

Most of my music is classical and is unamplified at the live performance. To me live performances are my gold standard for sound quality.

Recordings very in sound quality and are offered in different formats: tape, LP, CD/SACD, downloads, streaming, radio, ect. I appreciate each format for what it is and realize the limitations within each format.

Just my opinions.

 

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.

You just described sound of Krell/ WATT/Puppy popular setups of the 90s and early 2000s.

 

You just described sound of Krell/ WATT/Puppy popular setups of the 90s and early 2000s.

Well, it does seem to serve for a model of it. People seem to latch on to whatever sonic signature is popular, and I have seen these Wilsons mentioned time and again ad nauseam as if it was a holy grail.

 

I got rid of noise issues by running my streamer off of a battery and using optical out to my reclocker…totally isolates the streamer from the rest of the system.

Explain totally battery powered?
curious

 

Well, it does seem to serve for a model of it. People seem to latch on to whatever sonic signature is popular, and I have seen these Wilsons mentioned time and again ad nauseam as if it was a holy grail.

well I must be one of those old Krell guys and you need to add old Maggie’s too

 

Explain totally battery powered?
curious

As in a 50000mAH battery….runs about 2 days before I need to plug it in to charge.

 

As in a 50000mAH battery….runs about 2 days before I need to plug it in to charge.

Hard to argue with your approach.

 

As in a 50000mAH battery….runs about 2 days before I need to plug it in to charge.

What do you think of the 'color'of the sound using batteries? i found it usually sounds 'gray', yet it depends on what battery... most batteries are slow to deliver power, not all batteries are made equal and all that ;-)