All that is wrong with "HiFi"

[DasguteOhr]

Interesting demonstration, but not very practical for home use! Similar systems have been constructed by many folks. I recall an article in The NY Times several decades ago when a retired architect built a custom house in Connecticut using a similar wave field concept, where music would emerge from many small loudspeakers embedded in the ceiling arranged in a particular way that simulated an actual concert hall. I think the issue with a lot of these simulations is that you are superimposing two acoustics: the original venue ambience and that imposed by your listening room at home. It's the same issue with omnidirectional systems that have been developed by many manufacturers over the years (Bose 901, MBL, et al.). The basic principle is that you avoid beaming the sound from a point source at the listener in the standard two-channel mode, and instead beam it over a wide area that contains a large percentage of reverberant sound. Amar Gopal Bose was an MIT professor who got interested in the science of hifi in the early 1960s, and was shocked to see that normal loudspeakers sounded nothing like what he heard in the concert hall where the Boston Symphony performed. He did some measurements and found that at the listener, a large proportion of the sound was reverberant from the countless number of reflections that happen in the hall. So, the Bose 901 tried to mimic that by arranging to have most of the drivers point at the back wall, and bounce the sound off, and only one driver point at the listener in the front. It's sort of works, except when you measure it by conventional means, the frequency response is pretty awful. Of course, the inserted equalizer is even worse made of cheap parts.

Peter Walker who designed the Quad electrostatics dismissed all such attempts at mimicking the reverberant sound field, arguing in a classic article in Hi Fi News that the Queen sits in a box at the Royal Albert Hall, and largely does not hear much reverberant sound. He also said if you covered the back of an audience member with a sound absorbing material, he doubted there would be much sonic difference. In general, he did not believe in multichannel sound reproduction, viewing it as a gimmick. At the end, despite the valiant attempts by Sony and Philips to market multichannel DSD, it seemed to never get much attention in the market. I think the problem is that you end up superimposing two acoustics, and it doesn't really work. It''s also far more difficult to get the multichannel system to work with various room correction procedures (e.g., Lyngdorf's RoomPerfect, Dolby processing etc.).

Give 3D sound technology a few more years and then there will be ready-made elements that can be installed in living rooms. It will sound much better and will become established, probably first in home cinema systems and then replace stereo. At first everything will be laughed at, but then everyone will want it. That's always the case with progress.

iosono/ barco is the market leader and already offers complete systems, e.g. here the prosessor home cinema.

 

[morricab]

Hmm.. I can think of two fundamental advances since the WE era, addressing the problem of low distortion: Peter Walker’s Quad 57 and 63s, Paul Klipsch’s folded horn. The 63 was phase linear but not capable of high volumes, although perfectly fine in small to medium sized rooms. The Klipschorn is not phase linear and its response is a bit ragged by modern standards, but it offered very low distortion and high decibels from tiny tube amplifiers. 99.99% of modern audiophile speakers are just cones in a fancy box. Unfortunately the high end audio world has lost its original geniuses like Walker and Klipsch, and now we have largely marketing types but no genuine new science. So, we continue to get boxes with cones. Nothing new here.

Quads cannot play at realistic volumes without a lot of distortion…it takes very large electrostats to do that. Klipschorns innovation was to make a full horn speaker fit in a room but it doesn’t innovate sound quality…it’s simply not as good sounding.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Give 3D sound technology a few more years and then there will be ready-made elements that can be installed in living rooms. It will sound much better and will become established, probably first in home cinema systems and then replace stereo. At first everything will be laughed at, but then everyone will want it. That's always the case with progress.

iosono/ barco is the market leader and already offers complete systems, e.g. here the prosessor home cinema.

"This product is no longer available." And no obvious replacement.

 

[Lee]

I wonder if optimized setup should be discussed here. Often sub-optimal setups lack the naturalness that can be achieved from components that otherwise may tend to sound overly detailed.

I would argue that most current hifi systems are not optimized in setup. It is also very true at the dozens of trade shows I have attended since the 90s. And trade shows often create that first impression of what the industry offers.

 

[PeterA]

I wonder if optimized setup should be discussed here. Often sub-optimal setups lack the naturalness that can be achieved from components that otherwise may tend to sound overly detailed.

I would argue that most current hifi systems are not optimized in setup. It is also very true at the dozens of trade shows I have attended since the 90s. And trade shows often create that first impression of what the industry offers.

I learned this lesson with my old system. My Magico Q3 speakers were set up according to Magico’s recommendation and in a kind of conventional orientation towards the listener.

The presentation was very resolved and full of detail, but it was a little bit thin and a little bit bright. I solicited advice from a friend who encouraged me to experiment with re-orienting the speakers to face straight ahead. he told me it would be very difficult to get them in the right spot without a lot of experimentation, but once I found the right location, the presentation would be much more natural than I had been hearing. The toed-in orientation is easy and relatively quick to set up, and it is a generally good compromise. The straight ahead orientation is very time consuming, but once found, sounds better, at least to some listeners, me included.

He was completely right. So I would argue that set up has a lot to do with the quality of the presentation, and that there has also not been much or any progress in the industry in terms of improving the gear for a better sense of realism or naturalness in the presentation from our favorite recordings. The advances seem to be in the area of size (for speakers), and convenience and access for digital.

We now have lower distortion, more detail, and much much higher prices. Emotional connection to the music does not seem to have progressed much.

 

[andromedaaudio]

Nothing wrong with Hifi you just have to make the right choices.
Plenty of good products available

 

[Phantom-Audio]

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 must concur with nearly every point made here. The industry, by and large, seems to be overly fixated on numbers and plagued by an unreasonable pricing structure.

 

[DasguteOhr]

"This product is no longer available." And no obvious replacement.

OK. Apparently the company doesn't exist anymore.
I saved the link back in 2018. I would love to know who provided support. I'll ask the University of Detmold when I'm there. Thanks for the tip

 

[Phantom-Audio]

At the Munich High End 2023, the Western Electric System stood out as one of the most musical setups, unmatched by any other at the event. The Aries Cerat Contendo was the only other speaker that evoked a similar emotional response for me. Although the Western Electric System is more affordable than the Contendo, its appearance leaves much to be desired. Despite technological advancements, I feel that true musicality and emotional connection are increasingly being overlooked. However, with the right expertise and experience, it's possible to assemble a highly musical system at a lower cost using vintage speakers and amplifiers.

 

[Gregm]

Although the Western Electric System is more affordable than the Contendo, its appearance leaves much to be desired.

The elaborate finishes, the "milled aluminium chassis" and the extruded whatevers may be to blame for part of the excessive pricing...

 

[Phantom-Audio]

The elaborate finishes, the "milled aluminium chassis" and the extruded whatevers may be to blame for part of the excessive pricing...

The Contendo has consistently demonstrated superior coherence from top to bottom across most areas when compared to the Western Electric systems. This is particularly evident in its bass integration, an aspect where many Western Electric users seem to encounter challenges. If budget were not a concern, I would undoubtedly choose the Contendo over the Western Electric Speakers.

I prefer the WE 12B Horns over the 15A.

 

[Synaxis]

I feel that true musicality and emotional connection are increasingly being overlooked..

I agree.

Much of the gear today may get a lot right, but it often fails to connect with me emotionally.

Too many people chasing improvements in specs, and not actually listening to the soul of music.

 

[Rt66indierock]

You missed my point.

I only disagreed with the AR live part. Fun fact the college I went to in the seventies Oregon State University, the cheerleaders could tell the difference between AR-3a, Advent and JBL L-100 speakers. That’s how far high fidelity has fallen out of the mainstream.

 

[Rt66indierock]

Listen. As much as we may crave the ability to recreate live unamplified events in our listening spaces, only a handful of recordings are good enough to even begin to realise such a feat.

Instead, I argue that we should concentrate on reproducing musically correct sound that will inturn render a very palpable presentation with a wide variety of recordings.

The majority don’t crave unamplified events.

 

[Al M.]

I feel that true musicality and emotional connection are increasingly being overlooked. However, with the right expertise and experience, it's possible to assemble a highly musical system at a lower cost using vintage speakers and amplifiers.

You can do that with all modern components too, as I did -- at least that's how my system (see my signature) sounds to my ears and thoroughly engages me musically. You just need to know what you're looking for.

 

[Al M.]

The majority don’t crave unamplified events.

True.

I do, however.

 

[andromedaaudio]

DDK always said its the reviewers fault that the audio industry is the way it is , most of them dont know what music sounds like .
I tend to agree

 

[godofwealth]

The majority don’t crave unamplified events.

I feel sorry for them.

 

[hopkins]

I only disagreed with the AR live part. Fun fact the college I went to in the seventies Oregon State University, the cheerleaders could tell the difference between AR-3a, Advent and JBL L-100 speakers. That’s how far high fidelity has fallen out of the mainstream.

I had a boom box (cassettes and radio) in college (early 1980s). Definitively not high fidelity, but there was never a problem connecting "emotionally" to the music.

We don't need high fidelity to connect to music. It's all about expectations. If you do have a "high fidelity" system and cannot seem to enjoy listening to it, take a break...

 

[hopkins]

I feel sorry for them.

I feel sorry for those who crave for something they will never achieve