Everyone who owns a particular thing gets used to that sound, and their memory of real is the sound they have at home not at a concert they go to once in a while. To erase their home stereo memory they should shut it down and go to concerts for 6 months, then listen to totally unfamiliar systems, then get back to their own for a reality check.
Chronosonic XVX.
- Thread starter Joe P
- Start date
Everyone who owns a particular thing gets used to that sound, and their memory of real is the sound they have at home not at a concert they go to once in a while. To erase their home stereo memory they should shut it down and go to concerts for 6 months, then listen to totally unfamiliar systems, then get back to their own for a reality check.
So whats best ..... Can you define it ...?
We all have differnt targets , play different types of music , some play soft , some loud , some want accuracy to the recording others want it pleasing regardless , more bass , less bass , more top end , big images small images house of god top end , on and on ..
I do agree the reproduction of sound has to get into a certain HiFi circle of performance then after that its all down to degree of subjectiveness and what we like ..
Most likely ,
We can all only agree we are all audio addicts, spend redonculous cash on hifi gear and love Music ..
After that its red wine , white wine and whiskey ...
So what happens if you shut it down for years ..
It stays silent basically but its kinda boring .
may be you can put a mouthmask over the MTM assembly .I dont really agree one needs to go to concerthalls for a reality check to know if your system sounds real or not .
Besides the fact that its almost always a heavily dampned environment .
There are enough sounds in more open space with more natural reflections : speech , acoustic guitar , a piano at an airport for example to check those things for oneself
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I can't wait to suggest this to my Porsche owning friend. Put the Singer 911 in storage or sell it, just drive around in rented Ferraris and Lambos, or just go to track days. And 6 months later decide whether you want to keep your Porsche. Yep, I can see the pat on the back he'll give me for such a great suggestion.
I do agree with Ked on listening to live acoustic instruments , it helps when determining timbre of such instruments thru your system..
A grand or mini grand piano at home destroys all stereo systems i have ever heard ..
A grand or mini grand piano at home destroys all stereo systems i have ever heard ..
Off course it does , i just stated that a concerthall or at least the couple i have been to incl the concert gebouw in amsterdam sound very much dampened in my expirience .
I would not say wholly ¨ natural ¨ either , they are basically tuned spaces to give everybody in the room a reasonable sound pressure level .
I would not say wholly ¨ natural ¨ either , they are basically tuned spaces to give everybody in the room a reasonable sound pressure level .
10-12 row something like this , i have sat at the back as well , i actually prefer the Kleine zaal ( small room ) in the concertgebouw
As Steve said, it is subjectivity. In subjective matters we have to address two aspects to reach valid conclusions - lack of bias and statistical validity. What we have here is simply trained individual opinions. We need a significant number of opinions and a statistical analyzis to reach any valid conclusion. Some people love to say it louder to overcome the lack of significance of individual opinions.
BTW, I never addressed tone - just a general appreciation of sound quality. I do not put extreme weight on tone, as our Boston members. Different instruments, different halls , different microphones and different sound engineers result in very different rendering of tone.
SoundLab's, Quad ESL63, Sonus Faber and Wilson have different tone and I do not care at all which them has better tone (although I know it...) when listening. BTW people concerned with tone should look at the Sean Olive software "Harman How to Listen", http://harmanhowtolisten.blogspot.com/ train themselves and become spoiled listeners ...
My first Wilson experience was at CES Chicago, the last one I believe and they were playing a single box solution that filled the room with music, amazing sound then and at the last couple axpona shows I saved the wilson rooms for last so I could hang around as long as I wanted. The only other brand that entices me to stay is raidho in the Next level room, (sorry not borrensen), but I have no delusions that I would ever attain the same quality of sound in my own home so consider both brands novelties. Ceaser, I agree appears to be bored and just stirring things up.
There's a few of us 'Tweeter store' level audiophiles here that would at least appreciate zu audios affordability and musicality if not me personally.
There's a few of us 'Tweeter store' level audiophiles here that would at least appreciate zu audios affordability and musicality if not me personally.
I agree. I was there at Audio Salon to hear all of them in person. I think those newer models have more of Darrel's imprint.
You write like this and you don't look too much like an ass my friend
For me, adding a sub is about sub 40hz frequency only...the cut off is very steep (48db rolloff)...and really lower than that. And it is about the sense of space and 'surround' which presents a realism that is very special. Frankly, if you mute the Gryphon and listen for music, you'll hear a few bumps maybe every few seconds in some music and far less in others. But when you put the whole package together...and mute the music on a jazz ensemble...you literally feel like 'snap' you are back in your living room and when you move or type, the sound is the sound of the room. Unpause...and the sense of space encapsulating you back into the venue is quite cool. If you turn the sub off...the sense of music around disappears, and it is simply from the frontal plane of the speakers.
You are right, IMHO unhappy audiophiles - and I know a few - are a minority. This does not mean that we want to be more happy tomorrow than today ...
Stereo is a dynamic experience. If we understand the hobby we can easily enjoy it. However IMHO those just wanting to be winners in a competition or a ranking will never be an happy audiophile.
BTW, IMHO again, my definition of best in this forum is simply what makes us happy!
Agree on the shoot-out...would be fun! I also think a big challenge with Wilson is that they are designed to be adjusted in-room to suit the owner's personal tastes. With the ability to push forward treble or recede the mids, to have forward firing or rear firing bass...it does change the sound of the speaker dramatically. And I imagine it also affects to some degree the sense of coherence because some people (for extreme example, someone with high frequency hearing loss) would naturally be inclined to change the speakers to suit their personal hearing capability to such a degree it would lose all coherence completely.
It is one half of the reason I like Wilsons...the other half being that Pedro of Absolute Sounds is a maven whose understanding of the speaker and ability to finetune it an owner's personal objectives is superb. Admittedly I do not know how wedded to Wilson I would be if it were not for Pedro...because in the wrong hands the speaker could become a disaster. I experienced this myself with big Wilsons which had yet to be calibrated, and I was almost as shocked at how piercing it was...as how sublime it became after setup.
And as we have never tired to point out, it is not about one specific tone. As you allude to, there is a wide RANGE of tone that is realistic. To be believable, the tone of what you hear on a system from a given instrument or ensemble should fall within that RANGE, not necessarily have one specific color. The latter would be an unrealistically narrow expectation.
In fact, the more competent a system is, the more it can represent diverse shades of tone from different recordings.
The problem with audio is :
There is no actual finishline , so declaring yourself a winner when there is no actual finishline is kinda hard / imposible .
One can keep running /searching though
There is no actual finishline , so declaring yourself a winner when there is no actual finishline is kinda hard / imposible .
One can keep running /searching though
Just to clarify my opinion, I don't feel these speakers show different recordings all at all... Had also emphasized this in the tranparency to recordings discussion. Quite the contrary, they emphasize an artificial, synthetic tone color and soundstage across all recordings. So to me nothing is remotely relatable.
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