It’s fascinating to me how we develop a sound system. The goals we set. The concept behind our systems. Our specific aims. How we benchmark our achievements. How we analyse what is happening in the system. What is the primary purpose of the system for you. How do you identify the potentials and constraints in the system and problem solve. What are the criteria of a system that you assess.
We are in the business of continuous improvement. We spend a fortune in time and in capital investment. Can we afford to just be accidental. Do you have a definable process. Are you primarily objective or subjective in your decision making and given the context of listening to music is there a 50/50 split between the objective and subjective or does one assessment form dominate the other for you. Can you define what you are you aiming for. How do you review how you are going? Is it important to be conscious of a system design concept and to also have a defined individual design philosophy to go for? How conscious are we and what process do we use to evaluate holistically and elementally what our systems are doing and why. Is music the essential purpose or is it the sound? Do you look for the best recording or the best performance. Can you tell when you are primarily listening to the sound or listening to the music. Can we separate these two deliverables or are they just inherently enmeshed. How do you assess your system in whole and in part? What is the final review for you? Is there an end point (destination) and how do you define that end point. I’d ask a few more questions but I think I’ve run out of question marks. Just intrigued about what is driving us all and where we are all heading.
Great thread. The foremost goal of my system was always liveliness, accompanied by a believability of tone. I guess liveliness is to some extent the sum of dynamics (micro- and macro) and of presence. The latter would be the idea of palpability of the performers in front of you, as well as immediacy where appropriate. So perhaps those goals could be summarized as dynamics, presence, tone, to use Jim Smith's vocabulary. In terms of tone, unamplified live music has always been a guiding reference that I could not have worked without, even though for other audiophiles this kind of reference seems to matter less.
To my taste, sins of omission are always better than sins of commission. A great sensitivity of mine is 'boxy' sound since that adds colorations alien to the music. Even if to me obvious box colorations are rare in a system set-up, I still find them disturbing and could not live with them (while others might not even notice these colorations). Apparent 'boxy' colorations could also be coloration due to speaker/room interaction, rather than just strict cabinet colorations. Larger speakers are more prone to both of those kinds of coloration than smaller ones, even though they can also be avoided in the case of large speakers, but at great expense in an appropriate sized room.
Shortly after I started again to pursue the upgrade path in 2013, an additional criterion has crystallized with the help of audiophile friends that I got to know via WBF. That criterion is resolution -- timbral micro resolution and separation of instruments. Yet the goal of timbral micro resolution is tied to believability of tone, so perhaps this additional criterion is just an extension of an older one.
So in summary, my criteria throughout my audiophile life have always been liveliness, tone and lack of 'boxy' coloration, with a more recent addition being resolution.
I have always been, and remain, convinced that up to a certain price point monitors (or better, monitor/sub combos) always win over floor standers when it comes to all the above criteria, at a price-for-price match that includes the necessary amplification -- unless the room is too large to be filled by the sound of monitors. Only in the very expensive range of high end equipment I would prefer floor standers. However, then not just any floor standers, but large speakers with inert cabinets (I'll get to the reasons why), which unfortunately cost lots of money. Yet then in order to accommodate these, I would have to have a much larger room, especially in terms of width (while my room is 24 feet long, it is only 12 feet wide, with some extension at a small window bay). Apart from the expense of the large speakers that I would want, the even greater expense of buying a larger house, living in an area (Northshore of Greater Boston) where real estate is extremely pricey, is not a realistic option for me. The size of my room is already very special within the price range of houses like mine in this area.
Considerations like these have led me to always build my system around monitors, and from 2000 onward, monitor/subwoofer combos. My three monitors over 30 years have been Ensemble Reference > Reference 3A MM De Capo BE > Reference 3A Reflector. Subwoofers have been REL Storm III > dual JL Audio F112v2 (for full system details, see my signature).
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That is my audiophile journey thus far, now I need to explain why I think I'm basically done as I said in my previous post, certainly in terms of gear upgrades.
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My most recent system excels in reproduction of music of all kinds, classical chamber, piano, jazz, rock, electronica etc., and all this with very high resolution. It even has great mid-bass punch now, largely avoiding the mid-bass 'hole' that many monitor/subwoofer combos suffer from (including previous set-ups of mine). What on some recordings it may lack in the last bit of punch in that area it more than makes up for in terms of bass precision and cleanness (again, when it comes to my own system, I cannot stand to me obvious colorations, also in this area of reproduction).
The system also excels at reproduction of orchestral music in terms of separation of instruments, and it has good believability of tone and projects a rather large soundstage (as large as the room probably allows; in this room I don't see a clear advantage of larger speakers). The system also scales well: while small scale sounds appropriately small and intimate, large scale sounds much bigger. Not all systems do this.
Yet orchestral music is its achilles heel as well, in the sense that, while weight and body of orchestral sound can be quite good, the system cannot reproduce the full measure of it (there is also less than ideal weight on some non-orchestral material, but to me here the deficit is most substantial). For example, while my system can reproduce solo trombone and solo tuba quite well, it just cannot reproduce the full weight and definition of orchestral massed low brass, or that of an orchestral string section.
This is the domain of high quality large speakers with inert cabinets, such as for example Magico M Project speakers. In a well set up system with speakers like these, the massed low brass sound has not just tremendous weight, but also enormous palpable definition, to a point where it makes me think of a concert hall experience; it can be stunning. In comparison, orchestral low brass does not just sound lighter in my system, but also more diffuse. It is not just my system with monitor/sub combo; I have not heard such brass sound from more regular floor standers either, certainly not in that palpable definition.
So this kind of weight and definition of orchestral sound is what I would look for in a truly significant, meaningful upgrade. Yet speakers like these, which can not just do that, but preserve, or even enhance, all the things that high resolution monitors like mine are good at, are extraordinarily expensive and like all large speakers require a much larger room than mine to fully unfold their potential and avoid problems. This is out of my reach.
Sure, I could get more weight than I have for much less money, but not that weight with great definition of sound that gives you that live illusion, and with still the ability to portray all the finesse, nuance and timbral micro resolution of a string quartet, for example, something that my high resolution monitors are so good at as well.
I could spend upwards of $ 50 K on my system and still be stuck with only incremental improvements, or with gains in some areas, but losses and compromises in others compared to what I already have. I am not interested in that.
What I have right now is a terrific system that has many great strengths and a few weaknesses. To address those weaknesses in a substantial -- not incremental -- manner and without compromising on the strengths is beyond my reach.
That is why I'm done. I am just not interested in spending another $ 20, 30 or 50 K for what I consider incremental improvements, which still do not achieve that meaningful jump in performance that I would be looking for and that only large speakers of extreme quality in a considerably larger room than mine can deliver (and no, I am not interested for my system in regular 'full range' floor standers, even though I greatly enjoy them in other systems).
The system that I have presents music in a terrific, to me highly engaging, and holistically satisfying manner. This is all I need and will continue to enjoy.
