hp soundings
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Ok now we know who to blame ....
On a serious note , very few reviewers have systems/ rooms anywhere near the equivalent of some audiophiles , its been such for decades . Today as in the past i find it very difficult to cozy up to opinion rags , if you dont test , im not interested , man i really miss "Audio Magazine" .....
Today i read Absolute Sound , buy Stereophile ... !!!
Regards ,
Then read stereophile , from the test results you can have a good laugh at the reviewer ...
Works for me
Ok now we know who to blame ....
On a serious note , very few reviewers have systems/ rooms anywhere near the equivalent of some audiophiles , its been such for decades . Today as in the past i find it very difficult to cozy up to opinion rags , if you dont test , im not interested , man i really miss "Audio Magazine" .....
Today i read Absolute Sound , buy Stereophile ... !!!
Regards ,
As an engineer I look at the "high end" audiophile world as Alice must have felt in Wonderland. It's mind numbing, particularly the prices but also the mindset. My favorite is still the Nagra preamp that used three 6AT7 tubes in a package that had no more of substance to it than a 1950s $10 table radio that sold for $10,000. If computers were sold the same way a laptop would sell for $5 million instead of $500.
---- AA, aren't they into promoting and dealing and business advocating and fun talking and music enumerating and associating and showing and buying/selling and approving and self-congratulating and posting/appreciating and all that jazz? :b ----------------------------------------
* Some real good 'jazzy' friends over there.
---- AA, aren't they into promoting and dealing and business advocating and fun talking and music enumerating and associating and showing and buying/selling and approving and self-congratulating and posting/appreciating and all that jazz? :b ----------------------------------------
* Some real good 'jazzy' friends over there.
With 3958 posts on AA, you obviously have spent a lot time over there, so you should know the answer to your question
I have been to HP's home on four occasions. Each time there was different equipment set up in each of his 3 rooms. While the rooms were not lavish or even as nice as they appear in these pictures, there is a quality that no picture can show that made the experiences very special--HP is in love with the music and absolutely loves to share his love with others who can appreciate the experience. He was always gracious and never rushed me.
I am thrilled that Harry can once again do as he believes with little regard for the politics, which he admits is not his forte.
I am thrilled that Harry can once again do as he believes with little regard for the politics, which he admits is not his forte.
Except that it doesn't happen all the time because, until very recently and still only in small numbers, the loudspeaker never gets sold to someone with an acoustically treated room, as there is a deep-seated reluctance within much of the audiophile community to countenance such things.
In fact, the reverse seems to happen. The UK's dominant entry-level review magazine has very well treated rooms. They are about as flat as it's possible to get while still maintaining a notional 'average UK room' size. They are especially well treated in the 200Hz and below region. As a consequence, equipment that performs well in those rooms often sounds extremely ragged and uneven in end-user homes, where there is typically no room treatment whatsoever because the audio buyer thinks of bass traps as 'divorce makers' (few UK audio buyers have man caves and the system is often in something like an 11'x14'x8' living room that looks like it's out of an Ikea catalog). The fact that unevenness has its root in the room itself and a monumental lack of any form of acoustic treatment is entirely dismissed by those disgruntled buyers.
Room treatment is finally losing its 'no go area' status, but it's an uphill struggle. Audio's Enlightenment is coming in part because those used to good headphone sound want to replicate that fidelity in the room, and aren't prepared to 'listen past' or 'hear through' the room. They are also coming from home theater, because good HT installs are inevitably well treated. Unfortunately, these two important and financially significant aspects of modern consumer electronics fly way below the typical audiophile's radar.
Alan, one of the biggest improvements I made was to install room treatments. I would think that in the typical UK room, which is probably on a par sizewise with my very small dedicated room, the same would hold true. IMHO, the smaller the room, the more room treatments become a necessity for good sound.
In the past, like many other a'philes, I too was VERY hesitant to install room treatments before I took the plunge. Why, because not only are they fairly pricey, BUT they have little to no obvious 'gadget' appeal. In the back of my mind, I suspect that was what was holding me back in the past....and which I suspect holds the vast majority of other non-believers back as well. A new piece of gear is one thing, something that has no real tactile appeal, well that's another.
BUT, did I learn my lesson.
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Bruce B
WBF Founding Member, Pro Audio Production Member
In the past, like many other a'philes, I too was VERY hesitant to install room treatments before I took the plunge. Why, because not only are they fairly pricey, BUT they have little to no obvious 'gadget' appeal. In the back of my mind, I suspect that was what was holding me back in the past....and which I suspect holds the vast majority of other non-believers back as well. A new piece of gear is one thing, something that has no real tactile appeal, well that's another.
BUT, did I learn my lesson.
Room treatments aren't sexy... People would much rather spend $10k on the newest DAC or other bling! In reality, in an acoustically poor room, you're not going to hear the difference between a $2k and $10k DAC. Room treatments are the biggest bang for the buck you can make. Several of us have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on our rooms and infrastructure. Instead of that next shiney gadget that you want, spend the same amount on room treatments.... then you can have your audiophile badge back!
-- I fully agree with you Bruce; get the best house you can get, and with great rooms for sound.
That'll bring you 88% of the way. ...Or some' like that. :b
That'll bring you 88% of the way. ...Or some' like that. :b
Bruce, I agree with you in principle - and I own a lot of room treatments that I can pull in and out of the living area. This condition allows me to do A/B comparisons all the time. IMHO, one can definitely tell apart the gestalt of the pieces of gear at different price points when my room is bare, but the musical experience gets so much better and the differences between gear so much more pronounced - when I pull the treatments into the room.
This would be a good question to ask of HP by a registered member on his site...
I learned the value of room treatment when I moved my entire system from my factory compound (with room acoustic treatment I used from reading audio mags) where I lived to another house in a residential area where my sisters lived (living room without any room treatment). If my system sounded like 8/10 in the treated room, I remembered my grading the untreated living room 1/10. It was that terrible that I was stunned beyond expectation. I never thought it would be that far worse. And that led me to build another room upstairs with room treatment and I was happy again.
I remember in one issue of TAS, early 90s, Dan Sweeney covered various types of room acoustic treatment materials and pointedly explained each type for a specific application or need. I was very appreciative of that article. And that was the gist of my letter to the Editor HP. And he replied to my letter by saying: "The listening room is one of the last frontiers that we must address in the search for a convincing replication of the absolute sound. There will be more on the topic."
I remember in one issue of TAS, early 90s, Dan Sweeney covered various types of room acoustic treatment materials and pointedly explained each type for a specific application or need. I was very appreciative of that article. And that was the gist of my letter to the Editor HP. And he replied to my letter by saying: "The listening room is one of the last frontiers that we must address in the search for a convincing replication of the absolute sound. There will be more on the topic."
Alan, one of the biggest improvements I made was to install room treatments. I would think that in the typical UK room, which is probably on a par sizewise with my very small dedicated room, the same would hold true. IMHO, the smaller the room, the more room treatments become a necessity for good sound.
In the past, like many other a'philes, I too was VERY hesitant to install room treatments before I took the plunge. Why, because not only are they fairly pricey, BUT they have little to no obvious 'gadget' appeal. In the back of my mind, I suspect that was what was holding me back in the past....and which I suspect holds the vast majority of other non-believers back as well. A new piece of gear is one thing, something that has no real tactile appeal, well that's another.
BUT, did I learn my lesson.
I'm not saying the treatments are ineffective (quite the reverse in fact), and we're slowly seeing the concept being taken seriously in the community at last. What I'm saying is there's a transition process toward the adoption of room treatment (among other things). It's taken several years for the move from, "why should I be interested in computer audio? I don't own an iPod." to "what's the best way to store ripped CDs?" to take hold, and there has been some significant back-sliding along the way. Room treatment is still further back down that road. Sadly, I suspect it will always be some way back down the road, and never get the treatment (pun intended) it deserves in the press, because it's always been a tough 'sell' to the rank-and-file readers.
The more understandable reluctance is the lack of 'gadget appeal' as you describe, coupled with the studio look they engender (which is difficult to overcome if the room is not a dedicated one). The objection I simply don't 'get' (but is surprisingly commonplace) is that room treatment - or even DSP room treatment - is somehow 'cheating'. I did a series of demonstrations in a UK show a couple of years ago, taking people through a range of improvements on the same CD player, integrated amp and standmount loudspeakers. One of the improvements was inserting bass traps and side-wall absorption. I expected - and received - the 'divorce makers' arguments (although a reaction from the audiowidow of one the husband and wife duos that went to the demonstrations was "Meh! I've put up with worse!"), but "that's cheating" blind-sided me the first time I heard it.
Another audio half truth here is probably best thought of as 'Fear of a Dead Room'. A reluctance to investigate the topic coupled with reading the same points over and over again from many room treatment supporters has made some think that anything more than soft furnishings will overdamp the room. While I think it's possible to create an acoustically dead environment (I've been in a few), I think the chances of making that happen in a domestic setting is both unlikely and exaggerated. Also, there's always the 'no more' option; it's not as if once you start thinking of the words 'bass trap' you have committed yourself to reskinning the whole room.
An interesting point here is the perception of room treatment being 'fairly pricey'. I've also heard that... from someone who had just bought a new dCS Puccini and U-Clock combo. Nothing wrong with that - the dCS is an excellent digital source - but if you are spending that kind of money on your audio system, spending a fraction of that kind of money on room treatment is no big deal.
If I may, I'd like to disagree with that. The bigger the room, the more problems you'll get, simply because you'll be sitting further from the speakers, and they'll be interacting with the room much more than in a smaller room.
I used to live in a small apartment, with my system crammed in the living room. I had big speakers (Sonus faber Amatis), and they played wonderfully. I put them in my new, much bigger room, and all of a sudden, I had problems galore. Mid region bump, bass region valleys, you name it. Had to replace the whole system before I realised I need to fix the ROOM itself...
alexandre
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