I wonder if it has anything to do with the moisture in the ground and grounding conditions for electricity. It just recently rained a lot here. I know a guy in the Midwest who pours water on his ground rods during dry spells to improve the sound of his stereo system.
Natural Sound
- Thread starter PeterA
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I wonder if it has anything to do with the moisture in the ground and grounding conditions for electricity. It just recently rained a lot here. I know a guy in the Midwest who pours water on his ground rods during dry spells to improve the sound of his stereo system.
Thought I should return the favour with some Lidholm:
I think it's most likely you'd want to attain permanent summer sound first then adjust the stereo itself (as opposed to electrical system of house) to sound like it does in winter instead of trying to make it always sound like it does in winter. Just a guess since the latter has never happened.
The cause of summer sound is external influence and not from the system and since the cause is mostly unknown recreation isn’t feasible, at least for me . It‘s a distortion and strong compression which you can hear everywhere. It’s in everyones’ home systems, audio showrooms struggle with it too. You can also hear the same compression and distortions he sound at the movie theater and even audible from the car radio.
david
Wow - never heard of that. Cannot honestly say I'm aware of sonic differences in dry weather. House has a humidifier and a/c, so interior climate is somewhat stable. No windows in the audio room.
Here it has been an unusually wet summer - lot's more rain than we normally get which is great for the lawn and landscaping, not so much for the mowing.
Thank you Andrew. Here is one that is decidedly less natural, the instruments, the music, the presentation, and the resulting sound, but it is fun and it does demonstrate how this recording sounds different from how it did with the Micro Seiki/vdh Colibri. I used to think bass quality was more a result of the speakers and amp combination, but I am learning that everything contributes to bass quality, including power delivery.
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In theory, at least, if not also in practice, resistance to ground definitely matters. This is why a few years ago I had installed two different chemical grounds.
Employed especially in dry soil areas a chemical ground is a ground rod or a ground plane (an array of ground rods) encased in conductive chemical goop to reduce measured resistance to ground.
If the outside air pressure suddenly drops, for example because we drive up a hill in a car, the higher air pressure in the middle ear pushes the eardrum outwards. The result is that it can no longer vibrate freely and we hear everything quieter.
When the weather is nice, it's the other way around, because the air pressure increases, the eardrum can vibrate more freely, and sounds are perceived as more distorted. I'm not a doctor but that's my assumption about the phenomenon
There's no proof that it's from external influence of whatever type, as in we don't know what exactly causes it (we also know the term distortion for what a person hears and what's happening are not necessarily the same thing). But I can also say where I live it's much less significant than where you live. For years now I've been trying to notice it at the movie theaters but haven't yet. Differences in climate I guess.
Any other fellow cult members (sorry, I had to) notice that there seems to be one best volume for every LP? I've been having this experience for the last couple months since I bought in to this philosophy of system building.
Peter Walker of Quad also said it more than fifty years ago ...
???
These words can be understood in several different ways - would you clarify what you mean?
Any other fellow cult members (sorry, I had to
Yes, I have found that as my system becomes more resolving and natural sounding, each individual recording sounds more unique. There’s a very clear sense of recording distance and listening perspective. Based on my memory of attending live performances, I have an idea of how loud a particular instrument should sound from a particular distance. It has to do with the scale of the soundstage and individual instrument image. It also has to do with the balance between the loud and soft passages and the contrasts between individual instruments and groups of instruments. Same with voices. Each recording has its own listening perspective based on venue and mic location and arrangement. I try to match the volume level in the listening room to match that perspective. Each recording has captured an event, so each has a particular volume at which it sounds best or most like one imagines it did when recorded based on his experience and the information coming through the system.
Of course there are no rules, so if I really want to crank something or listen softly late at night, I do, but for the most realistic listening experience that reminds me of what I experience when listening live, there is usually a specific volume setting for each particular recording.
This is more of the case with my current system than it was with my former system when different recordings had more of a sameness to them.
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I just mean that each album has it's own volume level. With my Harbeths and SS amplification. It was set and forget, who cares. Everything was generally ok, not great. One night I'd play loud, another quiet. Didn't matter. Now, each LP is sort of begging to be played at a certain volume where it sounds it's absolute best. If something doesn't sound great, it's almost always being played too low or too high.
Maybe has a lot to do with the amount of compression used on a recording? Your other system is naturally somewhat compressed and therefore didn't show the dynamic contrasts the same way.
Okay, much clearer. For a given system and room this makes sense.
This sounds so much denser, relaxed and energized at the same compared to the one with the Micro Seiki SX8000II. Actually amazing difference. The one with the AS1000 also sounds better than the Micro Seiki but not to this degree. Bass here is great, and love how it handles sibilances, must be awesome in real life.
@ddk Please live at least 200 years so I have time to save enough money for an AS-2000
This sounds so much denser, relaxed and energized at the same compared to the one with the Micro Seiki SX8000II. Actually amazing difference. The one with the AS1000 also sounds better than the Micro Seiki but not to this degree. Bass here is great, and love how it handles sibilances, must be awesome in real life.
@ddk Please live at least 200 years so I have time to save enough money for an AS-2000
Thank you for commenting on this video and taking the time to compare it to the others. There are very few videos of these turntables playing music. It was indeed a rare opportunity to actually compare the turntables to each other in the same system with the same music at my leisure.
I agree with your assessment based on the videos. The differences are a bit more pronounced listening live, but the videos do indicate the areas in which the turntables differ.
Martin Colloms in Stereophile in 1991: "As Peter Walker has concisely stated, "there is only one correct volume level for any particular piece of music." Taking into account listening-room acoustics, the original recording technique, etc., in theory there is just one volume level which places the dynamic music envelope correctly in the characteristic curves. A particular instrument was played at a particular loudness, and a matching tonality should be reproduced at a matched level relative to the listener and his expected location. Only then will the instrument sound natural, and the normal dynamics of musical expression be reproduced in the expected range. (end of quote)." We can read it all at https://www.stereophile.com/content/basso-profundo-page-2
This subject is well discussed, even in professional audio forums. Unfortunately many rock recordings optimum sound level exceed what audiophiles in the sixties or neighbors consider a comfortable level ...
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