Natural Sound

[Rexp]

I will give you a tip as far as responding goes. Write for your reader; don't ask him do the work you are not doing. Put some effort into your posting if your point is important to you. I will not go searching for, in this case, Youtube comparison video threads to support the point you may be making. If you have a couple specific examples that make your claim, include them in your post. I mean this with a friendly tone.

Thanks friend, it's kinda off topic.

 

[Rensselaer]

It is easy to say "we all hear differently".

Perceptions are subjective in the sense that we each have our own ears but I don't believe "we all hear differently." Granted some people may have keener hearing than others, may be able to hear higher frequencies than others, but I don't understand that as hearing differently. We each have human ears. Some people may not be able to pass all the elements of a hearing test that someone else may. There may be slight differences in hearing due to small differences in the physical structure of the ear, but those are not sufficient to prevent each of us from hearing the difference between, say, the sound of a clarinet and the sound of an English horn or tell a marimba from a glockenspiel.

I don't see forum talk that tells someone their perceptions are wrong. I don't know what that means.

What I do believe is that we have different preferences in sonics as we have different preferences in music. We probably have different sonic templates or catalogs based on different past experiences. We have differently abilities to describe what we hear -- there may be more here with the ability to describe circuitry or talk about Thiele/Small parameters than talk about sound characteristics, to describe what they hear. I believe we hear more similarly than differently.

Hi Tim,
I certainly agree with your last sentence, that we hear more similarly than differently, however I still suspect that there is a difference in how the sound we hear similarly is processed in our minds.

You said we each have human ears. Likewise we, baring injury of birth or accident, each have a nose and a tongue, with taste buds. Yet we all do not like the same foods, prepared in the same way. For instance, I love truffle-scented scrambled eggs on sourdough toast, whereas my wife can’t stand the smell of truffles.

The embryonic brain interprets sensory input very early on. Although genetics possibly dictates the processing speed, memory volume, etc., there is nothing to teach the process of learning, it just comes together by chance and is either suited well to the task or not. One child in a family might start talking and reading at a very young age while a sibling shows difficulty with both throughout life.

To me, the sound of music from CDs seems sharp, instant on off of each note ( the normal decay of tone somehow edgy). It causes what I assume “listener fatigue” means in me quickly. I am certain there are a great many on this forum who do not experience this same ill effect when listening to CDs as I. If one trusts that each is honestly conveying their true experience, then we must hear (or process what we hear) differently.

 

[bonzo75]

each have a nose and a tongue, with taste buds. Yet we all do not like the same foods, prepared in the same way. For instance, I love truffle-scented scrambled eggs on sourdough toast, whereas my wife can’t stand the smell of truffles.

A couple of things…there is no frame of reference to another real food. Liking truffles or not Is not the same as does a system have fake bass or fake tone, because there is a real reference to one.

Second point, apart from your example where both have exposure to the same, with food many people don’t. People who have been brought up on one cuisine, and do not often have the funds or know how to experiment with different cuisines.

When I take people visiting from India or elsewhere to restaurants in London, they sometimes initially resist based on the description, but once they go there we are in agreement on the food.

Some of my Indian friends do exhibit a trait similar to an audiophile. They strongly defend Indian cuisine against other cuisines, but what they have done in reality is try a poor Italian, Japanese, Thai etc restaurant and then don’t try the really good ones. Pretty much like the anti horn crowd here. Imagine an American only trying olive garden and claiming expertise on Italian food on a food forum.

 

[Rensselaer]

A couple of things…there is no frame of reference to another real food. Liking truffles or not Is not the same as does a system have fake bass or fake tone, because there is a real reference to one.

Second point, apart from your example where both have exposure to the same, with good many people don’t. People who have been brought up on one cuisine, and do not often have the funds or know how to experiment with different cuisines.

When I take people visiting from India or elsewhere to restaurants in London, they sometimes initially resist based on the description, but once they go there we are in agreement on the food.

Some of my Indian friends do exhibit a trait similar to an audiophile. They strongly defend Indian cuisine against other cuisines, but what they have done in reality is try a poor Italian, Japanese, Thai etc restaurant and then don’t try the really good ones. Pretty much like the anti horn crowd here. Imagine an American only trying olive garden and claiming expertise on Italian food on a food forum.

My brother hated fresh tomatoes but liked ketchup whereas I like fresh tomatoes just fine. It is not that my brother never tasted good fresh tomatoes, he just doesn’t like them. I will agree to disagree with you on this one Kedar.

 

[adyc]

A couple of things…there is no frame of reference to another real food. Liking truffles or not Is not the same as does a system have fake bass or fake tone, because there is a real reference to one.

Second point, apart from your example where both have exposure to the same, with food many people don’t. People who have been brought up on one cuisine, and do not often have the funds or know how to experiment with different cuisines.

When I take people visiting from India or elsewhere to restaurants in London, they sometimes initially resist based on the description, but once they go there we are in agreement on the food.

Some of my Indian friends do exhibit a trait similar to an audiophile. They strongly defend Indian cuisine against other cuisines, but what they have done in reality is try a poor Italian, Japanese, Thai etc restaurant and then don’t try the really good ones. Pretty much like the anti horn crowd here. Imagine an American only trying olive garden and claiming expertise on Italian food on a food forum.

One thing everyone in the world agree is that English food tastes shxt!

 

[bonzo75]

My brother hated fresh tomatoes but liked ketchup whereas I like fresh tomatoes just fine. It is not that my brother never tasted good fresh tomatoes, he just doesn’t like them. I will agree to disagree with you on this one Kedar.

Like I said, there isn’t a real reference to tornadoes here like in the case of an orchestra, so it’s fine.

 

[morricab]

My brother hated fresh tomatoes but liked ketchup whereas I like fresh tomatoes just fine. It is not that my brother never tasted good fresh tomatoes, he just doesn’t like them. I will agree to disagree with you on this one Kedar.

Let’s keep it simple. Judging realism in reproduction is not like judging taste of wine or food or art. Those are the real things themselves and yes opinions on their like/dislikes can vary wildly. Reproduction, on the other hand, can be judged against the thing itself at least in principle…in practice perhaps not so easy.

A better analogy would be judging the picture quality of cameras taking a picture of Tulips. You can look at the actual Tulips with your eyes and then the photos and judge which is most like the real thing.

 

[hopkins]

If you check out some of the YouTube comparison threads you'll find some hear very differently to others.

Case in point:

Loading…

www.whatsbestforum.com

If everyone heard things like Rexp, then recording engineers would be out of business and musicians would hire Fermer and his camera to record them. This whole discussion is preposterous.

 

[Al M.]

Let’s keep it simple. Judging realism in reproduction is not like judging taste of wine or food or art. Those are the real things themselves and yes opinions on their like/dislikes can vary wildly. Reproduction, on the other hand, can be judged against the thing itself at least in principle…in practice perhaps not so easy.

A better analogy would be judging the picture quality of cameras taking a picture of Tulips. You can look at the actual Tulips with your eyes and then the photos and judge which is most like the real thing.

"In practice perhaps not so easy." Indeed.

I have heard quite divergent opinions on if a system sounds real or not -- between people who regularly attend concerts of live unamplified music.

Heck, I have even heard different opinions about the sound from people sitting next to each other at a live concert.

Yes, the opinions of people regularly exposed to unamplified music may diverge *less*, but they will still diverge.

We all hear through the filter of our biases, priorities and experiences. There is more subjectivity in audio than some may be willing to concede.

 

[Lagonda]

One thing everyone in the world agree is that English food tastes shxt!

 

[Rensselaer]

Let’s keep it simple. Judging realism in reproduction is not like judging taste of wine or food or art. Those are the real things themselves and yes opinions on their like/dislikes can vary wildly. Reproduction, on the other hand, can be judged against the thing itself at least in principle…in practice perhaps not so easy.

A better analogy would be judging the picture quality of cameras taking a picture of Tulips. You can look at the actual Tulips with your eyes and then the photos and judge which is most like the real thing.

Absolutely correct, so why is it that there are those on this forum that argue that systems that sound very natural/similar to live, don’t?

Please note the last sentence in my posting (5, 302): “If one trusts that each is honestly conveying their true experience, then we must hear differently.” Then add, If people do not hear differently, but argue that a natural sounding system is anything but, then we must presume that they are not honest in what they convey.

 

[Ron Resnick]

It is not necessarily about hearing differently. It may also be about different sonic objectives -- what in this context I call "sonic cues."

My theory is that suspension of disbelief is facilitated by satisfaction of the particular sonic cues each of us subjectively and idiosyncratically selects for our stereo systems which most directly trigger in our brains our memories of the sound of live music.

See https://www.whatsbestforum.com/thre...-to-explain-different-sounding-systems.37808/

 

[Rexp]

Let’s keep it simple. Judging realism in reproduction is not like judging taste of wine or food or art. Those are the real things themselves and yes opinions on their like/dislikes can vary wildly. Reproduction, on the other hand, can be judged against the thing itself at least in principle…in practice perhaps not so easy.

A better analogy would be judging the picture quality of cameras taking a picture of Tulips. You can look at the actual Tulips with your eyes and then the photos and judge which is most like the real thing.

True but this thread is about music sounding natural and not unnatural. A good vinyl rip could sound as natural as the original vinyl but not necessarily super realistic, a bad rip will sound unnatural.

 

[Al M.]

It is not necessarily about hearing differently. It may also be about different sonic objectives -- what in this context I call "sonic cues."

My theory is that suspension of disbelief is facilitated by satisfaction of the particular sonic cues each of us subjectively and idiosyncratically selects for our stereo systems which most directly trigger in our brains our memories of the sound of live music.

See https://www.whatsbestforum.com/thre...-to-explain-different-sounding-systems.37808/

Very much agreed. What I wrote above points to that:

"We all hear through the filter of our biases, priorities and experiences."

 

[bonzo75]

It is not necessarily about hearing differently. It may also be about different sonic objectives -- what in this context I call "sonic cues."

My theory is that suspension of disbelief is facilitated by satisfaction of the particular sonic cues each of us subjectively and idiosyncratically selects for our stereo systems which most directly trigger in our brains our memories of the sound of live music.

See https://www.whatsbestforum.com/thre...-to-explain-different-sounding-systems.37808/

Yes but you have the intellectually dishonest assumption in there that everyone takes cues from live, and that people buy rationally based on sonic conclusions.

 

[Kingrex]

Im punchy today. Thats my excuse.

At least as far as this forum is concerned, Peter has inadvertently staked a flag stating that anything but a horn is nothing but hifi. It may not be his intent, but it is perceived by many that way.

The responses to that statement are not necessarily made out of ego. People come on these forms not just to talk but to help educate others as they share. Again, inadvertently, Peter is perceived as saying those people's opinions are flawed and incorrect. And there attempts to educate people have failed as they are misleading and incorrect. So yes it has become a very sore topic.

I think people forget that almost anyone placed in front of Peters stereo would be very aware its a horn and many may dislike the sound. Its a horn for goodness sake. Very unmistakable. Not at all capable of sounding like a Wilson, Magico, Kharma. No matter how many pillows you stuff in its throat, it still sounds like a horn. And generally, horns don't sound so good.

I believe that is why horns fell out of favor. Dont get me wrong, there are good horns out there. But most horns sound like horns. It has an appeal. It creates a sort of live, energetic sound. But its just a type of sound like any other sound. And it can be very offputting. It appears much more so than a system based upon dynamic drivers and powerful amps. It seems most people gravitate to the sound of dynamic drivers and powerful amps. I nyself gravitate to a horn type sound. But at the same time, I feel like I would not enjoy sitting in front of it every day. My wife especially. We sat in front of CH Precission and Wilson Yesterday. She likes it more than my open baffle and 40 watts of power.

I think most people should avoid horns. They seem difficult to get to any level of good. I have never been in front of a horn I would call fully dialed in. I have been in front of many dynamic driver systems that are very dialed in. I have never been in front of dynamic drivers that drove me from the room for reasons other than the owner playing to loud. I have walked out of rooms with horns as they were so bad I just had to leave.

So, anyone can yarp to the world they found natural sound with a horn. Good on them. Its posible they are the only one that hears it that way.

As an aside, if the british are responsible for shepherds pie, they got one thing right.

 

[Kingrex]

Im punchy today. Thats my excuse.

At least as far as this forum is concerned, Peter has inadvertently staked a flag stating that anything but a horn is nothing but hifi. It may not be his intent, but it is the underlying theme.

The responses to that statement arn't made out of ego. People come on these forms not just to talk but to help educate others as they share. Again, inadvertently, Peter has told everyone those people's opinions are flawed and incorrect. And there attempts to educate people have failed as they are misleading and incorrect. So yes it has become a very sore topic.

I think people forget that most people placed in front of Peters stereo would be very aware its a horn and dislike the sound. Its a horn for goodness sake. Very unmistakable. Not at all capable of sounding like a Wilson, Magico, Kharma. No matter how many pillows you stuff in its throat, it still sounds like a horn. And generally, horns don't sound so good.

I believe that is why horns fell out of favor. Dont get me wrong, there are good horns out there. But most horns sound like horns. It has an appeal. It creates a sort of live or energetic sound. But its just a type of sound like any other sound. And it can be very offputting. It appears much more so than a system based upon dynamic drivers and powerful amps. It seems most people gravitate to the sound of dynamic drivers and powerful amps. I nyself gravitate to a horn type sound. But at the same time, I feel like I would not enjoy sitting in front of it every day. My wife especially. We sat in front of CH Precission and Wilson Yesterday. She likes it more than my open baffle and 40 watts of power.

I think most people should avoid horns. They seem difficult to get to any level of good. I have never been in front of a set I would call fully dialed in. I have been in front of many dynamic driver systems that are very dialed in. I have never been in front of dynamic drivers that drove me from the room for reasons other than the owner playing to loud. I have walked out of rooms with horns as they were so bad I just had to leave.

So, anyone can yarp to the world they found natural sound with a horn. Good on them. Its posible they are the only one that hears it that way.

As an aside, if British made shepards pie, they got something right.

 

[bonzo75]

Im punchy today. Thats my excuse.

At least as far as this forum is concerned, Peter has inadvertently staked a flag stating that anything but a horn is nothing but hifi. It may not be his intent, but it is the underlying theme.

The responses to that statement arn't made out of ego. People come on these forms not just to talk but to help educate others as they share. Again, inadvertently, Peter has told everyone those people's opinions are flawed and incorrect. And there attempts to educate people have failed as they are misleading and incorrect. So yes it has become a very sore topic.

I think people forget that most people placed in front of Peters stereo would be very aware its a horn and dislike the sound. Its a horn for goodness sake. Very unmistakable. Not at all capable of sounding like a Wilson, Magico, Kharma. No matter how many pillows you stuff in its throat, it still sounds like a horn. And generally, horns don't sound so good.

Peter's videos sound very different from the horn videos I upload. His is a corner horn. Corner horns are very different from other horns

I believe that is why horns fell out of favor.

do some homework. One reason they fell out of favor is cost of drivers and the size.

Not at all capable of sounding like a Wilson, Magico, Kharma.

Thank god, else I will quit the hobby.

And generally, horns don't sound so good.

Agreed, 95% of them sound sh*t

I have never been in front of a set I would call fully dialed in.

I believe you. You haven't been out that much, they are not as available as dynamic drivers

Its a horn for goodness sake. Very unmistakable.

None of the horns I like sound at all similar to each other. In fact they sound more different from each other than any two cones speakers or panel speakers

 

[Rensselaer]

Im punchy today. Thats my excuse.

At least as far as this forum is concerned, Peter has inadvertently staked a flag stating that anything but a horn is nothing but hifi. It may not be his intent, but it is perceived by many that way.

The responses to that statement are not necessarily made out of ego. People come on these forms not just to talk but to help educate others as they share. Again, inadvertently, Peter is perceived as saying those people's opinions are flawed and incorrect. And there attempts to educate people have failed as they are misleading and incorrect. So yes it has become a very sore topic.

I think people forget that almost anyone placed in front of Peters stereo would be very aware its a horn and many may dislike the sound. Its a horn for goodness sake. Very unmistakable. Not at all capable of sounding like a Wilson, Magico, Kharma. No matter how many pillows you stuff in its throat, it still sounds like a horn. And generally, horns don't sound so good.

I believe that is why horns fell out of favor. Dont get me wrong, there are good horns out there. But most horns sound like horns. It has an appeal. It creates a sort of live, energetic sound. But its just a type of sound like any other sound. And it can be very offputting. It appears much more so than a system based upon dynamic drivers and powerful amps. It seems most people gravitate to the sound of dynamic drivers and powerful amps. I nyself gravitate to a horn type sound. But at the same time, I feel like I would not enjoy sitting in front of it every day. My wife especially. We sat in front of CH Precission and Wilson Yesterday. She likes it more than my open baffle and 40 watts of power.

I think most people should avoid horns. They seem difficult to get to any level of good. I have never been in front of a horn I would call fully dialed in. I have been in front of many dynamic driver systems that are very dialed in. I have never been in front of dynamic drivers that drove me from the room for reasons other than the owner playing to loud. I have walked out of rooms with horns as they were so bad I just had to leave.

So, anyone can yarp to the world they found natural sound with a horn. Good on them. Its posible they are the only one that hears it that way.

As an aside, if the british are responsible for shepherds pie, they got one thing right.

I have heard Lowther horns “shout”, but My Altec’s certainly do not shout and, though they lack deepest bass, they otherwise sound very real to me. Kedar ran some vids of my system playing music on YouTube, as have I, and with knowledge of what they sound like in person, I can make a pretty fair judgement of how other systems heard on YouTube would sound in person. I subscribe to Tima’s youtube site, he runs JVC’s with horns off Lamm’s and his system sounds brilliant. Same Peter’s Lamm-driven horns. Perhaps his horns being vintage have paper cones and surrounds that some say sounds better than many speakers made of plastic, magnesium, kevlar etc., have you heard vintage horns with paper cones?

I hope you are not raging because Peter found, in situ with the rest of his system, that vintage corner horns sound more real than the Magico’s he got rid of? “Not at all capable of sounding like a Wilson, Magico, Kharma.” You even declare that Peter said “anything but horns is hi fi”. Which thread number was that?

 

[morricab]

Very much agreed. What I wrote above points to that:

"We all hear through the filter of our biases, priorities and experiences."

No, their aural memory is crap. I have hosted many demos with people coming from lots of different system types but there is often convergence on what sounds more natural when doing component or tube swaps.

I also think it is no surprise that most of my audiophile friends migrated from planars or box speakers to horns/SETs. Some of those not yet ready or hsving space for horns still have SETs…guys with very good hearing and critical thinking skills.

One guy is a concert promoter both Rock and classical music…both his systems are horn with SET and analog (digital too).

One thing I think Ked is right about is that if you are into live unamplified music you will start to lean towards these types of systems. I can also see leaning towards huge planar speakers as a reasonable alternative.

The only box speakers I have heard that kind of get there are Sigma and Grandinote, both of which have very high sensitivity for not having a horn (ok new Grandinote has horn tweeter).