Natural Sound
- Thread starter PeterA
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I'd make it even simpler;
Are you listening to sounds or for sounds?
When I hear people describe their system in terms of extended highs and a great midrange, I'm thinking, Nina Simone sounded great on the first record, and Miles' trumpet playing was on point in that last one we heard.
Beau
To be honest if I just want to listen to music ear buds and car stereo will do me just fine.
We do have an urge for great sound not just music otherwise we won't be in this crazy hobby and Peter would not have switched to a new system.
We do have an urge for great sound not just music otherwise we won't be in this crazy hobby and Peter would not have switched to a new system.
I concur Tang.
A paean to great music always wins respect though for audiophiles it's not mutually exclusive, or put differently, one need love music no less to appreciate quality sound. Great music with great sound can be thrilling.
No, part of it is just semantics, the other part is on fundamental aspects of sound reproduction.
The presented exclusive division between natural and hifi is highly artificial - IMHO "Natural Sound" is just a particular kind of "hifi".
I agree. "Hifi" stands for "high fidelity", thus the distinction between "hifi" and "natural sound" as discussed here is just as problematic as "black background".
"Hifi" as artificial sound is as much a caricature as "black background" is in relationship to real music.
The parallel stands probably for someone looking just for the semantics. But as I told, IMHO three decades of frequent use can force us to accept something, specially when we are addressing just the lexicon, not the science of it.
And yes, "black background" , as used by reviewers, is a caricature if applied to real music. It has nothing to relate with real music, just with sound reproduction. It is just stereo lexicon. It describes how far stereo manages to reproduce some specific aspects of real.
Peter, I would say Magico also is designed by measuring, and listening. One thing I took away from my discussion with Alon after my visit a few weeks back was that he does not completely trust “hearing” due to its subjective nature. So he measures, and measures again. No doubt he listens, and correlates, but measures to verify what he is hearing.
I don’t think you could get Alon to agree a paper cone is ever going to reproduce sound as accurately as one of his modern carbon/aluminum-honeycomb/carbon cones. Others might argue one is more ”musical” but how can the one more prone to distortion be a more faithful reproducer of music?
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True. And I suppose if the high and mighty HiFi enthusiasts wanted a surrogate for "natural sound", then "LoFi" would be equally adequate with key indicators being descriptors such as "unfatiguing". HiFi enthusiasts have their low distortion devices while natural sound enthusiasts have their transformer saturation, rusty antique cables, etc. Horses for courses.
And yet we have all sorts of glossary of audiophile terms that are used in reference to real sound: soundstage, clarity, dynamics, tone, scale, etc. Some work, others are highly problematic have nothing to do with real sound: blackness, noise floor, pinpoint imaging. This last group, I think do not help. They get us closer to hi-fi and further away from the natural sound of real music.
One thing I find interesting is how most reviewers describe sound and how non-audiophile people describe sound.
Peter,
You make a great point regarding non-audiophiles. When non-audiophile music lovers visit my system they usually have the same comments:
1. The musicians sound like they're in the room
2. It doesn't seem like the sound is coming from the speakers
3. Why don't your records have clicks and pops?
4. The music has a 3D component
I wonder if we need to reset out terms to return to the first times we heard a hifi system and why we liked it.
Funny thing is however that if they did not "experience" this moment "we audiophiles" had it will not happen !
Yes , they will like it , but normally you will note that there is more talk then listening during the visit... then you know...
but if they are quiet then they have a "chance" .... or become a "lost cause" like us ...LOL
Yes , they will like it , but normally you will note that there is more talk then listening during the visit... then you know...
but if they are quiet then they have a "chance" .... or become a "lost cause" like us ...LOL
Well most come for the scotch and wine collection, some stay for the music. I will say that I have converted 4 people over the last 3 years to the dark side. Two of them replaced TV's in the living room with modest systems (Zu speakers and Rega turntables) and are quite content.
We can easily understand the intent of words in conversations even without explaining them over and over again, people aren't dumb only pretend to be! It's simply wasteful, arguing for the sake of arguing like all the circular threads on subjective vs objective that never add up to anything of value.
david
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Can you please edit before Marc smells blood
Are we overrating the unnatural aspect of black background. I find many recordings have black background as recording engineers make them that way. A good system should also be accurate to recording. If you cannot enjoy black background you probably have to throw out most modern recordings...bye bye so many good music.
Fortunately reviewers say these four (only three if reviewing digital) and a lot more ...
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