Natural Sound

[Steve williams]

Thanks. I owned the X2 before the XLF. IMHO and preference the XLF is so much better than the X2 that I could not consider going backward. It is my main problem - once we get used to the XLF is not easy to find anything that is not a step back.

Anyway, as I referred elsewhere, my future space will not accept 72" tall speakers. Otherwise my opinion about the XLF would probably be the same you have on the ML3 - they stay forever ....

I asked you a question. Have you played the X2's with the ML3?

 

[morricab]

Excepting the Avantgarde, none of them can be easily tried with the ML3 locally. Several people strongly advised me against the ML3 / Trio pairing.

I thought you were an experimental kind of guy. Just because some people warned you not to pair ML3 with Trios you won’t even try ? Seems you are heavily influenced by your local audiophile circle...I can’t see any reason it shouldn’t work.

 

[PeterA]

This is not about intelligence, David. There will never be agreement on what constitutes natural sound of a system, and there will always be different understandings of it, see my post. That holds even among people who all have unamplified live music as reference.

Having followed Peter's journey over the last two years, I had initially no problem with his thread title. It seemed natural . Yet I can understand the criticism, which probably would have come upon anyone who had called their system thread "Natural Sound".

Al, do you think there would ever be agreement on what constitutes dynamic or balanced sound from a system? Will there not always be different understandings of them? You and I described the sound of my Magicos as dynamic. Others laughed at that description and you told them they just had not heard Magico speakers properly set up. Later, two musician friends and I all heard the Magicos on the Lamm M1.1 and they sounded MUCH more dynamic. But, they are still not nearly as dynamic as what I now have in my room. This was a good learning experience for me.

Would you understand criticism if someone called his system thread "Dynamic Sound", or "Balanced Sound"? I think these terms are relative, subjective, and open to interpretation too. Yet, for some reason the term "natural" seem unique.

It would have been much less controversial to simply have called my thread "Micro/Lamm/Vitavox" or "Vinyl/SET/Corner Horn" and described it as sounding natural. I could have called my old system "SME/Pass/Magico" and described it as sounding sublime. But I chose not to, and instead came up with a title that describes the system as I perceive it. Sublime is a pretty strong adjective to describe the sound of a system.

Had I chosen "Vinyl/SET/Corner Horn" and proceeded to describe it as natural, dynamic, and balanced sounding, I suspect a chorus would have broken out shouting that some guy is claiming that only records and low watt tubes and horn speakers sound good, and by implication, he is telling us that our digital, solid state, panel and cone speakers sound artificial, sluggish, and colored. This is completely false, of course, and I am doing no such thing, but so it goes.

 

[microstrip]

I asked you a question. Have you played the X2's with the ML3?

No.

 

[ddk]

My only point is saying the facts. All WBF threads are about our biases and we compare them. You are permanently comparing your current system with your old system and other people systems.

My first post on this line was meant to highlight the value of Al. M comments as he is one of the few people who listened to your system and has a system that means something to me. All else are facts and semantics ...

I can't understand why people in a subjective audio forum are afraid of using the words such as biases and preference. They are inherent to the hobby and can be something positive that helps us enjoying musicm as long as we understand them! We can say that the high-end is mainly a management of listening biases and constraints with the aim of having better sound reproduction.

That’s inaccurate we do mention our biases and preferences very clearly. Natural Sound is a preference for some and in this thread and there’s strong bias against audiophile powercords, cat litter boxes, etc.

david

 

[microstrip]

I thought you were an experimental kind of guy. Just because some people warned you not to pair ML3 with Trios you won’t even try ? Seems you are heavily influenced by your local audiophile circle...I can’t see any reason it shouldn’t work.

You seem always eager to imagine wrong reasons to explain things you do not know or fully understand .

I listened to most of the Avantgarde's many times along many years and only enjoyed them playing with solid state. They are not in my current list of favorite speakers. According to my experience with them and the experience with Lamm's I do not feel they would be my type of sound. People I trust and will stay in privacy also advised me. It was enough for me, probably not for you.

 

[microstrip]

That’s inaccurate we do mention our biases and preferences very clearly. Natural Sound is a preference for some and in this thread and there’s strong bias against audiophile powercords, cat litter boxes, etc.

david

No problem with you David. You are always straight on your strong bias against many things - in fact against most things in this hobby.

But IMHO no one else here has reached such level of Natural Sound. Most audiophiles are always open to make a few exceptions in their line of thought to keep their favorite tweaks - the famous etc. you added in your list.

BTW, do you know of anyone having a Natural Sound system using DIY speakers he built himself?

 

[Al M.]

Here is what I heard in Utah:

1. Siemens Bionor, Lamm ML3, AS2000, big room
2. Vitavox CN 191, Lamm ML2, Micro SX 8000 II, small room
3. JBL M9500, Lamm ML2, Micro SX 8000 II, small room
4. Mitsubishi Diatone, Lamm ML2, AS2000, big room

Four pretty different speakers, one not even horns, all driven by Lamm SET amps and massive belt drive turntables. These four systems sounded different from each other, but they shared a common sound. David calls it "Natural Sound". I heard the same characteristics from all four systems to slightly different degrees, wrote them down in my notebook, listed them, and posted them in two threads. These characteristics describe a sound radically different from the sound I am familiar with in the systems of my local Boston audio friends, and of the systems I have heard at dealers and at shows.

My memory of my former system is that it too sounded radically different from these four systems until I started my long series of experiments to make that system sound more natural. Those experiments mostly involved set up, but also cable and power cord choices and how I supported the gear. I actually thought, as did some musician visitors, that my former Magico Q3s sounded quite natural driven by the Lamm M1.1 hybrid amps. The sound does not seem exclusive to high efficiency speakers and tubes, but I think it helps.

It is clear to me that there are different ways to achieve this type of sound, so I would not subscribe to the idea that it depends on specific gear, though some gear would preclude the system from ever sounding natural. Natural Sound is a specific type of sound that results in the characteristics I heard from those four systems in Utah and wrote on my list. Interestingly, I also heard it from a small digital office system in David's workroom, and from a CD player in his small room.

I suspect that this sound is not unique to vintage speakers. It is a whole-system approach which can include non vintage speakers. I think David would suggest that it has a lot to do with the electronics and that it is easy to kill the whole thing with the wrong power cord or room treatment.

(Emphases added.)

Peter,

first, in the context of your post you seem to conflate what David calls "Natural Sound" with in general sound that is natural.

Second, and that follows from the first point, you seem to imply that all the systems of your local Boston audio friends do not sound natural.

Or do I misread this?

Al

 

[bonzo75]

(Emphases added.)

Peter,

firs, in the context of your post you seem to conflate what David calls "Natural Sound" with in general sound that is natural.

Second, and that follows from the first point, you seem to imply that all the systems of your local Boston audio friends do not sound natural.

Or do I misread this?

Al

can I get on that local email list now?

 

[ddk]

No problem with you David. You are always straight on your strong bias against many things - in fact against most things in this hobby.

But IMHO no one else here has reached such level of Natural Sound. Most audiophiles are always open to make a few exceptions in their line of thought to keep their favorite tweaks - the famous etc. you added in your list.

BTW, do you know of anyone having a Natural Sound system using DIY speakers he built himself?

I have never heard any DIY horn speaker in the past 25 years that didn’t suffer from poor bass quality, crossover points that were never finalized or owners who ever stopped tweaking. I heard a few of Hiraga and Hiraga inspired multi way Gotto speakers with DSP or the horrendous Accuphase electronic crossovers costing over a $100k each and still sounded broken. Closest to acceptable I’ve heard is Andrew’s WE based system but still while bass quality is good the balance isn’t quite right, and he’s still tweaking today ! It always comes down to the bass Francisco, I haven’t heard one that is right.

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/american-sound-as-2000-installations-far-east-andrew.26055/

david

 

[rando]

I think what PM says is important. That is, our brains/ hearing/ perception adjust to our audio systems.

The message delivered after delving into a private soliloquy was quite sound and stopped at a point of neat closure. Though far from apparent at the outset. He affirms most of the hard truths of playback and how they are overcome by abilities that set us above all other creatures.

As far as sounding "natural" or not, everyone has an opinion on that, and again, there are degrees.

Industrial usage of the term natural in audio and a few other elements drew a bit close to the skin. Hope you at least laughed a little at what nearly delivered a full frontal attack. With of all things, your opponents bone weapon of choice. The piano in the room so to speak.

As I've stated before, David did quite well by you and continues to do so with the site owner's among others.

 

[Al M.]

can I get on that local email list now?

Good one, Ked. I do not intend to have a local group discussion about this, if that is what you mean.

 

[microstrip]

(...) Second, and that follows from the first point, you seem to imply that all the systems of your local Boston audio friends do not sound natural. (...)

Al M, please be welcome! (courtesy of BasJansen) https://basjansen.artstation.com/projects/1rnRZ

 

[bonzo75]

I have never heard any DIY horn speaker in the past 25 years that didn’t suffer from poor bass quality, crossover points that were never finalized or owners who ever stopped tweaking. I heard a few of Hiraga and Hiraga inspired multi way Gotto speakers with DSP or the horrendous Accuphase electronic crossovers costing over a $100k each and still sounded broken. Closest to acceptable I’ve heard is Andrew’s WE based system but still while bass quality is good the balance isn’t quite right, and he’s still tweaking today ! It always comes down to the bass Francisco, I haven’t heard one that is right.

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/american-sound-as-2000-installations-far-east-andrew.26055/

david

you haven’t heard the right ones then David. They are quite superior. Many bad ones sure

 

[bonzo75]

I agree Hiraga ones are poor

 

[Kingrex]

I haven't heard any DIY speaker that sounded good.

 

[morricab]

You seem always eager to imagine wrong reasons to explain things you do not know or fully understand .

I listened to most of the Avantgarde's many times along many years and only enjoyed them playing with solid state. They are not in my current list of favorite speakers. According to my experience with them and the experience with Lamm's I do not feel they would be my type of sound. People I trust and will stay in privacy also advised me. It was enough for me, probably not for you.

Oh I understand fine, you are listening to them with SS for godssake!

No , it would not be enough for me...and Avantgarde sounds like crap with SS amps. Who cares how many times you heard them this way. You didn’t hear them with SET amps, correct? And specifically not with your LAMMs, correct?

 

[bonzo75]

I haven't heard any DIY speaker that sounded good.

most of them will be bad. DIY by nature has no standard it can be zero to hero

 

[morricab]

I haven't heard any DIY speaker that sounded good.

Most speakers commercial or otherwise are not particularly good...same for everything else in audio...

 

[Tim Link]

I have never heard any DIY horn speaker in the past 25 years that didn’t suffer from poor bass quality, crossover points that were never finalized or owners who ever stopped tweaking. I heard a few of Hiraga and Hiraga inspired multi way Gotto speakers with DSP or the horrendous Accuphase electronic crossovers costing over a $100k each and still sounded broken. Closest to acceptable I’ve heard is Andrew’s WE based system but still while bass quality is good the balance isn’t quite right, and he’s still tweaking today ! It always comes down to the bass Francisco, I haven’t heard one that is right.

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/american-sound-as-2000-installations-far-east-andrew.26055/

david

I'm one of those DIY horn guys. It's true, the tweaking never ends. That's the point of DIY. Sometimes I don't know what to do because I can't decide if anything is even wrong. When I'm stuck I just stop and listen, for months if that's what it takes, and wait for a perception to develop that is persistent across everything I listen to. Then I try to go after that - assuming I don't like it.

My opinion is that DIY is just a sliding scale. As far away as you could get would be to have someone design your room and choose every piece of equipment for you.