I think these Clarisys speakers are very transparent and chameleon-like. Every time I and most times guests attribute something to the speakers it turns out the cause was something else, and the speaker was just functioning as a neutral conduit.
Ron’s New System
- Thread starter Ron Resnick
- Start date
On phone playback the new one is better, better weight and depth. I will listen on soundbar later in the day to confirm
I usually don't comment on the sound of online videos, but in this case I hear a fairly stark difference between the two. To oversimplify, the first is top down and the second is bottom up (Clarysis). As if a parametric eq was applied that tilted the frequency balance towards the upper midrange/treble in the first and towards the lower midrange/upper bass in the second. This tonal shift also alters my perception of the rhythmic pace of the performance making the two recordings sound like two different takes of the same song.
Last edited:
Yup, I heard the exact same thing.
Amp ‘2’ is beautiful, but Amp ‘3’ is the one I would
Keep…
Very different sounding videos. I’m sure anyone listening would prefer one over the other. What really matters is what Ron thinks.
Which video do you prefer, Ron, and why? You had said earlier that you don’t think videos represent the sound of your system in the room. Is that also the case with these two videos?
Which video do you prefer, Ron, and why? You had said earlier that you don’t think videos represent the sound of your system in the room. Is that also the case with these two videos?
Over the iPhone the second video sounds more natural to me and less "tinkly" on the piano.
I just played both videos over the stereo in my car, and played that way the double bass in both videos sounds horrifically boomy -- which I did not hear in the room during either recording.
You have always tried to make me answer your questions about representativeness on an up or down vote. If I have to answer yes or no, my answer is no.
As I have posted several times I think the videos may be able to suggest, at most, relative tonal balance and relative resolution -- nothing more.
I have a similar impression of the two videos over the phone and over my truck radio. I never really liked that recording because of the tonal balance and emphasized extremes.
Each video is of your different systems. In the room, which system do you prefer?
I'm confused about your criticism of that recording, Soular Energy.
On September 28, 2018, you wrote about this exact same tape:
I have heard Ian's system countless times and one of the highlights over all of these years was heard on Sunday during Ron's visit. Ron has long tried to convince me of the superiority of tape. I have heard tape a few times, even directly compared it to good vinyl, but I have never heard it sound this good from any system before. I think I now better understand where MikeL, Ron, and others are coming from. There was an effortlessness, an easy, a smoothness, and utterly natural sound to Ron's tape copy of Ray Brown's "Solar Energy" that I have not heard before from Ian's system. The M Pros driven by those massive CAT monos really allowed us to hear how good tape can sound. Thank you for bringing that tape with you all the way from CA. You mission to get me to hear good tape is accomplished.
Of course you might reverse course and say something like well, the sound in the two videos is so bad that I must've mistakenly attributed the bad sound to the recording.
My takeaway is simply that people really have little to no idea what they're listening to on these video recordings, and that various assumptions and innocent mis-attributions often drive the sonic report.*
*Except for un-referenced subjective opinions about relative overall tonal balance.
Last edited:
Your tape sounded very good in Ian’s system. I acknowledge and agree with my earlier comments about that tape in Ian system.
I don’t like the sound of the two videos, but I can’t hear them on my computer through my headphones because I can’t access the file through WBF on my computer for some technical glitch reasons. I listened over my phone and I listened over my truck radio, and in both places, the videos do not sound very good to me.
You disagree about the value of videos. You do not seem to think they represent the sound of a system while I think they do capture the gist of the way a system sounds in a room. You concede that tonal balance is captured on videos. The tonal balance is what I consider not natural sounding on these two videos. I also have the 45 RPM re-issue on vinyl and I almost never listen to it because I don’t like the way it sounds. I did like the sound of the tape when I heard it at Ian‘s. Thank you for reminding me.
The tape is the tape and it sounded good at Ian’s and I don’t think it sounds good on your two videos.
Last edited:
I think you have too many cooks in the kitchen giving you advice and you keep going off on tangents trying to solve this or that rather than attack the problem. Namely that the speakers have never been truly setup correctly. My guess is less is more once that happens.
Thank you for your thoughts.
I like getting all sorts of opinions, because sometimes they help me corroborate or refute what I am hearing. I don't see the tangents you are describing.
Perhaps you have a mistaken impression that I take some action or make some change as soon as anybody gives me his opinion on something; that I am constantly changing things around in a helter skelter way. That's not what's going on. I'm the only cook in this particular kitchen.
I have always said that glass windows or glass walls are the worst thing you can have in a listening room other than plutonium. In this particular case a professional recording engineer who has set up recording studios and mastering studios heard an issue of smearing of high frequencies I did not hear. The acoustic panels between the Hunter Douglas and the glass walls largely solve this smearing according to the recording engineer. A mutual friend also reported hearing an improvement when the panels were installed.
Now that the panels are installed between the Hunter Douglas and the glass walls I think the high frequencies sound a little bit more delicate.
Art Noxon of Acoustic Sciences Corporation a couple of years ago expressed concern about the glass walls.
Altogether this was more than enough to make an executive decision to place the acoustic panels against the glass walls. It takes less than 10 minutes to put all of the panels in, or to take all of the panels out.
I don't view this as a tangent. I view this as a mechanical remedy to the discovery of a mechanical problem. No matter where the speakers wind up being finally positioned the smearing of high frequencies due to immovable walls of glass is a problem in need of a remedy.
Last edited:
Clearly hear what others are saying as well. Way more body to the second recording, making it sound more tonally correct… and like music.
