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.
Soular Energy "Exactly Like You"
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.
Yup, I heard the exact same thing.Thank you for your comments here!
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.
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 biases often drive the sonic report.*
*Except for un-referenced subjective opinions about overall tonal balance.
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