One of my best tapes is ECM , not the most quit tape i have but very natural dynamic.
Ron’s New System
- Thread starter Ron Resnick
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There is a famous sentence of Peter Walker on electrostatics - something like it is not difficult to make a good sounding one, very hard to make one the is reliable and lasts for long. I went through several electrostatics that had a short life and ended in the scrap. Just to say we need more information.
As far as I have read it applies only to few modern recordings. Surely it can be relevant for some audiophiles, not for me.
I have some of his albums - they are in the lot of LPs I decided to keep and will go on listening in vinyl.
Yes!
If you play recordings from 1958 to well into the 1980s, one thing that happens is degradation of the master tape. For this reason a lot of the digital remasterings show a loss of the vivacious qualities of the original (and of course storage of the master is critical, especially when the 'high output' formulations on polyester showed up, which tend to shed with moisture absorption). In some cases though there is less processing. I've found its a case by case basis as to which is actually better, and there are a good number of recordings of which if you want to hear what they really are about, you have to get an original LP pressing.
That’s because Peter Walker didn’t understand how to make stators that don’t arc. Acoustats don’t arc and thousands of them are still going strong on original panels for 50 years.
Well, Acoustat was founded by Jim Strickland in 1974 he could learn from the experience of the old masters ...
Their peak period was in the 80's and ceased production in the early 90's. (from diyaudio.com) We say Acoustats don't arc only if we like the sound and accept the technical limitations of Acoustats and do not read forums like diyaudio.com - we find there long threads of people reporting problems on Acoustats and refurbishing/repairing them, describing the intrinsic problems. I respect and admire Acoustat - they were the people who developed the mixer concept also used by SoundLab and have read a lot about them, although I found them very colored and with poor stereo image for my taste - I can say that I watched a skilled technician repairing an old pair and long ago I have re-built a pair of ESL57.
Curiously Peter Walker knew how to make stators that do not arc. But he could not guess that thirty years later the glue used in his panels would fail and production would change to China ... I have read some Acoustat models had similar problems.
BTW, a good friend still uses a pair of ESL57 with the original never replaced panels and the old KT66 Quad tube amplifiers - I was the now regretful guy who sold him the amplifiers cheap decades ago ...
I also see dynamics as an element within transparency. If we view that a transparent system doesn’t hide or veil the signal… to not render the dynamics is to veil the performance both in spirit and in context.
So for me transparency is a holistic value… a highly transparent system with the right recording leads to realism… dynamics, naturalness are all aspects and qualifiers of realism. A system that can’t sufficiently portray and be representative of the dynamics in the recording isn’t being transparent.
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Exactly the way I think of it. In this sense of the holistic portrayal or presentation of the information on the recording, I think of resolution also holistically. As concepts, each is about inclusion and balance, not exclusion of attributes.
Completely, some might see transparency as just about not adding noise and that is certainly a part of it… but being transparent for me is also not obscuring or hiding from view the fragments or the existent whole qualities in a recording or a performance.
When you get amazing information on textures and spatial cues presented but not also the dynamics the spirit of the music is neutered… superficially impressive and fascinating and hifiish still but not as deeply compelling or authoritative as full scale music. Transparency is the unobscured and undiminished experience of the recorded sound and of the music.
Dynamics adds to the viscera… as does cohesion which heightens the sense of scale impact and power… if the system is capable of being truly transparent it allows the action and all the light and shade through… polite and in ways impressive but boxed in or restrained hifi ish sound can be like being interestingly slapped in the face by a sad soggy tissue.
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Stereophile glossary of terms:
transparency, transparent 1) A quality of sound reproduction that gives the impression of listening through the system to the original sounds, rather than to a pair of loudspeakers. 2) Freedom from veiling, texturing, or any other quality which tends to obscure the signal. A quality of crystalline clarity.
www.stereophile.com
You could argue that dynamics is part of that definition -- by definition.
transparency, transparent 1) A quality of sound reproduction that gives the impression of listening through the system to the original sounds, rather than to a pair of loudspeakers. 2) Freedom from veiling, texturing, or any other quality which tends to obscure the signal. A quality of crystalline clarity.
Sounds Like? An Audio Glossary Glossary: T-U
T tail The reverberant decay of a sound in an acoustical space. taut In bass reproduction, under tight control of the electrical signal; detailed and free from "hangover." tempo The actual number of beats per minute in a musical performance. Compare "pace." texture, texturing A perceptible...
www.stereophile.com
You could argue that dynamics is part of that definition -- by definition
.Stereophile glossary of terms:
transparency, transparent 1) A quality of sound reproduction that gives the impression of listening through the system to the original sounds, rather than to a pair of loudspeakers. 2) Freedom from veiling, texturing, or any other quality which tends to obscure the signal. A quality of crystalline clarity.
Sounds Like? An Audio Glossary Glossary: T-U
T tail The reverberant decay of a sound in an acoustical space. taut In bass reproduction, under tight control of the electrical signal; detailed and free from "hangover." tempo The actual number of beats per minute in a musical performance. Compare "pace." texture, texturing A perceptible...
You could argue that dynamics is part of that definition -- by definition
Yes.
Stereophile glossary of terms:
transparency, transparent 1) A quality of sound reproduction that gives the impression of listening through the system to the original sounds, rather than to a pair of loudspeakers. 2) Freedom from veiling, texturing, or any other quality which tends to obscure the signal. A quality of crystalline clarity.
You could argue that dynamics is part of that definition -- by definition
Where do you read any opening for dynamics in this transparency definition you provide?
1) A quality of sound reproduction that gives the impression of listening through the system to the original sounds, rather than to a pair of loudspeakers. 2) Freedom from veiling, texturing, or any other quality which tends to obscure the signal.
Don't you see it? It's obvious.
I do not see it at all. I'm seeing reproduction of sound without adulteration and listening through the electronics to the recording -- the clear window concept.
There's nothing about dynamics or any other sonic attribute.
How can you have a, quote, "impression of listening through the system to the original sounds" (emphasis added) without proper dynamics?
How can you have, quote, "freedom from veiling [...] which tends to obscure the signal" when there is no proper dynamics? The "signal" inherently has dynamics.
While dynamics is not explicitly mentioned in the statement, it is strongly implied.
I disagree. You are imposing those exogenous sonic elements onto the definition. The way you're looking at it, in addition to dynamics, you could graft many different sonic attributes onto the definition.
If you want to add dynamics and other sonic attributes into that mix, then you are no longer talking merely about transparency, but about a much broader concept of believability or realism or naturalness.
I hope you haven't been infected by Peter's confusion.
I disagree. You are imposing those exogenous sonic elements onto the definition. The way you're looking at it, in addition to dynamics, you could graft many different sonic attributes onto the definition.
If you want to add dynamics and other sonic attributes into that mix, then you are no longer talking merely about transparency, but about a much broader concept of believability or realism or naturalness.
I hope you haven't been infected by Peter's confusion.
OK Ron, in your concept of transparency, what specific characteristics of the music come through in the presentation and what characteristics are omitted? Clearly, you do not think of transparency as holistic. So what is left out?
Tone, presence, dynamics, imaging. Which of those or any other attributes do you consider a transparent system to be a clear window onto?
Hello Peter,
In my concept of transparency, transparency is agnostic as to characteristics of sound. That's why I don't think splicing in dynamics gets us anywhere.
I think of transparency as the crystal clear window concept: nothing obscuring or adulterating a crystal clear reproduction of the recorded sound.
OK, but in the earlier example that we were discussing, dynamics are truncated, so I don’t see how the system can be transparent. So something is obscuring a crystal clear reproduction of the recorded sound. You just proved my point. The the system cannot be transparent if the dynamics embedded in the recorded music are not coming through clearly.
The view through the window of the dynamic expression of the music is foggier than the rest of the stuff seen through the window. The window is not crystal clear.
My concept of transparency is that the window is crystal clear for the music in its entirety, all aspects and characteristics of the music and performance as perceived in the listening seat
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I'm back to having to say that transparency and dynamics are two separate attributes.
Transparency is the absence of some adulteration or fuzziness or neutral density phenomenon. More or less dynamics does not obscure or cloud the window.
Obviously not.
This again is mixing up two separate attributes.
Dynamics doesn't tell us how clear the window is.
Now you're just back to a re-characterized natural sound.
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