Ron’s New System

[tima]

Ruminations on Transparency ...

Reading these last 2-3 pages of talk about 'transparency' has been quite amusing to me. Arguing over whether 'a transparent system is a dynamic system' puts a strain on the discussion. The audio words are sketchy enough; do we need to debate whether one is included in the meaning of another?

Nonetheless 'transparency' is a word embedded so deeply in the audiophile lexicon that, whatever it intends, I doubt that people will stop using it and continue to believe they know what it means..

Along with terms such as 'soundstage' or 'continuousness', transparency is a word about hearing sound reproduced or about the sound quality of components.. ... or something like that. It is not a word for real world sound. It is an audiophile word, largely adopted from the review language and possibly the most confusing of all audiophile words.

Transparency is an attribute (?) of which there is degree but no absolute -- a comparative word. "System X is more transparent than system Y."

Transparency is another word used to describe sound reproduction that is lifted from a visual context. Transparentem, presenting no obstacle to the passage of light. This is where the too-often-used phrase "lifting veils" and other off-shoots find their explanation. Visual oriented descriptions of sound reflect the difficulty we have in describing sound uniquely and the lexical dominance of sight over other senses. I don't hear sound descriptions adopted to describe visual phenomena.

Some audiophiles talk about "seeing into the recording" or "seeing into the music" -- a sense of bypassing all of the recording process to arrive unfettered at the original event. This does not seem to be inherent in the word 'transparent', but when pushed some will go there.

Probably just me but I like the word "clear" as the ultimate definition of transparent -- much easier to just say that.

 

[morricab]

As I told you, I know about, respect and acknowledge Jim Strickland great work at Acoustat . However Peter Walker sentence I addressed predated the Acoustat Spectras (around 1987) for about 20 years ... In this period of time material technology evolved a lot.

I (and many others consider the ESL63 more transparent than the ESL57 - a subjective opinion, depending on how we weight the many factors influencing transparency) Probably for you, being an electrostatic point like speaker with great technical and acoustic properties is not important for transparency, for me the acoustic outcome of this innovative aspect makes the difference - IMO what we particularly prefer is not so much important for out debate.

Stop playing the fool. You were not only talking about Peter Walkers quote because you mentioned all the dead electrostats you owned in the past, which were likely designed after 1974.
Most other electrosts AFTER Jim Strickland’s innovations also die (Audiostatics, Soundlabs, Martin Logan etc.).

 

[morricab]

My PP tube amplifier has some modest feedback too. It does make a difference.

How many dB?

 

[bonzo75]

Along with terms such as 'soundstage' or 'continuousness', transparency is a word about hearing sound reproduced or about the sound quality of components.. ... or something like that. It is not a word for real world sound. It is an audiophile word, largely adopted from the review language and possibly the most confusing of all audiophile words.

Disagree with that. It came into the review language as a term from usual language, to describe what is being heard. I used it when I had Martin Logans because one of the most attractive quality of stats is the see throughness - with cones this can happen if a perfect room and relatively a very small cone to the room. Speakers disappear and you can see through. Transparency is quite intutive then, and is therefore the most commonly used.

Transparency to recordings is something I have been using since I got into recordings, and realized some systems show differences between them and some not. I found this intuitive while communicating with those who used quality recordings like Bill and the General, not with others. The only other term I can think of is the system is coloured and does not show difference of recordings or components, but coloured is a more audiophile word than transparency.

Flow or conituity is not audiophile either, as you can hear lack of flow and stop start.

These are only audiophile in the sense that a non-audiophile will not experience lack of flow and stop start or lack of transparency, so he won't think of saying that something has flow (because the concept of not being there does not exist).

 

[tima]

Disagree with that. It came into the review language as a term from usual language, to describe what is being heard. I used it when I had Martin Logans because one of the most attractive quality of stats is the see throughness - with cones this can happen if a perfect room and relatively a very small cone to the room. Speakers disappear and you can see through. Transparency is quite intutive then, and is therefore the most commonly used.

Not quite sure what is your disagreement. That words such as 'soundstage' or 'transparency' did not originate for audio use with early subjective reviewing?

Best as I recall these came to prominence and people started using them from Harry Pearson. I don't know how much early TAS you've read -- I've read most all of it. Pearson and Holt led the movement to subjective reviewing -- TAS started as a quartely journal in 1973. How old were you in 1973? Martin Logan started in 1979.

I agree that these words, other than perhaps "soundstage" are not made up words and they preexisted in the English vocabulary. But they were adopted as part of the new subjective listening vocabulary. Absent a way to describe sound aurally, much was taken from visual description -- more analogy than straightforward description.

When I say 'not real world sound' I mean you don't read descriptions of live acoustic music events as 'transparent' or 'continuous'.

Of course some words are easily adopted, but that does not mean they cannot be confusing. Witness the previous discussion. There is a 9 page discussion on the meaning of transparency in 2018 and other threads about what does it mean.

Audiophile words are not limited to use by neophytes.

Feel free to have your own dictionary and use whatever descriptors you like. The confusion will remain. They are under continual discussion.

 

[orfeo_monteverdi]

[please forgive my poor English]
On transparency,

Transparency is a singular characteristic. It is a spectrum with total blockage and opaqueness on one end and perfectly clear, see-through, crystalline clarity on the other end.

No, the problem is the idea of using visual concepts to describe music. Your analogy fails because we don’t hear her singing in that tank of water. You’re stuck on pixel count.

In audio matters, we are talking about capturing information at one place, retrieving it, and then presenting it to the listener in his room. Consider a girl with guitar recording. You hear the notes and you hear the voice, but it sounds flat and lacks energy. The image is a bit too big and the guitar is not close enough to her voice. From what you have written, you would describe this presentation through a system as transparent, and I would not not.
(emphasis are mine)

Then is it possible that
- what Ron calls transparency is related to a see-through, or hear-through parameter. It is then related to the system and room levels of background noise, too.
- and what PeterA calls transparency here is the (more or less great) exactness of the homothety that the reproduction is (no matter the ratio, the 'scale' of this homothety). It is then also related to proportions, scale, volume, relative positions of virtual sources, etc. It seems to be more related to space (whereas Ron's conception, if I understood correctly, seems to be more related to level, noise floor; a level of background noise allowing certain details to emerge from the silence).
?

If so, then in the second case, I would personally call coherence what PeterA describes: a coherent, that is highly exact, homotethy of the recorded scene (sure, recording & mixing slip in the between...).
Understood like this, coherence would nevertheless allow a certain degree of murkiness/thickness.
Admittedly, this meaning of 'coherence' may collide and interfere with time-coherence. Should we say 'space coherence' then ? (time- and space-coherence may be two dimensions of the same thing, but this is beyond my knowledge)

 

[bonzo75]

Best as I recall these came to prominence and people started using them from Harry Pearson. I don't know how much early TAS you've read -- I've read most all of it.

None, I started on listening and forums and got into reviews only much later, when I started googling tons I had heard and liked and stumbled across reviews. Which I guess is unlike older audiophiles who started with reviews and then came to listening and forums.

I agree that these words, other than perhaps "soundstage" are not made up words and they preexisted in the English vocabulary. But they were adopted as part of the new subjective listening vocabulary. Absent a way to describe sound aurally, much was taken from visual description -- more analogy than straightforward description.

Yes

When I say 'not real world sound' I mean you don't read descriptions of live acoustic music events as 'transparent' or 'continuous'.

These words come in when the lack of is experienced. Which can only happen with a system, but it is like hey, what am I am not hearing here? Coherence, or lack of, is similar.

Of course some words are easily adopted, but that does not mean they cannot be confusing. Witness the previous discussion. There is a 9 page discussion on the meaning of transparency in 2018 and other threads about what does it mean.

Yes because not many realise the importance of transparency in understanding differences of upstream components unless they are actively comparing in different set ups, and experience of transparency to recordings is even lower, especially with increase in digital and lack of quality pressings. These require the system to play a more active role to add to the sound of the recording to make it palatable

 

[Al M.]

Feedback is a negative sonic trait required only where the speaker needs more drive. Better speakers allow for zero feedback sets to drive them to glory. If the speaker is not efficient enough it will require feedback or worse, big push pull or big SS amp.

Well, you're talking out of your typical book. My previous parallel push-pull triode monoblocks with zero feedback could drive my previous monitors very dynamically and effortlessly, and I liked the sound (I listened to them for decades). I found that my current amp still sounded better on those monitors.

 

[bonzo75]

Well, you're talking out of your typical book. My previous parallel push-pull triode monoblocks with zero feedback could drive my previous monitors very dynamically and effortlessly, and I liked the sound (I listened to them for decades) I found that my current amp still sounded better on those monitors.

You are talking your typical system. What you said implies your monitors weren’t good enough and/or you were not driving them correctly.

 

[Al M.]

You are talking your typical system. What you said implies your monitors weren’t good enough and/or you were not driving them correctly.

You're funny.

 

[tima]

None, I started on listening and forums and got into reviews only much later, when I started googling tons I had heard and liked and stumbled across reviews. Which I guess is unlike older audiophiles who started with reviews and then came to listening and forums.

Betwen the two of us I'll guess that I'm older. I had a stereo in high school then some Bose 901s in college and then Magnepans and Hafler -- there were audio dealers but very few high-end dealers then. There were measurement oriented magazines, mostly Julian Hirsch saying if one amp measures the same as another amp you will not be able sonically to tell them apart. Or so I recall. I did not read TAS when it first came out -- did not know it existed until one of my dart buddies told be about it and lent me his collection. Forums came after the world wide web. I and maybe others similar were listening before most of that -- my parents had a stereo and a record collection. I was playing piano and woodwinds and my teachers encouraged listening and concert going.

 

[microstrip]

Stop playing the fool. You were not only talking about Peter Walkers quote because you mentioned all the dead electrostats you owned in the past, which were likely designed after 1974.
Most other electrosts AFTER Jim Strickland’s innovations also die (Audiostatics, Soundlabs, Martin Logan etc.).

As expected and usual, you change to an aggressive style once you are short on arguments. Bye.

 

[morricab]

As expected and usual, you change to an aggressive style once you are short on arguments. Bye.

And as usual, you twist around the subject without explaining yourself.

 

[the sound of Tao]

Ruminations on Transparency ...

Reading these last 2-3 pages of talk about 'transparency' has been quite amusing to me. Arguing over whether 'a transparent system is a dynamic system' puts a strain on the discussion. The audio words are sketchy enough; do we need to debate whether one is included in the meaning of another?

Nonetheless 'transparency' is a word embedded so deeply in the audiophile lexicon that, whatever it intends, I doubt that people will stop using it and continue to believe they know what it means..

Along with terms such as 'soundstage' or 'continuousness', transparency is a word about hearing sound reproduced or about the sound quality of components.. ... or something like that. It is not a word for real world sound. It is an audiophile word, largely adopted from the review language and possibly the most confusing of all audiophile words.

Transparency is an attribute (?) of which there is degree but no absolute -- a comparative word. "System X is more transparent than system Y."

Transparency is another word used to describe sound reproduction that is lifted from a visual context. Transparentem, presenting no obstacle to the passage of light. This is where the too-often-used phrase "lifting veils" and other off-shoots find their explanation. Visual oriented descriptions of sound reflect the difficulty we have in describing sound uniquely and the lexical dominance of sight over other senses. I don't hear sound descriptions adopted to describe visual phenomena.

Some audiophiles talk about "seeing into the recording" or "seeing into the music" -- a sense of bypassing all of the recording process to arrive unfettered at the original event. This does not seem to be inherent in the word 'transparent', but when pushed some will go there.

Probably just me but I like the word "clear" as the ultimate definition of transparent -- much easier to just say that.

Sometimes I think of our audio terminology more almost as the ponderous audiophile dys-lexicon.

I agree with much of what you say here. But awkwardly we tend to want one perfect vision of the hobby and the concepts that underlie it and thanks to the fascinating nature of subjective perception that’s not going to happen.

Some here are constantly boxing up new ways of saying the same things and generating more propulsions of confusion. Here we are after decades as formerly younger souls who’ve carried the same battles unflinchingly for decades and now fading into our various twilight zones and still the same insubstantial debates rage. I just figure I can often in ways appreciate the quality of many of the ideas involved even if they don’t align but they would be good if we allowed some latitude and moved flexibly towards some basic mutual understanding.

While I ultimately don’t have an issue with others applying their own very different takes on notions of transparency (life is too short for that kind of myopic behaviour) as long as I can understand where someone else is coming from when they use it I personally see no great need to force an issue where anyone ultimately needs to agree with one particular version of interpreting transparency.

The humour in it for me though is when people get all hung up on their own uptight black and white rightness about it and engage in years of habitual blinkered battles and putting up implacable walls holding out against any real understanding of other’s experiences or viewpoints… so much that we rarely seem to progress past agreeing on definitions and move on to exploring the deeper issue potentially of causes.

Beyond this though (and I usually keep quiet on these things) I also don’t just see how the discussion (once again ) became hijacked by the weird random and compulsive anti SET rhetoric… never makes sense to me that SET haters are being triggered so constantly at seemingly every turn or most every topic to somehow drag the thread kicking and screaming back into let’s put the boot into what is just one niche of amplifier design… what are they ultimately threatened by and so aggressively and irrationally anti about, lord help us if they get involved in something that is actually vital or critical to world peace.

Who gives a stuff really what the beef is if people choose a different typology, if you don’t like it don’t buy into it. I don’t get negatively caught up in what others like as I’m kept quite happily involved by the music and my own system… and hopefully for all triumphantly rather than fervently forwards on to each their own.

 

[Kingrex]

I like the term, Vacuumed clean!!!!!

 

[KeithR]

You guys are just ruining Ron’s thread with all this bogus gobbledygook talk about audiophile terminology. Can we hear more about the Mastersounds and Aries Cerat instead?

 

[bonzo75]

You guys are just ruining Ron’s thread with all this bogus gobbledygook talk about audiophile terminology. Can we hear more about the Mastersounds and Aries Cerat instead?

You need to keep up. Ron himself changed the topic from that consciously to provoke Lamm vs SS colouring discussion and had a long winded discussion on transparency making Stevie Nicks and Kamala Harris vague analogies. Not sure if you want us to stay on Ron’s topic, or the topic of the thread you think Ron should focus on

 

[tima]

While I ultimately don’t have an issue with others applying their own very different takes on notions of transparency (life is too short for that kind of myopic behaviour) as long as I can understand where someone else is coming from when they use it I personally see no great need to force an issue where anyone ultimately needs to agree with one particular version of interpreting transparency.

I found the discussion more amusing than anything else. There is a perspective that comes from reading through the mostly complete dialogue that may not be had by participating in it. Forest, Trees.

 

[microstrip]

(...) Beyond this though (and I usually keep quiet on these things) I also don’t just see how the discussion (once again ) became hijacked by the weird random and compulsive anti SET rhetoric… never makes sense to me that SET haters are being triggered so constantly at seemingly every turn or most every topic to somehow drag the thread kicking and screaming back into let’s put the boot into what is just one niche of amplifier design… what are they ultimately threatened by and so aggressively and irrationally anti about, lord help us if they get involved in something that is actually vital or critical to world peace. (...)

I could re-write your sentence replacing "SET" by "solid state" or "powerful push pull". As I wrote several times, many people fail to understand that in this hobby whatsbest becomes whatspreferred ...

 

[the sound of Tao]

I could re-write your sentence replacing "SET" by "solid state" or "powerful push pull". As I wrote several times, many people fail to understand that in this hobby whatsbest becomes whatspreferred ...

But I don’t think that’s the real issue here.