You haven't heard the ones I have. There are too many variations of Altec. I have done the whole France tour, not liked any, and if by a French Markus klug wooden Altec user, you are referring to Daniel, I have been to his too.
Sublime Sound
- Thread starter PeterA
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You haven't heard the ones I have. There are too many variations of Altec. I have done the whole France tour, not liked any, and if by a French Markus klug wooden Altec user, you are referring to Daniel, I have been to his too.
It would be nice to go back to talking Peter's system. May be learning about what one consider not sounding natural in specific can in return describe what is natural. And we can use this info to remind us the way he hear or prefer when he makes comment of an equipment.
Yes, not everything was for you.
And it is patently true.
Believe me on this: The character of the studio and the sounds of the studio are two very different things. No one in the natural camp (and whatever Tima is calling it now) wants the sounds of the studio. They're part of the recording but certain things make them come forward enough that they're distracting.
There's enough stereo equipment out there to represent very low distortion (measurable for phase and linear), but it's a guarantee audiophiles will hear stuff in them that they call distortions. It hardly matters though because they won't like the sound. That's the fact, most people don't like the most true sound of the music with the recording process, because one is music the other is a necessary evil. This is why I said studios must change before we love the most accurate depiction of a recording, and in ways we cannot fathom yet. Plus you need the engineers to stop trying to make HiFi sound.
No, its not true and there is data to support my position. You are essentially claiming that all amps with a low enough distortion, regardless of how they achieved it, will sound bad because now you hear "everything" on the recording? Is that really your position?? Because that is what you seem to have written here.
It has been demonstrated numerous times that low measured THD is not a guarantee of inaudibility. Geddes found no or even a slight negative correlation between THD and percevied sound quality! Until you take into account the nature of the distortion itself you cannot make such claims as you have made above...and almost nobody is taking that into account!
Does the recording quality play a big role in believability ? Of course it does...but it is definitely not the only thing and it can easily be the gear that exaggerates "non-music" sounds. Pushing things forward in the soundstage has a lot to do with distortion in the playback. That is why as you strip away noise and noise modulated distortion you get darker backgrounds and deeper soundstage and more holographic imaging...those distortion artifacts destroy the illusion because of how we perceive them.
First speaker ever made, natural sound
From my experience, which is admittedly less deep than others in this discussion, it is the quality of the miking, engineering, mastering and everything else that goes into the making of the sausage we call -- The Recording-- that matters far more in the pursuit of Natural, Realistic sound than what we're using to play it back.
As we audiophiles are powerless to move the buried iceberg of all that comes in the process before, we obsess over making the small tip of the berg (our playback systems) a little better. Sorry if I'm just stating the obvious!
I'm certainly not making the claim that all amps with low distortion will sound bad to everyone, but to a lot of people they'll be a little too HiFi for their tastes. They want the meat, not the extras. The hard part is they'll say it has lots of distortion because from their perspective distortion is relative to their idea of the music, not relative to the recording. That statement is almost exclusively what people talk about since you can't identify distortion levels by ear until they're rather high.
Low distortion of different types might be audible, but it's not an artifact. By definition it cannot be, as it can only distort something that exists (the music). And yes we all know the type often matters more than the amount up to a fairly high percent... do you own a glue factory? This is the difference between pleasant and unpleasant sound, not HiFi vs natural.
And also I preferenced linear distortion as a qualifier, in which you can't really push much of anything if it's low... as that would be distortion.
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You are now blaming "hifi" sound on the recordings? Low distortion of high order is audible and it is a probably cause of "hifi" sound...not good recordings. Of course poor recordings will not allow your system to reach it's potential.
ALL distortion is an artifact...by definition. Go look at the Miriam/Webster dictionary for the definition of an artifact...definition 2c clearly defines an artifact in the electronic sense (not the Indiana Jones sense). I have no idea what you mean by "do you own a glue factor" . And no, it is not about pleasant or unpleasant (although live, unamplified music played well is almost always in the pleasant category, unless the music itself is by definition unpleasant (dissonant for example)) it is about AUDIBLE vs. INAUDIBLE distortions leading to a "hifi" vs less hifi or "natural" sound. The removal of artifacts as it were.
You should probably read a definition before referencing one... At this point you just sound like your marbles are long gone, rolled away. (for everyone else reading, there is no 2C, check for yourself)
By your definition one would not need to play music to understand whether a stereo was good or not, it being on with sufficient bias would be more than enough to tell someone that it sounded wrong.
Once again you show you can't read...I said the definition of ARTIFACT...not distortion, which is what you linked
.Definition of artifact
2a:
a product of artificial character (as in a scientific test) due usually to extraneous (such as human) agency
b: an electrocardiographic and electroencephalographic wave that arises from sources other than the heart or brain
c: a defect in an image (such as a digital photograph) that appears as a result of the technology and methods used to create and process the image… can produce a very good picture, but there will be some loss of detail and some color artifacts such as adjacent colors bleeding into each other.
The example is for digital photography but applies just fine to audio.
I thought Peter's system sounded really good the last time I was there. Well, it did the time before that as well but he certainly made improvements.
I thought it was interesting that he removed the tube traps and that it didn't muddy up his sound.
I thought it was interesting that he removed the tube traps and that it didn't muddy up his sound.
He had different speakers each time? That could load the room quite differently.
No, same Q3s, but he changed the positioning of the speakers and removed the tube traps.
I recently watched a video interview of Nelson Pass in which he describes how he added 2nd harmonic distortion out of phase in differing amounts to his XA.8 amplifiers to increase the "perception" of depth and I suppose increase realism. There are measurements, typology, and listening tests. Designers design and we buy what we like, for a variety of reasons.
I would like to better understand the engineering that goes into amplifier design, but absent that, I listen and try to make a choice that best suits my interests.
Just getting out of bed and I somehow missed the last couple of pages. I refuse to be woke, for so many reasons.
If you want to discuss horns on my system thread, please discuss Don Smithers. His blowing sounds pretty natural over here.
Thank you Tang. The other day Al M. and I went over to Madfloyd's place to compare preamps. We listened and compared and channeled Bonzo, because we were candid with Ian about our impressions. I asked Ian what he felt was missing with the sound of his system and what he hoped a different preamp would do. We listened some more. To my ears, the preamps did not address Ian's stated issue with his system.
With his permission, we decided to make some changes to his speaker set up. It is a rather long and interesting story best told elsewhere, but the resulting sound confirmed for me an audio truth: setup really matters.
In retrospect, just like the preferences expressed by Al and Ian for one of my arm/cartridges over the other, and my preference for the other combination, these preferences and differences are much less significant that the bigger picture of how the system overall performs. The preamps sounded different, but they were minor, perhaps hampered by the system set up. Changing how the speakers connected to the floor, their toe-in, and position, truly transformed the sound of his system.
This may sound hyperbolic, and Ron's ears may be perking, but in retrospection, I heard a transformation in Ian's system similar to the one I have been making over the past several months in my own. It was profound.
When a system goes from being asleep, or hifi sounding, to one that is awake, alive, full of energy and natural sounding, the differences between listeners' preferences for one cartridge/arm combination over another or for different preamps seem insignificant. It is the big picture towards a more natural sound that has captured my focus lately. The other stuff seems suddenly less significant. (vdH sibilance alert)
When Jim Smith years ago was nearly finished completing his work in my room, he said, "Now you will be able to more clearly hear the differences between various components." He was right. Ian is now reporting clearer differences between the preamps, than I heard at the time before the changes, and he and Al reported clear differences between by my two arm/cartridge combinations the last time they were here.
The important thing for me was that Al and Ian were able to enjoy my system perhaps more than before these changes toward a more natural sound, regardless of what arm/cartridge I happened to be playing. They simply preferred one over the other.
The other thing that Jim Smith told me before he left was something like this: "If you continue to think about last night's listening session the next morning or for the next few days, I know I have done my job." This is the big picture stuff and the value, I am learning, of a system that is beginning to sound more and more natural.
The interesting thing about those TubeTraps, in retrospect, was that I think they were affecting a specific frequency band and absorbing reflections and sucking out the life of the music. This seemed to cause a less even perception of the lower frequencies in my room. Once identified, I realized it sound more realistic without them. I think I had prefered their effect before because I focused in on a particular part of the sound. In typical fashion, I was breaking down the music into "bits and pieces." Stepping back, I now realize that their removal results in a more even low frequency and a more natural and wholistic sound. The room also looks much nicer.
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