Maybe in theory you are correct but in practice this is truly not the case. Clearly the recording holds a large portion of what might be perceived as natural or artificial. It takes very little to degrade what "naturalness" is there, IME. What the equipment should or should not do is not really the point here...it is what the equipment DOES to manipulate the sound. As I mentioned, you can have a system that reports rather honestly the differentiation betweeen recordings, allowing one to hear all the glory of one recording while hearing clearly the flaws in another without rendering the flawed one unlistenable. If a system is making a high percentage of ones recordings distasteful to listen to then either A) You have TERRIBLE taste in music/recordings and what you select to listen to would only sound ok on a very low rez system or B) Your system is editorializing the sound in some way to exaggerate flaws in the recording to such a level that it becomes unpleasant.
The Mysterious Case of the Listening Window! By Jeff Day, Positive Feedback
- Thread starter PeterA
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Maybe in theory you are correct but in practice this is truly not the case. Clearly the recording holds a large portion of what might be perceived as natural or artificial. It takes very little to degrade what "naturalness" is there, IME. What the equipment should or should not do is not really the point here...it is what the equipment DOES to manipulate the sound. As I mentioned, you can have a system that reports rather honestly the differentiation betweeen recordings, allowing one to hear all the glory of one recording while hearing clearly the flaws in another without rendering the flawed one unlistenable. If a system is making a high percentage of ones recordings distasteful to listen to then either A) You have TERRIBLE taste in music/recordings and what you select to listen to would only sound ok on a very low rez system or B) Your system is editorializing the sound in some way to exaggerate flaws in the recording to such a level that it becomes unpleasant.
I like to think I am not that affectionate with my audio gear.Yes naturalist listening with loose hanging equipment is dangerous in a class A tubed environment
Am i the only one that occasionally gives the speakers a hug, or the amps a appreciative pad after a good performance ?
I have a picture with one of Miami’s biggest club owners lovingly embracing my Martin Logan Statement speakers after he was blown away by their performance. It was at a after hours party in the final stages of a long night drinking, but the love was real Some month later i let a Playboy photographer use my apartment for a shoot, and he did some shots with the girl and the speakers, those speakers where sexy. Regretfully the session never made it into the magazine, and as my wife was doing the videography i was never given a copy of the pictures
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I do engage in some totemism with my equipment when I turn it off. I thank it for giving me some blessed time of inspiration, poetry and beauty. Yes, sometimes I touch it with affection, but only at arm's length.Am i the only one that occasionally gives the speakers a hug, or the amps a appreciative pad after a good performance ?
Hello Morricab
That makes sense if it's not there on the recording I don't want my system overlaying what I think is missing on everything. It's just another added distortion that I see as euphoric which to me completely defeats the point of a transparent system. I want to hear what differences there are track to track
Rob
My opinion is based on his long posts about the current sound of his system and particularly how different it sounded before.
Yes, you can use the terms with the recording as with systems why not? Natural sounding systems allows the recording to be played back with realism, it's colored or artificial sounding systems that transform the recording to something else. It's beyond ridiculous that some people here try so hard and bully others into not using words because it either messes with crap wires or just because they can't their with their systems. Utter nonsense!
david
+1, although I appreciate the technical and build quality!
We can add F. Toole to the stone hearted owners:
"The origin of emotion in a listener is the art itself—the music or movie—and
not the audio hardware. It is inconceivable that a consumer could feel an emotional
attachment to a midrange loudspeaker driver, yet without good ones, listening
experiences will be diminished. "
Lol, just goin the fancy words M and makin it pertier (and more complexGraham, when i read the scribblings about the thoughts you and Tim have, i feel like a caveman trying his firs wall drawings. Stop it ! You are making the rest of us feel inadequate
) than it probably is. It is just that talking complex after two drinks is our other national sport here . Today in the light of day and after a morning coffee I’m back to thinking tubes and more simple ideas like should I swing past and visit a mate who’s just bought a vintage pinball machine for his man cave.Was just thinking getting balance right opens the listening window when last night when listening though the tube change I made this week which had also brought a shade of additional bass heft that it seemed to make recordings generally a bit more right and that by not being in any way tipped up and by being more sufficiently full in balance generally after playing a good range of recordings everything seemed less critical and less exposed in terms of sound quality yet not at all less resolved.
Maybe getting greater latitude on recordings that work in a system doesn’t always involve negative sound compromises or detuning but rather just getting things more balanced and more right can do it as well.
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Sorry David, I am tired of your distorted, insulting and shouty style. Bye.
Fransisco, you stated this to me a few posts up this thread:
"IMHO your type of tuning created a narrow window."
When then asked by Al to explain your comment because he rightly points out that you have never heard my system, you write that you base your opinion on my long posts describing the sound of my system and how it has changed. I appreciate that you read my system page and comment. Thank you.
Could you please tell me what I have written that gives you the impression that my changes have "created a narrow window"? I am very curious because my impressions of the listening window, though admittedly I had not thought in those terms before, are the exact opposite.
Getting rid of the audiophile accessories like fancy power cords, signal cables, acoustic treatments isolation platforms, and repositioning my speakers, has in fact allowed me to enjoy a larger selection of my record collection. What did I write to indicate to you that my listening window is in fact now narrower? I am really curious.
Well, obviously I have first-hand experience of his system, and I can guarantee that his listening window has not narrowed
.
This is a comment about Day's article, not you:
I agree that setup is very important. However this looks like a strawman argument from Mr.Day. Perhaps he was listening to a poor setup all along.
It's not like the equipment changed from non-musical to musical. Iirc you liked your system before the recent changes you applied. What changed was your preferences and goals.
Well, obviously I have first-hand experience of his system, and I can guarantee that his listening window has not narrowed
Al, we posted at the same time. I agree with this. Although I had not thought in terms of "listening window" before reading Jeff's article and starting this thread, I do indeed enjoy more of my record collection now. This is not to imply that my changes have homogenized the sound to make more of them listenable. It is the opposite. The recordings now sound more distinct from each other, particularly in terms of recording venue spatial cues and more variance in soundstage dimensions. If anything, the audiophile accessories I had before seemed to homogenize the sound because my Transparent cables made the soundstage more similar and the power cords emphasised particular frequencies to create more "detail". This made some poor recordings hard to sit through. It is no longer the case. The acoustic treatments overdamped the listening room, so subte resolution was lost.
This is now all very clear to me and it is all covered by my the term "natural". The sound is more convincing and the recordings sound more distinct without having recording attributes "emphasized" or homogenized.
Sure. I thought output different from input was distortion.
But you need to connect recording attributes to words such as natural and artificial in a different way. I don't think 'artificial recording' gets us very far.
See for example this interesting quote from Arthur S. Pfeffer in the march june 1981 issue of TheAbsoluteSound about his own biases. I appreciated a lot his reviews - and it was great to know in detail reviewers biases before reading.
Tim,
I understand what you are writing. However, can you not say that it is likely that less than optimized set up is also the issue for most or even all of Jim Smith's clients who hire him for his RoomPlay service? He does not change anything in the system except for listening seat and speaker positioning. His clients enjoy their sound more after he leaves. They don't change their taste or their gear. I am actually not sure my preferences have changed that much. I just hadn't understood how to realize them. The goal was always to make the system remind me more of my reference: live unamplified music and to more fully enjoy my music collection.
In the process, I learned to better recognize the flaws in my system and what was causing them. I have described the sound as going from more "hifi" to more "natural", but I now am uncertain if that really means that my preferences changed. I did indeed like what I had for years, but now it is different and better my goal really never changed.
I guess I have to think more about this. Your observation about the importance of set up and referring to it as a strawman in Mr. Day's comments is quite interesting to me. I have simply learned to appreciate more the vital important role of set up in a successful audio system. It is integral to the impact of the experience as Jim Smith demonstrates. David Karmeli taught me about set up also, but he also addresses the gear and accessories and their effect on the overall sound.
Peter, I agree with all this. The difference in size of soundstage between different recordings has clearly increased, and low level energy is better portrayed.
Peter,
I found that sometimes in my system ChingCheng (or the Belden or cj supplied hospital grade) cables and no toe-in kills most rock recordings and most modern recordings. My Harmonia Mundi digitals (even the enjoyable analog sourced LaFolia) and AliaVox looses focus and detail. My preferred french singers and Leonard Cohen also suffered with them. Modern jazz from labels such as Black Saint/Soul Note also become less listenable, the so called surprise factor of music disappears.
Since long I have reduced my room treatments to a minimum, strictly what I need to compensate for a very long room bass modes and the very thick stone front and back walls . Nothing new here - it was also the advice from David Wilson in his manuals and F. Toole in his book, I am not an adept of treated rooms, also for visual reasons.
Reading from the diversity and enthusiasm of your own comments of your 2018 adventures and emotions I got the idea that the window was wider at that period. Now most of what I see is a search for confirmation of your progress, and an endorsement of a few experienced people advice. It is my biased faraway reading, surely nothing more than that and I can be wrong.
I never saw the audiophile accessories as a fundamental part of a system. I enjoy their effect also as part of the diversity of this hobby and for the pleasure I get from their contribution to the music of my system. BTW, I am not a person who is permanently comparing the size of soundstage and the recoding technique - I look mostly for the feeling of "being there". Once I "am there" I can imagine all else is good
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