I have a beef with audiophiles, they dont know what music sounds like. I'm probably wrong about this but I have played pianos and guitars more than I have listened to stereos, and in my teenage years spent so many hours playing my 1979 Hamer through a glorious tube amp alongside Clapton, Cale, etc on record. Pianists know a quality piano when they sit down and play it, they know a base register when their left hand strikes, they know what treble really sounds like when, like me playing my brother in law's concert Steinway, the magic happens. Why is it that my Taylor 314CE vibrates through my soul even when I play a simple Eminor chord, and I play it for hours and hours totally immersed in the sound, and my Yamaha cheapie stays against the wall hardly played.
What I look for in audio equipment is not the audiophile qualities, but the connection with the musician who is making the music. If I can find him or her in my living room like i find them live, and a Steinway does what it does when I play it, bearing its individual soul, then I am excstatic! For me so far this has meant One Thing Audio Quad esl57, Lenco on 50lb plinth, RB300 with cardas wire, Twl mod, and Denon DL103R, Sony 2000F pre and matching power amp. and only in certain places in certain rooms. BLAH
A case in point is Sade. I only realised how wonderful she sings, and how much her heart is with her when she sings when my esl57's appeared. Since then I have occasionally gone totally mad searching for the next peice of kit, but its only so I can get a bit closer to Sade, like i would do if she was in the room singing.
I have been saddened by all the audio shows i have been to in England, because the demonstrations of all the great and the good (yes i have heard most of the most expensive hifi ever made) in these rooms has been pitiful. For example, at Heathrow they are in generally very small acoustically all over the place rooms, and so what do the makers/dealers/disributers all do? bring in their biggest and most expensive speakers and destroy the sound at any volume with bass distortion so dire that a $200 boombox would have prevailed. I remember well the sole designer of Revolver speakers trying to explain to me how the "midbass" was affecting the acoustics slightly in his room. I left politely before screaming at him that it was ALL THE BASS AND ALL THE LOWER MIDRANGE and anything else god only knows! At that show 2 rooms were wonderful - a large avantgarde trio room (surprise surprise) and leema zen bookshelf speakers powered by an arcam AV amp and a shanling cd player. And did I hear a single one of the many people I saw there complain about all this. No. What do people think they are hearing?
Sorry to go on, first post pretty much for ages, and I'm feeling frustrated because i sold most of my gear to buy my house, and my amps are at the menders with dificult to find transister replacement problems.
Also, I must eat humble pie, because a modded t-amp i built and hated has suddenly sounded musical through some Shackman electrostatics and with my much maligned (by me) $4000 cd player! I'm gobsmacked, which leads me to wonder whether those damn audiophiles were right all along about system synergy... Damn Damn Damn
