[sunshinedawg]

But if sunshinedawg has found the Nirvana where, on certain recorded material, his brain need no longer make this basic concession to an illusion, then he's got more money and luck than me, that's for sure. 

I guarantee I don't have more money than you. Most have amps that are worth more than my whole system. I am not lucky either. I have just read a lot about how to best recreate live performance and don't worry about what I think could be possible. I just do it.

For example,  I simply cannot recreate The Dallas Meyerson Symphony Center "space" in my listening room.

I guess I'm not making my self clear. If you record the hall acoustics at this venue you CAN recreate it in your living room.

[martyo]

For me, I have always built my systems around the best speakers I could find for the money I had available.

rklein

Another answer to the original thread question.

I have known quite a few musicians over the years, NONE classical, and none of them had decent stereos either.

[rklein]

Here is an interesting link that talks about good ears and audio equipment.

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/trends/ta10.html

rklein

[BrianM]

Here is an interesting link that talks about good ears and audio equipment.

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/trends/ta10.html

rklein

Thanks, great read.  As someone with golden ears    I couldn't agree more with the preamble to the review.

[Russell Dawkins]

I think most orchestral musicians I know, and I'm married to one, would reject as simple folly the notion of attempting to put together a home stereo that could actually produce a sound that could fool you into thinking "you were there".

My wife, an oboist, almost never casually listens to music except when she has no choice (Starbucks, etc.).
When she does listen though, she really hears. She can usually identify the ethnic origin of an orchestra on the radio and even the orchestra itself.
She has pointed observations to make about the balance (relative levels of the various components of the mix) and what I would call soundstaging.
I would think the single most important quality of a stereo system for her would be the midrange tonal accuracy.
Lifelike levels and spacial realism don't mean much at all to her. "Tone" does.

By the way, thanks for the nice mention about my recordings on page 3, Sunshinedawg, I missed it 'till just now. I am very interested in knowing more about your speaker set up.

[woodsyi]

Going one step further, I would say that not only does the pitch of the tones have to be right but also the artistic (emotive) element of the music has to convey too.  So in my view, the harmonic richness of the tones have to carry over on the replay system and not just the pitch.  This point is very important when you are fixated on vocals as I am.     

[Russell Dawkins]

Going one step further, I would say that not only does the pitch of the tones have to be right but also the artistic (emotive) element of the music has to convey too.  So in my view, the harmonic richness of the tones have to carry over on the replay system and not just the pitch.  This point is very important when you are fixated on vocals as I am.     

I need to clarify terms, here.

Any old speaker can be dead on with pitch, strictly speaking. I never used the word "pitch", I said tone.

To get out of the way and allow the emotion to come through, ideally the speaker has no character of its own.
This would imply a flat frequency response both on and off axis (it can roll off, off axis, but the response linearity needs to be preserved).
It also implies a quick rise and settling time, so the speaker speaks only when spoken to.
With these criteria alone satisfied, the emotion of the performer(s) has a better chance of being heard.

[rklein]

My wife, an oboist, almost never casually listens to music except when she has no choice (Starbucks, etc.).
When she does listen though, she really hears. She can usually identify the ethnic origin of an orchestra on the radio and even the orchestra itself.

How true!!  I also can usually pick which orchestra is playing by listening to the sound production of it's woodwind players (sometimes to the detriment of just listening to the music). I can do this whether it's being played on a crappy car stereo or a mega-buck system.

I would like to talk about this more but I think we have hijacked the poor original poster's thread long enough.

rklein

[BrianM]

My wife, an oboist, almost never casually listens to music except when she has no choice (Starbucks, etc.).
When she does listen though, she really hears. She can usually identify the ethnic origin of an orchestra on the radio and even the orchestra itself.

How true!!  I also can usually pick which orchestra is playing by listening to the sound production of it's woodwind players (sometimes to the detriment of just listening to the music). I can do this whether it's being played on a crappy car stereo or a mega-buck system.

Yeah, my brass player friends in college taught me to recognize just about any orchestra by its French horns.   The Russians and French, in particular, were dead giveaways. Boston always sounded different from Chicago. (And Vienna was its own animal, of course.)  But yes, enough off topic. 

[JLM]

Lots of great advice here.

You simply can't overlook the importance of the room.  Beyond the obvious acoustical issues (bigger the better, avoid squares/cubes, sufficient absorption/diffusion) is the more important matter of control.  Domestic constraints (speaker/listening positioning, how loud, when, other competing sounds) are much bigger issues.  Digital room correction should only be used to tweak a good room that already has proper absorption/diffusion and therefore is perhaps the most optional piece of equipment you can own.

Speakers are the only transducer (something that changes energy from one form into another) in a digitally sourced system and has to do it in the unknowns of the room/amp, therefore not only does it have the toughest job, it also plays the biggest part in what you hear.  There is no perfect speaker, its an individual thing.  Know what you want, educate yourself to that and what is out there, and do plenty of shopping.

Pick the good amp to synergize with the speakers you pick.  As mentioned above, pre-amp may be optional.  Enough said.  (I'm a "speaker guy".)

Digital is changing fast, so go cheap on the transport.  Invest more in a good DAC.  Using the PC basically replaces CD shelving with a hard drive and one set of conveniences for others (need to rip, PC dependent, create playlists, never have to get out of the chair, etc.).

[jimdgoulding]

I may be pretty naïve, in present company, but I would venture that if the recording is good and location was intended, that information is in the recording and can be reproduced in two channel playback with great center imagery.  Yes, the room is a factor.  So is time and phase when selecting a speaker.  I have a wonderful recording on Athena (vinyl) of Symphonic Dances made in McFarlin auditorium in Dallas (EDS- Is the Meyerson the round one?).  Rich, sumptuous, big bass transients but its recorded rather close up as compared with, say, some Reference Recording’s symphonic works.  This, too, makes a difference.  I’m a fan of a couple of Sennheiser mikes in a Blumhiem configuration placed some distance away from the proceedings.  Peter McGrath’s recording of Mahler’s first on Harmonia Mundi is such a beast, sounds like to me.  True, your not going to get you are there sound.  The sphere of the stage is there however and the instrumentalist can be heard in an array, or not, depending on if they were.  In the hands of good sound engineers, I think two channel is a Godsend.  My beef is that when vocalists turn it up, some turkey is squelching it at the console.  I expect that their concern is overloading playback (maybe the mikes themselves, I don’t know).  If it’s the former, let me worry about that, OK?

Quiet enclosures on dynamic speakers is important.  Most dynamic speakers have good to very good dynamic range these days.  Mid range tonal accuracy is biggie.  It's where the soul lies.

I listen to concerts some Saturday nites on NPR and think they sound awfully good.  I think they use 3 mikes on a line in front of and above the stage.  I could be wrong on this.  Whatever, everything sounds very complete.  Sorry, if I strayed off topic.

[Russell Dawkins]

I’m a fan of a couple of Sennheiser mikes in a Blumhiem configuration placed some distance away from the proceedings.  Peter McGrath’s recording of Mahler’s first on Harmonia Mundi is such a beast, sounds like to me.  True, your not going to get you are there sound.  The sphere of the stage is there however and the instrumentalist can be heard in an array, or not, depending on if they were.  In the hands of good sound engineers, I think two channel is a Godsend.  My beef is that when vocalists turn it up, some turkey is squelching it at the console.  I expect that their concern is overloading playback (maybe the mikes themselves, I don’t know).  If it’s the former, let me worry about that, OK?
I listen to concerts some Saturday nites on NPR and think they sound awfully good.  I think they use 3 mikes on a line in front of and above the stage.  I could be wrong on this.  Whatever, everything sounds very complete.  Sorry, if I strayed off topic.

There are no Sennheiser mics in the McGrath recording. There was an elaborate writeup of it in Stereophile - I can't find it quickly, but here is a capsule:

http://www.stereophile.com/recordingofthemonth/877/

All mics were Schoeps. The main mic was a KFM6 Sphere and the rest were stereo pairs, mainly wide cardioids. So it is an example of a tastefully done, multi-miced recording. The mic cables were special and the mic pres were Millenia, one of the most respected brands.
By the way, you can bet those concerts on NPR that you enjoy so much is being squelched by "some turkey at the console" - just maybe a little more tastefully! Compression is all but essential, but it is an art, as much as EQ.

[satfrat]

Looks like I'll be standing alone on this podium but I think everyone's missed the boat here. You don't build a house w/o a strong foundation and to my ears and mind, that foundation starts with clean power. The components, loudspeakers, room,,, yadyadayada don't mean squat if you have crappy power that hides all the music. I'm not saying that everything else isn't important and it doesn't have it's place but I can't stress enough what clean power,,,, and that's really a simplistic definition of what that really curtails because you're not just talking about the AC power from the outlet but the audio signal inself is power, power that's being corrupted as it's transferred from 1 component to another, then further corrupted as it's sent to your loudspeakers. Now the corruption might be minute but it's surprising how much informations being hidden by that minute noise corruuption. I'm not offering answers here, this is just my philosophy of where one should start when building a system and I was learned by Psychicanimal, who spent years preaching this philosophy. I still believe it with all my heart,,,,, and ears. Then I'd be looking for rightous loudspeakers, components, and room treatment.

The sermon is over,,,,,, now are you ready for some baseball???

GO RED SOX!!!!!!!

[darrenyeats]

Looks like I'll be standing alone on this podium but I think everyone's missed the boat here. You don't build a house w/o a strong foundation and to my ears and mind, that foundation starts with clean power. The components, loudspeakers, room,,, yadyadayada don't mean squat if you have crappy power that hides all the music. I'm not saying that everything else isn't important and it doesn't have it's place but I can't stress enough what clean power,,,, and that's really a simplistic definition of what that really curtails because you're not just talking about the AC power from the outlet but the audio signal inself is power, power that's being corrupted as it's transferred from 1 component to another, then further corrupted as it's sent to your loudspeakers. Now the corruption might be minute but it's surprising how much informations being hidden by that minute noise corruuption. I'm not offering answers here, this is just my philosophy of where one should start when building a system and I was learned by Psychicanimal, who spent years preaching this philosophy. I still believe it with all my heart,,,,, and ears. Then I'd be looking for rightous loudspeakers, components, and room treatment.

The sermon is over,,,,,, now are you ready for some baseball???

GO RED SOX!!!!!!!

Hahaha, enthusiasm! S'what I love about our American brethren.

[jimdgoulding]

Yeah.  I was kind of generalizing.  Thanks, Russ, Sat.

[satfrat]

Here's some good reading on power conditioning, a little surprising coming from a forum that's never been as enthusiastic on power conditioning as say Audio Asylum.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=928730

Robin

[JLM]

I find the problem of dirty A/C to be very location dependent.  Currently I'm in a near perfect setting and have no interest/need for power conditioning.  My previous home was much more "average" but even there a PS300 made almost no noticable difference.  I've heard the effects of dirty power, which I suspect would be worse around older electrical power grids.

Robin, just to provide a more balance perspective on life, GO ROCKIES!!!

[satfrat]

I find the problem of dirty A/C to be very location dependent.  Currently I'm in a near perfect setting and have no interest/need for power conditioning.  My previous home was much more "average" but even there a PS300 made almost no noticable difference.  I've heard the effects of dirty power, which I suspect would be worse around older electrical power grids.

Robin, just to provide a more balance perspective on life, GO ROCKIES!!!

You couldn't be more wrong JLM, on both subjects.  There is simply no such thing as clean power in any home!. I can't be more clearer than that. You're just fooling yourself otherwise. Please read that article I posted, it's geared toward home theater but the basic principles apply even more so to sensitive high end audio equipment. Every home is a cesspool of noise that's feeding your system and that doesn't even include the system itself that's injecting it's own noise onto each other.  It's much bigger & deeper than you can imagine. Thems just facts.  The sooner you realize that, the sooner you'l open that door to what your system can really do for you.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it! 

Looks like we got a good game tonite. Bout time. 

GO RED SOX!!!

[JLM]

Robin,

My house is 2 years old in a sub that is less than 4 years old.  We live in the country, no industry on our substation.  The service to our house is underground and has its own transformer.  The house is equipped with a whole house surge protector.  All appliances were new with the house.  All wiring is 12 gauge and minimum 20 amp circuits.  The audio system is on three dedicated circuits.  Each of these circuits serve a single cryo'd 20A hospital grade duplex receptacle.  These three circuits share a common ground, separate from the rest of the house.  So I think that I've got the concerns from that article covered.

In an attempt to be purist, I had a 100% battery powered system.  (The dedicated audio wiring was a "while you're at it" effort.)  But I couldn't hear any difference from the A/C (the digital source had a switch to allow for "low quality, background listening").  Others with battery power have both agreed and disagreed that battery power made a difference.  That's why I stated that A/C is very location dependent.  If you're from the U.S. northeast (with its older, obsolete, overloaded power grid) I can appreciate your need for conditioning.

Gotta go (wifey just made me a big adult beverage, which means someone other than the basebase players will be scoring tonight).   

[OBF]

I'm not offering answers here, this is just my philosophy of where one should start when building a system and I was learned by Psychicanimal, who spent years preaching this philosophy. I still believe it with all my heart,,,,, and ears. Then I'd be looking for rightous loudspeakers, components, and room treatment.

Hey that's cool as the only reason I own two Elgar line conditioners is because of Psychicanimal!  You make a good point.  I didn't think of it from that angle when I phrased my question to start the thread, but my desire to possibly go to the next level in speakers is partially based on having fairly clean power already in place.  I would, however, like to substitute my iso transformers for balanced power at some point.