[Brown]

  Once as newbies we get over all the hype of the latest and greatest we eventually find our niche. It may take a few years but we get there.
  for me it started with SS now 30 years later SET and all tubes. My reference over the years became live unamplified music. Not a CD or LP.  The natural tone of guitar, trumpet  and drums are around me often. Piano as well.
  There is meat on the bone with live music. Body heft and clarity. It is a monolithic presentation that comes from all around you. Cymbals shimmer after the metallic hit and decay to nothingness. Piccolos go right to your ear and that kick drum to your chest.
  Go to more live acoustic venues and get that feel. It will stick in your head and you won't be fooled again.


charles

[TRADERXFAN]

I am going to do the tacky thing and quote myself:

"I find this stuff about sticking to science a bit humorous, when we are in fact trying to create "magic".... the illusion of people being in the room playing music!

If our true goal is the oft cited ACCURACY then the most accurate perception would be that we could distinctly discern that we are not in fact hearing people in the room with us, but are listening to 2 separate speakers at a specific distance, of a recording made in a specific type of place, with specific type of studio enhancements done to it, etc and etc... now THAT, my friends, would be an accurate system!

So the question is... who is on THAT journey??? How much will you spend to get there? "

"Audio reproduction is the science of how to fool people..."

When you think of it as illusion. If you think of it as someone doing a magic trick, then you want to find the best equipment to "fool" you.  That is the point. The scientific measurements of the equipment only help dial things into the best illusion which is based on human perceptions.

-Tony

[timind]

Accuracy to a certain extent. But what my goal has turned out to be is a system that lets me listen for as long as my schedule allows without getting irritated. Although there have been components in my system that make me turn it off after 30 minutes, they have been banished (sold). Now this did not require tubes or vinyl, as seems to be the case for most,  just careful choices and some luck.

[eclein]

As a musician and a fan of music I seek a system that can playback whatever type of music I'm in the mood for at any given moment and present that music in a believable and emotional manner fitting of the original performance.
To that end I find the formulation of a system through trial and error to be fundamentally enjoyable and educating, not to mention..FUN!!!! For me its all about the joy of music and all that is involved in sustaining that joy.

[jimdgoulding]

Elizabeth mentioned listening at low levels.  I do too many times as a matter of preference, perhaps it is for her, too.  Show you what I mean, if I get tickets to the symphony hall in my city, they will most likely be in the mid to back rows.  Should I have a recording of the same music played, I will adjust the volume to give me the same perspective.  Makes the illusion of the real thing more convincing to me and deeply felt.  Peter Walker of Quad fame said that every recording has a proper volume setting.  I think this is what he was talking about. 

For example, take Keith Jarrett at La Scala.  At the proper volume setting I give it, his piano is the right size for where I would likely be sitting (you ain't gonna get close to the stage unless you're royalty or something) and the atmosphere is more evident and additive to my pleasure.  It's there and not to be wasted by listening too loud, too large.  Which is why, I believe, the production people moved everything to Milan, and why the stage manager put the piano where he did and the sound engineer the microphone(s) where he, or she, did . . so you could have the experience of the whole thing like if you were in the audience, not on the stage (where you would not be), at La Scala.  I experiment with the volume control on every recording I have that was recorded on location.  Chamber size instrumental and vocal groups in those high ceiling small venues in Europe just mess me up.

Now, on rock concerts I toss that to the wind.  On Jefferson Airplane at Woodstock I'm listenin LOUD!  I want those guitars on The House of Pooniel Corners to vibrate my organs and Grace Slick's soaring vocal to lift the top of my head off. 

So, your volume control can be your ticket to admission and realism.  I think sometimes that gets under appreciated.

Yeah, eclein.  You bad, you're powerglide!  Good post.  Bunch a good stuff has been said.

[jimdgoulding]

Welcome to the Monkeyhaus.  That's the title of an article about a place and a listening session with a bunch of wigs in his host/manufacturer's studio by Art Dudley in the latest Stereophile.  Somethin he wrote . . "I know how fortunate I am, not just to have those records but to have a collection of playback gear that delivers the kind of body, color, momentum, presence, drama, and sheer musicality that I hear in live music as opposed to the lacey, fussy, airy and temporally frozen sound that the old-guard gurus and their neutronic lapdogs think we should want".  I don't know what he means exactly about who says what about what we should want, but I can definitely relate to what he said prior to that (happens around here nitely).  If you aren't famaliar with Art Dudley and his point of view, that can be revealed to you in the same edition in a review about some Electrocompaniet mono amps.

I'll have was he's havin.  Didn't see mention of what has become my least favorite word.

[Mag]

>>Peter Walker of Quad fame said that every recording has a proper volume setting.<<

I agree with this statement, but the proper volume is much higher than what many audiophiles have the luxury of listening.

I believe this to be somewhere in the 92 to 100 db range, depending on recording and sound interaction with your audio room.

When you are listening at the proper volume. Your brain is not compensating what you are actually hearing. Too loud and your brain puts your ears in protection mode, masking a good portion of the overall sound. Too soft, the brain adjusts for incorrect tone, harmonics etc..

At the proper volume you are hearing the correct realistic timbre of instruments without brain compensation or masking. With practiced careful listening you know when you got it right. It's a fined tuned spot on the volume dial, too much or too little spl, and you've missed it.

[Artie]

I remember back when I sold audio gear, I could never afford the "best" of what we sold, but I got to hear it every day. I liked my own system, but it was lacking. Fast-forward to the present. I now prefer to listen to the music rather than the system. I still enjoy "hi-fi", but my system today is lessor than my system then . . . and I enjoy it more.

 

[Scottdazzle]

>>Peter Walker of Quad fame said that every recording has a proper volume setting.<<

I agree with this statement, but the proper volume is much higher than what many audiophiles have the luxury of listening.

I believe this to be somewhere in the 92 to 100 db range, depending on recording and sound interaction with your audio room.

When you are listening at the proper volume. Your brain is not compensating what you are actually hearing. Too loud and your brain puts your ears in protection mode, masking a good portion of the overall sound. Too soft, the brain adjusts for incorrect tone, harmonics etc..

At the proper volume you are hearing the correct realistic timbre of instruments without brain compensation or masking. With practiced careful listening you know when you got it right. It's a fined tuned spot on the volume dial, too much or too little spl, and you've missed it.

I think 92-100 db is way too loud for a lot of music I like.  Folk and blues singers with a guitar almost never get that loud in real life -- except in clubs with the PA turned up too loud. Chamber music, too.  Let the music be the guide on how loud it should be played.

[jimdgoulding]

I'm with you, Scotty.  Mag did say depending on recording and sound interaction with your audio room, but for me, and you I'm thinkin, there is just more to it than that.  The kind of music playing and where I might be sitting in a club, concert hall, or the Fillmore when that kind of information is in a recording.  That's what the volume control gives me and I wouldn't want to limit that to a window of db's.  That's my personal preference, anyway.

[turkey]

I was hangin with a home boy the other nite and he stated that "accuracy" is his goal for his system. 

My goal is accuracy too.

So, some recordings will sound superb, and some will sound awful.

The best recordings sound like the musicians are in my living room. It's, admittedly, a bit scaled down since an entire orchestra is more than we can expect to reproduce in a typical living room with a handful of loudspeaker drivers. However, it's still a very pleasing reproduction, and the typical reaction I see is "Wow! It's like being at Severance Hall!"

Bad recordings sound bad in various ways. That's ok though. I'd rather hear them as they are than have a system that makes all recordings sound the same.

[turkey]

If our true goal is the oft cited ACCURACY then the most accurate perception would be that we could distinctly discern that we are not in fact hearing people in the room with us, but are listening to 2 separate speakers at a specific distance,

I feel that accuracy means that we are reproducing what the microphones heard in the concert hall. They experienced a sound field and we are trying to reproduce that.

[turkey]

preference, perhaps it is for her, too.  Show you what I mean, if I get tickets to the symphony hall in my city, they will most likely be in the mid to back rows.  Should I have a recording of the same music played, I will adjust the volume to give me the same perspective.  Makes the illusion of the real thing more

I don't think volume has that much to do with it.

Does the orchestra seem farther away when they're playing pp? I don't think so.

[PhilNYC]

I was hangin with a home boy the other nite and he stated that "accuracy" is his goal for his system.  I thought about this and concluded that I simply do not relate.  His system sounds accurate to me, alright, but about as dry across the board as his statement. 

Part of me wonders...is a dry-sounding system really "accurate"?  When I listen to live music, it rarely sounds "dry" (and if it's amplified music, it usually sounds harsh due to the industrial nature of public PA systems).  If I'm listening to a recording of a Sonny Rollins tenor sax tune and it sounds "dry", then the system is definitely not accurate!

[jimdgoulding]

I don't think volume has that much to do with it.

Does the orchestra seem farther away when they're playing pp? I don't think so.

I seem farther away.  Once I sat at the nearest table to where John Coltrane was standing on stage.  I could have reached out and touched the bell of his horn if I had wanted to.  Right behind him was Elvin Jones thrashing MADLY.  Whew, trust me!.  The next night I'm at a table five or six rows away.  The last night at the bar.  I am interested in the gestalt of a recording and judicious use of the volume control, up or down, gives me a variable window on that.  Dynamic contrasts remain, it is the loudness, impact and perspective that become variable with volume changing to me.  I mentioned a Keith Jarrett live recording made at La Scala.  Listened loudly and his piano unnaturally fills the space.  The (or my) gestalt is corrupted.  I wouldn't have spent the big bucks to hear that (which you wouldn't have had in the audience), in person or at home.  Listening to jazz recorded live in the club, or rock, however . . that's different!

I surely agree with Phil's comment and Turkey's second comment above.

[*Scotty*]

I think we need to pay closer attention to how we apply the term accurate in regards to describing the sound of audio systems.
  I think a system which makes all recordings sound dry and lacking in ambiance is failing to reproduce a substantial amount of information contained in the recording and is not in fact accurate at all.
It has become obvious to me that we are still failing to successfully reproduce all of the information contained in our recordings. As my system's resolution has increased over the years I have found that almost all of my recordings contain more ambient information than I thought they had when I first purchased and listened to them.
Scotty

[Quiet Earth]

An awful lot has been covered in this thread. It's a good think piece for the starting blocker.

What are you pursuing and why?

Good question. Forget the theory for a moment. Does it make music, or not? Are you finished listening after a handful of select tunes, or do overstay your visit because you end up trying to play every disc on the shelf. "Where do you think you are?"

Something else for the new person to consider. Most recordings in their final state are the effort of a mixing/mastering team that has worked very hard to produce a product with a specific sonic character. This may or may not represent what was actually heard in the live performance, if there was such a thing. (Think about laying down different tracks from different sounding rooms  at different times of the day or week, and then assembling all of it into a cohesive package, and what do you really have?)

Top this off with the fact that there is really only so much room to squeeze it all into the final form, i.e., the record or cd, and you have a set of circumstances which cannot be denied. Recordings, as good or bad as they may be, are just that. They are recordings.

Which brings us back to the original question.

[JLM]

Audiophiles chase perfection (which means something different to each of us).

The chase will be never ending because what each of us wants keeps changing due to emotional moods, type of music we happen to be listening to, how our tastes and sense of audiophile values changes with time, etc. 

And the chase will never end because there is very rarely ever the perfection performance, setting, recording, mixing, etc. 

So "good enough" is good enough IME.  Most of the music that are my highest priority sounds as good, if not better, on my system, in my room, with my sense of audiophile values, then it would have live or on any other system I've heard.  That's good enough for me.

Would a new DAC, amp, speaker help?  Maybe.  Some enjoy "the hunt" more than the music.  To each their own.  But we've all read of regrets for moving on from a particular setup.  Different isn't necessarily better or worse.  It's a past time for most of us, so have fun.

[Steve]

I think we need to pay closer attention to how we apply the term accurate in regards to describing the sound of audio systems.
  I think a system which makes all recordings sound dry and lacking in ambiance is failing to reproduce a substantial amount of information contained in the recording and is not in fact accurate at all.
It has become obvious to me that we are still failing to successfully reproduce all of the information contained in our recordings. As my system's resolution has increased over the years I have found that almost all of my recordings contain more ambient information than I thought they had when I first purchased and listened to them.
Scotty

I agree Scotty. Maybe you or others have had this happen; on a few recordings you hear talking before, during, or after a song. Sometimes they are just goofing around while hitting a note or two. Its like overhearing the live event. Not dry sounding, but natural, live sounding voices and instruments.

Cheers.