|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
67.160.130.12
The sound signature of the genre certainly is quite different from the jazz or classical sphere. It also may have influenced listeners who demand classical music to have more "oomph," to be experienced at levels not possible in "live" situations.
(A small aside: this appears mainly to be an American phenomenon; Japanese, British, German, and Scandinavian amps and speakers appear far more modest, on the whole...).
Follow Ups:
Many Japanese, British, German, and Scandinavian products are more "modest" than American designs.
I would not include the Germans, as they make some pretty "heavy hittin" audio gear.
Americans in general love bigger, fast, powerful, over the top S&%t.
I do.
........I was a vegetarian for 15 minutes... until the main course.
What would they be like?200kg of heavy steel, giant copper voice coils, coated inside with vulcanized moose blubber and stuffed with bear fur, hand-glued birch wood laminate drivers with some kind of insane diamond coating, and finally some brilliant tricks with non-Newtonian fluid dynamics to perform an all-mechanical crossover with no electronic components whatsoever. Occasionally requires lubrication and alcohol refill, but it can rouse a freaking Cossack army.
Failed customs inspection because of the depleted uranium contamination; the manufacturer was completely baffled this was a problem.
Edits: 06/12/12 06/12/12
*
You betcha! I owned a pair of ESS Heil AMT3 Rock Monitors in the 1970's.
d
I think it is the opposite. Metal came after high powered sand amps were produced.
blow out their windows and likely cause a visit by the local police department. It is amazing the sheer power a large orchestral work with lots of percussion has live in a good concert hall and unlike live rock, no amplification and no distortion.A scaled-down reasonable facsimile is preferable for listening at home.
Just listen to live acoustic music, orchestral, chamber or jazz and come home and more your speakers around to get the closest match to the timbre heard live.
I own American speakers and properly placed the correct distance from the side and rear walls, they are not bass heavy. So if any American equipment sounds bass heavy it is not set up correctly, in my humble opinion.
On the other hand many European speakers I've heard sound bass shy, I always wondered why? Do USA concert halls reproduce bass with more authority? I've never been outside the country so I don't know, perhaps someone who frequents both USA and European concert halls could answer that.
Anyway a good speaker will sound "correct" with any kind of music, acoustic or electric.
I have not heard a "home system" of any price, anywhere that has more "oomph" with the tone controls set flat (where they are supposed to be!). Especially at levels greater than "live", I don't think it is possible for a home speaker system to move that much air and at those dB levels especially without hearing damage to the listener.
So in short I don't understand your post. Perhaps if you can tell us what speakers and what concert halls, it might help. Just to hard to wrap my head around your premise.
"Happy Listening,
Teresa."
Edits: 06/09/12 06/09/12
When I visit the multitude of rooms at the CES and other audio shows, I almost never hear rock music being played to demonstrate the equipment. Perhaps an acceptation to that occurred a number of years ago when Santana's Super Natural was released in 1999.
Last week while attending the Newport Beach show, I was astonished to hear in the Wilson Audio room some Grunge Rock being played over Wilson Sophia 3s. I stayed in the room for maybe 15 secs before I reached my limit.
Normally the music played to demonstrate gear is either Jazz, classical, eclectic and orchestral.
None of the popular crap that masquerades as music. I think that genre is left for the young folks who walk around with Mp3 buds stuck in their ear.
How about that audiophile crap "that masquerades as music"?
"How about audiophile crap that masquerades as music"
RIGHT ON!!!
Most of the stuff I have heard being played at audio shows sounds like cats fu%&ing - or worse.
........I was a vegetarian for 15 minutes... until the main course.
Audiophiles are afraid of Rock music or anything that has any dynamics or has more than 2 instruments playing in a room.
I'm not suggesting that all audiophile recording are works of art. What I am saying is if you are walking along a road and see a load of horse manure, no matter how it is shaped it is still horse manure.
BTW, I would not share this opinion with those who find some kind of artistic merit in loud, screaming atonal rock or or Hip Hop noise. If that is there poison of choice then hardly be it for me to try and convince the crap lover that the emperor is in fact not wearing any cloths.
Hope I have not offended any horse manure lovers.
There's a thin line between music snob and music bigot, but it sounds like you crossed that line long ago. Perhaps, with electrodes used in the right places you could be rehabilitated into a music lover, but I doubt it.
As long as there has been music, there have been music snobs. I'm convinced there would have been people dismissing Bach as populist, when he was tempering music and setting the seeds for all modern western music.
A good system can play any kind of music, and can be owned by any kind of music lover. It's why I'm a big fan of Audio Note's approach to this. Last time I was at a show, Audio Note was the only room playing Schubert. It was also the only room playing Peaches. And everything in between. If it sounds good on both, it must be good. But by limiting to one genre, you risk making an unhinged system. Playing a system on rock music alone will make artificially pitched systems, as does making systems uniquely tested on jazz or classical. I've heard systems selected by people who only listen to opera, and they invariably create a big soundstage, but lacking in detail compared to those designed for orchestral replay. So it is with a system designed with rock, which can have better dynamic range and headroom than many classical-designed systems, but which frequently is pitched toward the frequency extremes. A good system does all that, and only does it if the person putting the system together listens to everything.
Dead WASPs and 1950s heroin addicts were not the only people with the keys to music, and as soon as audio gets past playing to a tiny slice of the music buying market, the sooner it gets back to selling to real people.
Have you ever considered that the reason why Wilson might have been playing grunge (and it probably wasn't grunge, that was 20 years ago... it was probably Americana) is that Wilson needs to start selling loudspeakers to people born after the baby boom.
Yep, if positing that some popular styles could be better categorized as atonal cacophonous noise that some elitist insist should be given the respect and standing as any other genre then I suppose that would make me using your words, a "music bigot".
Interestingly, it was you who referred to the music era of the 50s as being populated by "Dead WASPs and Heroin addicts" and yet you dismiss my characterization as being snobbish and dismissive. Snobbish, no. Dismissive, absolutely.
I do not believe that simply giving a genre a name and then reviewing it as if it has some intrinsic merit does not constitute the qualities that give music value. That's right, I am suggesting that there standards that transcend the popularity of the music du jour.
I really can't even coherently respond to comparing how people saw the music of Bach in the pre-classical era to todays current musical grab bag. I would only pose one serious question
regarding the respective merits in evaluating the merits of a musical genre.
Years from now will it be taught in our music schools, will the music likely still find an audience
once the popular craze fades out? In other words, will the music transcend the immediate era that produced it?
For some misguided reason, I doubt that the screaming trash being blasted from punk rock et. al. nor profanity filled lyrics of rap will ever find a place in the authentic and lasting musical hall of fame and not the self serving rating driven award shows.
Yeah, I doubt that in generations to come, people will look back and nostalgically long for Rage The Machine or the lovely verses of Tupac Shacur as they call for the destruction of everything.
One last thing. Wilson Audio which is usually one of the most popular rooms at audio shows was nearly empty when the Grundge Smudge was playing. Put on some Miles or Ella and you have standing room only.
By defining this as 'dead WASPs and 50s heroin addicts', I do not dismiss this. About 20% of my music collection is jazz-oriented and about 50% fits under the catch-all 'classical'.
Years from now, the only music that will be listened to from the 20th Century will likely be written by Stravinsky. And that will only be the musicologists. But working out what will be remembered years from now doesn't help sell things today.
Miles Davis... forget it, he'll be consigned to the forgotten pile in 20 years. Most people - except jazzers - couldn't tell Ella apart from Sarah Vaughan now. The music of the 1950s was tuneless pap for those who were born in the 19th Century and it will be bland historical pap for those born in the 21st. This has always been the case. My parents loved Frank Sinatra and hated The Beatles, my kids hate them both as 'ancient history'.
If the Wilson room is only packed with people listening to Miles Davis, it says more about the age of the audiophile audience than it does about the music itself. And if Wilson wants to keep going when its audience is more likely to spend money on a new hip than a new pair of loudspeakers, it HAS to play music that its new audience is receptive to. And that isn't jazz anymore.
fds
There is very little about your post that I take issue with. Your comment about "spending money on a new hip rather a new pair of loudspeaker" is one of the funniest lines I have ever read on AA.
Only my sense of integrity would prevent me from claiming authorship when I use it. I am obligated to give credit to you.
As I make my yearly trek to the CES (over 30 years), various audio shows and the local audiophile society, I am struck with how old most of the attendees are. Of course, I'm the only one who hasn't aged. Only all the others.
Along with this, I see a diminishing number of B&M stores and I find this fact a bit sad but not
all together depressing. Why? I find the overall quality of audio gear steadily evolving. There is no shortage of software whether it be digital or analogue and I have friends to share my passion even though my wife couldn't care less accept for the aesthetics of the gear.
Sure jazz is not near as popular now as it was in the 50s and 60s. I used to go to Shelley's Manhole in Hollywood where I saw Astrid Gilberto and Stan Getz perform amongst others. But the good thing is I can still readily purchase recording from that era and often from higher resolution sources than the original. I am a big fan of SACD and high rez on computer audio if I can ever figure out how to get mine to work.
One last thing, I assume that Wilson Audio is still doing well but their mega buck speakers will never appeal or be affordable to the "look what the cat dragged in" crowd. That will have to be left to old geezers like me.
That was many many decades ago. Where have you been?
"The sound signature of the genre certainly is quite different from the jazz or classical sphere."
"Sound signature of the genre", is either oversimplified or unadulterated nonsense.
"It also may have influenced listeners who demand classical music to have more "oomph," to be experienced at levels not possible in "live" situations."
This is so wrong on so many levels, you must be referring to yourself.
"(A small aside: this appears mainly to be an American phenomenon; Japanese, British, German, and Scandinavian amps and speakers appear far more modest, on the whole...)."
There is no American phenomenon either! "Far more modest, on the whole" is gibberish.
I always read that the main difference impacting the power levels of equipment in Europe and Asia vs America was that the size of the rooms where sound systems are installed is much larger in the US.
"I always read that the main difference impacting the power levels of equipment in Europe and Asia vs America was that the size of the rooms where sound systems are installed is much larger in the US."
Abe Collins made the same point below, and it makes sense to me. Even in the 1960's, new American homes averaged 1500 square feet. From what I've read online, American homes built over the past ten years are over 2000 sq. ft. while homes in Great Britain are a little over 800 sq. ft. Smaller homes, smaller rooms. With smaller rooms might also come speakers designed to be placed close to the rear wall rather than a few feet out. According to one speaker designer (Fibonacci), this can reduce the power requirement by a factor of four.
Sometimes that is a good thing!
"I always read that the main difference impacting the power levels of equipment in Europe and Asia vs America was that the size of the rooms where sound systems are installed is much larger in the US."
I don't know where you read this but none of it makes sense to me.
Every British magazine I ever read at some point had a mention of relative room size and US mags also.
I did not dream that one up and, to me, it makes entirely good sense.
Look at the products from four five decades ago and the pattern is undeniable.
d
nt
"Every British magazine I ever read at some point had a mention of relative room size and US mags also."
So, what's the point?
"I did not dream that one up and, to me, it makes entirely good sense."
Dream up what?
"Look at the products from four five decades ago and the pattern is undeniable."
No way! I've spent too much time on this already. :^)
You are just a difficult person. Over and out.
You're slow. My position was in the subject line.
...if it hadn't been for the Grateful Dead, John Curl would have never designed the Levinson JC-2 preamp, the first great, musical sounding solid state design in the 1970s.
Rock music tends to focus your attention on the mid-bass much more than classical music where, in general, the focus seems more on the upper midrange.
Power demands are not necessarily greater with rock, because symphonic classical has a much greater dynamic range, requiring a lot of reserve power for triple fortissimos.
More power for greater loudness is required for rock than many other genres, though.
Levinson JC-2 preamp What?
Roger McQuinn told me the same thing. "McIntosh the best there is."
~~~Our lunacies may be infringed.
The "Wall of Sound" PA system built for the Grateful Dead was a lot more than just Macintosh amps. John Curl was one of 5 designers who worked on the rig. He lists his contributions to it in the post linked below.
If you listen to nearly any old Rock records, not much bass.
The ONLY records with any 'real' bass were of organs.
Then along came 'home theater' with subwoofers and giant sized bass explosions . (and perhaps car stereo booms too)
So the music started to be remastered to include MORE BASS.
EVERY single Rock remaster bumped up the bass.
Now, any music without supersized bass seems odd.So to my mind the desire by
younguns' for balls to the wall shake my gonads bass started with home theater and car stereos, and just gravitated to home stereo.Big bass is a male phenomenon.
And all other changes like bigger amps, bigger speakers is part of the 'mine are bigger than yours' gonad psychosis.The complaint by men that women want Bose like tiny cubes... Hah, proof. No real man would allow Bose tiny cubes in his cave.
Ditto amps.. A 'real' man wants a BIG amp to match the size of his balls...
(naturally this is all exaggerated, and a parody of it all. So you guys with small balls, oops I mean amps... And yeah i myself have a BIG amp.. hah.)
((PS: all the balls I have collected over the years I keep in a trophy case...)0
Edits: 06/08/12 06/08/12 06/08/12
Agreed, however take a listen to maybe(if you haven't already,) Jeff Becks "Aint Superstitious" or maybe some stuff off of pre 80's Yes for some floor rumbling. Suppose if setup is w/out subs or big floorstanders you simply won't experience that visceral impact.I tune the REL just enough to feel the pressure without sounding unnatural. Last few notes of Becks cover loosen fillings if your system is properly cranked!
tinear:> Has rock music strongly impacted audio design?
Designing equipment technically had to be about reproducing all frequencies within and without of hearing range, at equal volumes, without audible distortion. That has not changed.
What has changed is the move of populations into the realm of the densely packed, requiring smaller more portable gear for the masses. As people live closer together.
Recording studios like Abby Road were gymnasium sized with big permanent studio monitors. Now a days recording engineers have to go from garages, to basement, recording in home studios, dragging their monitors down the steps with them. So they got smaller, they left off the Bass speaker. But in the end it is still sound. Vibrations that human beings can hear and to a lesser extent feel.
So no rock music has not strongly impacted audio design, the iPod has?
~~~Our lunacies have been infringed..
nt
"A small aside: this appears mainly to be an American phenomenon; Japanese, British, German, and Scandinavian amps and speakers appear far more modest, on the whole...."
But so is the size of their listening space, in general. Smaller rooms require smaller speakers and less power.
Designers want to make their equipment sound great with classical and acoustic music. If it sounds good with rock, - they immediately run back to the drawing board: to "fix" it.
"In this land right now, some are insane and they're in charge. To hell with poverty, we'll get drunk on cheap wine."
I would claim the opposite. If the amp can handle rock music with effortless dynamics, clarity, and no congestion, then it's a shoe-in easy fit for other genres. ;-)
I HAVE heard amps that do nicely with easy smooth jazz or sweet female vocals but fall apart completely in their inability handle the demanding dynamics and complexity of other genres.
I thought it was funny. :^)
.
Heck yeah RnR influenced design, but that heyday is well past.
Mastering and engineering have certainly been influenced ,but I think new production techniques and materials have probably had more influence on speaker and component design.
enjoy,
mark
Post a Followup:
FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: