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After spending 3 days at Axpona I concluded that most of the systems were too bright as well as too loud. Very few systems sounded accurate (real). The more expensive the system the more offensive they were in this regard with the MBL systems being the one of the worst offenders but Magico and Martin Logan not far behind. They were very exciting but also very inaccurate. The high frequencies were exaggerated. Sibalences too pronounced. Harry Belefonte did not sound like himself on the MBLs. Are people just not listening? These are $200,000 plus systems. The Magnepan 3.7s sounded smooth and wonderful. A system well under $20,000. Is this what our community is lusting after?
Follow Ups:
Than what I find comfortable on my playback systems....
"The hardest thing of all is to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat" - Confucius
Hi
i wonder if the worst offenders had analog or digital sources.
Thanks.
Kind regards,
bg
I abhor unnaturally bright sounding systems - even if they "measure flat" and those slammng triple digit db levels. Neither is what I hear in a live, unamplified environment.
I do remember, however, hearing the Carmina Burana at the ASO in row C. The dynamics raised the hairs on my arms and literally startled me at times. That was loud, but literally for seconds at a time.
Maybe what you really abhor is bright recordings, which are not done in a mid hall perspective but usually with microphones up close. A system that tends to make many recordings less "in yer face" are often incorrectly balanced systems because many recordings are in fact made that way.
I always have problems when people talk about accuracy. Accurate to what?
Live concerts? I have heard many live concerts that sounded like crap. Anybodys definition of accuracy is still a subjective opinion. I just want a system I enjoy listening to, that gives me an emotional connection to the music. If someone thinks my system is accurate, fine. If they think it is colored, fine. I don't care. I heard three Magico systems at this years CES and I thought they sound wonderful. I have Maggie 3.6's and think they are the best. Whatever turns you on. Listening to systems at a show is very problematic. Try dialing in a system in a couple of days in a room you are not familiar with. It is amazing that some rooms sound good. I thought the sound at this years CES was very good. By the way a system that measures flat will more often than not sound bright. Especially when played loud
Alan
I wonder if it's rolled-off hearing in the target audience?
I think you have a point that too many "high end" (as well as mass market) manufacturers voice their speakers for "WOW factor" on first impression. I haven't heard Wilsons, but when one reviewer described their "bigger-than-life, Technicolor presentation," I knew just what he meant.
A high-Q bass tuning for a "bigger" low end, and elevated treble to bring forward artificial "detail," may initially sound more "exciting," but can become fatiguing with extended listening and lead to buyer remorse. A well-balanced, more neutral speaker may not impress as much initially, but will be more enjoyable to live with in the long run.
First of all, I think people bring megabuck systems to hotel shows only for the press coverage. I can't imagine impressing any potential customers of these systems. I know a $200k+ system is beyond my means and beyond my level of dedication to this hobby. But if I were in the market, I wouldn't be slumming it at hotel shows. I'd be flying around to hear equipment in the best demo settings I could. And I would dedicate as much budget and effort to finding/building the perfect room.
Hotel shows don't do justice to really high end systems, because of unfavorable room conditions, the lack of adequate time for setup and optimization, a lot of ambient noise, the fight to get seat time in the sweet spot. Not to mention some of the sales guys who insist on insulting my intelligence for 10 minutes and then playing some simple non-challenging audiophile drivel music. I think they are much better at showcasing well setup low-end to midrange hifi. My most memorable moments at shows were in rooms with right-sized speakers for the room, well matched equipment, attention to setup & room treatment, and a fun atmosphere where good music was playing rather than audiophile demo cuts.
Second, I generally agree with your observations. I think that when people bring expensive systems to shows, they feel like natural sound isn't good enough. There's pressure to have some WOW factor in the presentation, whether it's the breath and spit of a female singer's voice out in the room, or highlighting Leonard Cohen's gravel, or making people feel the visceral slap of a bass string or making your chest reverberate like a cello body. So we get loud playback and systems set up to be hyper-detailed or exaggerated in one or both frequency extremes.
nt
Do you *seriously* believe that the cassette tape's capabilities exceed those of current digital and vinyl technologies? If so, send me your address and I'll send you a nice crisp Benjie with a self-addressed stamped envelope so that you can post to me some of that great shit you're apparently smoking...
-RW-
I think he was being sarcastic
Alan
He does have a point, though. In some respects, the cassette format is superior to 44/16 digital. It is a matter of personal preference as to which is better, albeit neither has "perfect sound". When it comes to "forever" the CD has a huge edge, however.
I have digitally remastered many cassette tape dubbing masters and rarely have I found it possible to transparently reproduce the sound off my Nak CR-7a while using the 44/16 format. No problem at 192/24 however...
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Hi maybe 16/48 is enough. In the end is the format selected for DAT recording by professionals.
I think that the difference from 44.1 to 48 is remarkable.
When i listened for the 1st time a dvd movie soundtrack in 16/48 i heard more music than with CD.
I think that a 48kHz recording can give a better high frequencies reproduction.
If the CD were 16/48 the world would be a better place ... less unsatisfaction.
Kind regards,
bg
was sadly also the most expensive (Living Voice/Kondo). They didn't have to play super loud but what a sound! With really well done recordings it sounded like you were present in a good concert hall.
Often it's used to convey the sonic geography of a performance. Sometimes it's used to refer to the musical performance. Occasionally, these two characteristics coexist in one, synergistic system, but more often they do not. Increasingly, when forced to make a choice in favour of one or another, I choose the ('musically-intelligent') performance-oriented system. I'm not into audio autopsies.
Big J
"... only a very few individuals understand as yet that personal salvation is a contradiction in terms."
I find that the two don't have to be mutually exclusive but agree that they often are. I still want to hear the recording as it is and if that means close up microphones and explicit position placement then that is what I want to hear or the opposite but I don't want my system to define it for me.
After attending shows in 3 consecutive years, I noticed the same issues you did. Systems too big for the exhibit spaces and exaggerated frequency extremes to make the systems stand out.
To an extent I understand why. Exhibitors want to highlight the top of the line, which invariably requires a space much larger than a hotel room. With so many exhibit rooms in the same general area, it is sometimes necessary to play louder than normal, so that "your" system stands out from the crowd.
In the shows we attended, the better sounding systems fell into just a few categories. Large systems demonstrated in meeting rooms or large suites. SET based systems that are designed for subtlety rather than volume. Systems designed for smaller urban spaces.
d
Edits: 05/03/15 05/03/15 07/06/15
I was a recording engineer for 20 years. As soon as an engineer picks out microphones he is creating a subjective sound that conveys the message of the artist or producers. Nobody thinks of accuracy. They are just after a certain illusion they are trying to create. Pro systems can play loud and are very dynamic, but they many times are colored. We used Altic A7's in the control rooms and they certainly had a unique sound. I would not call them accurate
Alan
I demoed gear for over 25 years and learned to just ask the client how loud they wanted it. I hear demo rooms cranked too high often and this can be really bad. If there is any sibilance higher volume levels will extenuate it. That's bad.
It's been a long time since I was at a show and witnessed this behavior and somehow I thought it had decreased but that was silly on my part. It can happen everywhere. I'm watching the J&H festival right now and they are playing Trombone Shorty live now (all the other acts were recorded and sounded better) and the sound board operator has butchered the sound several times in the twenty minutes they've played.
Humans, go figure...
E
T
Excellent post. What you've described is high-end audio putting its best foot forward. In other words, the exhibitors are doing the best they can with what they got with what they know. And as you implied, that's not necessarily a good thing.
If many more had ears like yours (and they don't) and spoke with your frankness (and they can't), the industry might be more willing to perform real R&D into new technologies and advancements in areas sorely lacking, rather than keep whittling away at the same ol, same ol' resulting in tiny and often times questionable incremental improvements that listeners with ears less than yours probably can't even discern.
More importantly regarding any R&D is that what is needed are extreme results. And the only way I know how to achieve extreme results is by extreme efforts and in the right areas.
Thus far, it seems we've only been exposed to the small incremental results. Which usually are the results of token or half-assed efforts. Well, that and perhaps some smoke and mirrors and a dose of fluoride needed for the buy-in to convince us the improvements are huge.
In short, the industry has been at or near the bottom of the R&D barrel for better than 40 years now. Yet, they still refuse to believe they just might need a new barrel.
Case-in-point. MQA is a new higher-res format rolling out with all sorts of performance claims from reviewers, organizations, etc. But I've yet to hear anybody attending Axpona claim any night and day difference with the MQA demo. In fact, some were claiming other rooms (without MQA) were more musical and more favored. Maybe MQA is a little better and maybe it isn't. But what is the cost to entire industries and enthusiasts for what may be yet again a small incremental improvement. If that. Yet, it seems clear that the Kool-Aid is being forced upon the industry by the influencers that be.
It is just past fifty years since I was in the audio business, but there are some things that do not change. I think that much of the problem with loudspeakers is marketability. The manufacturer finds that he has to make his product command the customers' attention.
I observed that a near "natural" sound did not interest very many customers. Even those who were serious about music had to be guided, and this took time.
I design and build my own loudspeaker systems.
It's a real problem not only for listeners but also for recording engineers.
In order to capture the kind of information (amplitude, arrival time, and phase) that is needed to create a convincing illusion of individual instruments in a stereo soundfield, the microphones have to be so close that the timbral balance they pick up is not natural when compared to what you hear at a live recital or concert.
David Hancock once rhetorically asked me, "When you walk into a church and there's a string quartet playing, do you hear any high frequencies separately as such? Of course not!" The problem of course is that while most of the audience is seated past the "critical distance" where direct and ambient sound is equal in intensity, if you record from there or even farther out, to the middle of the hall, the result will be either "wide mono" or "just plain mono."
So if we record a string quartet from six feet back, the timbres are going to be exaggerated. But we get used to it.
Listen to some of the Nimbus piano recordings, such as Perlemuter's Chopin Nocturnes. Compare that to a "modern" big-label, big-star recording... . The Nimbus is more natural, so it sounds: Dull.
A puzzlement, says the King of Siam.
JM
People who are used to the sound of a piano as recorded most of the time find when they here a piano recitel in a concert hall the piano sounds rolled of to them. The recorded sound many times especially in pop music is done with mikes actually stuck into the sound holes of the piano. This is to get a highly detailed sound with a lot of presence. It is not the real sound of a piano
Alan
If you are listening to live solo piano music you should be listening in a large living room or moderate recital hall, not a concert hall. The sounds will be different. Actually, the musical performance itself will probably be different if the musician is a great artist.I know from personal experience it is possible to capture the tonal quality of a live piano extremely accurately, and that with microphones only a few inches from the edge of the piano, i.e. not quite under the upright lid. (AKG C-451 cardiods)
I spent quite a few hours finding the location where the tonal capture exactly matched the live sound of the playback matched the live sound of the piano at my usual listening position. It was not bright, nor was it rolled off. Other recordings (off some of the same music by the same artist) were made at live concerts and were not so "in the room present" bright.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Edits: 05/04/15
why does every reviewer praise a component that is able to "unravel individual lines" in music (or some variant language to that effect)? Should not the ability of a component to sound "coherent" (or whatever the audiophile terminology) be the better virtue?
Politics is not necessarily a dirty word. In the broadest sense, politics is what enables us to live together in relative civility and not "Omnes in bellum contra omnium."
(Each one at war against everyone.)
Reviewers have to listen to recordings, subjectively to evaluate loudspeakers. To evaluate loudspeakers, you have to make do with what is on recordings--that's the politics of getting along.
Recordings range from acoustical-horn recordings to 20 or more channels, and even with more than one mic per channel. So, the critic puts on a recording and tries in good faith to convey his impressions--we hope, impressions formed by years of experience, study, and self-criticism.
It is tempting to say that a loudspeaker cannot reproduce something that is not on the recording, but, I think that is a wish, rather than a statement of fact.
A loudspeaker's design can on the one hand add a greater sense of reverberant field that most other loudspeakers do; that is easy to prove.
And I would not rule out that a radically different loudsespeaker design might exaggerate initial transients while damping reverb tails sufficiently to give "edge enhancement" (to borrow a video term) to a recording, thereby soaking up some wetness. Wetness that is on the recording, but, now you don't hear it. I can envision that.
On some recordings, the inner lines are laid bare--there are 20 or more different microphones to thank for that--but you might not hear authentic blend.
On other recordings, the orchestra speaks with one voice, but, whether that line is a low clarinet part or a high bassoon part might leave most of us guessing.
What to praise? What to damn?
My peak formative musical experience was the first time that a student orchestra I had just joined tuned up, and I was sitting as the new principal second violin. I was immersed (perhaps Baptized is a better term?) in sound, and I have been trying to understand how THAT works ever since. So this is not at all the first time I have grappled with these issues.
How's this for an interim remedy?
Every audio critic should have one orchestral recording that is unquestionably multi-miked up the wazoo (what ever that means--wazoo that is). I nominate Leopold Stokowski's London Phase 4 "Pictures at an Exhibition" for that.
And every audio critic should also have an iconic Decca Tree three-channel recording, and for that I nominate the Charles Munch BSO Debussy "La Mer."
Play them both, and then try to explain in each case, what the Device Under Test adds or subtracts.
Howdja like them apples?
jm
Very nice Mr. Marks
Alan
jm
I thought that picture looked familiar. I got it out and am playing it now, very nice. I wouldn't call it dull by any means. Good illusion of a piano playing in a recital hall, though I doubt it would pass a live vs. reproduced test. Lovely, nuanced performances.
Some people seem to think Nimbus recordings are too reverberant. This one used what they called the Soundfield microphone, not really described in the notes to this CD.
-----
"A fool and his money are soon parted." --- Thomas Tusser
if you are sitting close to the musicians in the concert. Try chamber music sometime in a room it was designed for...ie. a chamber rather than a cathedral.
I made some recordings of my ex playing solo violin in my 20 m2 living room (small apartment I had at that time) standing right between my Acoustat 1+1s I had at the time. I had a single condenser mic, a tube mic pre and a TEAC R2R tape deck from the late 70s. It sounds raw but LIVE...just like I heard it in the room...just slightly drier (small room has fast decay times and you are hearing that twice.). That is how a lot of modern instruments will sound in a live setting in a small room.
I also had the opportunity to hear Schubert quintet (2 violins, viola and 2 cellos) played in the home of a rich doctor in London as part of a Schubert festival. It had a similar, ultra present and a bit bright presentation. It was fantastically exciting. We were sitting not more than 3 meters from the performers.
Finally, my ex often played home concerts for her rich benefactor in Zürich. Their main room was pretty large but they had a Bosendorfer concert grand piano in there and she would play violin sonatas with piano accompianment. The sound was slightly softer as the first reflections were pretty far away but still far more present than a moderate sized concert hall or church.
Of course if you attend a string quartet concert at the Barbican and sit near the back it will sound a bit lacking in air and lacking in dynamic punch. But I heard Lang Lang, Vadim Repin and Mishka Maisky in Barbican in the third row and it was plenty dynamic and present...and lit up.
Finally, I heard a concert at Tonhalle in Zürich with Saxaphone and piano (Kenny Barron on piano...can't remember the sax guy he was not as famous). We sat in the 2nd row and the presence of the Sax was stunning and breathing.
I do have one recording where I know how it was made, that doesn't have this close up, Deutsche Grammophone, kind of sound. It was made with a single ribbon stereo microphone (blumlein config) and about 6 meters from the front of the stage. THe performance is Prokovfiev's Romeo and Juliet and it is amazingly accurate for how a concert would sound live at about that distance. I was fortunate enough to hear a performance of it live a couple of years later from nearly the right position in the hall and the overall balance and presence was very similar to this SOTA recording.
Which recording of the Prokovfiev are you referring to?
Alan
To the best of my knowledge it is not commercially available but the recording engineer was a guy named Russell Dawkins.
.
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
In an audience listening position, standard recording techniques give a signal, which when reproduced with standard stereo, sounds far too muddy, wet and reflective.
Your brain is very clever and does sophisticated source estimation and of course has trained itself against the reflections from your outer ear, so the perceived psychological experience is surprisingly not what the physical sound pressure, reduced to two scalar signals.
So, stereo is an enormously engineered illusion that is a weak simulation of the actual experience.
Microphones are closer to the source than typical listening position, and thus they experience less high frequency dissipation than a natural live listening position would.
Also, many microphones are well above a orchestra or live acoustic band. I've heard that violins sound screechy from above, but normal from ground level. They're directional.
As gordon holt said, Down With Flat!!!!
I love wide mono. It is what I experience at the symphony, middle section 30 rows back. I get that "modern" recordings want more information on them for the thrill seeker but, which labels go for the "dull" sound with wide mono as I like it? Old Decca records are a treat but, generally so old and beat that I can't enjoy them too much as I get tired of the noise.
What you said certainly explains a real problem with digital recordings. It is upsetting to buy a new digital recording of classical music (IMO with pop you get what you get) and discover that it is bright, hard and very unnatural because it is so closely mic'd. No violin at a concert has ever sounded anyway near as awful as they all seem to in a recording.
> > In order to capture the kind of information (amplitude, arrival time, and phase) that is needed to create a convincing illusion of individual instruments in a stereo soundfield, the microphones have to be so close that the timbral balance they pick up is not natural when compared to what you hear at a live recital or concert. < <
I'm certainly not a recording engineer, but based purely on my long-time listening to both live and recorded performances, I don't believe I have ever read any analysis that matches this one in terms of defining the problem concisely, cogently and persuasively. Thank you, John! I'm very glad you hang out here.
-Bob
"Twilight Zone" allusion.
Thanks,
John
That's for me! Most of them these days have "praise bands".
The only times (rarely) I have heard of (not "heard"--"heard of") a string quartet liturgically in a church was for the Seven Last Words of Christ.
ATB,
JM
"Why hast thou forsaken me, you jerk?"
Were these the words he uttered?
-RW-
Does the string quartet that played processional/recessional music at my wedding count? ")
Cerebrate!
Your listening position kept changing (well, yours, on the way out not in).
jm
I wonder what was going through the bride's mind as she passed the critical distance. "The sound is becoming much clearer with each step. The soundstage is broadening. I must be within the critical distance. No, wait, I'm hyper-ventilating.":)
Edits: 05/04/15
And as the father of the bride crossed that threshold, he said to himself, "When they said 'string-quartet music,' I never imagined I would be paying for four real live musicians! Sheesh!"
jm
Good ones!In this case, truth is funnier than fiction.
What was actually going thru the bride's head at that moment was:"I can't believe I've kept the bishop waiting 45 minutes..."
What was going thru my father-in-law's head had little to do with the cost of the quartet.
Fortunately, he had raised a violist who had married a violinist; they had many musician friends, and the quartet was part of their gift to us. Our guests received quite the concert while waiting.
I, on the other hand, had spent the time prior to the scheduled start of the wedding being told funny stories by the bishop. These stories revolved around stuff that had happened at previous weddings, like the time the bride was very, very late, and what he had done. These stories were funny when people were just arriving.
The whole day really was a comedy of errors in many ways (there is much more to the story, like the Limo Driver From Hell who was the cause of all the delay). But we weathered it together, and twenty-six years later, we're still happily married.
And *everyone* remembers *our* wedding. :)
Cerebrate!
Edits: 05/05/15
the waves caressing or crashing upon the shore, waterfalls, birds singing, etc. Okay -- urban sounds...not so much :-)
"In order to capture the kind of information (amplitude, arrival time, and phase) that is needed to create a convincing illusion of individual instruments in a stereo soundfield, the microphones have to be so close that the timbral balance they pick up is not natural when compared to what you hear at a live recital or concert."
This mic technique can furnish cues -- for the absent visual cues -- used to help establish location in a recording. Anyway, that's what I'm positing :-) I agree, unfortunately, when one balances for sound in a given sweet spot -- it may result in a stereo recording considered...distant.
Vbr,
Sam
Exaggerated hf and etch = "detail", biting unnatural attacks = "fast transient response", unnaturally dry bass = "taut" etc.
Reminds me of musicians who have amazing chops and can play faster than the speed of light, but have a shitty sound.
saying it was a 'life changing'. A sort of system that was a benchmark for him. He did not mention any brightness but one of the tune he listened to was Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven.
One had the M Project with tubes (I think) and the other the Q7 with SS. Your friend could have been commenting on one while ruxtonvet another. The Q7 room was criticized by a lot of people.I personally think the Magico S series sounds very natural. I love the S1. S3 has better bass but at the expense of soundstage depth. I heard the Q1 as well, which sounds hyper-accurate but somewhat analytical. I haven't heard the megabuck Q speakers, but if they are like the Q1 with more bass extension, they wouldn't be my cup of tea. The M Project looks more interesting.
Edits: 05/04/15
I heard the Q7 system at CES and it was simply breathtaking. I love tubes but that system with the Solution electronics was stunning.
Alan
Granted, those hotel rooms are not sonically sound (no pun).
I, myself, search for gear that exemplifies both macro & micro dynamics.
What would the difference be between a hotel room and say an apartment?
Not much in my mind. You can't make a show condition sound decent, chances are you won't achieve much in an apartment or townhouse either.
The cynic talking here
A lot in Switzerland. My old apartment was concrete block and pretty good sonically. Hotel rooms are probably softer walls...makes more problems.
NT
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