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In Reply to: RE: Great story and a lesson ... posted by Scott L on January 08, 2016 at 12:53:44
Scott
I have to appologize for coming off as snooty (and closed minced?), this is just an affectation I assume to counterbalance the snooty elitism that's been running rampant at Stereophile and TAS for some decades. This stuff was amusing back when we had a real market in audio publishing at the magazine stand, with Stereo Review, Audio, Sound Practices (the best of them all) and the Brit glossies too (which had first class writing, but have lately become just clones of Stereophile and TAS). Now we have a duopoly.
I still have a problem with there actually being an Absolute Sound. If you were talking of test signals and scope traces there might be something to this, however most of us listen to music, and there's certainly no absolute music. Even the example of live un-amplified performances could mean drastically different things, all the way from a solo clavichord to a full symphony orchestra. BTW the audiophile friend who inspired this thread with the vintage/accuracy question, my favorite quote from him is "There is no Absolute Sound". We have both agreed that the sound of an orchestral performance can vary widely if you just change your seat in the hall, and I have done so with free comp tickets I got from him for a rehearsal at the CSO. He was at work at the time in the symphony chorus.
Paul
Follow Ups:
...from what's apparently now become by-default the golden age of audio journalism: the 90's. One can't ignore The Audio Amateur magazine, which later spun off Speaker Builder and Glass Audio too, but has now become conglomerated into AudioXpress. These DIY magazines were'nt immune to some of the neurotic silly influence then being promoted at Stereophile and TAS though. One of the most astounding things I ever read was a statement in A/A where the author mentioned some favorite speaker wires of his, and his intention to someday build a whole system around them! Gah! This is like building a hot rod around your favorite ignition wires!
Paul
Paul,
I'd have to agree with you 100% re: the golden age of audio journalism. I also, right here, offer you a great big thanks because I went back and starting reading, "Space, the Final Frontier" I have not read it all because my attention span at reading a monitor screen is very limited.
BUT......
I think (?) part of the jest is you can't have imaging on a high-efficiency system that can equal what a highly touted snobby slick mag system can do ? HOGWASH I say !! It's all in the setup. To wit, most of these hi-eff systems are kerplunked down in whatever space it will barely fit. Most of these hi-eff systems barely address the mid-bass, and even if they do that, the all-important deep bass is totally forgotten.
Oh, it's always the same moaning and groaning: "There's really nothing down there" "Oh that's where the MUD lives" (not Harry Mudd) and so on and so on. What I see more often is this great big huge mid range horn often times loaded with a 112db/watt compression driver which runs the mid range par secter about 10 db's hotter than the rest and with rampant exclamations on mid range DETAIL MAN, listen to that detail !!
I have a really good friend with a totally decked out/modded Klipsch LaScala system. It sounds pretty darn good. It's showcased in a marvelously decorated room worthy of high-praise from Martha Stewart.
This is as opposed to my place which would earn high-praise from Oscar Madison,
but, "The [devoted]audio room is set-up PROPER-LIKE". We listen to music at his place and it sounds just fine; mellow,yet full bodied, very polite. Then, days later he comes to my place and listens to the very same (for example,
wake up your ears, "do the waap because you haven't dome nuthin !!" )
...and his jaw drops when the tenor sax jumps out 6 feet to the left of her singing with such intensity while the acoustic bass rocks the room with such definition and authority....he is almost speechless. Upon recovery, he remarks about such "incredible imaging" to which I reply,
"It's all in the set-up" (meaning total system execution). And you know what really gets their goat ? I am not a doctor, Lawyer, or engineer, such that there is NO-WAY I am able to do exactly what I am doing.
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