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High Efficiency Speaker Asylum Need speakers that can rock with just one watt? You found da place. |
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In Reply to: RE: indeed the placebo effect markedly works... posted by Inmate51 on March 26, 2015 at 17:13:22:
Yes, a lot of money is involved, and people spending this money expect verification that it is well spent. This could likely start with a rave review in TAS. The reviewer and a friend could expect to be treated to a luxury dinner by the manufacturer, where the bill topped $800 for the appetizer and wine before the manufacturer's rep even arrived. The rep's corporate credit card may only go to $800, so he would have to pay the difference of the final $1500 tab with his personal credit card (a true story from Critics Corner here involving TAS's HP). Some reviewers could expect to have the review sample long term, as long as he needed, even 10 years or till his death. Some reviewers don't own any of the equipment in their system, or very little, it's all stuff sent to them for review. A rarely seen statement nowadays is: "I liked it so much I bought the review sample" (this would have indicated a rave review back in the days of Stereo Review). If you can't understand what you are supposed to be appreciating from the all too frequently mediocre sound from the over priced equipment which is the norm nowadays, the critics will help you understand what you are missing with esoteric concepts like PRaT (pace, rhythm and timing). Ethan Weiner, in the video at the beginning of this thread, pointed out that these terms already have musical meanings, and it would seem that they are characteristics of the performance rather than the reproduction equipment. In the hardware realm one would expect them to refer to time domain effects such as wow and flutter in the analogue domain, and jitter in the digital. Instead PRaT seems to be increasingly associated with a tendency for musical involvement or "toe tapping quality", which could mean a tilt towards the bass usually accompanied by a treble peak for "presence" as J.G. Holt observed rave speaker reviews usually had way back in '94. It seemed that the idea of an absolute sound reference with no colorations had gone out the window even by then. And what about the "sound stage" (the localization of the various instruments in the orchestra)? One critic in Stereophile was surprised that a live symphony orchestra did'nt image all that well from the not-so great seats compared to the seats he was used to getting as comps as a reviewer. So if you buy a recommended components system, the only reason to attend a live concert is to verify that your system sounds better than the actual absolute sound. I've heard speakers in the $30,000 range by Magico and Sonus Faber (in a well treated audio salon) which had narrow one seat sweet spots, where half of a symphony orchestra disappeared if you moved one seat to the right or left from the center. Would a live orchestra do this? Some Focal speakers in $20,000 range in the same room at another date did'nt do this, and they sounded better in my opinion. Due to the price differential I'm sure I'm in the minority in this regard. Audio equipment has two functions: the first is their obvious purpose to play music; the second is more of a jewelry function, which is to impress people. You don't have to look too hard for the placebo effect in audio, it starts with the price tag.
Paul
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Follow Ups
- RE: indeed the placebo effect markedly works... - Paul Eizik 09:54:57 03/27/15 (1)
- RE: indeed the placebo effect markedly works... - Hornlover 08:13:30 03/30/15 (0)
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