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In Reply to: RE: Would you be so kind to point toward one piece of aduio equipment with PROPERLY... posted by tomservo on June 25, 2009 at 10:06:17
You're right, but it was not a great sounding piece of gear. Rolled off on the top end with a most definite lack of detail and information.
Therein lies a major issue with audio gear. While test gear is often oriented to optimize one or maybe two specific parameters, audio gear has a range of parameters to satisfy. The goal is not to meet a standard but to surpass those standards. Considering the wide bandwidth, the dynamic range desired, the great mix of frequencies and levels involved in any mix, that is a pretty tall order. Then couple that with the various range of human tastes.
Audio gear is geared to extreme sensitivity. Very often our test gear is not even designed to measure such parameters which can be detected by the human ear. As an example there is the rather groundbreaking work done by Matti Otala concerning TIM distortion, which was relatively unknown until he published his works. If test gear exists it is often astronomically priced. I recall a Rhode and Schwartz real time analyzer used by one company to measure a particular parameter in wire construction which cost them at the time $100K and of which only five units in the world had been manufactured.
In many pieces of audio gear you sacrifice one aspect of music to optimize another. In many instances what is theoretically negligible can be audible, despite engineering theory.
I recall one manufacturer displaying a prototype of a preamp and commented that his new design using the identical layout and parts should sound better than his original which had multiple individual phono sections. His reply that from a theoretical point of view there should be absolutely no difference as the power supply was sufficiently large to exclude any current draw differences even if all the sections were running (they were not at the time). Yet a direct comparison revealed, obviously, that there was a sonic difference.
Declaring that human perceptions can vary, while very true, ignores the basic fact that some listeners can hear certain changes. You can cater to the lowest common denominator or you can cater to the extremely discriminating.
You can be happy with the relatively lossy mp-3 player or you can demand the very high end piece of audio gear. Both can offer great satisfaction to many users. But just because the listener with the poorer component is happy does not necessarily mean that anything "better" is a figment of the user's imagination.
Let's face it: there are huge ranges in human perception and that is simply part of the challenge. I once placed five different types of hook up wire in my preamp's five inputs. There was enough differences so that even the two inch length made a difference, however, subtle you may believe it to be. In a system I was familiar with I could consistently identify each input even in a blind test. I do not claim "golden ear" status, but I have spent an inordinate amount of time actually listening to music, critically.
While I barely made it through aural training classes at the local university, continued listening in the manner I was taught can reveal certain aspects which many others do not hear. It has nothing to do with the condition of your ears, but more to do with the mind-ear connection. In doing research on hearing, I am consistently struck by the fact that any of the senses can be trained if you embark on a program to do so.
Think of it in terms of the aficionados of wines and how much practice they have to go through in order to become an expert. If you're into video games, think of how much time you need on a particular game in order to excel at it. Still in music, it is the subtleties which define the a great performance or a great virtuoso. A great performer can make even a student model instrument sound decent, but he will do much better with a a great one. The pursuit of the subtleties in music is what drives many to "better" audio gear. If not, the world would be happy with a transistor radio.
Stu
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