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In Reply to: RE: conflict between accuracy and impressive posted by unclestu on May 18, 2012 at 17:29:30
"It was universally panned, so much so that Doug Sax quit recording direct to discs, claiming that the "audiophile" clamor for realism was mere words."
I've got quite a few of them and think they are super. They were around at a time when regular records just sucked with deformed grooves taking you from one regrind lump to the next so about all I bought were "audiophile" records. Probably a successful marketing ploy because I was an early adopter of CD's due to the wretched quality of vinyl!
I enjoyed the Belafonte at Carnegie Hall when I was young and may actually have my sister's record of it stashed. I bought a CD of it but it's nothing to write home about, sound-wise.
"It truly pains me to look at Stereophile's speaker test results because if such results were posted for a piece of electronics, they would be laughed out of existence."
'Tis true. But speakers seem to get by with gross problems while electronics can sound bad with seemingly trivial errors. At a guess I think it has to do with the nature of nature. Many of the distortions in electronics don't have close counterparts in nature and so get noticed while many of the speaker problems are easy to ignore. The ilk that stand out are time smears, resonances that vex the Z-axis localization, and driver breakups. Diffraction also seems a serious problem.
My neighbor has a band and a few weeks ago a Clarinet? player was working with them. At the very first honk it didn't sound like it came out of a speaker. Once they got going I just hung out on my porch and listened to them work on a jazzed-up version of stranger on the shore while I watched the thunderheads build up over the mountains. I wish I could have recorded it but I doubt that my speakers could come close to doing those waveforms...
Regards, Rick
Follow Ups:
Most of the Sheffields are very good. The one I refer to was the last classical piece recorded by them.
As for speakers, they are the bane of my life. So many errors and such little attempt to correct them. One noted speaker designers who makes a line of time and phase aligned models once exclaimed to me that if perfect frequency response and phase alignment and time alignment were the goal of every designer, there ought to be a convergence of sound at a certain price point.
It doesn't happen even at a $100K. It simply means most designers are like chefs: they willingly alter the sound to please a specific market. They are NOT after true neutrality.
Stu
"It [lack of convergent speaker performance] simply means most designers are like chefs: they willingly alter the sound to please a specific market. They are NOT after true neutrality."
I suppose that's part of it. But even though my experience is microscopic compared to yours my take on speakers is that there are many factors in play which complicate optimizing any particular system. To wit:
-User preferences.
-Musical genres.
-Loudness.
-Environment.
-Significant others, including pets.
-Industrial design.
-Cost and availability.
-Perceived support.
-...
But, despite all that I think there is a "house sound" and philosophy that can be useful for some periods of time. I'm on my second pair of similar Infinity speakers and so have had similar sound for... 34 years. It took a while because I ran low on fingers. But now the company's gone. Sigh. But I know that I like acoustic suspension woofers and film tweeters. But I also like AS woofers and good metal tweeters. What I loath are bass reflex (reflux) boom boxes and tweaters that breakup.
But does that mean they are more accurate than all other options? I doubt it. Stu, I think it's all a tradeoff and the key is finding technologies or implementations whose strengths you love and whose weaknesses you can tolerate.
One thing I've seen lately is more companies making very similar speakers just in different sizes. I really like that. A living room sized speaker isn't appropriate for a bedroom or study, I want the same sound but in different sizes and SPL's.
So... Am I typical or goofy? How many of your customers come in wanting something like they have only better or for an alternate environment vs those who want a whole new deal?
Not that there is any "right" answer of course, the hobby has many facets..
Regards, Rick
Would you compromise for an amp that has horrible specifications simply because it looks nice on the rack?
If music is the ultimate goal, I do not believe compromise is the answer. Musical Genres should not make a difference, and in my mind, any genre should sound good if the system is truly neutral. Environment? Perhaps, if you live in an absurdly extravagant home with a cavernous listening room or a hovel with a prison cell for a listening room. Industrial design is a non issue for me. Loudness, well if you are trying to reproduce rock concert levels, perhaps, but that's not for me: precision in a playback transducer means for my listening, lower volumes are satisfactory, and I still get a large soundstage to boot.
My chief complaint is that no reviewer has ever really taken any speaker design to task over obvious compromises in design and presentation. They can not or do not hear what influences these compromises present to the listener.
Again I harp on the case of Amar Bose who came out with a 500 watt receiver with 5% distortion because he claimed that 5% distortion was inaudible. It certainly was inaudible with a pair of Bose 901's because they had 5% distortion measured at one meter as evidenced by the reviews which came out at its introduction.
If that is typical, why bother with 104 dB s/n ratios in CD players, and why search for vanishing low distortion specs? We need a measure of common sense in audio, and, as I see it, speakers are among the weakest point.
of course YMMV
Stu
"Would you compromise for an amp that has horrible specifications simply because it looks nice on the rack?"
Of course not Stu. In fact I truly don't care what my power amp looks like since it lives on the floor of a closet.
But speakers are another matter, they pretty much have to be in the room with you and that often means tradeoffs. That's where knowing the genre of main interest may help. Like you I don't need to reproduce ultra loud music because my main interest isn't rock concerts and sadly loud sounds now hurt my aged ears and I want to keep what dynamic range I have as long as possible! Even beyond sound the speaker concerns also extend to other's in the house and Wives, Kids and pets gotta be considered. At least a little...
"We need a measure of common sense in audio, and, as I see it, speakers are among the weakest point."
I suppose so, they surely have been traditionally. But I wonder if they aren't getting overall better, especially the affordable ones. I haven't been in the market for so long that I don't have a clue.
As far as distortion goes a lot depends upon it's nature. Usually speakers are the most linear for small displacements and run into troubles when loud. Since our ears also follow that pattern we may be less annoyed by it than by, say, crossover distortion in amplifiers.
Temporal anomalies and dispersion shifting over frequency are sort of speaker specialties and I think they can really snap you out of the music and make you aware that somethings artificial. Artifacts tend to do that...
Reviewer-wise I think that the readers would benefit most from having specialization where each only does a class or two of components. I realize that that might be more boring for them but that doesn't bother me a whit if they are paid professionals, it just goes with the territory!
I have a hard time seeing how any useful lateral comparisons can be done without systematic evaluation and changing other things in the system willy-nilly eliminates doing that effectively. Additionally a small library of 'reference' components should be kept to close the loop from time to time.
As you can imagine I don't put too much stock in reviews, well except for "Sam Tellig"'s. One piece of advice used to be to find a reviewer with similar ears and tastes and he seems to be mine... But he would be even better with a good testing structure!
Regards, Rick
become apologists for speaker performance, in my opinion. Crossover distortion for an AB amp is nothing compared to crossover distortion for speaker designs.
I have posted over on Tweaks about placing mu metal strips between multiple drivers in a speaker system. The increase in clarity is astounding as the mu metal cuts the magnetic interference between the drivers (properly installed of course). I see no manufacturer implementing such a tweak. I have posted on the simple changing out of black iron screws to nonmagnetic ones, either brass or stainless. Very few manufacturers follow suit, although you can actually hear the soundstage changing if you play music while replacing the screws one by one.
I find that the typical designer hops on his computer and simply downloads an appropriate crossover design, sticks in speaker parameters and is pretty much done with the model. They seem to take the computer's word as being sacred and do very little independent investigation on their own (believe me, I have spoken to a myriad of designers over the years and while I do not claim any special knowledge about speaker designs, I am still shocked by the relative ignorance, in general, by many lauded designers).
As for speaker volume, what normal listener can ever have playback at 125 dB? Your neighbors, let alone your significant other, would can the system almost immediately. That being said, I see many "audiophiles" preferring to play extremely loud because loudness actually conceals many sins. If the system is truly neutral and coherent, woofers and tweeters are in proportion no matter what the volume is. Midrange is appropriately balanced, too. Too many systems are not balanced at all except at very loud levels.
I hear this all the time when I attended CES and many audio stores. In fact serving an "apprenticeship" at an automotive audio shop taught me one thing: crank up the volume of whatever product you want to sell, and you pretty much have it sold. Guy could come in looking for a pair of speakers but you could sell an equalizer that way..... Unfortunately, the same sales approach pervades even home stereo. And unfortunately home theater hasn't helped any: exaggerated bass and treble are the typical norm and many have come to expect the same "sound" from their stereo.
Stu
The cd of Belefonte at Carnegie Hall is absolutely spectacular. On a good system. Incredible soundstage, like the LP. Big as the state of Kansas. Alas, there's much to do to get digital up there with analog.
Edits: 05/19/12
Before I get excited and try to squeeze more goodie out of my copy I'd like to confirm that we are talking about basically the same disk.
This one is an RCA 6006-2-R.
Same critter?
Pressing: Sonopress A01 DD19601 IFPI L028
Close?
I have several ways to play CD's and sometime a disc will sound substantially better using one of them but I don't routinely try them all.
Thanks, Rick
I suspect the Living Stereo RCA version of the CD is the one to get. Unless the one you're referring to is a botched pressing it should be OK.
"I suspect the Living Stereo RCA version of the CD is the one to get."
OK, got it added to my "cart".
The one I have says it was digitally mastered in 1989 and the Living Stereo one is apparently 2008 so maybe better?
I had an interesting experience with two CD's of the same 'take five' session from our library, one was fine, but the other was breathtaking. Perfect sound forever...
Thanks for the suggestion on the Belafonte,
Rick
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