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To njjohn - an attempt for dialogue

Posted by Thorsten (M) on March 9, 2005 at 06:27:37

Hi,

I think we have exhausted the "The Great Divide: Two Camps of SET Listeners." subject. To me it is too Camp anyway, I ain't camp and I belong to no camp.

So, if we drop this out and go back to where might start a meaningful dialogue.

Let us start from the beginning. I'll be listing out what I require from a Music reproduction systemn and what I currently use and why. I invite you to consider this and to also do the same.

It might be worthwhile to note that I have played French Horn, Guitar and Drums (not to any noteworthy level, but each for a good while) in my youth and that I have worked as sound egineer (including recording classical and popular music) and DJ as well as having designed Pro-Audio (largely Studio) Gear.

And I dislike both headphones and nearfield conditions for "listening for pleasure". I find them usefull tools for "surgical dissection" of the recording if I'm recording, but the experience is too drastically different from reality for me to enjoy it, in fact, most nearlfild setups I have heard I felt where assaulting and very fatiguing when left without drastic frequency corrections.

First, my music listening is EXTREMELY omnivourus. I liten to a lot of classical. I liten to Jazz. I listen to progessive rock, heavy metal, 80's new romantic, punk, heavy base Rap, Soul, Funk and Reggae, pop ditties and singer songwriter (gal/guy'n'geeetar) stuff. The same system main also does second duty as Cinema Sound system (with the TV's speakers doing center fill-in).

I tend to to prefer live recordings or recordings with a general "live feel" to them. I rarely if ever listen to "audiophile" recordings and/or pressings (if I do it's because of the music), I mostly listen to LP but use CD where I got it. I do have favourite artists and composers, but again way too varied and extensive to mention, short of writing long lists.

In classical music I like most what is called "Early Music" and smallish ensemble "authentic" Baroque and Renaissance Music plus really large scale orchestral works. In Rock/Pop/Rap etc. (shall we call it contemproary popular music?) I like anything with intellectual and social aspirations, stuff that adresses, heart, soul and mind together.

In recent times among the mainstream popular stuff I liked and noticed Black Eyed Peas "Where is the Love", City High "What would you do", Macy Gray "I try", Eminem "Loose yourself", Shakira (everything) which might explain my likes better than a long declamation. I still regulary go clubbing (London is just happening!) with my Wife and enjoy HiNRG Dancefloor stuff as well.

So, any of the above my system needs to cope with. If I put 80's, 90's or 00's Clubland 12" Records on my system must manage club style levels (but better sound).

If I put on intimate small scale Jazz I it needs to that justice.

If I put on Saint Saens Organ Symphony, Mahlers 3rd or Haendels Messiah it needs to cope with that. If I listen to the "Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment" recorded in an old church it needs to transport me into this church.

If there is emotion in te music it needs to convey that. If teh music is cold, electronical it needs to convey that. If in a film suddenly Helicopters hover above or battles errupt it needs to handle this gracefully if not at full cinema levels.

To put attributes on this, to me a system needs to produce music first and foremost in a vivid, attention-grabbing, riveting way. I'm bored easily. It must provide a good experience of the recording venue (if present - this can be confusing when listening to multitracked material assembled from different sessions in differnt acoustical envoironments).

If it bring the music into my living room it's wrong, I want it to take to where the music happens. The fact that musical listening range encompasses so much different material means it also needs to go quite loud without strain. And it needs to do all that in a normal, wifefriendly living room and of course it needs to be wifefriendly (including usage).

Such things as reasonable tonal accuracy, good levels of detail retrieval so I can recognise a squaking chair or string handeling noise as such and am not stressed in trying to work out if I should worry about the noise or relax are a given (without these it's not even worse listening too except as background noise), if tonality cannot be accurate enough I prefer for a system that errs on the slightly too warm side.

Very important is the portrayal of nuances and dynamics, with that I mean dynamic contrast and shading. I notice that many when they refer to "good dynamics" actually talk about compression, not realistic dynamics, for me real dynamics please.

A core test for a system for me is if it can actually make very poor congested recordings make sense, allow me to hear the music despiet heavy compression and generally muddied up sound.

Now, what do I use to make that happen right now?

Speakers are Supravox Fieldcoil 8" Fullrange Drivers on open baffles with a Sub (sealed Box 2 X 12 " active) below 50Hz and a Supertweeter (Horn) avove 15 KHz.

Using dipoles (open baffles) provides to me the best compromise between size and controlled dispersion. Conventional speakers (especially ones with narrow baffles) interact too much with the acoustic envoironment to allow them to transport me (acoustcially) out of my living room, I rarely ever use such for any amount of time.

The Fieldcoil Supravox drivers (my ones have a different construction to the stock ones to allow them to operate better on open baffles with around 3db less sensitivity and a higher Qt) are pretty much the best wideband driver in current production (I have heard all but Reps), much better than anything Lowther and Fostex ever came up with, ahead of of the 8" & 12" Phy Hp to my ears. Very natural sound, unfatiguing but highly resolving, basically all the music, non of the crud.

Amplifiers right now are basically modernised WE 91 Design on the DIY Hifisupply Lady Day Plus chassis, 2-Stage design with a pentode driver WE 310A and WE 274A rectifiers and well implemented DC Heaters for the output stage (AC was tried but had the usual AC sound which mucks up the music too much for my taste), no negative feedback.

I started listening to these Amp's once finalised with some old new production (late 90's) WE output valves with many hours on them, have not yet felt any reason to change them or anything else in the amps, nothing niggles me or makes me think "I wonder what if"....

I do have several other amp's around BTW, also several other speakers.

As linestage I use a transformer passive based around Stevens & Billington TX-102 MK III. I have not yet found anything better.

The vinyl source is a monsterous, polished aluminum thing from germany with three arms and cartridges, the Phonostage is 2-Stage using a Pentode input preceeded by a S&B TX-103 MK II MC Stepup followed by an inductive RIAA Module followed by a Triode stage (I find that the Pentode 1st stage & triode 2nd Stage combo hits just the right spot in the aural matrix for me every single time and in every single application, music through all triode circuits sound lifeless and stripped down by comparison).

The CD source that is always around is also the DVD Player. It is still a first generation Pioneer (DV505) for good reasons.

This is one of the few DVD Players that used asyncronous reading of the CD and buffered it the data in memory (like it does always for DVD - downside, it won't play CDR's). Plus, in that particular player Pioneer used their best "Legato Link" Dac/Filter combo. Untill Pioneer recently switched to customised versions of Burr Brown DAC's (which sound plain terrible) they had a rather unusual small Japanese Chip maker make them using filter algorythms not unlike Wadia uses. These DAC's are IMHO together with a few others (like Wadia's implementations) the best sounding commercial stuff, you need to go non-oversampling to get a more relaistic and musical presention without trading off detail.

The addition of a good master clock and new analogue stage rounds that off, together with loads of C37 (derived) tweaking including reinforcing the chassis and drive extensively with "tone wood", C37 laquering plus wooden disks and crystal points at key points inside the player. C37 and C37 derived tweaking plus various other crazy things are also applied to most other parts of the system and the room (I use for example such things as Harmonic plates hung strategically throughout the soundstage between the speakers).

The analogue stage used to be my own discrete J-Fet design with SE output and no negative feedback. I recently got given a LC Audio Zap Filter (discrete Transistor Anlogue stage with an Amplifier/Buffer circuit structure and no negative feedback) which I fitted to get balanced output and the Zap Filter (once C37 conformant) sounds at least as good, possibly slightly better (too many variables to be sure) as my original circuit did, but I now can use the much better sounding XLR connections (it's the connector itself more than the balanced operation that makes the difference).

Alternatively I have modded Shanling Players generally with passive I/V conversion and a single stage amplifier plus buffer analogue stage using Valves (WE again - I like the sound of WE valves as it happens).

Cables are all my own, the speaker cables are along the lines of nordost but using more and thinner individual conductors. Interconnects are silver/air construction these days with goldplated silver.

So, this gives what I listen to, what I want from the Music and what I use to get there.

Maybe you care to comment on what want from the Music (replay) and what you use to get there?

Ciao T

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