Fidelity

I'll go with Reubant to block, Bob. He said it plain and simple...get out while you still can, ignore these neurotic freaks, and enjoy the music! Be happy. The idea of an objective anything is patently ridiculous. Our senses are as individual as our fingerprints. One man's green is another man's chartreuse, One woman's High-C is another's orange-flavored beverage. What sounds good to you is not necessarily what sounds good to Stereophile...well, I guess most components sound pretty darn good to Stereophile so that statement may be inaccurate. You get the point though. Use your own senses. Trust the force Luke. Or, if you're blessed like at least one of our illustrious audio manufacturers, perhaps God will point out the right gear for you. High fidelity?! What a pile of horse X-cream-mint! True to what? A black and white world? But they can measure it, with scientific accuracy that is unimpeachable...why just look at the sine-waves, and those swell three-dimensional plotted curves like desert sands...and the experts all tell me that I can't get any better without spending ten times the price! Yet there's a whole derriere-burstin' load of "Audiophiles" and Audio-critics, myself among them, who adore the sound of tubes and SET amplification, complete with distortion to write home about that you can measure with a yard-stick. We are charmed and will not be swayed by geeks waving scientific evidence in abundance to discredit our ears and enlighten the rest of the world of the error in our ways. And yet I can also hear the appeal of my good friends craving for the detail and slam of his high-dollar SS rig, which renders so much detail you can hear snow falling on the roof of the recording studio. The more you focus on the specific qualities that the gear has, what it imparts, or does not, the further and further away you will tend to get from the music that moves you enough to pursue such a thing in the first place. Don't let that happen. Run, while you still have your pants. I'm telling you, these guys will take'em and have you wearing cryo'd jock-straps that isolate each of your balls in a cushion of air to eek out that last bit of performance from each of them in the name of truth and accuracy. Meanwhile they'll sell your pants on eBay after they've cleaned out your wallet, and have you begging for more because you can't get it up now unless you have the very latest, greatest, biggest, bestest, badassest device out there that you can brag about right here and enlighten other poor gullible slobs like you once were, convincing them you know what they'll like the best cause you've heard it all and you are enlightened. Oh the horror of it all!

Marco

Prpixel - Let us all know if your ding-dong makes it to the top floor after
the procedure. If not, you may want to go back to your source and have
them burrow a few extra caveties, insert some carbon-fiber tubes and
you can fill'em with lead shot to keep the nasty resonance down. They
call-em "Raised Pleasure Ribs" I think. The woman will be
stairing with lust, and you'll never get sand kicked in your face again at
the beach whenever you wear that Speedo.

Marco

"The Original", Viggen, was conceived, performed, mixed and recorded by humans who all have put their own individual signature on it, which will manifest itself in whatever way it will as far as how it is preserved and presented on the media itself for translation via the system. If the system is there ideally as something that reveals only what is there on the media, that illuminates it, so to speak...well, just as any source of light will impart a color cast on the objects that reflect it, so will a system that reproduces sound cast some color to the sound. And, just as I might see the color red as what you may call orange, well, sheeeittt, I'm just done gone and repeated my own redundant statement all over again. Every friggen stage of removal from the original is a filter that alters the original...the room it's played in, the microphone, the mixing, the man/woman at the mixing board, it's all subjective, and it's all acting as yet another filter ad infinitum. What "original' are you seeking to reproduce, and who's version of it. From which seat? To who's ears? It's like the child's game "Telephone" where you get a big group of kids, or adults for that matter, and have one whisper a statement into the other's hear. They pass it along to the next in the group, till it finally reaches the last person who speaks the phrase aloud. It seldom is the same phrase that started it all. The absolute sound is a not absolute at all, it's relative, and, like everything else, it matters as much as you care to make it matter to you, but in the grand scheme, like everthing else, it is as significant as gnat dung. I say go for what gets you most engaged with the music, what gets your toes tapping, the hairs on your neck standing up, and your grin big and wide, and sends your ding-dong to the penthouse. F&*% someone else's version of what they think you should like, or what they think is "Real" "True" or "Original". Make the call yourself...you got two ears and some grey matter in between'em. What you actually enjoy listening to may not necessarily turn out be some Sterophool approved, Class Triple A with a bullet, sonic-truth-generating, wonder-system. Then again, maybe it will. I just don't think the "truth" has anything to do with it, and pursuit of it is a farse, and so far from the emotional impact that music has at it's heart. Oh, and if your ding-dong don't make it to the penthouse when you play music on your system, don't worry; neither does mine!

Marco

I'd hope that all of us, at one time or other, has had the experience of
pure enjoyment of music, whether from a transistor radio, or a Hi-Fi
which sold for more than a year at Yale. Accurate reproduction of
anything does not necessarily lead to one thing or another. It's really up
to you how much you allow yourself to enjoy anything in particular. If a
person is all hung up on qualifying their enjoyment of some experience
in terms of definitions, mind games, pigeon-holing, and comparisons to
some kind of 'norm' or standards set forth by "experts", or
the greeness of their neighbor's grass...well, it would surprise me if
someone like that could actually enjoy anything at all! They'd likely be
too stuck in their head to experience much outside themselves. And I'm
not just the hair-club president, I'm also a member!!!

Marco

Many have already noted that that, ENJOYMENT,
rather than ACCURACY or true to the original, is a better goal. Of course
we'd like both...

WHY?!?! Why would anyone need anything more than ENJOYMENT?!?!
That's a head-trip...a mind-game. I've been in my head and let me tell
you it ain't a pretty place...I'd rather not be there if I don't have to. If
you've read any of my posts you'll probably understand why. If I have
'enjoyment' I don't give a rodent's rear end about accuracy. Enjoyment is
quite enough for me, thank you very much. As far as either being a
"better" goal; well, hey, I don't know about that, it's entirely
up to the individual to determine for themselves which they prefer and
in what balance. Needless to say, I'll take 'enjoyment' as my priority
every single time. That may in fact lead to someone else's resemblence
to accuracy, but it sure wasn't my motivating factor.

Let's just listen to music:)

Now there's a statement I can get behind. Don't mind if I do!

Marco

Needless to say, I'll take 'enjoyment' as my priority
every single time. That may in fact lead to someone else's resemblence
to accuracy, but it sure wasn't my motivating factor.

I felt the need to explain that further as I didn't turn any music on and am still stuck in my head.

I compared three preamps in one of my systems the other day. When I listened for very specific cues as to why each differed from the other, in order to 'analyze' each one more 'critically' I really had no sense of enjoyment of the music at all, nor any sense of how much I was enjoying the preamp under scrutiny. When I let go of all the analytical games was when my toe started tapping and my body started moving...I was becoming more physically and emotionally involved in the music, and loving every second of it. Going from one preamp to another in my system I found that one had me moving, while another, although remarkably airy and dimensional in this case, did not seem to have what it took to engage me nearly as much. I could easily become distracted and disengaged with the music. Perhaps that is what critics call a component that is too "analytical". Regardless, my preference was with the component that got me out of my head and bobbing to the music. I really don't think that "accuracy" necessarily was the primary virtue that leads to that. I'm not sure what is though, and I don't really feel the need to quantify it. If it's there, there's really no mistaking it. Yes, it can certainly be there in one's experience of a "low-fidelity" system too. I think one's expectations may be the enemy to contend with there.

Marco