Harley quote
True @mahgister. However, once you’ve conquered those issues, upgrading equipment can improve the sound, sometimes dramatically.It is a common place fact that my vintage Sansui AU 7700 so good it is and it is a very good amplifier, cannot beat the new ZOLT technology of Berning for example or many other improved design at very higher cost... My point is when you know how to install an "only" good gear, upgrading may seems suddenly ludicrous, controlling embeddings is the WAY in audiophile experience at any cost, not upgrading... But for sure if i inherit the money i will upgrade to the ZOTL... But i dont give a damn about it now , the urge is dead now, because the vibraphone changing colors and hues in his slow decays are in my room already....There is better to come possibly but i can live with what i have and this is the point... I created an "upgrade effect" at no cost for the last 2 years with the same system, only experimenting with the 3 working dimensions of my system.... I listen music now and dont read much reviews anymore... 😁 |
Audio experience has nothing to do with money first... Audio experience has nothing to do with upgrade first... Audio experience has nothing to do with blind consumerism... Audio experience is the question you ask yourself about the system you already own which was carefully chosen, with your purse limitations, and the question is: how do i install in his working dimensions optamally what i own for listening it at his optimal level.... There is plenty of example of very costly system that sound bad or harsh because people never figure it out.... Replacing gear is NOT audiophile experience.... Experiencing natural timbre and good imaging on ANY system because we know how to control the working dimensions is audio experience..... |
Thanks for the correction cleeds... Point of diminishing return is way more nearer to us that most think it is.... On that i am with audiodesign... But i accept your precision about the fact that we can always judge if a difference is better or worse, subjectively and objectively, indeed if a difference is perceived ... But the essential is that this " point" is always objectively nearer to us that we subjectively think it is.... This point is objective in 2 direction, then this point is an oriented line or a VECTOR in his simplest form or a TENSOR if we analyse his many dimensions... One direction TOWARD this moving point for ALL audiophiles is determined by the factors linked to improving design, and improving embedding controls...(Objective factors) The other direction FROM this point, at an instant T, for a specific audiophile is determined by the listening history of this audiophile....(Subjective factor) (If you link the 2 directions dynamically you have a tensor which describe the many factors constituting the potential history of all audiophiles) Then this point represent in itself an history in design experiments and listenings experiments which is more a surface (a phase space) than a simple "point".... Not the elusive and illusory "point" that audiodesign say it is.....Then calling this phenomena that linked price and quality design/ to S.Q. increase, calling that a "POINT" is in itself misleading....Because some less attentive person after that can call this point only "an illusion".... 😁 But he is perrfectly right about the fact that this point is always nearer to us than we think....And this fact is essential to understand some aspect of the audio phenomenon ..... Sometimes audiodesign is right.... But not always for the good reason..... 😊 «Are you sure that using tensors can help someone to understand history?»-Groucho Marx |
Diminishing returns is the term used by audiophiles with more money than common sense in order to justify that there will always be an improvement when in reality at some point there is no audible improvement, and many changes are only different, not better. That point comes somewhat early(ish) in electronics, quite a bit later in speakers and acoustics.I am glad to say that this is right and i think the same thing.... You definitely knows much.... But just less than you think..... 😊 My best to you.... |
Diminishing returns " is the subjective excuse by budget Audiophiles for not putting more into their system. It’s an excuse for Lower Fi. Pretending you’re doing all that, without doing it. :(Do you realize that this law only means that to get to the top we must always pay more and there exist a relative point, different for each of us, where the investment is no more atttractive for what we will get from it? No? Your post is like the post of sellers who want to sell something, whatever the cost, and who is ready to use this evidence to depreciate what we humble mortal called Hi-Fi experience... With 500 bucks from my used audio system, the piano and the orchestra fill my room 3-d in 2 positions of listening....Is my system the best? not at all.... Is it satisfying ? yes.. Is it because i never listen to a highly costly one? My system gives me a better sound that all the systems i listen to to date....I dont need to invest to reach more of the same....Or a little bit more for 12,000 bucks( i already calculate what i must buy to beat mine) 😁 Your ignorance is easy to explain, no system, whatever the cost can reach his optimal working if it is not righfully embedded mechanically, electrically and acoustically... This is the fact that separate true hi-fi from ordinary bad system....Under some very high price, most of the times it is not the price paid for electronic component that define hi-fi experience, it is the embeddings controls.......Most reviewers dont know that and those who knows dont write it in CAPITAL letters why? Because their job is to sell...Look at yourself and see yourself for what you are: a seller.... It is evident that costly system have a superior potential... But it is evident that using this fact to depreciate the experience of others is only a sellers method...And ignoring what rightful methods of controls can do is ignorance... |
Interesting article thanks... If i summarize correctly: First group: faithful reproduction of the original lived musical event is the fundamental criterion. Second group: ask for the best material format which is supposed to "accurately" reproduce the original lived event... Third group: ask only for pleasant listening without anything else...Dont care about sound but more about music pleasure... Fourth group: listen to numbers or to the right design.... This article illustrate for me tough most of the misunderstandings about audiophile experience more than any other thing... Where is the fifth group ? The only one which interest me ..... Those who listen music first, not only sound, but those who knows that audiophile experience is the meeting of sound with music in the RECREATION of instrumental TIMBRE experience with a specific system created to produce this experience of a natural timbre, when and if, the system is rightfully embedded in the mechanical, electrical and acoustical dimension...We dont need the costlier system, we need a rightfully embedded good one... This group dont buy the naive faith and unscientific belief of the perfect reproduction of a live original event Illustrated by the 2 first groups... This fifth group know that all music is recreated, more than reproduced, from the original theater through many trade-off choices by engineers, recreated then in their listening room but ONLY if the right embeddings conditions are in place... The fifth group differ from the third group because they ask for a more immersive pleasure like them BUT with also an adequate sound... We cannot listen to Mahler symphonies with the same pleasure on a top system or with a very bad one...Without being obsessed by sound they ask for a good one.... The fifth group smile at those who listen mostly to measured numbers, but they dont laugh too much because we need all audio designers, which for the greatest number of them anyway listen music, not measured numbers only .... BUT this fifth group know that ANY audio system whatever the price, or whatever the measured numbers are, if they are not too bad numbers, will sound or could sound at his peak potential ONLY in its well embedded mechanical, electrical and acoustical settings and dimensions, never mind the design if it is a "relatively" good one.... This fifth group is less easy to caricature than the other four..... Less credulous perhaps? Perhaps this difficulty to figure out this fifth group is the reason why the writer have no idea about his existence.... 😊 My best to all.... |
un fact...experimenting with raising my speaker cables off the carpet and isolating them from vibrations with anti vibration supports and Mapleshade brass weights on top of their network boxes. Sound became dull and less dynamic. Back on carpet....fantastico!! Moral? Gotta play around and above all else USE YOUR EARS 👂. All the advanced acoustic design in the world ain’t necessarily gonna do it for you...keep on truckin:)Any specific embeddings device works in the limits related to any audio system and in the limits of the other 2 embeddings environment... You are right.... Then i am not surprized by your report that contradict some other report... The contradiction only reflect that any solution must be ADAPTED to a specific audio environment and to their specific varied embeddings...😊 The ears cannot perceive in the abstract, they works in a specific environment in front of a specific system....They teach themselves how to listen and perceive in this environment...We all have different listenings histories.... This is why NO TWEAK are a universal solution...And i dont buy them....Even if some for sure are good... Myself i dont "tweak", i make listenings experiments with my system and after that i create complementary SPECIFIC embeddings devices for the 3 dimensions, mechanical,electrical and acoustical and for my specific audio system.... The ultimate test for the ears is always natural TIMBRE perception... All the other qualities of sound come generally gradually with the implementation of the conditions for natural TIMBRE experience, be it dynamic, imaging, soundstage qualities etc... |
“Some of the supposedly best designed rooms are often horrible sounding.”A small ordinary room is defined by his geometry ( form+proportion, by his topology (doors+windows) and very importantly by the acoustical different properties of the different materials contituting his content (furniture+books,vinyl,cd, flowers,lamps etc +walls-ceilings-floors) ... NO equations here, even computerized pre-fabricated solutions will or could replace completely the human ears.... Designed room are NOT small living room, but even them need the ears designers piloting the work.... Then laws of acoustics dont replace ears....Practical acoustic is an ART based science... To focus on something relatively minor like cables, while ignoring the laws of acoustics, is something else to be avoided.Here you are more than right.... My greatest discovery in audio, is that upgrading electronic design is often secondary ,if a certain quality product is being acquired... The most important factors being most of the times the 3 embeddings controls dimensions of the audio systems : mechanical,electrical and acoustical embeddings... Not knowing that is condemning oneself to chaising his tail or chaising the dragon tail , in the 2 cases entering in an endless pit throwing money into the abyss.... Or endlessy arguing meaninglessly about cables, after being deceived by one or after buying a good one, and at worst, arguing at the end with anti cables zealot of scientism... 😁 |
A remarkable advance in loudspeaker technology has been sorely ignored by the audio press:Thanks very interesting.... |
All these flowery words about the ear, human perception, etc. is meaningless. All these devices do is recreate an analog waveform. It is you that confuse the microphone waveform translated digitally with the initial waveform perceived by the human ears which is not a set of microphone... Unable to answer any meaningful objection to my affirmation that timbre is a complex phenomenon for the human ears NEVER integrally and perfectly seized by a microphone, you attack ad hominem: I will give 10:1 odds that people who use the same words, over and over in their posts, like fourier transform, or nyquist, have probably no real practical work where they have had to use fourier transforms or given serious consideration to how their system will be impacted by nyquist limits and subharmonic modulation. When your only tool is a hammer, you keep pulling it out of the bag. Problem is, someone only told them it was a hammer. It was really a wrench. It is you in the first place that invoked Nyquist theorem to ridicule supposedly ignorant turntable audiophiles...Ignoring yourself elementary fact about timbre perception...More than that, you even mock a mathematician woman who at the end of an article in scientific american dont decrete the same truth than you about digital and analog, and conclude in a neutral way, accusing her to not understand Nyquist theorem.... Remember? The initial timbre live event is always imperfectly recorded and after that perfectly translated, yes by virtue of Nyquist theorem, from analog microphones to digital, mixed, and retranslated to analog and or digital, and RECREATED in the listener room... There is 2 important moment for timbre perception: the initial event and the listeners acoustical rooms...Nyquist theorem has nothing to do directly with timbre perception... Then turntable people has all right to say that they prefer timbre experience from a turntable with their specific room/system/ears without being accused of ignorance or delusion.... In a word, 2 ears are not equal to 2 microphones, even if the waveform is perfectly translated by Nyquist theorem to digital........ Ears need a room to perceive natural timbre, be it a normal room with speakers or or an headphone room... Because timbre is NOT the abstract accuracy of a note pitch only but also something linked to the complex material properties of a specific instrument evaluated in a room.... Scientism is not science.... |
It is absolutely unquestionable beyond any shadow of a doubt that digital, especially anything approaching high res can far far more accurately reproduce an ANALOG waveform than can a vinyl playback system or reel-to-reel. And let’s be honest, that is all they are doing, recreating an analog waveform. No more, no less. All these flowery words about the ear, human perception, etc. is meaningless. All these devices do is recreate an analog waveform.The problem here is NOT about the reproduction of a waveform coming from microphones...Nyquist theorem is a THEOREM first about Fourier translation not about human perception first... Matter closed... The problem is that TIMBRE is also a mathematical modelling concept in acoustic and this modelling concept is there for an acoustician which try to understand a very complex concrete event JUDGED and evaluated by the human ears/brain and pertaining to the way a complex materials (a stradivarius) reproduce a musical tone in a specific acoustical dimension... The musical event consist in the fact that the note is not only a pitch accuracy but a more complex phenomenon, the sound of a stradivarius making his note is not the sound of a cheap violin producinfg the same note.... In the case of a stradivarius producing a note in a church, versus a cheap violin.... Then because no live musical event can be reproduced WITHOUT some lost of information, the fact that high resolution digital could reproduce to the perfection the analog waveform of any microphones, this fact cannot erase the fact that the microphones cannot register TOTALLY the concrete timbre event, for the very reason by which each microphones type has his own’s limitations and by reason of their specific locations.... All these choices, i will recall also mixing choices , alter the ORIGINAL timbre experience of the musical living event... Take the Nyquist theorem, put it on a shelve for a second and think about reality :Timbre..... Acoustic is the study of what human ears experience....Then timbre is NOT a "flowery word" save for someone ignoring acoustic....It is not only a brain/ears specific experience but a very mathematically complex concept for which science use not only Fourier analysis but many other complex tools... I apologize to answering a post way above after dinosaurs, floods and cables discussion.... |
