Have You Seen - 10 Characteristics of Great Audiophile Sound

And in the discussion of point 1 (the speakers should disappear in the room), they show a pair of PS Audio FR30’s right in front of a wall of glass windows and doors. Duh. And that goes for PS Audio too; the picture was taken from the PS Audio website. Double duh.

I was very skeptical when hearing the title... expecting a list of esoteric stuff about transparency and microdynamics. But at least the titles aren't that bad.They are fine... I would come up with different ones... but there would be overlap.

@bdp24 +1  Yeah... that photo is of a system guaranteed to sound terrible. Obviously a marketing shot. 

How about:

- Musical instruments sound real. *

- Vocalists sound real.

- The presentation sounds like music. Not like a HiFi that’s reproducing music.

- - -

* Electric instruments, amplified instruments, synthesizers- difficult to tell.

@ghdprentice: A marketing shot, yeah. But what kind of potential customer does PS Audio think the picture will attract? A woman? A novice audiophile? I don't think anyone new to high end audio is going to be buying a pair of PS Audio's $30,000 FR30 loudspeakers.

To me, the list is a subset of the groundbreaking literary work by J. Gordon Holt starting in 1962 in Stereophile and summarized in Sounds Like?  A Audio Glossary, Jul 29, 1993 and Harry Pearson starting in 1973 and summarized in How to Readthe Absolute Sound, for which I do not remember the formal reference. Yes this podcast addresses key points of audiophile sound and simplification is not a bad thing for some, not for me.  I may disagree with you George (@ghdprentice) in that I miss the list of esoteric stuff and artistic descriptives of the many aspects of sound from the “old” days of those publications that challenged and stimulated my mind to understand the sound of a system or equipment from the reviewers perspective.  I understood what Mr. Pearson ment by a chocolatey sound.   I find the current reviews sterile, without passion, and tamed by the hand of legal review in our now more litigious society, making it more difficult to ascertain the sound from the reviewers perspective. I agree with @steakster  in that the list misses the attributes of audiophile sound most important to me … timbre … for without timbral accuracy it cannot approach the sound of real music, and is that the point of the hobby.  So again I have been too verbose in expressing the fact that this simple list is too simple. 

 We all have our descriptors, but that list works for me.

Got to agree on the PS Audio speaker shot maybe they were trying to tackle the acceptance factor.

@jsalerno277 I really like the addition of timbre it's maybe part of the "You hear details in recordings you don’t hear from lesser systems" section but it could be emphasized by expanding into timbre. It helps cover @steakster response too about reality as that's definitely something timbre provides.

Thanks for everyone's responses, I just thought I'd share and see what others think, thanks again.

Great post!  Thanks for sharing!  I looked over the list and concur with the authors opinion!  Of course others have added some good comments as well!

#11 System should exhibit "slam" when called for.

This is different than punchy bass from a sub and I saw no mention of it.

#12 System should be able to play back undistorted at the original level, in its intended environment, whether it be in the front row at the Hollywood Bowl, at the California Jam in Ontario, or at the studio mix-down.

If you want to "be there" you need to hear it as if you were there.

@toddalin That is good input too, although I suspect the 'being there' at a rock concert slam requires the stack you show in the photo. That level of scale and dynamics needs a room and very special system set-up to achieve that particular greatness. 

sparksgja

Thank You for posting. 10 Pearls of wisdom.

Happy Listening!

Slam is not typically something you would experience at a rock concert.

This tune is good for demonstrating slam if your system can do it:

https://youtu.be/aLEhh_XpJ-0

@toddalin 

+1 exactly. In any venue I have ever been the bass arrival times are differentially delayed causing a wave of bass to wash over you, it is nuanced with different frequencies blended together. Never slam as is often desired and delivered by some high end system.  This is one of the very convincing aspects of my tube amp the bass is highly nuanced and is like a giant wave hitting you when a classical or rock crescendo occurs. 

Great post!  Thanks for sharing the link to the article.  I concur with the article!