How much reality do you really need?

Just enough for goosebumps 

rvpiano

Nice idea for a thread. After careful selection of gear, One, could keep his system on the modest side. Keep the equation simple.

Happy Listening!

To quote a master musician...

Geddy Lee, “more is more”....

Upgraditis. It’s fun. Expensive but fun.

I think I’m right there.  Took me a while and a lot of components and full control of a semi decent room.

I listen 5 hours straight and only stop because I have to.  I have cried and had the shivers several times in a single session.  

ALL YOU CAN GET !!   The rest is just noise !!

Howard Hughes was once asked “How much do you need to be rich?”...his answer “One more dollar”. 

Rockefeller.

Some terrific thoughts.

So am I correct in concluding the answer to the question is more reality.

At the time of its release you might have been completely satisfied with a Model-T, but now it's completely inadequate. 

Time doesn't stand still and neither does development.

I might not want concert levels, but I certainly want to imagine I'm there listing to the concert. I want the least intrusive Fletcher-Munson implementation so I get the full experience at a more comfortable volume.

Just enough that the illusion distracts and the deception is accepted.

Perfection doesn’t really exist, but it’s fun to let oneself immerse into the fantasy that it’s all at ones’ command....

".... She don’t know what it means
But the music make her want to be the story
And the story was whatever was the song what it was..."

Skateaway...that’s all. ;)
....and generally.....Enough.

I'm actually pretty satisfied. But there's a huge caveat. My old house had a remarkable room. Even with the far away better components I have, my current system cannot compete with the sonics of the old room and my old Carver TFM-35.

I have Salk Songtowers with little 5" woofers. With some tracks that room made them sound like 60" subwoofers. Not sure I can convey this so people understand. It's very strange...as if the bass response was just a little thin...but the sub bass was kinda amazing. Felt not heard. Presentation was supremely holographic.

It's as if the floor was made of blackest velvet and the speakers were softly gliding the entire room floor with you on it 12' at a time. Immense power.

In this house, in this room...they sound fuller in the bass and mid bass...semi holographic but lack the magic. 

I currently have two dedicated lines here on a 200 amp service.That house had a 1957 100 amp service and I used a shared circuit.

It took me 3 years to find that spot in that room.

Wish I'd realized the 'it's the room dummy' lesson years ago.

 

Yes. All of it. Every piece of information. And it actually sounds quite good, gloriously good. At least that's what I get with my ATC SCM7 V3 speakers + my Chord Qutest DAC. 

Recently Lewis Hamilton seems to be needing more horsepower. We'll see how that works out.

I like the sound of rooms along with whatever my hifi is spewing out, and was worried my newly acquired house was gonna be way too live in the high ceilinged long living room...it's not. Sounds amazing...reality bites.

I'm in the Master M camp. Reality is what you make it. MONEY, (as some have implied) has nothing to do with the reality of sound. TIME and experiments do.. 

If reality in sound equates to money invested, what do you do with ear buds or head phones? Say they don't sound good, when we all know they do. Some better than others. BUT a free pair that comes with a phone sound pretty good. Total cost .50 cents including packaging.

Set of earbuds and that right! Time to DANCE..

Hat on the floor and I slowly walk around the hat to the beat of the music, BUT my faithful K-9 can't keep the beat because she's got NO EAR BUDS!!. But she tries.. NOW we stop and slowly back around the hat to the beat... :-)

Regards..

An exact match to what? And how would you know when you are there?

Some posters here have the correct answer to this simple question:

There can be no reality.  An event cannot be reproduced with total precision, not least because it is being reproduced at a different time.

A system should seek to reproduce accurately what is on the recording.  The recording exists in the time it is being played.

End.

GO MAX!!

Mahgister, I do not spend my time analyzing you every word. What I can say for certain if you think you can come up with an "absolute sound" system for $500?...... God bless.

+1 erik_squires

If one makes a decision to not listen at "realistic" or "concert" volume one has already decided to "depart reality."

Similarly, I guess, if one prefers to have recordings without people coughing, talking, or ordering a beer.

Is the aspiration for sound in one's listening room really to replicate the sound in a studio, concert hall, or bar?

Or is there some other "reality" one should aspire to?

No; if one always lets the primary focus be the performance.  Otherwise, that search is a constant distraction.  

In many cases a realistic volume level is not all that loud. I take my sound pressure meter to some venues.(some you can't take it in with you.) At the Regatta Bar in Cambridge, Ma I get between 85 and 95 dB. At those volumes my ears never ring. These are relatively easy levels to achieve in a home system with the exception of low bass. A speaker will have it's frequency response tested at 1 meter, say it does 20Hz to 20kHz +- 3 dB. what that means in reality in a room at 4 meters is 50Hz to 20kHz if you are lucky. The entire bottom octave is missing and it is that octave that give you the visceral sensations you get at a live venue. So, some systems regardless of the volume are never going to give you the "I am there" vibe. This is just one reason subwoofers are so important even if they open another can of worms. It takes at least two 15" woofers or four 12" woofers to properly load a room at 20 Hz minimum. You can add bass with smaller subwoofers but you won't make it down to 20 Hz effectively enough to get to 95 dB. 

Everyone’s "reality" is different, as is everyone’s system, room, recordings etc...so in essence it is not achievable. One may think he has reality, while another may think it sounds like crap. There are way too many variables at hand, not to mention we all hear differently. What is important is that "you" are happy in your "own" reality. 

@realworldaudio 

I find that _most_ current ultra-high end gear focuses too much on the enhanced resolution aspect, creating an illusionary sonic envelope that feels very much real, but also quite a bit different from the original source. It traps you in the superficiality, and shuts down the imagination, which is the exact opposite of what a live performance does.
So, by getting even higher resolution we might be getting further away from the music itself.... yet, much closer to an imaginary perfected sensory experience. A great and fun endeavor, but ultimately a form of escapism: adoring the shape of sound while shunning the message of the music.

+1000 on this. Brilliant post and I couldn't agree more. So astute and eloquent. Thank you!

@terry9 

Hiide, that's a good point about definition, but I don't agree. Sometimes a good definition only arises in the context of a discussion or a legacy of agreement.

I actually agree with you. I was not meaning to insist on a definition first, but on one which might help in the context of this discussion. Just thought the word "reality" was too unconstrained and we needed some structure. Even sandlot baseball (or pickup basketball, etc.) needs rules to get going.

There is a structure. It is just very hard to define and might differ according to circumstance (the room). When you hear it you will know it. But, until you have you are a ship out on the ocean without a compass. There is only one degree of defectiveness or another. Thus the endless search for some of us. The fellow realworldaudio is quoting obviously is not there yet. There is no such thing as too much definition. There is only the definition that is there in the recording, no more and no less. Anything else is one form of distortion or another. There is no perfect but, a stereo system can be put together that with your eyes closed will convince you that you are at a live performance with the right recording of which there are many.

@rettrussell Loved that passage. Thanks for sharing it. Have you read Boorstin's short little gem, "Making experience repeatable"? It's about what happened to our appreciation of music when it was no longer a live event, connected to a time, place, social occasion.

@fuzztone  Your disdain for the topic needs to be announced, why?

NONE!!

Some very, very eloquent posts here on the relationship of reality to the listening experience. But my question is how much does that search distract from or even destroy your enjoyment of the music?

One more thing. I can understand the negativity. There were many times out of frustration I could have thrown a turntable out the window. It seemed that without spending serious money, which the vast majority of us do not have, you could never approach the ideal. The first system I heard that approached the "absolute sound" was back in 1979 and I think the person put it together by accident more than by design. I have been chasing that level of performance since. You buy a new piece of equipment hoping that it will get you there or at least closer and 80% of the time it does not or even takes you backwards. I can count the pieces of equipment that really made a big improvement on one hand. 
Also, you do not need absolute hearing to appreciate the "absolute sound." There is a lot more to it than just frequencies over 10 kHz. They really do not matter all that much. People with aging ears do not have to worry nor can they use it as an excuse. 

rvpiano, being an audiophile is all about the sound. It really has little to do with the music. Loving and appreciating music is another endeavor entirely. An audiophile is concerned about the technicalities of sound reproduction. A music lover loves music. It is actually very unusual for a human to not like music. Our life's experience is all about rhythm.  

rvpiano, excellent question...

I'll turn the question on its head:  How much reality do you want to escape from?  Seems to me we are all in the "Disneyland" business of escapism.  If you're not then you're listening to the equipment (reality) rather than being in an altered state of mind.  Being carried away into the ether has always been my goal.  Floating.

Regards,
barts 

as we can see in our world today, reality is reality, but each person's belief of what is reality can be different, dreadfully, woefully different - musically for example, a person who goes to live springsteen performances at the meadowlands has a totally different take on reality of music than a season ticket holder to the boston symphony...

so asking 'how much reality one needs out of their hifi' is a lost cause, an exercise in futility

furthermore, recordings are made with substantial imperfections and losses, and then the reproduction of the recordings incur further losses... some good systems can sometimes add some 'enhancements' to deliver a more pleasing illusion to the listener in the course of reproduction (e.g. vacuum tube distortion), such is the subjectivity in this pursuit in working with biomechanics of our hearing and our tastes

so one can say audiophiles are about 'the sound'... that wouldn't be totally wrong... but smart and seasoned audiophiles are about the sound in service of delivering beautiful, engaging musical experiences... 

...short of that, we are playing games with semantics, not having a discussion of the substance of the pursuit

10:46am”… being an audiophile is all about the sound. It really has little to do with the music,”
I suppose for some that is true.  But for others, chasing the goal of sound perfection gets in the way of the music.

The better the sound, the closer one gets to the music. It is, after all, all about the music.

Frank

To the poster who deleted the post that suggested that I have “disdain for the subject” and asked “why I need to announce it”. No worries, I can handle incorrect, not to mention silly assumptions and questions; and I’m glad that you saw the error in your ways 😊. I’ll try and answer anyway.

“Disdain”?! Hardly. I may be more frugal with my audio dollars than my means might allow, but I’m as much an audiophile as anyone 😱. However, I try to not let my interest in sound be a distraction from my (greater) interest in the music, as the OP suggests in his most recent post. If it bothers you that I “announce” this, then just ignore me; but, I thought that forums were a place to “announce” opinions.

Cheers.

How you listen is important.  There are times I sit back and listen for the beauty and significance of the music, and the beautiful sounds of my stereo.
  But there are times I IMAGINE I’m in a hall; then I listen for the artifacts of reality — sound staging and such.  Then, I can convince myself my set is accurately producing my experience in an auditorium.

rvpiano, that would be sad indeed. Dysfunctional maybe.

@jjss49, The reality is the same for everyone. It is how they interpret it that differs. An absolute sound system will do exactly the same thing for a well recorded Bruce Springsteen concert as for a well recorded symphony, make it believable. The best systems do not discriminate. In spite of imperfections in the process at multiple levels a system can still be put together that with your eyes closed will make you feel as if you are at a live performance and such a system will convince everyone listening to it of exactly the same illusion. 

But my question is how much does that search distract from or even destroy your enjoyment of the music?

I would say it used to somewhat but since I've been reading more about the problem I know it's never possible to recreate the sound of a live performance or even a studio mix in your home all you can do is try to recreate what's on the recorded media to sound as good to yourself as possible whether LP, CD, Tape or file. 

Mijostyn,

Dysfunctional — “A failure to function in an expected or complete manner. Usually refers to a disorder in a bodily organ (e.g. erectile dysfunction), a mental disorder, or the improper behavior of a social group.”

Is this what you mean?

All I'm looking for is an emotional connection to the music and to understand where the composer/artist/performer etc. wants to take me and/or what they want me to feel or think about.

And it doesn't take a ne plus ultra system to do that.  In fact, most of the ultra high end systems I've heard had me concentrating more on the sound of the system than the music being played.  Maybe that would change over time and familiarity, but I'll never know because I'm unwilling to spend the kind of money it would take to get to that point.

At this point, my system does what I want.  I'm going to be changing a few things in the near future that will hopefully increase my enjoyment of my music collection.

@mijostyn  Your post presupposes that reality exists autonomously, independent of everyone's apprehension of it.  I'll leave that one to @hilde45 to resolve.

But in the case of recorded music, we're talking about three discrete realities: the music that was made and recorded; the recording (tape, digital file, whatever); and the actualization of the recording in the home environment.  How can the reality be the same for everyone?

noun

1. 1. the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.

A definition of Art.
”appreciated primarily for their beauty and emotional power”
Does this not define the enjoyment of our electronic recreation of music? Reality is not at issue. Appreciation is.

@mijostyn   Your post presupposes that reality exists autonomously, independent of everyone's apprehension of it. I'll leave that one to @hilde45 to resolve.

Since the listener is part of an interactive system with the music-recording-reproduction circuit, it's all real. 

As for independent reality existing, how would we know? ;-) 

It is really subjective. My brother is perfectly happy listening to his 250 tunes from the speaker in his iPhone 6s. If it makes him happy, that’s all that should matter. Me on the other hand, like to explore new and different equipment and music. For instance, I just added a SVS subwoofer to my HT system. Probably will be buying a second soon.

All the best.

JD

rvpiano, letting the struggle to achieve the absolute sound or whatever sound you are looking for ruin your enjoyment of music would be IMHO dysfunctional. If you are unhappy with your system, fix it. Don't get mad at the music.
twoleftears, you are exactly right. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. That is a reality no one can change. You and I can argue about the definition of east and west but the reality does not change. How you react to that reality or how that reality affects your life is another topic. 
HiFi systems exist to play back music. How well they function in that regard is a continuum from terrible to wonderful. The problem is defining where your system exists on that continuum. That evaluation is further clouded by the differences in perception between us and our lack of language to quantify what we hear. My experience with the best systems is that everyone that hears them readily agrees that these systems are incredible. I interpret this phenomenon to mean that locked in us is the experience of live music and when we hear it we recognize it right away.
All or enough of the ques are present to convince you you are listening to a live performance. This seems to apply to everyone that has gone to live performances.  

 mglik - Isn't appreciation a function of the motivation and experience of the listener? I.e., the more you put into it the more you get out of it?

dweller - This is usually the case. I know that each improvement in my system brings more appreciation and enjoyment. The upgrade process seems never ending and many who put more and more into their systems not only experience diminishing returns but find that their "improvement", at times, spoils the sound and the experience.
But, mostly, one never imagines that the SQ can be better until they hear the effect of their upgrade. And, IME, price usually can be paralleled with quality.

Mijostyn,

it’s certainly not a matter of getting mad at the music. That wouldn’t be dysfunctional, that would be crazy.
I can’t believe you’re not aware that a common thread of many ongoing Audiogon discussions has concerned the problem of being so obsessed with the sound of one’s system that it gets in the way of actually listening to the music. It’s not a question of fixing your system. It’s the nature of this hobby that we pay so much attention to the sound.
If that’s dysfunctional, then it’s possible a large portion of us are occasionally dysfunctional.

Mglik - The "more" I'm referring to has to do with the listener, not the system hardware. If you are a regular concert goer or have attended many in your lifetime, you have a larger knowledge-base at your disposal.
When you say "this sounds real", it carries more weight because you have a clearer idea of what real sounds like.