Is a highly discerning system enjoyable?
I argue that in terms of musical enjoyment, connection, feeling the musicians and composers maybe a highly discerning system is going too far? Maybe I want the warts airbrushed out. Maybe I like a system that lets me listen to a broader range of recordings without whincing?
Then there’s systems which are discerning of performances vs. discerning of upstream gear. I personally feel they are not the same thing at all.
Lastly, if your room is an acoustic mess, how can you tell?
If you feel strongly either way I'd appreciate examples of the gear that made you go one way or another.
Like asking if a high performance car is fun to drive. If you don't like cars or driving and just see it a way to get from point A to point B, then no, it might not be. And if one doesn't particularly like music and just sees it as something to have going on in the background then no, a good system might not seem all that nice to live with.
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Building a good stereo system is building a nervous system that should insinuate itself into yours but not necessarily comply with yours. It’s like raising a child. There are factors impinging on it that we haven’t yet sussed out and that may never be. That’s part of the fun and mystery. Plus, I doubt we have gone very deep yet with electrical current and what it really is. |
It’s easy to start thinking we have audio mostly figured out simply because it’s 2023. But that’s not true. Audio gear continues to fall far behind live music in real spaces, primarily in dynamics, scale and bass. With the exception of the lucky few with massive rooms & audio installations totaling millions of dollars, the rest of us make do with a subset of what music IRL sounds like. My theory is that given all this, audio designers often go after "low hanging fruit," objectives that are at least theoretically attainable given the best test gear and well sourced components: things like lowering measurable distortions of all kinds; increasing apparent resolution (detail and treble "air" being the usual targets); and trying to address macro-dynamics to whatever degree is possible at a price-point.. Results are pretty mixed. A lot of audio gear chases sound qualities that aren't much like the real thing. Striving to hear the violinist’s smallest breath sounds or the exact type of resin and bow used are intellectually interesting, but not comparable to experiencing violin music in real spaces. I’ve heard a lot of live music in my life (different genres). Speaking of classical, choral, and opera (which tend to be performed in spaces with above average acoustics), I can’t remember ever actually focusing on resolution, detail or "plankton" in what I’m hearing. The experience of live music is too palpable and impressive for that kind of navel-gazing, at least in my experience.
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Most "older" audiophiles have switched from SS to tubes because they simply are more "Musical".....less detail but more pure enjoyment...and isn’t that really why we’re here.......And there’s lots of high quality speakers that run on that lower tube power. If the First Watt isn’t good...who cares what the rest of the watts are doing. |
Slight hijack about quality of recordings. I’ve had the time and funds lately to add an ESS Sabre DAC equipped Bluetooth receiver while breaking in my Lintons. This led to extra music time than typical. Been impressed with musicality of recent acoustic Americana recordings…the sphere around Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O’Donovan is producing cuts with really good sound stages, mixing acoustic and amplified instruments and vocals that go back and forth between coming forward and blending with the ensemble. Improving my DAC and speaker has made these artists more interesting.
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"One sees what is in back of their eyes, not what is in front of their eyes". The same holds true for the ears. I would guess most often we hear want we want to hear....what we fabricate in our mind. Most people who would listen to Bose 901 speakers may have already decided how they sound before the speakers produce sound. |
The thread we’ve all been waiting for :) Kidding aside, this is a great point of discussion. I think there are two ways to answer. 1. Some (maybe most in active forums) listen to their equipment and can pursue resolving clarity at the expense of all other considerations. Their actual hobby is defined by the equipment in some way or another…sometimes to the point of being vulnerable to inaudible ultra expensive snake oil. I don’t necessarily think it’s an issue of ego gratification but there’s some part of it that can come across as prideful in discussion. 2. Others (my category) greatly enjoy this hobby, appreciate all the knowledge and technology, spend more than the average consumer, but take our joy from the musicality or have an affection for some cultural connection to a certain era of hifi or specific style of music. People like me land in the middle. I love the era of early pro audio solid state analog power. Love the instrumentation of Muscle Shoals, Stax, Memphis and Chess Records studios. Imprinted by the sound of big hard to drive cabinets like AR3, Infinity and JBL big baffle speakers. But my lifestyle doesn’t allow for the time, expense or space needed to do justice to vinyl, which makes me a digital streamer who loves throwback analog output, LOL i am a happy camper with something less than state of the art resolution…but my well tuned Crown high voltage SS amp, fed by an ESS Sabre DAC in a thoughtful gain stack into a pair of brilliant Wharfedale Lintons are perfect in my view. The expertise in this forum is amazing and has really guided my projects, even if I’ve landed somewhere in “good enough musicality” category in pursuit of perfect reproduction. My stuff delivers a balanced enjoyable experience without distortion for under $2K. |
@cdc See if you can find any articles about Steve Lillywhite and his work with U2. The simple answer is they use what we would call sub-par speakers as their reference. Then go listen to U2’s War and see if you can hear everything that’s missing. Then read about how Pink Floyd was mixed. That will explain the chasm between the two approaches.
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Question isn't one of bad recordings for me, bad recordings have always provided poor sound in every system I've built. Even the most romantic system I had in early 2000's couldn't make a silk purse out of a turd. Its the mediocre recordings I'm mostly concerned with, and these only seem to get better as my system has progressed.
To my mind an accurate system is one that provides most natural timbre, tonally balanced, great micro and macro dynamics, and yes, highest resolution and transparency. Highest levels of resolution and transparency won't like less than natural timbre or tonal imbalance, sound will become fatiguing.
My system today sounds better with the mediocre recordings than ever, greater resolution, transparency allied with everything else in balance means sense of live performers in room perceived with minimal effort, total engagement comes about within minutes of listening session, no fatigue ever with listening sessions lasting four to six hours. I listen to virtually every genre of music from all eras and the only recordings that really bother me are the extremely dynamic constricted with tiny sound staging, meaning narrow and no depth. Having system with most natural timbre means timbre anomalies don't bother me nearly as much, I've had more issues with this in past with systems having less natural timbre. I'd say in average listening session I never encounter recording I simply can't bear. Now, this is in regard to streaming, so a single song with pretty poor recording isn't going to bother as much as if I was using physical media and had to put up with entire recording. |
My personal preference is realism, natural tone, presence and for the system to be able to convey emotion to the listener. I’m also trying to strike a good balance between being able to enjoy music and get the most out of a recording without overstepping the boundaries and crossing into a discerning or analytical. It’s tough to do and you end up walking on the edge where a smallest possible change like vibration control pucks, etc. can tip the scale. But…I don’t want to be sitting there listening to a system that is a lab instrument, subjected to an aural microscope type presentation. |
Not sure where the disconnect is, @cdc The producer was famous for saying his target listener used a stereo cassette player (i.e. boom box) as his reference. |
Yeah, on vinyl. Been keenly listening to the drums on Talking Heads, and I’m feeling like they, and the percussion are well balanced in the mix? Im now wanting to pull out other live recordings so I can listen to the drums :)
Oscar Peterson “The way I really play”, Japanese pressing up next. Regardless of mix etc, forgot how much I liked the Talking Heads. So thank you for that :) |
@perkri I only heard these on CD, if you have vinyl you may be having a totally different experience than I did. |
@perkri If memory serves, it was remastered, but AFAIK it was just a marketting gimmick. It was not in any way I could tell better. |
Could be so very much better sounding. I get the raw quality to the production. But there is something very engaging by the layering of the sounds in the mix. So that kind of brings the raw quality of the production into question, perhaps they made a bad decision. Yeah, drums sound terrible, and it sounds like the mic was put inside a tin can for the vocals. If there was ever a recording that could benefit from a remastering, War should be on that list. Production kind of reminds me of how Chicago’s Greatest Hits sounds. So much “stuff” going on in the mix, but oh so very bright and lacking meat. This was from a Rhino re release. Then I read up somewhere that the 77’ Japanese pressing was apparently the one to get. Got ahold of a copy and man, what a difference. Anyway, think I prefer the system that is more revealing. At least I get to hear what they did w the mix. Perhaps I’ll drag my Cornwalls out and try War w those, though I doubt that will be any better. Adding a 15” woofer ain’t gonna matter if there ain’t no tone there to amplify. |
Right?
And to think this was before digital drums were really a thing. I mean this is the producer making drums sound awful. |
Got home after a few days away. Yes, got my copy of War out and listened to it on the current set up. So much missing in the production. Preferred it in the car… Tried listening to it on two different systems. My main set up, as well as on a vintage set up I’m playing with. Ariston RD11S, Marantz 2230 and Dynaco A25’s. Main system far more revealing, and showcased the complex production that lies hidden in all that upper midrange. Vintage system did not reveal all that detail, and because of not revealing it, kind of made it into a bigger jumble of noise. The problem I have w this recording is how there seems to be a heaping amount of mid/lower midrange tone that is missing. It’s missing in both systems. But given the choice, would rather hear the clarity in the detail, than not. Just my experience with one recording as I explored this questIon. |
I have built systems where I chased details and ended up in very weird places. I usually didn't realize how weird until I quit listening to it for a while and then fired it back up a few days later. "Discerning" can have a lot of meaning in terms of audio reproduction. You can have stuff that's discerning in all sorts of different ways. By masking one thing you may be able to better hear something else. This seems like a win until you become very aware of the masking effect and suddenly find it unacceptable. Certain tonal colorations can make things pop, and this can get tricky because I've found some of these setups to sound tonally weird for the first few minutes but then I adjust and can listen in bliss for hours. Conversely I've found some setups to sound very open, spacious, and airy in the first few minutes but then become fatigued within 20 minutes. Too many early reflections in the higher frequencies I think. It sounds great at first but then my brain stops trying to interpret it and everything starts to sound flat and homogenized. It's complicated. As for specific equipment, it's mostly DIY speakers and various combinations of cheap amps in my case. Playing with a quickly adjustable EQ and then having your ears quickly making adjustments to your new settings can lead you down a rabbit's hole. I've been going through this lately - coming up with a killer EQ curve in the evening and then removing it after hearing it with fresh ears after a 24 hour break. I've listened to high end gear and heard ghastly sound in some rooms. At the last trade show I was at some of the best overall sound I heard (almost the best) was from $600 self powered bookshelf sized speakers with bluetooth built in. The best was actually from some $12000 bookshelf speakers which were being fed a signal from a cheap dongle dac off a macbook. That proved to me that a good amp and speakers can make a cheap dac sound fabulous rather than "reveal" the faults of the dac. Another close contender were some KEF bookshelf speakers. In all these cases I think the secret ingredient was small speakers listened to at fairly close range, limiting the effects of hotel room acoustical issues. If all your equipment is decent and nothing is hooked up wrong it should sound very enjoyable on almost anything you play through it. If it doesn't sound good, and especially if it sounds bad in a consistent way on most material, then I'll bet that's probably a room acoustics issue. |
My system is very revealing for most wha I play, bad sounds bad, vice versa.,….. then I play Bathory or some odd demo starts on some of my re releases, and wow, it’s horrible! not horrible, but it definitely sounded better on my Panasonic rx-c45 back in 83 on a 6th gen cassette from some friends in London, or Budingen.
just,play it, there is no perfect, only to us, if you like the music, play it. enjoy what we have, how far we have come. my very first stereo was a foot of the bed red fluffy arch which 2 plush sliding seats rolled under it. had I think 2 8 “ speakers, one on each side for my 8 tracks at the time. then Santa brought my Panasonic and turntable, and I found every Columbia house add in k-mart mags, filled em out to my house, neighbors, friends, etc, man that was fun. I still play,some old so,e what beaten up records with so many pops, ticks, it sounds bad, but I ignore the noise and enjoy the tunes,
metal on
metal is a lifestyle, not some fad! |
"You can have a system that lets you hear every detail on a recording and also engages you emotionally, or you can have a system that gets all the detail but none of the emotion." This approach is entirely incorrect. Listening to an audio recording with no visuals, all record of emotion in the performance is transmitted to us by the recording and our play-back system. We can perceive emotion in the performance only by what we hear. Therefore if we wish to obtain an authentic impression of the emotion it is essential our system is 'discerning' - OP means 'accurate', discernment is not within the province of inanimate equipment. It is also essential the recording accurately reproduces the emotion in the original performance. In many cases this does not occur and failings in the recording cannot be put right by even the most accurate system. As @prndlus points out, where this occurs we have no way of knowing what was the emotion in the performance. If you like, the original emotion is fixed but there are two variables and both have to be fixed before we can say anything about the original emotion.
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I went for accuracy in my system because after all the (lost) years of listening to ‘lesser’ systems, I realized that all-the-while I listened I was filtering the sound through my imagination to render what I heard into what I knew (thought) it should sound like. So now a bad recording sounds bad on my system; but then, it sounds the best it can sound, or maybe it’s best to say, I’m hearing all of it. I recall my Dad’s Wharfedale W60Ds and a second-tier Pioneer integrated, and I don’t recall ever thinking, ‘what a terrible recording!” I enjoyed my Dad’s system; it sounded warm and soft, often quite pretty, and all who heard it agreed. But that system could not and cannot do what mine does: good recordings sound great and great recordings sound amazing. It never caused me to search into the soundstage and marvel at the remarkable depth, or to ‘see’ the orchestra players in their correct positions, or to say out loud, ‘Wow!’ as I often do now. |
Funny you should bring up U2 War. Always loved that record, until I bought a first UK pressing of it. Realized that I’d only ever listened to it in a car, when the tracks happened to show up on the radio. Worked so well in the car. Not so great in my home set up which at the time was a tube integrated (Cary SLI-50) going into Decware DM946’s from a Clearaudio Concept. Going to revisit it with the current set up which is completely different. DIY heavy plinth Lenco into upgraded Cary SLP-30 pre to DIY Hiraga Super 30 class a to DIY Seas coax sealed enclosures. Will be an interesting revisiting of War as this is a more revealing system, but also more musical to my ears than the previous set up.
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there is much to be said for taking problem recordings, digitizing them, removing the problems, then burning them onto a CDR for future listening. then there is "tone control courage." case in point is the 1999 columbia rerelease of the famous 1938 all-star carnegie hall jazz concert which has abysmal sonics, conventional tone controls/EQ weren't up to fixing it, so i ran it through CEDAR declicking and decrackling with judicious restraint, used parametric EQ to get rid of the telephonic coloration those old transcription discs were noted for, mild digital NR/spectral editing to get rid of the hashy surface noise and chuffs. BIG DIFFERENCE. |
this conversation reminds me of one of the amp setups i use at times is the lyngdorf gear, in my case the tdai 3400 in addition to the best feature it provides (the easy room correction capability), the second best and also terrific feature is easily tappable, selectable contour or sound shaping profiles on its control app -- this allows for max clarity or ’neutrality’ for the 85-90% of the time, for focused, intentful listening, then a quick tap provides a subtly smoother sweeter response when needed on the other occasions, when a more ’background music’ tonality is preferred, or a shrill recording is being played modern day version of the ol' tone controls or loudness button... but a much more precise, tailorable, controllable for positive effect on the musical presentation |
Since discerning and emotive are not mutually exclusive, within a budget what drives my component selection? Fun with the music, then fun with the sound. I know when music takes control - involuntary movement, my spirit lifts and life is good. An upgrade must retain that quality and add to the shock and awe of the system. So many remixes loose that quality while being a spectacular technical showcase. Like some systems.
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Think it depends on your definition of “hi res”? A good system w/ solid state electronics can sound quite different to one of similar caliber but tube based. I’ve a few examples of each that to me sounded great & some that didn’t. It’s similar to a good turntable/ arm / cartridge set up vs good digital ( streaming or disc or whatever). Both can be considered “ hi res” but sound sound differently although in my system, they’re getting pretty close. I personally like good , highly efficient horn loaded speakers powered by good tubes & their unmatched dynamics & live sound which for myself, is a must to be considered hi res. For others, that’s not important & really extended frequency extremes & detailed imaging & depth is a must. This variety is one of the things that makes this music enjoyment hobby fun! |
A truly high performing hi res system will let you hear how bad some recordings are but is not the cause….only the messenger. It’s also possible the particular high res system is just not one’s exact cup of tea, no different in that sense than any other. Each system is at least a little different in some regard. Even the “high res” ones. Let’s not generalize. |
Yes, we can agree on that. I realize that I am somewhat contradicting myself. I guess my point was that there are some systems that provide high levels of detail, but are just not that musical, resulting in a greater percentage of recordings sounding not so good. Hence the journey of finding the right components that provide the sound that suits us as individuals. I am in a pretty good place with my system right now, but still looking for that next level of musical splendor. |
