My expectations as to reproduced sound have been heightened by improvements in various areas of equipment over the last 40 plus years, and my focus in listening has evolved in part due to that, as well as to exposure, experience and familiarity with the sound of actual instruments.
Although I have formal music training both with respect to composition/arrangement and with performance on certain instruments, very little of that training has a bearing on what I listen for from a reproduction system apart from the sound of real instruments (something one without training can experience simply as a regular listener in a club or venue).
I always started with the midrange-- it has to be clear and coherent- no grain or other artifacts of reproduction machinery. I started to learn how to listen to hi-fi more seriously when I got my first pair of Quads (aka the ’57’) in around 1973. But, I want it all and Quads simply cannot do that, despite providing an open window in the mids if you are positioned correctly. (yeah, I know).
Tone- sure. Timing, decay, etc.And I want to hear bass that sounds like the instruments, whether piano, double bass that sounds like a fleshed out instrument in three D space. I expect to hear whatever ambience is part of the recording.
Soundstage, which is often considered key to the listening experience should be a given-- either in recreating in scale, a portrait of the room where the recording took place, or bringing that guitar into your room.
I don’t listen loud but dynamics obviously count even at nominal volume.
A lot of the above takes us back to the source material.
But as I parse all of those audiophile attributes, I think something important is lost in the dissection. Some of this may be due to the nature of the music (I know, one shouldn’t build a system based on a preferred genre) and some may come down to the preferences or priorities of the user/listener/system designer.
There are so many ways to solve this, based on room, different equipment, type of source format and budget, that one wonders whether they are simply describing their preferred sound. And even if that isn’t the case, we are trying to describe in words something in a different dimension; one that is not only sensory, but brings with it an emotional charge if the listener is connecting with the music and the equipment isn’t getting in the way. (That may simply be a choice of music issue too).
I could probably enjoy listening to an ancient cello recording over a pre-war field coil driver and "get" an enormous amount from that presentation but that wouldn’t address the myriad other music that would require far more in the way of equipment, power handling and dynamics.
If we are engaging in this exercise, we should have an eye toward the availability and cost of the equipment and associated paraphernalia to implement it. I know when people ask for a gear recommendation a couple things happen: folks offer gear priced in the stratosphere without regard to the potential buyer’s budget; and further, folks tend to tout what they own and like. Neither is bad, it’s all information, but short of playing "guru" and essentially picking out a system for someone else, I think most of us learned through our own experimentation and access to others’ systems where we could hear things. A dealer showroom is not necessarily the best environment to listen, at least for evaluation purposes, and if solely for learning is usually not that meaningful.
Seat time is important, but not just in a room with a hi-fi; rather, in a room with instruments being played.
I realize despite however long I’ve been at this pursuit, I haven’t really churned equipment. Nor have I done a huge amount of "tweaking" other than isolation, bass traps, good power and becoming a very picky consumer of tubes. I have, however, become a passionate student of music that I never previously listened to and that brings me great joy. I am fascinated by the history, the technology of the period, the method of recording and all of the other things that give greater understanding to where the performance and players fit into some larger continuum.
Perhaps, with age, our priorities change too. I’m not quite at the whim of the nurse to play Slim Whitman, but I think as my high frequency sensitivity has diminished with age, my ability to assess the overall coherence of a reproduction system has remained, possibly as an element of judgment. I dunno.
I’ll say there is no "one way" and I avoid any sort of advice from on high- eschewing guruism; I’ve learned an enormous amount from folks that make few audiophile pretensions, but know their fields and can teach me something. Otherwise, we are all just passing through.
Although I have formal music training both with respect to composition/arrangement and with performance on certain instruments, very little of that training has a bearing on what I listen for from a reproduction system apart from the sound of real instruments (something one without training can experience simply as a regular listener in a club or venue).
I always started with the midrange-- it has to be clear and coherent- no grain or other artifacts of reproduction machinery. I started to learn how to listen to hi-fi more seriously when I got my first pair of Quads (aka the ’57’) in around 1973. But, I want it all and Quads simply cannot do that, despite providing an open window in the mids if you are positioned correctly. (yeah, I know).
Tone- sure. Timing, decay, etc.And I want to hear bass that sounds like the instruments, whether piano, double bass that sounds like a fleshed out instrument in three D space. I expect to hear whatever ambience is part of the recording.
Soundstage, which is often considered key to the listening experience should be a given-- either in recreating in scale, a portrait of the room where the recording took place, or bringing that guitar into your room.
I don’t listen loud but dynamics obviously count even at nominal volume.
A lot of the above takes us back to the source material.
But as I parse all of those audiophile attributes, I think something important is lost in the dissection. Some of this may be due to the nature of the music (I know, one shouldn’t build a system based on a preferred genre) and some may come down to the preferences or priorities of the user/listener/system designer.
There are so many ways to solve this, based on room, different equipment, type of source format and budget, that one wonders whether they are simply describing their preferred sound. And even if that isn’t the case, we are trying to describe in words something in a different dimension; one that is not only sensory, but brings with it an emotional charge if the listener is connecting with the music and the equipment isn’t getting in the way. (That may simply be a choice of music issue too).
I could probably enjoy listening to an ancient cello recording over a pre-war field coil driver and "get" an enormous amount from that presentation but that wouldn’t address the myriad other music that would require far more in the way of equipment, power handling and dynamics.
If we are engaging in this exercise, we should have an eye toward the availability and cost of the equipment and associated paraphernalia to implement it. I know when people ask for a gear recommendation a couple things happen: folks offer gear priced in the stratosphere without regard to the potential buyer’s budget; and further, folks tend to tout what they own and like. Neither is bad, it’s all information, but short of playing "guru" and essentially picking out a system for someone else, I think most of us learned through our own experimentation and access to others’ systems where we could hear things. A dealer showroom is not necessarily the best environment to listen, at least for evaluation purposes, and if solely for learning is usually not that meaningful.
Seat time is important, but not just in a room with a hi-fi; rather, in a room with instruments being played.
I realize despite however long I’ve been at this pursuit, I haven’t really churned equipment. Nor have I done a huge amount of "tweaking" other than isolation, bass traps, good power and becoming a very picky consumer of tubes. I have, however, become a passionate student of music that I never previously listened to and that brings me great joy. I am fascinated by the history, the technology of the period, the method of recording and all of the other things that give greater understanding to where the performance and players fit into some larger continuum.
Perhaps, with age, our priorities change too. I’m not quite at the whim of the nurse to play Slim Whitman, but I think as my high frequency sensitivity has diminished with age, my ability to assess the overall coherence of a reproduction system has remained, possibly as an element of judgment. I dunno.
I’ll say there is no "one way" and I avoid any sort of advice from on high- eschewing guruism; I’ve learned an enormous amount from folks that make few audiophile pretensions, but know their fields and can teach me something. Otherwise, we are all just passing through.