Pre amps cost vs. value ... what I discovered last month.

Brian,

Thanks for your posts and insight which are very much appreciated given your credentials and experience. 

So many times in high-end audio we find and we believe that component synergy of the electronics can create  the best results. Many times it’s advocated to use electronics of the same manufacture to achieve this. Do you find that other audio engineers believe this doctrine? In the pro world do others usually use  electronics of the same manufacture to achieve this? From your posts it seems that you do not necessarily subscribe to this. Interest in your thoughts. Thanks for your time. 

BTW, my pre-amp clicks for every step up in volume as well... doesn’t bother me a bit since the sound is spectacular (VTL 6.5). 

Brian,

Thanks for sharing your obersations. It’s such a wealth of info from an insider. I would love to know your observations when you’ve heard your music on a truly “high end” home system. How has it differed from your studio sound? Has it sounded “better” (understanding that is such an objective observation). Really, what I’m asking is when you’ve heard it on a system that is “attempting to be the absolute state of the art” (and typically with a huge price tag to go with) what were your thoughts during the experience (compared to what you heard in the studio)?

Brian,

You had mentioned previously that the recording artist and the producer have a strong influence on the mastering step, correct? If so, do you find that this influence at thimes compromised the end product in terms of dynamics, soundstaging, etc...? Going along that train of thought, do you have certain examples of your work where you feel that this influence didn’t deter you from creating the most natural, life like reproduction of the music that was heard during the recording process?

Perhaps these are silly questions because you may say that every one of your works is the best possible music that could have been created (which may be your answer). I’m not sure if you have some projects that you felt that the music and sound came across with in a way that audiophiles seems to think of as the most transparent and lifelike.

Cheers. Thanks for taking your time to contribute here.

Thanks for your response. It is very educational to hear it from that perspective. 

I guess my questions  we’re coming from my observations while listening to multiple pieces of music from different recording artist. For example, I frequently listen to streaming music played through a very revealing, dynamic home system.  As it goes through different pieces of music I find incredible variations between the width and depth of soundstahing, And what sound like transparency of instruments and voice. 

 There are some pieces of music that reproduce the voices with such an amazing accuracy that it feels like the person is in the room. But, there are many other recordings of voices that sound bland and flat. 

On some recordings it sounds to me like instruments get layered directly on top of each other, pinpointed in the center of the soundstage. However, other times the instruments are “placed” in a sonic soundstage capturing the images as if they are standing next to each other (rather than on top of each other) on the stage between the speakers.

 There are some classical symphonic recording that create a soundstage where individual instruments are holographically positioned in space and can be easily “seen” in that stable space repeatedly during the musical piece. However, that experience is not universal by any means in other pieces of music. 

There are some jazz pieces  where the instrumental lines of music seem to  interact with each other with natural decay and rhythm that gives a sense of pace and and interaction of the instruments. But in other recordings, each instrument seems to cover the other and congeal the natural sound of each other. 

So I guess I’m asking, how much of these phenomenons that we hear is related to the work that you do and what control do you have in creating this?