Bingo, shut the site down. We actually have 2 audiophiles who agree. |
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Eldartford, you don't agree that Jmcgrogan2 and Subaruguru agree? Ha! I suppose your right, I'm wrong by default. Other forums beg to agree to disagree. Here on Audiogon, we disagree to agree. All in all very disagreeable. Ha! |
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Any of these, plus amplification/preamplification can screw up the sound. If the system sounds bad, the only thing that is important is how you can fix it. Whatever is making YOUR system sound like crap is number 1 in importance and in every system sounding like crap (or to be more P.C., unsatisfactory) that is something different. So, I am not a fan of ranking the importance of equipment in a sound system or cost allocation in a system. The right amount to spend on a piece of equipment is exactly enough to achieve your sonic goals for the system and not a cent more! There are many paths to a great-sounding system and many paths are not super-expensive. Equipment matching and speaker placement are everything. The toughest trick, I think, is going to a stereo store, listening to a particular component in the store's demo system, isolating and assessing that particular component's sonic quality and its sonic qualities from the rest of the demo system and then determining whether and how those qualities will complement your existing system at home while not making a mistake in judgement! |
Is it safe to assume that many people (incorrectly) choose speakers as the most important because they are the most flawed piece of gear in the system?
Why would people choose as most important a piece that has least to do with the reproduction of the original signal?
Do speakers retreive the signal from the source? Do the transmit it to the pre-amp? Do they process the signal and output it to the amp? Do they amplify it so it is loud enough to be heard? Do they transmit the signal from the amp to the binding posts?
So they have no effect on the signal until it arrives at the cabinet. How can they be more important than anything ahead of them? |
c'mON Nrchy, nothing has any effect on the signal until it arrives at it! An amp has no effect until the signal arrives at it. How can that make the amps more important than any other part? What type of logic is that? |
Nrchy, we've been down this path before. While speakers can't improve the signal it recieves (digital correction excluded) they are the most likely culprit to intertwine with a room in such a way to distort it more than any other resonably performing component. And by the same logic no component can improve what was put on the recorded medium (equalization(?) & digital correction excluded) to begin with. There seems to be more consistantcy of performance amongst other like components than speakers. You may disagee with the opinons of others, but, that alone doesn't make them "incorrect". |
The point is that if the signal can be transfered to the speakers with a fair degree of accuracy that the speakers will have something of quality with which to work.
Garbage in Garbage out! If the signal is so corrupted when it arrives at the speakers, it doesn't matter how good the speakers are, it will not sound good, or should I say correct?!? |
Nrchy, of course I can't disagree. From the postion of the listener, it doesn't matter where the corruption comes from. I just think it's more likely that the most corruption will come from the speaker/room. How many components other than speakers measure worse than 20-20k Hz +/- 3 db? I think it fair to guess, not too many. Yet most speakers, even highly touted very expensive ones can't manage that in anechonic chambers, never mind the wildy unpredictable rooms that most audiophiles have to contend with. Hence the challange to find a speaker whose foibles irritate the least and radiate in such a pattern not be have the room further excasperate the corruupted signal forced into it. Even this argument doesn't make me correct, as I suspect you've already decided. Hey, there are many paths to the same destination. |
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Unsound - I was reading with rapt attention until you started with the measurements. Sorry, you lost me there. If measurements reliably did equate to the actual listening experience then reviewers would be without a job and the rags would be nothing more than diagrams and numbers.
I've said it before, I'll say it again: "Did someone just fart?"
I'll add this too: Hook up your Kenner Close-N'-Play turntable to you favorite flavor of amplification, lets say it's Lamm tube gear. Pair that marvelous combo off with a suitably decadent speaker choice that says to everyone, "....Don't fuck with me, God made these speakers and you can hear his/her message in every note played through them! Oh, and they cost me a whole butt-load of cash too.....enough to pay for two years at Harvard." Let's call this system "Unsound's Slightly Compromised Reference"
OK, now let's build another system using the same sensational Lamm amplification but this time we'll swap out the Kenner Close-N'-Play turntable front end with, perhaps Albert Porter's front-end rig but now play the whole thing through a pair of speakers with at least a similar efficiency as the first, but this set was purchased from the back of a van somewhere on the Lower East Side from some moke named Vinny for all of $93. Will call this system "Nrchy's Making the Better Argument"
So, if you had to live with one of these two systems for the rest of your life without changing either, Which one would you prefer to listen to music on? No tweaks either. You get to replace the needle on the Close-N'-Play when it wears out....I think you can get them at the Fabric Store. For those of you who'd take the Unsound Reference I have a great resource for some custom moulded earplugs!!!
Marco |
These "arguments" where some turn to extreme examples of really bad pieces of gear are absurd. Of course you can find things so flawed that they ruin the whole chain of events. That is not the question!
People who really know what happens when you try to reproduce music know the two most limiting items are the recording microphone and the speaker.
No amount of pre speaker manipulation, and I have as flexible a "front end" with my Z Systems equalization as anyone, can make an inaccurate speaker accurate, or a bad recording sound right.
If your room is reflecting sound waves in a flawed manner, no amount of front end or amp switching can fix it, unless you are lucky enough to stumble on a piece which has a particular drop off of frequency to compensate for the particular anomaly in your situation, and that makes that piece right for only you and your room. (Not for advice on a forum.)
Charlie |
Marco, I'll be the first one to say that we haven't found measurment techniques that can truly identify the complete listening experience, especialy speakers. As compelling as they are, I didn't mean for my "argument" to be soley based around those specs. The point was that unless you believe that all the other components all share the the same deviations, speakers/rooms demonstrate the greatest variablity in the audio chain. I think that holds true whether you want to measure it or not. As for your choice of systems, I think a better comparison would be "Close-N'- Play" through "Unsound's Reference" vs. "Albert Porter's front end-rig through the "Close-N'-Play's built in speaker. How about we make it real. While I would never actually recommend this, but, what the heck were playing here. Albert's front-end rig through your choice of new $200 speakers vs. my choice of $200 CD player through my choice of new speakers that cost the same as Albert's front-end rig. I'll take the latter. Thanks, but, you can keep the ear plugs. |
Do we have match? If Rsbeck is just stuttering, Abe_av might be in agreement. 12 days and 62 posts later. |
Unsound, don't have to wait for that long I say I agree with you right now :-))))
The two major signal conversions in the audio play back systems are: medium to electrical (CD/LP --> analog signal) and electrical to mechanical (speakers). It is the latter that is most difficult to be made right and most relevant to the receipants--our ears.
Abe |
Unsound - well, at least I think we'd both agree that neither one of us would like to (or be LIKELY to) listen to either option, so Albert can breath easy again instead of worrying about donating his front-end to our experiment. Although the proposition seems ridiculous I have seen some folks posting here with systems that I'd imagine were way out of balance on one end or the other (or somewhere in between). I imagine some of that may come from reading threads like this one, and other misinformation, or misinterpreted information professed by salespeople or other externally motivated or strongly opinionated individuals (you know, like you and me). I still maintain that synergy should be the #1 priority in building a system. I'd certainly rather just use my earplugs when riding long distance on my motorcycle and keep my hearing in tact for future sessions with my (well-balanced) systems.
Marco |
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Whatever happened to the music? Or is equipment and acoustics more important? |
The music?!! I think Gunbei sat on it and snapped off a piece. I saw inpepinnovations got the epoxy and soldering iron out to try to fix it, but then got caught up in repositioning his speakers and forgot about it. I think he left that soldering iron plugged in cause I can smell something burning. Nrchy and me took the music down to the sacred store but the man there said the music wouldn't play!!.......and them good ol' boys were drinkin whiskey and rye singin this will be the day that I die.
Marco |
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If it's only about the music, we'd all have bose acoustic wave machines because sound quality wouldn't matter! |
I am not sure if it is correct to add the person or persons owning the system to this equation? I mean, I tend to think that there are so many ideals of sound reproduction & system configuration recipes that it can be overwhelming to the budding audiophile. The systems that I seem to become most impressed with on here and other audio sites are the ones where the crazy sort of synergy that was arrived at reflected the owners own unbalanced perception- a sort of cat landing on its feet finesse. They are informed, but allow their comfort,preferences, to intrude upon the design of their system even when it goes against the legendary wisdom that set them on this path to begin with. |
Hey Indiefan - Sign yourself up here and start posting more often. That is an interesting observation and a fine contribution to the thread. I'd like to read more of what you have to say and without your being a member it is more difficult to access that. The worst that could happen is you'll get a few extra "Enlarge Your Penis" and "Buy Viagra Online" emails every day. And for that small price you'll get access to the rantings of a bunch of egomaniacal, obsessed audio-geeks with nothing better to do with their time than to write about their gear and proliferate valuable misinformation that will send your head spinning. Yeah, well, OK, that includes me.....but I might make you laugh once in a while too...and some of these other guys and gals ain't so bad either....actually a few of them seem to really know what they're talking about...and hey, it's kindof fun too! Hope to see you posting more.
Marco |
Well Nrchy, the first time I heard Jimi hendrix (my favorite) it was on some cheap midi-set, with a worn-out needle, and the record was even worse..... Still, now owning a bit different system, I never re-captured the magic of that moment. So if I had to choose between some million-dollar equipment without music or an old walkman with flimsy headphones but with a lot of tapes.... well, for me looking at a pile of equipment ain't enough (although I have to admit that it ads a lot to the pleasure of listening!). |
Satch - The first time I ever had sex was pretty memorable too....well, maybe the second time! But it's not likely I'm going to repeat those same sensations, but that doesn't stop me from continuing to try! Though it may not be the same sensation, I sure wouldn't want to live without it. I'd guess that if you had the choice now between listening to Hendrix on that same worn out stereo you first heard it on, and a much better one, you'd still choose the better one. The experience you are speaking of has nothing to do with the gear at all, which I suppose is exactly your point. But the same kind of magic you experienced that first time could have happened on a $50K system if that's what you had heard it on. My point is that all this is besides the point!! The subject of the thread is focusing on the gear, and you are referring to a sensation entirely outside of the chain of the system. But I do get your point. I have a memory of the very first time I heard a really good system that quite literally seemed to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand upl. I have no recollection of the music that was playing, but I do remember the components in the system and the sensation of the system disappearing and the music being in the room in a three dimensional space. I think I have yet to duplicate THAT experience just because of the novelty of it at that time. BUT if I were to take my system at home and pit it up against that very system I have no doubt at all that I'd prefer my current system. I also have no doubt that the experience of hearing that first system that turned me on to high end would be entirely different to me now, just as listening to Hendrix might be entirely different to you now that you've explored every note for many years no doubt.
Marco |
And tried to play every note, and found out I'm was not born to be a guitar-hero.... Yeah, I suppose you're right. I just spend more money on music then on equipment, so to me focussing on the gear is not that interesting anymore. Hey, would that mean I've got a perfect system, since I don't want to change? Or am I just getting lazy? Hmmmm....
As for sex: it;s getting better every time....... |
