Schroder sq and the new talea

Dear all, There is this strange conviciton that we intend to impress or show off with our audio-system. But impress
who? All of my family members and all of my friends (one
excepted) think that I am crazy to spend so much money for
my system. Besides all the ladys without exception stated
that they would request divorce if their guy would dare to
buy speakers as I own (Usher BE-20). I have no idea why but
the ladys somehow think that the home furnishing is some kind of their prerogatives. So no wonder that we from all
parts of the world seek for some understanding or empathy in this forum. We are, it seems, strange people.

Regards,

Nandric, - that was a real good one !!!
Best,
D.

Interesting turn of discussion here... I am quite in agreement with Dertonarm regarding the differences between sound and music reproduction. I have had a number of profound "moments" over the years with cheap sound systems, as well as great ones, and in concert halls (no preference, in those cases). In these moments one doesn't think about the sound reproduction anymore--the message is in the music. In fact, I would contend that, if possible, the best way to hear music is by reading a musical score (or playing it), when possible; no intermediary, human and/or mechanical. But that's another story...

To me, one of the fundamental advantages of the live event (or the musical score) is that you can choose what to focus your attention on. Sometimes, what is most moving in a piece of music is pretty well hidden inside the texture and that, most often, will not be revealed by mechanical systems of low-ish resolution. It might not be the case for Beethoven's op.132, granted, by Schoenberg's Pelleas?? It's not just a question of getting the sense of space, dynamic range, etc; the problem is mostly that on car radios, you can probably hear the main tune, perhaps the bass line and a bit of something else, but unless you already know from past experience what's inside those thick textures and therefore can somehow "make them up" as you're listening, you aren't going to get much of it. My point is that one reason to strive for higher resolution--for me!--is to be able to have the same kind of choice when I'm listening to a recording as I do in a (good) concert hall: sometimes I want to pay attention to a secondary line, or further inside because it says something more important than the main line; or because I hadn't noticed it before. Or I want to hear specific notes inside chords because they lead to something unexpected; or whatever... pick your favorite music, that works just as well. Those things are an integral part of the musical experience.
Then, again, sometimes, it's the most obvious stuff that moves you, and then any old system will do, I agree.

Music is a source of knowledge as well as of enjoyment.
Joel

Dertonarm,

And sorry - no, I do not think that something simply has the value that people put on it.
I still have the naive thinking, that the real contend -i.e.: the inherent quality ( in the very sense of the word ) of a product/something ultimately qualifies its value.

Value comes out of declaration. I am pretty sure that 'inherent quality' is an assigned value also.

Is this the idea that there can be 'quality' regardless of what people think? 'Quality' by itself has no meaning, and meaning is only ascribed by humans, so far...

Not to put too fine a point on it, but my own efforts have been entirely to get as close to the original musical experience as possible. IOW, in service of the music only. Its cost me- for example I built our amps without feedback, because feedback violates a fundamental rule of human hearing. This limits the amps to speakers that are OK with that... if I was really going for 'high end', I would have had feedback so I could sell the amps to more customers.

So I just drew a distinction between serving music vs 'high end'...

Or did I miss something in your comment?

Dertonearm –your comments appear to be trolls. I can’t believe that you’re actually serious. As you expound on your own philosophy however, you are taking crack shots at the work of some brilliant designers I’ve had the opportunity to meet. Only because of this, am I following up. You obviously have much more free time than I do.

I did not say that Occam’s razor is the ONLY valid design approach, but rather that it is A VALID APPROACH, and one that I adhere to. It’s a metaphor for an approach, and nothing more.

Time and again, as I look at audio components, the ones of lasting value are those which are the result of pairing down of unnecessary design elements, unnecessary points of failure, as well as ones that, while they may be based in solid theory, are an utter failure from a perspective of producing a musically involving component. We still don’t know everything we need to measure, and unless you can contribute something to this body of knowledge, you have to deal with it.

With regard to the topic of paring down the “unnecessary” (or what doesn’t work), I’ll give you two examples.

*** NOTE *** while composing this post, I see that Atma-sphere made some parallel comments regarding feedback.

In the development of a phono stage, Mike Sanders of Quicksilver followed the path of regulation. It produced beautiful square waves ... and irritating musical reproduction. Try as he might, with different regulation schemes, he continued to return to an unregulated supply.

Before you go about misinterpreting these comments, I am NOT arguing for or against regulation. This example is about one designer who focussed on a solution based on the skills he brought to the table, with an eye on the final design goal – satisfying musical reproduction. Someone else might solve this problem very nicely with a regulation scheme.

There’s a phono stage (name witheld) which uses 9 small signal tubes to regulate each channel of it’s power supply. Thes tubes in turn have their filament supply regulated by LM317 regulators. Whether this section of the power supply circuit is the reason for the bleached (lacking in tone color) and undynamic, and uninvolving sound, is something that I can’t say for certain, but it is certainly characteristic of a design approach of: “if a little is good, then more must be better”.

I see this (approach of excess) over and over again in our industry – the piling on of extra circuit elements. One designer I know calls it “gratuitous parts selection”. It fits into a pattern that too much hi-fi gear falls into – gear that does everything “right” except satisfy the listener.

In writing the above, I can anticipate your hearty objections – that there must be objective criteria to which the designer is held accountable. Well guess what? We (as an industry) are still trying to figure out what to measure.

I had breakfast with Ron Sutherland (Sutherland Electronics) at the Audiofest. Ron told me the key challenge he faces (from a design discipline perspective) is to know when he’s done – to stop piling unnecessary elements into a design.

Ron revisits his design goal to determine whether he’s achieved it, in the context of the design architecture he laid out. A corralary of this is of course to re-visit the design to see if you inadvertently bypassed your end point, and to strip away the unnecessary components. This was the background to my Mark Twain quote about taking more time to write a shorter letter. It was apparently lost on you.

Lastly, your proclamation that something has only the value that ascribe to it is a bit extreme. The market as whole determines the value of something. You or I may disagree with the market, but we still have to deal with the fact that we are but two individuals with opinions. We can make an individual case for our opinions, and perhaps sway opinion in the process... or not. One thing is clear - we won’t sell our case by proclamation.

Lastly, perhaps you didn’t intend to come off as being arrogant, but this is how I interpret many of your posts. I believe that that English is not your first language, and perhaps this is the source of the communication problem. In any case, I have limited time to walk you through this.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier