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snilf

Responses from snilf

3-4 dB dip at crossover region: what should I listen for to hear it?
One more thing. Several here have objected to measurements in principle, appealing to what your ears like as the only relevant standard. Well, yeah, of course. But that doesn't mean measurements are irrelevant. I don't want to open up this always ... 
3-4 dB dip at crossover region: what should I listen for to hear it?
Not sure if this is right or relevant (better informed posters like Mr. Squires, please correct me if I'm wrong), but such "dips" (i.e., "3-4 dB at about 1.5 kHz") are not analogous to, say, missing a shade of blue between Cerulean and Cobalt. Wha... 
Speaker Spikes - Working Principle
Two different links to the same helpful article by Norman Varney here. IMO, the main take-aways: 1. "Couplers are unpredictable, inconsistent, and never neutral. A quality audio isolation device...will perform predictably, consistently, and neutr... 
Happy Holidays and Your Favorite Tips?
Re: preference for short posts. Small ideas will fit in them. Nuance, detail, complexity—not so much. Re: to plug or not to plug (one's ports). Room acoustics are largely mysterious; even experts often get this very wrong. I've posted about that ... 
Pictures at an Exhibition
It was my impression the OP was asking for piano performances, not the version orchestrated by Ravel. An audiophile friend (Focal speakers, Linn table, etc.) considers the Ivo Pogorelich recording (DGG "4D" from 1997) to be his reference standard... 
Speakers 10 years old or older that can compete with todays best,
@mikelavigne, mijostyn— Gotta agree with mijostyn, even though I share Mike’s skepticism regarding DSP. In fact, I learned of a superlative digital (DSD SACD) "reference recording" from a post of Mike’s many months ago: Anna Netrebko’s DGG recita... 
Speakers 10 years old or older that can compete with todays best,
Comparing one’s own system to speakers heard at audio shows, stores, or even other people’s listening rooms is questionable at best. To know if some product might improve the SQ of one’s own system requires auditioning it at home for at least a we... 
Real or Surreal. Do you throw accuracy out the window for "better" sound?
mijostyn, You mentioned a "bright" system imaging the cymbals "10 feet in front of the snare." Well, there are more egregious imaging manipulations, especially with drums, that are a deliberate artifact of the original mastering. The drums on Too... 
Real or Surreal. Do you throw accuracy out the window for "better" sound?
hilde45: Like the pragmatism, but not so sure about Pierce (despite mahgister's fondness). And I don't see how we can do away with the ding an sich! The "I'm not a nominalist either" remark was a response to mahgister's opening line. Mahgister: "... 
Real or Surreal. Do you throw accuracy out the window for "better" sound?
Mahgister and hilde45: I'm not a "nominalist," either, nor was I trying to suggest that either of you might be. ("Not that there's anything wrong with that.") My philosophical intuitions are mostly Kantian these days, after half a century contrib... 
Real or Surreal. Do you throw accuracy out the window for "better" sound?
"Real" as "flatus vocis"; me like! But then, to some degree, ALL language is flatus vocis, since words are not the things they stand in for. On the other hand, Webster says that words should not be, but "correspond" to, some "objective reality" in... 
My Center, 50 lbs and 1,000 Watts
Eric, Chapeau bas, as the French say. Such audio craftsmanship lends a lot of weight to your posts on this forum—like the added authority a wine maker can bring to a tasting. I always read your posts with interest.  
Real or Surreal. Do you throw accuracy out the window for "better" sound?
The perennial question for audiophiles (assuming by "surreal" the OP meant something like "super-real"; I doubt any but the oddest of us would prefer our systems to sound "unreal," "bizarre," "freakish" or any of the other synonyms of "surreal," w... 
Hiatus
rvpiano: I've appreciated many of your posts over the years, but none as much as this one. By coincidence, I, too, have finally arrived at some kind of audiophilc stasis. After half a dozen superlative speaker systems in competition with my belove... 
The Ultimate Audio Modification: Golden Ears
Two points re: "Golden ears" and old ears: 1. It doesn’t seem to be necessary to actually be physiologically capable of hearing all frequencies in order to “listen well.” I don’t know how to explain this, but I have a sweet anecdote to illustrate...