:: The Problem With Hi Fidelity ::

[Patrick Bateman]

Have you guys ever been caught up in the cycle of buying audio gear, obsessively looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, hoping that the next amplifier or the next speaker would get you to audio nirvana?

If so, what was it that "broke the cycle" for you?

I thought this might spark an interesting discussion, since so many audiophiles I've met are compulsive about "upgrading."

This phenomenon illustrates the fundamental problem with HiFi. It's our brain. Our brain is wired to tell us that novelty equals pleasure. Our brain is literally flooded with pleasurable chemicals when we encounter something novel. That novelty could be anything from a giant subwoofer to a pretty view. Therefore, our perception is permanently flawed to favor a speaker which is novel. That's why it's easy to wind up in the vicious cycle of upgrading your audio gear until the end of time. It doesn't have to be an upgrade; in fact it can simply be DIFFERENT and your brain will like it. For more info, read this.

This thread was inspired by a sidebar on the waveguide thread. When I first heard a speaker with a waveguide, it sounded dull. The treble seemed attenuated. The speaker sounded lifeless. I stuck with it, despite my reservations. After extended listening, my perception changed, and now the treble sounded natural.

I was left with a problem though; now EVERYTHING else sounded wrong. I literally can't listen to a dome tweeter without hyper analyzing every cymbal crash and every strum of a guitar string. Dome tweeters sound hopelessly flawed now. Sure, I still own speakers with dome tweeters, but listening to them is like staring out a window that's warped. The presentation is all wrong.

In case you're interested, dome tweeters have a flawed presentation because they're power response is wrong. If you want to know more, go read the waveguide thread.

So I'm curious - has something like this happened to YOU?

Have you ever listened to something that made you change your perception of musical playback permanently?

Here's the original post:

What's Wrong With This Hobby

[gedlee]

Patrick

You are pampering the problem. It's more than just the "newness" phenomina, but the whole flawed evaluation problem where our "standard" is based on the flawed presentations that we have listened to for years. Much as we want to find that "new reality, nirvana" we can't help but to judge everything against our "expectation", which has a flawed basis derived from our flawed experinces. It is no small task to find accurate reproduction since there is very little liklihood that we would recognize it when we heard it. Breaking this cycle of mediocracy is not easy to do.

There is no doubt that one cannot simply "listen" their way to accuracy. You will just go around in circles (which the marketing people love). Unless we insert some form of objectivness into the process it is hopeless.

[Lynn Olson]

Turn off the TV for a while. Turn off the radio, iPod, and other electronic gizmos. No movies, no car stereo. Avoid the phone as much as possible. At least a 24-hour (and a whole week would be better) fast from electronic sound, then go listen to live, non-amplified music with singers, violins, brass, woodwinds, and a piano - at fairly close range. Spend a whole evening doing this. Enjoy yourself. Get into it. Relax, have fun, dance if you feel like it.

When you first listen anything electronic, from a Toyota truck AM radio to a $150,000 boutique hifi or home-theater system, it will all sound awful - grotesque, an appalling and tasteless parody of the shimmering and transitory beauty of the real thing.

Good! Welcome to reality.

Now you can assess if anything electronic or "hi-fi" is any good at all. The very first time anything sounds "good", turn it off, turn it all off, and go back and listen to some more live music.

[Magnetar]

Well, every time I hear live music I have to do something to my system.

I keep getting closer but am not yet there.

I think I'm to the point though I can only make very small differences because my system is better then most recordings.

I do have a fancy new measurement system but I have found I already had things 'right'

[gedlee]

Originally posted by Lynn Olson
Now you can assess if anything electronic or "hi-fi" is any good at all. The very first time anything sounds "good", turn it off, turn it all off, and go back and listen to some more live music.

Lynn - I do object to live music being the standard as that is a narrow deffinition of the audio experince. Its good to hear live music, sure, but there are some very good works that are produced in a studio where "live" is the presentation in your home. This aspect of music must not be excluded from "reality".

I am not a big fan of classical music so my listening basis is not the same as someone who is a fan. I would be deeply offended if you were to claim that my perspective is somehow flawed because of this.

[Magnetar]

gedlee,

What then is your most accurate studio recording and how do you know?

Not to argue, I enjoy studio stuff too.

[Patrick Bateman]

Here's what HiFi is like:

While driving to work one day, your engine begins behaving strangely. It's running, but not as well as it used to. A proper mechanic might check the compression on your engine. But you don't trust anyone but yourself. Not knowing the first thing about fixing a car, you replace the tail lights. The next day you find that your car is still behaving poorly, and you don't know why.

So it is with audio. Most "audiophiles" are stuck in a endless cycle of applying random band aids to their system, in the hope they'll get lucky one day.

[auplater]

been there done that

having played wind instruments earlier in life and excelled at them (through early college, mostly 1st chair clarinet and sax) my reference was set to live performance (good or bad) while a teenager. Until roughly 15 years ago, purchase/upgrade decisions were based more on what I could afford over what I wanted

The first time i heard the clarity from an Infinity EMIT tweeter, back in the 70's, I somehow new it was in my future. Bought RS II's in '78 as my first BIG (relatively speaking) purchase, after building many boxes, horns, amplifiers, tuners, etc. prior to that date. Hearing what a somewhat open baffle sounded like in a larger room, I never again listened to boxes for serious sessions.

Somehow, through many amps and receivers feeding the infinities, I kept chasing bass problems until I read Art Ludwig's internet page on room interactions. This led to building large sonosubs (2) for my largish 15,000 ft^3 primary listening space, and, subsequently, RD 75 quasi linesource planar dipoles, both of which seem to minimize room effects and brought me closer to live performance than I ever imagined. Many dozens of musicians and audio afficianados have stated they've not heard anything better at any volume. Which brings me to a question.... does your <-- {general plural you not individual} system sound as good at low volume as it does at high or concert levels? Mine does, which leads me to think I've reached a plateau. That and the fact that, at 57+ years, my expectations and testosterone poisoning have abated to some extent...

With my latest addition of a 7.1 Denon receiver with active room equalization, I now hear (subtle) improvements over previous equipment, and access to multiple sources has been greatly simplified. No more rats nest between components, or pushing buttons until the right connections are engaged...

So, I'm pretty much sated at this point.. (at least until something blows up or source material improves)


John L.

[Lynn Olson]

When I visited the BBC in 1975 I was deeply impressed that their "A-B" standard for studio monitors was a short walk between a live concert and the control room. This seems the most rigorous standard possible - live, un-amplified music in a concert hall, compared directly against a live mike-feed straight into a control room.

This was further confirmed by listening to a test recording made on a non-Dolby Studer tape machine playing a first-generation tape at 15IPS on a quartet of BBC monitors - with the most difficult material imaginable, the Chorus section of Beethoven's 9th, recorded at "Last Night of the Proms". That was the most realistic and true-to-life sound I've ever heard - and it was a pale shadow of the live mike-feed in the control room, and that in turn a pale shadow of what people heard in the concert hall.

Personal taste aside, I cannot imagine how a hifi system can be compared against anything other than acoustic instruments, and for a very simple reason. Their sound simply cannot be duplicated by electronic means, as musicians know, and not for want of trying over many decades. A Steinway or Bosendorfer does NOT sound like an electronic piano. Ask any professional pianist.

In addition, ambient spaces do NOT sound like electronically synthesized re-creations, no matter how sophisticated. People have been "working the problem" since the 1920's, but the difference is still immediately obvious with the simple BBC test of walking from one place to another. Personally, I'd say the difference is as big as looking around in real-life and watching HDTV. HDTV (or IMAX) is good, but I'd never confuse it with what I see looking out the window.

[MartinQ]

Originally posted by gedlee



Lynn - I do object to live music being the standard as that is a narrow deffinition of the audio experince. Its good to hear live music, sure, but there are some very good works that are produced in a studio where "live" is the presentation in your home. This aspect of music must not be excluded from "reality".

I am not a big fan of classical music so my listening basis is not the same as someone who is a fan. I would be deeply offended if you were to claim that my perspective is somehow flawed because of this.

I believe the essence of what Lynn is getting at is the purging of your reality from electronic/electric influenced audio and re-identify what 'real' sound 'sounds' like. I believe that this is a very productive and essential exercise to go through.

It does not matter what music you like or listen to. Our hearing system were engineered to process natural sounds and re-calibrating that system should prove to be quite useful for most people.