I luckily gave up the nonsense years ago and just enjoy music rather than listening to equipment.
My tube amps and record players have not seen the light of day for years but I still retain them in my basement.
I have been busy ripping my CD collection to a small tablet as MP3s and playing them via bluetooth on a small pair of powered speakers and a sub.
The attached image shows one of the speakers sat on top of one of a pair of vintage Tannoy Corner Yorks. The Yorks are used for listening to CDs on but rarely get used now, I love the convenience of the MP3 format and just being able to swipe through dozens of albums on my tablet.
My tube amps and record players have not seen the light of day for years but I still retain them in my basement.
I have been busy ripping my CD collection to a small tablet as MP3s and playing them via bluetooth on a small pair of powered speakers and a sub.
The attached image shows one of the speakers sat on top of one of a pair of vintage Tannoy Corner Yorks. The Yorks are used for listening to CDs on but rarely get used now, I love the convenience of the MP3 format and just being able to swipe through dozens of albums on my tablet.
Attachments
So not really interested in hi-fi then?
Unfortunately (for me) I enjoy music more the better it is reproduced.
I'm not sure too many true audiophiles would frequent this forum which is based on cobbling together stuff on the cheap.
If there was a bullssshit filter in place, there would be nothing to read😀
Just kidding
Ooh, on the cheap? I wish! Anyway, what have audiophiles got to do with high fidelity? Answer me that, if you can. 😛
You mentioned earlier that the meaning of "high fidelity" would be selfevident just as the meaning of the words dictate. Do you really stand by that, given that in your view "high fidelity" means that on average a bigger proportion of listeners qualifies a reproduction as "more to the real thing" ?
And we talked about the question if a clear distinction between "personal preference" and "high fidelity" exists because you had told another poster that he was confusing the two although he stated to choose by preference but the result were more "high fidelity" to him but acknowlogded that it must not be "more high fidelity" to you.
And i suppose that we both know that he (as most listeners) can´t compare live acoustical events to reproductions while choosing systems/components.
And of course if you are doing controlled listening experiments than you want to vary only the independent variable, but as we know (at least by now), these psychoacoustic experiments are rarely done with comparisons between "life" and "reproduction", quite often just because the experimenters weren´t able otherwise to control the independent variable in a sufficient manner.
Furthermore those experiment were commonly done with artificial stimuli - again due to the control part - and therefore the listener, who want to choose a system is quite often the only one that listens to the system (as a holistic approach) just for the main purpose i.e. listen actually to music.
At that point my example takes places.
Rock and Roll concerts tend to be too loud to be used as a reference in my opinion. I usually come out with my ears ringing.
Living in culture-Heck, the best opportunity for me to listen to live music without concern for my hearing is the local university concerts, or a coffee houses such as the Acoustic Coffeehouse which is usually limited to guitars, drums, fiddle, violin, tambourine, etc.
Last night was unusual as a Cellist was playing solo.
Billy Joel The Piano Man (1973) is one of my favorites for piano, especially The Traveling Prayer.
I listened to it last night with the amp I just finished and when I closed my eyes, I could believe the piano was right there in front of me.
Living in culture-Heck, the best opportunity for me to listen to live music without concern for my hearing is the local university concerts, or a coffee houses such as the Acoustic Coffeehouse which is usually limited to guitars, drums, fiddle, violin, tambourine, etc.
Last night was unusual as a Cellist was playing solo.
Billy Joel The Piano Man (1973) is one of my favorites for piano, especially The Traveling Prayer.
I listened to it last night with the amp I just finished and when I closed my eyes, I could believe the piano was right there in front of me.
I stand by that; words have meanings, which they should retain when combined together and abbreviated. I see no conflict with the idea that as the level of fidelity is raised so a higher proportion of people find it indistinguishable from the real thing; it is exactly what I would expect - as two things become closer they become ever more difficult to distinguish.Jakob2 said:
This is precisely why careful listening tests are needed to establish what level of electrical performance is needed for hi-fi. Most people can't do the tests themselves, just like most other things in life, so they rely on others to do them and report the results.
To learn what parameters are needed for hi-fi you need to do the right experiments - comparing real with reproduced. Talking about all the other experiments that people might do is irrelevant.
A listener choosing a system is rarely in a position to judge how 'hi-fi' it is, because few audio shops have music ensembles to hand in a suitable acoustic space to do a real vs. reproduced test. A listener who wanted hi-fi would select from those genuine hi-fi systems available using other criteria such as price, appearance, designer reputation, fashion, word on the street etc. He may choose on the basis of what pleases him, within the domain of genuine hi-fi. This all, of course, has nothing to do with determining what level of electrical performance is need for hi-fi, as that requires careful tests on a lot of people.
Why do you persist in arguing for preference all the time? It plays no role in defining hi-fi or determining the requirements for hi-fi, yet you seem to imagine that you see it in almost everything I say. Let me help you: if I seem at any point to include preference when talking of hi-fi then you can assume that I have not expressed myself as well as I intended to.
Why not ask an audiophile why he spends his money audio bling when he can be in the garden shed knocking up some diy gear or reviving a dumpster find?
I have learned nothing on this thread, other that AM radio is hifi, I'm bored. I'm off to the pub.😉
It seems like the term Hi-Fi is being asked by different people to serve different purposes:
1. Accuracy of reproduction from source data to sound pressure.
2. Statistically indistinguishable from live performace
3. Utility for use in acquiring equipment by people with different preferences.
4. Maybe others.
May I ask why it should be so important that an old, vaguely defined term be redefined to mean more or less one of the above options. Is there some reason we can't define new terms for each of the above options in order that they can each serve some useful function in their own applicable contexts?
1. Accuracy of reproduction from source data to sound pressure.
2. Statistically indistinguishable from live performace
3. Utility for use in acquiring equipment by people with different preferences.
4. Maybe others.
May I ask why it should be so important that an old, vaguely defined term be redefined to mean more or less one of the above options. Is there some reason we can't define new terms for each of the above options in order that they can each serve some useful function in their own applicable contexts?
Mark... Am I listening to you as I type...?
Definitions - agreed... We seem to have demonstrated that we need more than one set of terminology, to cover our differing requirements. As with all weasel wording, the important thing it to have a set of terms that mean allow us to communicate complex ideas succinctly. So -- we need Sound Fi, Live Fi, Electronic Fi.... perhaps?!
Definitions - agreed... We seem to have demonstrated that we need more than one set of terminology, to cover our differing requirements. As with all weasel wording, the important thing it to have a set of terms that mean allow us to communicate complex ideas succinctly. So -- we need Sound Fi, Live Fi, Electronic Fi.... perhaps?!
If one indirectly or directly declares to believe in fidelity, which means to directly or indirectly declare to try to make people including oneself happy without ill side-effects and to do so, but does not deliver, then one is not fidele. I think, that most of us have still interest in fidelity but each one's own reasons for not yet delivering.
The popular term is "golden ears" and many of them I've seen are the ones with their golden years behind them. BTW, there is no required college degree to become golden ears. Someone can wake up one morning and declare himself to be golden eared, just like being an audiophile, it can be self appointed. 🙁
You are talking about speakers and room acoustics. For DACs, preamps, amps and cables, you can but you don't need to compare that way.
It's been mentioned earlier.
Or it could even be true. I have kept this link as it seems to explain what TRUE golden ears are. I would agree that possibly most who claim it are not truly Golden Eared, but do you really believe they don't exist at all? The whole conversation is interesting, but page 3 here https://www.vinylengine.com/turntable_forum/viewtopic.php?f=85&t=39071&start=30
will do for a start.
As for being an audiophile, doesn't that simply mean loving hi-fi? And as such one can become one whenever one wishes; no other qualification needed.
This is a whole lot easier said than done. Yes meaningful comparisons are only valid if there is only one variable. It gets real tricky with audio or hi fi because "one variable" means a lot of different things to different people. "One variable" becomes a "unit". And a "unit" is often an amp or something with some circuits and 100-200 parts. Then you compare that to a different unit with different circuits and 100-200 parts.
To do as you mention everything has to be identical and you have 2 of what ever it is you want to use to compare for parameters. The one variable being a resistor value or capacitor value that gives the different parameter.
But even that has limited usage as it's really only meaningful for the units tested.
Yes, of course, and at this level it gets quite expensive (if you're not paying pro musicians pro rates, they could strike at any moment). And from the question you ask, you're wanting to reproduce the sound of the hall as heard at those places.
We could start with a string quartet in a small hall, or with a singer-songwriter playing guitar. When we get to, say, 90 percent of a "representative sample of people" who can't tell a live musician from the sound reproduction system, we can (theoretically) move up to more complex music with more musicians.
Well, yes, the idea is to approach it closer.
I think these people might as well be kept, as long as there's not too many of one type or the other. These two people are on opposite ends of the spectrum of listeners. As you say, the TV viewer would never be able to tell a live musician from a [even half decent] reproduction, and the "poor" high-end listener would always be able to tell, even with the best reproduction.
The idea is to make or find the system that is indistinguishable by the most people whose abilities are evenly spread between these two people. At that point you have a good measure of "hifi-ness" and with the comparisons of how different reproduction equipment rated, with the idea that this could contribute to making something even better than the highest rated.
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