6 days later..
Ugg.. Her hands are calloused and bony.. (she said she was an accountant, I'm starting to think heavy machine operator is more like it.)
12 days later..
Whoa.. Look at those knees! How the hell did I miss that before? Oh wait, ..yeah, I know how I missed that..
18 days later..
Holy crap - she has bigger feet than I do! Those aren't "gun-boats" they're damn air-craft carriers!
24 days later..
OMG - is that a mustache?
30 days later..
What was I thinking? ..the hell with that, what was I drinking?
Conclusion:
It never gets "prettier", just progressively more ugly.
Hmmm...as PWK or John Bowers might have said, first go here a good acoustic jazz, folk, bluegrass band or orchestra in a good room. Then see if you get listening fatigue.( opera excluded ) You might still get it! If so, we know its not the reproducing components involved. Seems basic but it is nevertheless valid. Reproduction can only be referenced against the original product of nature. Sometimes however, through convolution, nature produces Marshall Amplifiers, and Roland TR-808s, but this is only after nature F's up. (hope my clients don't lurk here )
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You can fool yourself but not your subconsciousness,
the best test is that one of time, if you still listen to your new system as much after some months then it's definitely OK.
When something doesn't sound right, you'll gradually listen less and less to your system,
your subconsciousness directs your habits 🙂
Or you just get used to bad sound. I happens. At uni halls I had a really awful pair of minisystem - after about a few weeks of just listening to them I thought they didn't sound too bad. It was only after listening through decent headphones (being given a good reference) that I realised how bad they are.
That's what part of the whole burn in thing is about... Cognitive dissonance on a recent purchase and just getting used to bad sound.
That's what part of the whole burn in thing is about... Cognitive dissonance on a recent purchase and just getting used to bad sound.
I really don't understand it either. Still itseams to be comkon practicein many high end loudspeakers, even in the diy world. Why on earth would you use a low/mid driver with very bad breakup behaviour so it can only be used to about 1.5 khz (also common practice) One of the biggest mistakes in the diy crowd is the useof these ceramic. Titanium, kevlar etc drivers wich require a very very good designed crossoverwith highQ notch filter (really a expert job, not for beginners)
A good system can only be recognized in time, never with A/B tests. When you want to listen to music more and more then you know the system does at least a couple of things very good. When you are sitting in front of your system and find yourself skipping music because somehow it does not sound nice or you think the music is boring then you should realy be alarmed that there is something wrong with the system. It realy starts with admitting this to your self, something most audiophiles are not capable of.
A good system makes any music on any quality recording highly enjoyable.Too bad still too many people just never experienced this, so they realy don't know it can even exist.
That's a good point. Concerts generally don't last more than a few hours, so listening fatigue might not set in. I find it difficult to sit and "listen only" for more than 3 hours, tops. That goes for live or recorded. But in a typical length concert of acoustic music, I don't ever remember getting listening fatigue.
Nor do I remember getting it from watching the Star Wars trilogy straight thru at the cinema. (6 hours +)
It's a complex issue.
Hi Sjef,
You can't generalize all the hard coned drivers.
The Accuton C173-6-090 has no breakup, a really nice driver.
As test I played them fullrange without crossover, they sounded really smooth, no ear shredding breakup nodes and no distortion due to those cone breakup.
I can't really agree with this.
I listen to roughly the same amount of music per week regardless of the quality of the stereo I've got at my disposal. It is just a wee bit more pleasant on a good one.
Also in my experience differences which I can clearly and easily pick out during an A/B test tend to smear into the unrecognisable over time.
In other words I find it very easy to choose one system over another during short A/B tests while if I would listen to one for a week or two followed by another, again for a week or two, I would find it substantially more difficult to make a decision as to which is better and why. Impossible if the differences are subtle.
Good music makes any system enjoyable to me, a good system is just the icing on the cake.
I've had this a number of times. The most memorable was with some speakers that I auditioned at a shop. I liked them so took them home to borrow for the weekend, just to be sure. I purchased the speakers and gradually over time, I realised I was listening less and less. Fast forward a few weeks - I plugged in the old speakers and it was like instant relief. The music was fun again!
To me, short A/B dems are a waste of time...
I've got it! Marketing! An audiophile company! Floppy drivers made out of pasta. These pasta drivers, made only from over baked Linguini, would have no way of assaulting the ears. Quick! Someone back engineer a self serving while paper on this, and we are in the no fatigue speaker business.
The term "best sounding" comes from a review and not my own. I rarely make subjective comments about mine or others works. I will compare data however.
To me listening to speakers is an act of uncovering flaws. The best that a speaker can be is "flawless". Some flaws can take a lot of time to uncover. This implies that no real valid evaluation can be done quickly. Problems can be found quickly, but a lack of problems takes a great deal of time to evolve. Great speakers should be almost bland on initial hearing because anything that stands out initially is almost certainly a flaw.
To me listening to speakers is an act of uncovering flaws. The best that a speaker can be is "flawless". Some flaws can take a lot of time to uncover. This implies that no real valid evaluation can be done quickly. Problems can be found quickly, but a lack of problems takes a great deal of time to evolve. Great speakers should be almost bland on initial hearing because anything that stands out initially is almost certainly a flaw.
You do realize you have given us your opinion , subjectivism is very unbecoming Ged ..🙂
In reality the two is not mutually exclusive when discussing audio, there is no way to define the sound of something without being subjective , regardless of how you spin the science ...
In reality the two is not mutually exclusive when discussing audio, there is no way to define the sound of something without being subjective , regardless of how you spin the science ...
If the objective goal of hifi is accurate reproduction then 'best sounding' translates to most accuracy, the accuracy of course being rightly measured in a scientific manner with the correct test equipment.
You can define something objectively. Why do you think we have THC, frequency response and all those other wonderful things...
You can define something objectively. Why do you think we have THC, frequency response and all those other wonderful things...