I enjoy most listening late at night, when the ambient noise level is so much lower,
and the downward dynamics seem to expand a lot from the lack of noise masking.
But the "soundstage" is not very important to me, and I don't hear much of it in live acoustical music,
either indoors or outdoors. Most recordings seem very exaggerated in that respect. It's been argued
that reproduced music should have more of it than real, because of the lack of visual cues (even by JGH),
but I don't agree.
So the reflections of some sonically radiant object in a room is what toasts the spatial perception of it? Rooms are highly overrated places to listen, then. Too bad we have things like weather, winter and sheetrock.
It was a busy summer for me house project wise and I didnt get to do any outdoor listening, which is always a hoot. With it revelatory "Oh that's how it's supposed to sound". First experienced as a teenager, when I threw the speakers up on the roof of my father's house, while re-shingling. The Gentle Giant record sounded spatially stunning.
I remember one fellow from back in the DEC days put up a real "bag-end" of anechoic materials in his basement, to make a reflectionless "pocket" behind his speakers. I remember he remarked the drum kit on his special 45 RPM LP he played for me was "there".
"So the reflections of some sonically radiant object in a room is what toasts the spatial perception of it? Rooms are highly overrated places to listen, then. Too bad we have things like weather, winter and sheetrock."
I've done some listening to audio gear in a large research anechoic chamber, which was very interesting.
Seems that room acoustics and reflections can mask quite a lot of what's in recordings, and also equipment faults.
With some systems that may be for the best, though.
I've done some listening to audio gear in a large research anechoic chamber, which was very interesting.
Seems that room acoustics and reflections can mask quite a lot of what's in recordings, and also equipment faults.
With some systems that may be for the best, though.
Agreed if you mean spot lit surgical placement left/right/front/back of original acoustic events. Capturing the sense of massive hall envelopment though most are terrible near-pop confections.
The only recordings which for me clearly and realistically broke that were Hugo Zuccarelli's Holophonic demos. The famous matchstick. Shame it appears to be dead.
I've talked about it (I think...) Anyway, I once tricked my wife (with much better hearing than me) using a binaural recording of my speakers playing I made with mics stuffed into my own ears as the bin part of the aural. Wearing over the ear, open back headphones, she thought the speakers in front of her were playing when they were off.
Admittedly, I had a flash of serene, timeless joy over that. Something in audio actually did what I thought it would do.
I would say that you may need to do more market research as it seems you are talking about "Tandy" customers.
https://www.stereophile.com/content/first-watt-sit-3-power-amplifier
https://www.stereophile.com/content/audio-research-i50-integrated-amplifier
https://www.stereonet.com/uk/reviews/leben-cs600x-integrated-valve-amp-review
There are too many to note. People will have their favourites obviously (mostly subjective).
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I was reading the other day.... about phase and how humans have hearing that can detect absolute phase of sounds.
Hence, something coming at you, will sound with the leading edge compressed ( Doppler effect ) while something going away from you will sound with the leading edge expanded. And so, we can localize sounds from the rear -and the sides too.
Indoors, in a small room, in a 2 channel stereo, these things get confused. Even in surround these things are hard to mimic.. the producer must ensure the correct phase for the signals in all channels.
Looks do matter in that market space. Just like with a new car, you want the performance, but you also want it to look nice. You can say, this will do everything you need and easily exceed any speed limit. But it it looks like:
And you like this look better:
Why is an audiophile any worse than someone shopping for a car?
EDIT: Here are some things from Meitner:
Some of these things sell for more than your power amp. ~$10k. (~$12.5k for the one on the right). However, they don't sell that many, so the amortized development costs per unit are high. https://www.soundstagehifi.com/inde...itner-audio-ds-eq2-optical-phono-preamplifier
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You should re-read the Pardee record friction paper. Cleaning can have a worrying effect on friction and as we know friction is noise...
I think you should say 'some people' otherwise we will think we are the only people in the world who haven't heard them. But the same things were said about strain gauge cartridges and they never really took off.
get a linear tracker!
You have zero proof of that, so I will have to file that under the same bucket as silver wire sounds bright I am afraid.
Reviewers though rarely keep the demo cartridges either optical or soundsmith strain gauge. No position sensing tech has every really caught on. I can't hear graininess I am afraid and I don't care if it's because you think my turntables are not expensive enough.
To get a representative soundfield yes. I really thing Gerzon was onto something, but it didn't catch on.
Don't know. I have a piano between my speakers and I can tell you that REALLY messes with the soundstage. I would love to try the Pano stereo phantom correction sometime as well as 3 speaker stereo.
I think you are the one who needs to do that. I don't know how many hairy chested room heaters NP sells for each of his limited edition first watt amplifiers as he has both ends of the market covered but a lot of people with more money than sense want BIG amplifiers.
can't get a bicycle in the back of either of those, or enough luggage for 4 people for 2 weeks away so they fail at the first hurdle for me
Are you suggesting high end audio is the same form of manliness projection that high performance cars are? Can't see how amplifiers try and project virility the way sports cars do.
If could if you do it wrong.
Also, when I said 'people,' I didn't say all people in the world or anything like that. You know it has to be 'some people' don't you?
Proof exists only in math. You know that too, Bill. You seem put off.
Anyway, I was trying to explain what it sounds like. What it sounds to the people I know who have heard it is like is what I said.
Also, its true the optical carts are expensive. So were the first color TVs. Eventually prices came down but it took time. Don't know what the future holds with optical, but I expect there is less investment money to bring down prices than there was for color TV. Might take a longer time for optical, don't know.
EDIT: Also, if you ever to decide to visit, you can form your own opinion of the sound then. That would probably be better than anything I could say.
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Can only say that empirical evidence is that looks matter in that marketspace. If you want to sell amplifiers you have to sell to the market. What if Bonsai just put his amp in a bigger case, went back and said, I have this one, but it goes for $16,000? 30% of that is for the dealer, 10% for the distributor. The rest is to pay the expenses of running a business, not a hobby.
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Absolutely. Not just the soundstage either, probably low level details of everything. Piano is a reflector and a damped resonator. Sadly, had to take most of the musical instruments out of my listening room. Large flat panel display had to go as well.
Even if you do it right it can increase friction based on the vinyl formulation. Read the paper, it's very interesting.
The current optical carts are a rejig of old tech, same as the soundsmith strain gauge carts. They will not take off in any great way. Not least because of the inability for audiophiles to pick and chose preamps. Much like active speakers are not popular in the high end but sell in their gazillions in soundbars and alexas.
The current optical carts are a rejig of old tech, same as the soundsmith strain gauge carts. They will not take off in any great way. Not least because of the inability for audiophiles to pick and chose preamps. Much like active speakers are not popular in the high end but sell in their gazillions in soundbars and alexas.
(1) You don't hear soundstage? How can I answer that? Bad equipment? Lack of exposure to live music? Bad seats? Bad hall? Expectations different from the norm? Do you expect your stereo to sound like the live performance in the hall (hint: FORGET about that... you can NOT recreate a live performance at home with current recording/playback techniques ).
I find sound staging to be the single most important facet of sound reproduction at home. Other than distortion, of course. I expect lateral and longitudinal placing of the instruments and voiced within a field defined by the speakers.
(2) Most classical recordings are done with the mikes right ABOVE front row. With spot mikes here and there. So, a true high end system puts you... right there, floating above the audience. Not a very realistic facsimile of the performance, forget row M... not even row A. I think the trick is to set up and assemble a system, indoors, that is capable of using speaker and room interaction to set up a facsimile of the performance as a listener would hear.
This is why I think the current state of the Ultra High End is getting it wrong, they are going for complete accuracy of the recording and for point to point speaker set up... minimizing the acoustic environment ( for the space cues in the recording ). Doing so just sounds like... you're floating over the orchestra. Pffft.
When it comes to jazz, rock... well recorded live performances are the best because they encode the sound of the hall into the recording and have the chance to present the soundstage. But those recordings tend to be more the product of engineering by the producer...
(3) Maybe you need to drink more Cabernet? It helps... ;-)
Try a coffee table with a hard top in front of your couch or chair.
That really messes with the sound.
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