On Wed, 12 May 2010 07:25:12 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):
"Audio Empire" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 11 May 2010 09:11:18 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):
wrote in message
...
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/bu...html?ref=busin
"The change in sound quality is as much cultural as technological. For
decades, starting around the 1950s, high-end stereos were a status
symbol. A high-quality system was something to show off, much like a
new flat-screen TV today.
I sense a ton of confusion and maybe just as much if not more
sentimentality. Most ca. 1950 audio systems were pretty bad sounding by
modern standards. It took a ton of relatively large, intrusive, and
expensive hardware to deliver sound quality that could really be compared
to
a good portable digital player and a nice pair of IEMs., or a quality but
still relatively small sub/sat speaker system.
That depends on what you're talking about. Certainly, speaker technology
in
the 1950's was very primitive.
As was everything else about audio.
People had Karlson Kabinets with big 12" or
15" Altec Lansing or Electrovoice drivers in them or Klipschorns - and
they
still didn't have any low-end. cone tweeters were mostly just small
speakers
with a capacitor hung on them to keep the lows out, or they were
compression
horns like the Altec 500 Hz treble horns (awful).
Actually, done right the Altec horns could sound pretty good.
You're joking, right? They might be fine for speech in a movie theater, but
for music?
Ever hear a
pair of Altec A4s set up right? But, they were huge, they were expensive,
and they were not as good as their contemporary competition.
I had a pair of A7s as a teenager. Got 'em free from a local movie house that
went out of business. The contractor was renovating the theater into a
furniture store (if memory serves) and was throwing everything out. I don't
think the A7s were more than a couple of years old at the time. They were
real efficient (I only had a pair of Knight 18-watt mono integrated amps at
the time). The thing that I remember mostly about them is that in spite of
having a 15-inch horn-loaded woofer, they had little bass. I recall that they
were about 10 dB down at 40 Hz. They also had this nasal coloration in the
midrange. This corresponded nicely to the frequency of the ringing one would
get from the treble-horn by thumping it with one's finger. They were loud,
though and certainly were better than the home-made bass reflex enclosures
that I replaced with them. What ultimately disillusioned me about them was
when I heard a pair of AR3s at friend of my dad's house. Real bass and decent
(for the time) top-end.
But amps and pre-amps were pretty good.
By modern standards they were marginal at best. Frightfully expensive in
inflation-adjusted dollars, required a lot of maintenance, large, wasted
energy, a good amp with only modest power was very heavy. There were only a
tiny number of what we would call a medium-powered amplifier today,and
nothing beyond that.
I've a friend with a pair of Dynaco
Mark III 60-Watt tube "monoblocs" and a Harman-Kardon Citation 1 stereo
preamp driving a pair of Magnepan MG-3.6s. The system sounds fine.
The Citation 1 preamp was reviewed by Audio and High Fidelity magazines in
the early 1960s, which is was no doubt when it was introduced. Therefore,
it is not a product that was available in the 1950s. Just because something
sounds "fine" does not make it competitive with its modern competition.
It's good enough to give a lot of musical pleasure to the owner and his
guests.
Of course, hypercriticality of modern technology is very stylish in
certain
circles.
Some people demand more than others and don't mind paying for it.
Some people pay more for the same or less, because they don't know better,
or because of their prejudices.
And what of your prejudices, Mr, Kruger?
During most of the 1950s just about everybody was limited to listening to
mono vinyl. While there are great-sounding recordings from that era, most
weren't (and still aren't) all that great. The good news is that many of
their problems can be circumvented with skilled remastering. But, even
so...
Some were so good that they haven't been equaled and careful remastering
such
as that done by JVC shows just how good both some of these early
recordings
and Redbook CD can sound. And as I said above, the best source in the
1950's
and '60's wasn't vinyl, but was, rather, live FM.
Doesn't change the fact that the general run of LPs were mediocre or worse
by modern standards.
That's even true today. Most modern commercial releases on ANY format sound
mediocre to dreadful, and the best are excellent. Thus it has always been,
But Michael Fremer, a professed audiophile who runs musicangle.com,
which reviews albums, said that today, "a stereo has become an object
of scorn.""
Stereos were an object of scorn most of my life! Stereos did become
mainstream from the Vietnam era until home theater succeeded it as the
mainstream. Maybe 25 years. Home audio without video is no longer SOTA.
Bull! Home audio without video might not be fashionable, but video does
NOTHING to enhance the listening experience.
You forgot to say "for me". Or perhaps you don't understand that you don't
set the tastes for all of modern mankind.
I would have thought that "for me" was understood. In what way does a camera
which keeps moving, while the sonic perspective stays static enhance the
listening experience, and would that experience be any better if the sonic
perspective followed the moving camera? The entire notion is as ludicrous as
it is confusing. Perhaps, the combination of audio and video would serve the
performance if the video were taken from a single perspective. like the
sound, and the camera remained static. But they don't do it that way, do
they?
I'll also concede that opera performances are enhanced by the video, because
listening to (as opposed to "watching") an opera is akin to listening to a
movie with the TV turned off.