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#1
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
There is mention of a download page where full fidelity recordings can be
had for $2.49. 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. But Michael Fremer, a professed audiophile who runs musicangle.com, which reviews albums, said that today, "a stereo has become an object of scorn."" |
#2
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
On May 10, 11:50=A0am, wrote:
There is mention of a download page where full fidelity recordings can be had for $2.49. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/bu...ml?ref=3Dbusin =A0 =A0"The change in sound quality is as much cultural as technological.= For =A0 =A0decades, starting around the 1950s, high-end stereos were a status =A0 =A0symbol. A high-quality system was something to show off, much like= a =A0 =A0new flat-screen TV today. =A0 =A0But Michael Fremer, a professed audiophile who runs musicangle.com= , =A0 =A0which reviews albums, said that today, "a stereo has become an obj= ect =A0 =A0of scorn."" Fremer would know something about objects of scorn. :-) The article itself predictably muddles the issues of data compression and dynamic compression--and, of course, fails to note how much more benign the former is. It also fails to note the single biggest difference between listening to a high-end rig and listening to an iPod--the transducers. Fewer people sit and just listen to a good audio system these days. OTOH, more people listen to more music than ever before. I'm not convinced that their lives are poorer for this. bob |
#3
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
On May 10, 11:50=A0am, wrote:
snip =A0 =A0"The change in sound quality is as much cultural as technological.= For =A0 =A0decades, starting around the 1950s, high-end stereos were a status =A0 =A0symbol. A high-quality system was something to show off, much like= a =A0 =A0new flat-screen TV today. With advances in technology, better quality performance is available at much lower prices. An implicitly negative comment was made about portable music players but in actuality, they actually provide excellent sound quality, at least with decent headphones and vastly better than cassette players. For portable music in the 1950s, there was the wonderful AM transistor radio which was truly low fidelity. =A0 =A0But Michael Fremer, a professed audiophile who runs musicangle.com= , =A0 =A0which reviews albums, said that today, "a stereo has become an obj= ect =A0 =A0of scorn."" I am not sure why he thinks that modern stereos are scorned but they are no longer status symbols since they are low-cost commodity products. The description of lossy compression causing crackling artifacts is surprising. Perhaps Fremer needs to use better software. The only crackling that I can recall is an artifact from LPs. Indeed dynamic range compression is a real problem unlike modest use of data compression. |
#4
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
On Mon, 10 May 2010 09:29:55 -0700, bob wrote
(in article ): On May 10, 11:50=A0am, wrote: There is mention of a download page where full fidelity recordings can be had for $2.49. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/bu...ml?ref=3Dbusin =A0 =A0"The change in sound quality is as much cultural as technological.= For =A0 =A0decades, starting around the 1950s, high-end stereos were a status =A0 =A0symbol. A high-quality system was something to show off, much like= a =A0 =A0new flat-screen TV today. =A0 =A0But Michael Fremer, a professed audiophile who runs musicangle.com= , =A0 =A0which reviews albums, said that today, "a stereo has become an obj= ect =A0 =A0of scorn."" Fremer would know something about objects of scorn. :-) The article itself predictably muddles the issues of data compression and dynamic compression--and, of course, fails to note how much more benign the former is. It also fails to note the single biggest difference between listening to a high-end rig and listening to an iPod--the transducers. Fremer has a point. As I said in a related post yesterday, most commercial releases fall far short of being as good as their release format CAN BE, whether that format be vinyl, Redbook CD, SACD, DVD-A or some high-res WAV file. Fewer people sit and just listen to a good audio system these days. OTOH, more people listen to more music than ever before. I'm not convinced that their lives are poorer for this. How or how much each person listens as well as what each person listens to is his/her own affair and no one is the poorer for it. That is, UNLESS the industry takes these listening habit trends as indicators that the public doesn't care about sound quality at all, and starts recording musical performances in ways and with formats and techniques that are less than the very best that modern technology can provide. In that case, all our lives, and indeed our very culture would be the poorer for it. |
#5
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
On Mon, 10 May 2010 12:01:48 -0700, jwvm wrote
(in article ): On May 10, 11:50=A0am, wrote: snip =A0 =A0"The change in sound quality is as much cultural as technological.= For =A0 =A0decades, starting around the 1950s, high-end stereos were a status =A0 =A0symbol. A high-quality system was something to show off, much like= a =A0 =A0new flat-screen TV today. With advances in technology, better quality performance is available at much lower prices. An implicitly negative comment was made about portable music players but in actuality, they actually provide excellent sound quality, at least with decent headphones and vastly better than cassette players. For portable music in the 1950s, there was the wonderful AM transistor radio which was truly low fidelity. =A0 =A0But Michael Fremer, a professed audiophile who runs musicangle.com= , =A0 =A0which reviews albums, said that today, "a stereo has become an obj= ect =A0 =A0of scorn."" I am not sure why he thinks that modern stereos are scorned but they are no longer status symbols since they are low-cost commodity products. Good ones aren't. Good speakers, especially, are quite expensive. For instance, there is little decent in the way of speakers below about the $1K level (actually I only know of one really decent speaker below $1K and that's the Magnepan MMG at $599. The description of lossy compression causing crackling artifacts is surprising. Perhaps Fremer needs to use better software. The only crackling that I can recall is an artifact from LPs. Indeed dynamic range compression is a real problem unlike modest use of data compression. I certainly hear artifacts in lossy compression, but I wouldn't exactly characterize them as a crackling noise, I would say that it's more like a buzzing bee-like distortion that rides the waveform. It's only audible during low level passages and during transitions between loud and soft passages (and vice versa) and then only on headphones and very loud speaker listening. As background music and in the car, lossy compression artifacts are lost in the ambient noise. |
#6
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
"Audio Empire" wrote in message
... Good ones aren't. Good speakers, especially, are quite expensive. For instance, there is little decent in the way of speakers below about the $1K level (actually I only know of one really decent speaker below $1K and that's the Magnepan MMG at $599. I certainly hear artifacts in lossy compression, but I wouldn't exactly characterize them as a crackling noise, I would say that it's more like a buzzing bee-like distortion that rides the waveform. It's only audible during low level passages and during transitions between loud and soft passages (and vice versa) and then only on headphones and very loud speaker listening. As background music and in the car, lossy compression artifacts are lost in the ambient noise. I find it ironic that the entirety of the previous comments could be put into a vastly different perspective if unbiased listening techniques were used by the writer. Many misapprehensions about both MP3s and quality inexpensive speakers can be dispelled with blind listening. I've said enough about misapprehensions about quality MP3s lately so I won't repeat myself. I recently participated in blind listening tests comparing a $12,000 speaker system from a well-known designer with excellent technical chops to a European-designed, China-built studio monitor system that sells for under $400 the pair. They did sound a little different from each other. The listening panel was about evenly split as to which they preferred based on dynamic range, tone quality and imaging. They all agreed that both pairs of speakers sounded very, very good. |
#7
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
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. Of course, hypercriticality of modern technology is very stylish in certain circles. 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... 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. In Fremer's case, I wonder if he is generalizing from his own experiences, which must be unusual given his commitment (some might say obsession) with audio. |
#8
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
In article ,
"Arny Krueger" wrote: I recently participated in blind listening tests comparing a $12,000 speaker system from a well-known designer with excellent technical chops to a European-designed, China-built studio monitor system that sells for under $400 the pair. They did sound a little different from each other. The listening panel was about evenly split as to which they preferred based on dynamic range, tone quality and imaging. They all agreed that both pairs of speakers sounded very, very good. So, what were the speakers? |
#9
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
On May 10, 6:06=A0pm, Audio Empire wrote:
On Mon, 10 May 2010 12:01:48 -0700, jwvm wrote (in article ): Good speakers, especially, are quite expensive. So are bad speakers, and some especially bad ones are especially expensive. For instance, there is little decent in the way of speakers below about the $1K level There is no intrinsic reason fr this to be. The major cost components in a speaker are magnet assemblies, cabinets, profit and overhead (and the ordering is all over the map). Everything else seldom adds up to be equal to any of of these components. To reduce the cost, two areas to go after are the cabinet size and finish and the magnet structure. The end result is a speaker which is inefficient, restricted bandwidth, limited power handling or some tradeoff of these. But within these limits, there are no intrinsic physical limits that limit quality. Honestly, it costs just about the same to make the diaphragm and voice coil of a $120 tweeter as it does a $20 tweeter in the vast majority of cases. Another area for cost reduction the profit and overhead. The latter is essentially managed by going to commodity scales and finding the cheapest labor pool, while the former is managed by also going for commodity scales. Unfortunately, this usually means moving to a manufacturing base like China, which puts a severe disconnect between the market and the maker. It's not that the Chinese, for example, are incapable of making high-quality components to spec, it's that they are simply unwilling. I have worked with clients that required that sort of economics and I have seen both prototypes and product runs of drivers that are simply stunning in terms of performance, but the factory reserves the right to, without any notice at all, to arbitrarily modify a product for any reason they see fit, and, at their sole discretion, use or sell your design to anyone that'll buy it. But, that being said, the ability to produce an under $1k speaker of high quality is a function primarily of designer competence and knowledge as well as marketing and sales prowess, both of which are in increasing short supply in the high-end or component audio market, which itself is becoming a vanishingly small portion of the total audio market. |
#10
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
On Tue, 11 May 2010 07:17:06 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ): "Audio Empire" wrote in message ... Good ones aren't. Good speakers, especially, are quite expensive. For instance, there is little decent in the way of speakers below about the $1K level (actually I only know of one really decent speaker below $1K and that's the Magnepan MMG at $599. I certainly hear artifacts in lossy compression, but I wouldn't exactly characterize them as a crackling noise, I would say that it's more like a buzzing bee-like distortion that rides the waveform. It's only audible during low level passages and during transitions between loud and soft passages (and vice versa) and then only on headphones and very loud speaker listening. As background music and in the car, lossy compression artifacts are lost in the ambient noise. I find it ironic that the entirety of the previous comments could be put into a vastly different perspective if unbiased listening techniques were used by the writer. I don't need a DBT to tell me what I hear. I'm not comparing anything to anything here, so I cannot see what good "unbiased" listening tests would do. It's not a question of whether this sounds different from that, it's a question of whether these artifacts are present or not, and if they are present, are they audible? I can hear them. I acknowledge that certain kinds of music effectively mask these artifacts, and I acknowledge, that ambient noise in the listening environment will do likewise. I'll also give you that most of the iPod generation doesn't seem to care that the artifacts exist, and that possibly, many people have never developed the listening skills to discern these artifacts. Non of that alters the fact that some of us do hear them and find them objectionable. I for one would much rather put-up with the tics and pops in an LP than listen to the "correlated" distortion of an MP3. Apparently you feel just the opposite. Many misapprehensions about both MP3s and quality inexpensive speakers can be dispelled with blind listening. I've said enough about misapprehensions about quality MP3s lately so I won't repeat myself. I don't have any misapprehensions about MP3. For the types of music that I listen to and the way I listen, MP3 is inadequate - even at the higher bit-rates. Even Sony's ATRAC lossy compression algorithm was better and less objectionable than MP3. I recently participated in blind listening tests comparing a $12,000 speaker system from a well-known designer with excellent technical chops to a European-designed, China-built studio monitor system that sells for under $400 the pair. They did sound a little different from each other. The listening panel was about evenly split as to which they preferred based on dynamic range, tone quality and imaging. They all agreed that both pairs of speakers sounded very, very good. I'll bet that the 400 mini-monitors don't have as much or as good quality bass as did the $12000 system nor could it load the room like a big system. Sure, you can design tests which minimize differences in things like amplifiers and speakers. I could easily construct a DBT where a small mini-monitor and a large full-range system would sound as similar as possible - I'd just play solo harpsichord or flute music, or something similar that has no bass and little in the way of dynamic contrast. I can name a bunch of small, inexpensive, so called mini-monitors that sound excellent on small scale works. They image great, and can be delightful to listen to. But don't play large scale orchestral works on them, or try to get them to sound right on rock-'n-roll played at high SPLs with a driving kick drum providing the beat. Very unsatisfying, I would suspect. |
#11
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
[Moderators' note: Recently some posts have been approved with toned
down curse words as in this one. Please stop using them from now on. Those words are potentially inflammable and will no longer be accepted. -- deb] 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. 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). But amps and pre-amps were pretty good. 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. Certainly, in those days, the best signal source was live FM (vinyl records could be excellent, but the players were primitive and couldn't get the most from them). It sounded magnificent, even if it was in mono. Much better than any FM station today. First of all, FM stations rarely do live concerts any more and if/when they do, they are crippled by signal compression and brick-wall limiting. In the 50's and most of 60's, FM stations were so far and few between (even in large metropolitan markets) that while laws for over-modulating did exist, nobody took them seriously (even the FCC) there was simply no harm in over-modulating your transmitter as there were no closely adjacent stations for you to interfere with. Unlike today's crowded FM dial where overly processed audio is pumped into transmitters crowded tooth-by-jowl against each other on the dial. 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. This is a double-edged sword, however. Because audio is technical and most audio hobbyists aren't, this gives rise to a lot of unfortunate charlatanism that seems rampant in the audio hobby. Things like "boutique" interconnects and speaker cables, wood blocks placed on one's amp cover to make it "magically" sound better, cable lifts to keep one's speaker cables up, off the carpet, caps for one's unused RCA connections on their preamp (ostensibly to keep them from drooling random KiloHertz, perhaps?) etc. 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. 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. In my house my stereo and my "home theater" aren't even in the same part of the house! When I watch video, I watch video, when I listen to music, I listen to music and as far as I'm concerned, they're (for the most part) mutually exclusive concepts. In Fremer's case, I wonder if he is generalizing from his own experiences, which must be unusual given his commitment (some might say obsession) with audio. Who knows. He makes some good points though. |
#12
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
On Tue, 11 May 2010 12:23:25 -0700, Dick Pierce wrote
(in article ): On May 10, 6:06=A0pm, Audio Empire wrote: On Mon, 10 May 2010 12:01:48 -0700, jwvm wrote (in article ): Good speakers, especially, are quite expensive. So are bad speakers, and some especially bad ones are especially expensive. For instance, there is little decent in the way of speakers below about the $1K level There is no intrinsic reason fr this to be. The major cost components in a speaker are magnet assemblies, cabinets, profit and overhead (and the ordering is all over the map). Everything else seldom adds up to be equal to any of of these components. I agree, but most expensive speakers are made by small companies and are the result of small-scale economics. Plus a lot of high-end speakers use exotic materials like carbon fiber and dense space-age resins for drivers and cabinets. Wilson audio comes to mind here. Also, development costs get amortized over far fewer units of any one model in small company as well. I guess the analogous situation, cost wise, would be Ferrari. Ferrari cars are outrageously expensive, If Ford built a car like a Ferrari, it would sell for half the cost or less (they actually did. Back in the early 2000's Ford built a modern re-interpretation of their 1960's era GT-40 race car. It was very similar to build quality and performance to a Ferrari 360 Modena, but list-priced for almost half. and that was still a limited production model). |
#13
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
On May 11, 7:17=A0am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
I recently participated in blind listening tests comparing a $12,000 speaker system from a well-known designer with excellent technical chops to a European-designed, China-built studio monitor system that sells for under $400 the pair. The listening panel was about evenly split as to which they preferred base= d on dynamic range, tone quality and imaging. =A0 I can believe this easily. In addition well under a thousand Canadian dollars spent on a classic iPod and Sennheiser IE7 headphones produces what, to my ears, is a genuinely high end sound. I am sure the equal could easily be provided by less expensive equipment. In fact I believe that Apple could provide genuinely high end sound from headphones at very little extra cost if they cared to. Alas, they don't, but I am fairly sure that they could if they wished. Ed |
#14
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
On May 11, 6:56=A0pm, Audio Empire wrote:
On Tue, 11 May 2010 12:23:25 -0700, Dick Pierce wrote (in article ): There is no intrinsic reason fr this to be. The major cost components in a speaker are magnet assemblies, cabinets, profit and overhead (and the ordering is all over the map). Everything else seldom adds up to be equal to any of of these components. =A0I agree, but most expensive speakers are made by small companies and are the result of small-scale economics. Plus a lot of high-end speakers use exotic materials like carbon fiber and dense space-age resins for drivers and cabinets. well, given that I am actually in that business, the materials you list are NOT expensive at all, not in the quantities found in loudspeakers. And, frankly, materials like carbon fiber and "dense space-age resins" are simply not exotic in the rest of the world. They might well be in high-end audio circles, but that's because the high-end audio biz is late to the party. I was specing off-the-shelf OEM carbon fiber drivers 20 years ago, and B&W was doing kevlar drivers 35 years ago. Also, development costs get amortized over far fewer units of any one model in small company as well. Again, being in the business, the amortized development costs are a small part of the total cost of pretty much ANY speaker, be they from large or small companies. And, by the way, those are sunken costs, not amortized costs. You spent them up front and you don't get to pay them over time. Now, maybe you get to use your current cash flow to fund the next experiment, but you don't get to travel back in time. Plus the fact that most of these high end speaker companies,despite what you might read, do NOT have very large engineering budgets. Like I said, the MAJOR cost elements of speakers are magnet structure, cabinet, overhead and profit. When I said "everything else seldom adds up to be equal to any one of these components," that included what you're talking about here. And it's still my contention having been intimately involved in the business for a long time, that there is no intrinsic physical basis behind your assertion that "there is little decent in the way of speakers below about the $1K level." If there is truth to your claim, it's due to grotesque incompetence, cultural biases, add the fact that the market is so small that no competent practitioner could afford to be in this business, leaving the hucksters, cranks, charlatans and loonies to run loose in the high-end business, always encouraged by the rabid blitherings of their high-end magazine groupies If Fremer believes "stereo has become an object of scorn," he has but himself and his ilk to blame. And while we're at it, we can line up people Lumely, Pearson, Cardas, Tice, mPingo, and the rest of the blithering hordes against the proverbial wall. MP3 ain't to blame for the decline of stereo, the high-end yahoos are. |
#15
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
"Audio Empire" wrote in message
... On Tue, 11 May 2010 07:17:06 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote (in article ): "Audio Empire" wrote in message ... Good ones aren't. Good speakers, especially, are quite expensive. For instance, there is little decent in the way of speakers below about the $1K level (actually I only know of one really decent speaker below $1K and that's the Magnepan MMG at $599. I certainly hear artifacts in lossy compression, but I wouldn't exactly characterize them as a crackling noise, I would say that it's more like a buzzing bee-like distortion that rides the waveform. It's only audible during low level passages and during transitions between loud and soft passages (and vice versa) and then only on headphones and very loud speaker listening. As background music and in the car, lossy compression artifacts are lost in the ambient noise. I find it ironic that the entirety of the previous comments could be put into a vastly different perspective if unbiased listening techniques were used by the writer. I don't need a DBT to tell me what I hear. Nobody does. A DBT can't possibly tell you what you hear. The alternative to bias-controlled listening is to *hear* with your prejudices fully engaged. If you want to listen to the true quality of sound, then you must take advantage of bias controlled tests. If you want to reinforce your prejudices, then avoid bias controlled tests. |
#16
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
"Jenn" wrote in message
... In article , "Arny Krueger" wrote: I recently participated in blind listening tests comparing a $12,000 speaker system from a well-known designer with excellent technical chops to a European-designed, China-built studio monitor system that sells for under $400 the pair. They did sound a little different from each other. The listening panel was about evenly split as to which they preferred based on dynamic range, tone quality and imaging. They all agreed that both pairs of speakers sounded very, very good. So, what were the speakers? Behringer B2031A |
#17
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
... "Jenn" wrote in message ... In article , "Arny Krueger" wrote: I recently participated in blind listening tests comparing a $12,000 speaker system from a well-known designer with excellent technical chops to a European-designed, China-built studio monitor system that sells for under $400 the pair. They did sound a little different from each other. The listening panel was about evenly split as to which they preferred based on dynamic range, tone quality and imaging. They all agreed that both pairs of speakers sounded very, very good. So, what were the speakers? Behringer B2031A That takes care of the studio monitors. What were the "big 'uns"? And what were the musical selections, sources, and other equipment used? And what type of rating system? And was it blind or double-blind? |
#18
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
"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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. |
#19
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
On Tue, 11 May 2010 20:22:56 -0700, Dick Pierce wrote
(in article ): On May 11, 6:56=A0pm, Audio Empire wrote: On Tue, 11 May 2010 12:23:25 -0700, Dick Pierce wrote (in article ): There is no intrinsic reason fr this to be. The major cost components in a speaker are magnet assemblies, cabinets, profit and overhead (and the ordering is all over the map). Everything else seldom adds up to be equal to any of of these components. =A0I agree, but most expensive speakers are made by small companies and are the result of small-scale economics. Plus a lot of high-end speakers use exotic materials like carbon fiber and dense space-age resins for drivers and cabinets. well, given that I am actually in that business, the materials you list are NOT expensive at all, not in the quantities found in loudspeakers. And, frankly, materials like carbon fiber and "dense space-age resins" are simply not exotic in the rest of the world. They might well be in high-end audio circles, but that's because the high-end audio biz is late to the party. I was specing off-the-shelf OEM carbon fiber drivers 20 years ago, and B&W was doing kevlar drivers 35 years ago. Also, development costs get amortized over far fewer units of any one model in small company as well. Again, being in the business, the amortized development costs are a small part of the total cost of pretty much ANY speaker, be they from large or small companies. And, by the way, those are sunken costs, not amortized costs. You spent them up front and you don't get to pay them over time. Now, maybe you get to use your current cash flow to fund the next experiment, but you don't get to travel back in time. Plus the fact that most of these high end speaker companies,despite what you might read, do NOT have very large engineering budgets. Like I said, the MAJOR cost elements of speakers are magnet structure, cabinet, overhead and profit. When I said "everything else seldom adds up to be equal to any one of these components," that included what you're talking about here. And it's still my contention having been intimately involved in the business for a long time, that there is no intrinsic physical basis behind your assertion that "there is little decent in the way of speakers below about the $1K level." If there is truth to your claim, it's due to grotesque incompetence, cultural biases, add the fact that the market is so small that no competent practitioner could afford to be in this business, leaving the hucksters, cranks, charlatans and loonies to run loose in the high-end business, always encouraged by the rabid blitherings of their high-end magazine groupies If Fremer believes "stereo has become an object of scorn," he has but himself and his ilk to blame. And while we're at it, we can line up people Lumely, Pearson, Cardas, Tice, mPingo, and the rest of the blithering hordes against the proverbial wall. MP3 ain't to blame for the decline of stereo, the high-end yahoos are. So what you're saying is that high-end speaker manufacturers such as Magnepan, Martin-Logan, Wilson Audio, Vandersteen, et al are ripping their customers off big time? Well, maybe, but I've heard an awful lot of these inexpensive speakers that you seem to think are just as good as the expensive spread, and they sound like - well, inexpensive speakers. Bigger, more expensive speakers always sound bigger, have more bottom, load the room more effectively, are more coherent from top to bottom and have better dynamic range than do the cheapies. If great sounding speakers can be done so cheaply, why aren't they? |
#20
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
"Harry Lavo" wrote in message
... "Arny Krueger" wrote in message ... "Jenn" wrote in message ... In article , "Arny Krueger" wrote: I recently participated in blind listening tests comparing a $12,000 speaker system from a well-known designer with excellent technical chops to a European-designed, China-built studio monitor system that sells for under $400 the pair. They did sound a little different from each other. The listening panel was about evenly split as to which they preferred based on dynamic range, tone quality and imaging. They all agreed that both pairs of speakers sounded very, very good. So, what were the speakers? Behringer B2031A That takes care of the studio monitors. What were the "big 'uns"? And what were the musical selections, sources, and other equipment used? And what type of rating system? And was it blind or double-blind? And a few other questions: Who were the listeners.....studio pros, audiophiles, SWM audio club members, the Boston Audio Society, college students, random off-the-street people, or whom? And finally, who (if anybody) sponsored the test? |
#21
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
In article ,
"Arny Krueger" wrote: "Jenn" wrote in message ... In article , "Arny Krueger" wrote: I recently participated in blind listening tests comparing a $12,000 speaker system from a well-known designer with excellent technical chops to a European-designed, China-built studio monitor system that sells for under $400 the pair. They did sound a little different from each other. The listening panel was about evenly split as to which they preferred based on dynamic range, tone quality and imaging. They all agreed that both pairs of speakers sounded very, very good. So, what were the speakers? Behringer B2031A Thanks. I was actually considering getting them for my little home studio. What were the other speakers? |
#22
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
On Wed, 12 May 2010 06:28:35 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ): "Jenn" wrote in message ... In article , "Arny Krueger" wrote: I recently participated in blind listening tests comparing a $12,000 speaker system from a well-known designer with excellent technical chops to a European-designed, China-built studio monitor system that sells for under $400 the pair. They did sound a little different from each other. The listening panel was about evenly split as to which they preferred based on dynamic range, tone quality and imaging. They all agreed that both pairs of speakers sounded very, very good. So, what were the speakers? Behringer B2031A I have a pair of those connected to my computer. I use them as "near-field" monitors when I'm using my computer as a DAW. They're pretty good and well made, (I'm actually a big Behringer fan and have lots of their gear. They generally represent good value and performance for money spent)), but the B2031As are similar to a lot of near-field monitors in that price-range. For instance, they have little in the way of bass below about 60 Hz. I will say that they are better than ANY "audiophile" speakers of that size at up to three times the price. But a pair of Magnepan's new 1.7s will blow em out of the water at $2000, as will M-L's little Source ES hybrid at the same price. I do agree that they are a great buy at less than $500/pair street price. I have to ask, what $12000 speaker system did you compare them to that people were "split" in their opinion? I want to be able to warn people off of a speaker THAT expensive and THAT mediocre. |
#23
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
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. |
#24
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
"Harry Lavo" wrote in message
That takes care of the studio monitors. What were the "big 'uns"? I'm not sure I want to say, all things considered. And what were the musical selections, I didn't keep records. sources, CDs and other equipment used? Good enough stuff so that it doesn't matter if you are rational about audio. And what type of rating system? Informal And was it blind or double-blind? I'm not sure whether the person operating the comparator knew. To be safe, let's say single blind. It's speakers! They sounded different! |
#25
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
"Audio Empire" wrote in message
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? Last time I went to a movie, there was music and speech. It would seem to me that reproducing a movie well precludes trashing the speech or 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. Excutive Summary: No, the respondent has never heard A4s. If one does a little research, one finds that there is very little similiarity between A7s and A4s, other than the "A". ;-) http://www.audioheritage.org/html/pr...altec/vott.htm Note that an A7 roughly resembles the A5x, 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. But it is out of place in a discussion of 1950s hardware. 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? Value. 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, I think that is exactly right. In the days of vinyl, the medium was a major stumbling block. Today, the major stumbling block is the people. 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. Looked like a perfectly general statement. In what way does a camera which keeps moving, Not necessarily the case. And not necessarily a problem. I have been known to create and/or otherwise provide graphic and video content that is used during live performances. I'm under the impression that there is a general perception among both event organizers and attendees that it enhances the listening experience. 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. This opinion seems to be at odds with the preferences of the general public. 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? When you're doing video, you do whatever you want to do that works for the audience and event organizers, no? 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. This would appear to contradict much of what you previously said. To me an opera is a movie with a ton of music that is performed live. Being performed live puts some pretty dramatic contstraints on it, but it can still be very enjoyable. |
#26
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
"Audio Empire" wrote in message
On Wed, 12 May 2010 06:28:35 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote (in article ): "Jenn" wrote in message ... In article , "Arny Krueger" wrote: I recently participated in blind listening tests comparing a $12,000 speaker system from a well-known designer with excellent technical chops to a European-designed, China-built studio monitor system that sells for under $400 the pair. They did sound a little different from each other. The listening panel was about evenly split as to which they preferred based on dynamic range, tone quality and imaging. They all agreed that both pairs of speakers sounded very, very good. So, what were the speakers? Behringer B2031A I have a pair of those connected to my computer. I use them as "near-field" monitors when I'm using my computer as a DAW. They're pretty good and well made, (I'm actually a big Behringer fan and have lots of their gear. They generally represent good value and performance for money spent)), You may be under-appreciating what you have before you. but the B2031As are similar to a lot of near-field monitors in that price-range. For instance, they have little in the way of bass below about 60 Hz. We were listening to classical orchestral and choir music, not rap. The B2031s do have audible response below 60 Hz and it was good enough. I will say that they are better than ANY "audiophile" speakers of that size at up to three times the price. But a pair of Magnepan's new 1.7s will blow em out of the water at $2000, as will M-L's little Source ES hybrid at the same price. I do agree that they are a great buy at less than $500/pair street price. Phrases like "blow them out of the water" does not exactly sound like the results of a careful evaluation to me. :-( Also, I see no efforts to control some biases that based on previous and this post, seem to be very pronounced. Interestingly enough the larger speakers were also bipolar transducers, but they used multi-way direct radiating drivers with a more typical design. |
#27
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
On Thu, 13 May 2010 06:16:45 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ): "Harry Lavo" wrote in message That takes care of the studio monitors. What were the "big 'uns"? I'm not sure I want to say, all things considered. And what were the musical selections, I didn't keep records. sources, CDs and other equipment used? Good enough stuff so that it doesn't matter if you are rational about audio. And what type of rating system? Informal And was it blind or double-blind? I'm not sure whether the person operating the comparator knew. To be safe, let's say single blind. It's speakers! They sounded different! So, when people try to hold you to the same rules of evidence wrt to opinions about sound, to which you hold everybody else, we find that you don't even hold yourself to those same rules of evidence to which you hold everybody else! I see. Not a very convincing argument, Arny 8^) |
#28
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
On Thu, 13 May 2010 06:19:37 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ): "Audio Empire" wrote in message 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? Last time I went to a movie, there was music and speech. It would seem to me that reproducing a movie well precludes trashing the speech or music. You know as well as I do, that's not right. Visual takes precedence over audible in human senses. Just because a motion picture sound system reproduces the speech clearly and has lots of bass for the explosions, doesn't mean that anyone would want to critically listen to music over such a system. 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. Excutive Summary: No, the respondent has never heard A4s. I suspect that I've been to movie houses that had them, Arny. We have some large first-run houses here in the San-Francisco Bay Area. If one does a little research, one finds that there is very little similiarity between A7s and A4s, other than the "A". ;-) I did some research of A4s before I responded. The treble horn looks exactly like the one on my old A7s (since that was what we were talking about) That's why I mentioned them. I suspect that they sound similar as well even though the treble horn driver (A-288) is a newer design. A large part of the character of horn drivers is the horn itself. The A7s horn was made out of cast aluminum, I have to admit that I don't know what the A4's horn is made out of. http://www.audioheritage.org/html/pr...altec/vott.htm Note that an A7 roughly resembles the A5x, Yes, The A7 is is a late 1940's design. 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. But it is out of place in a discussion of 1950s hardware. I'm sorry, I was of the opinion that we were talking about equipment of the 50's and 60's - post war but pre-transistor. 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? Value. To the exclusion of all else perhaps? And you have admitted to disliking vinyl intently. 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, I think that is exactly right. In the days of vinyl, the medium was a major stumbling block. Today, the major stumbling block is the people. There's that pesky anti-vinyl bias rearing its ugly head again! I wouldn't say that it was a "stumbling block". Vinyl, done right, was and still can be excellent, but I would say that it was a limitation (as were the analog tape recorders of the era). 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. Looked like a perfectly general statement. In what way does a camera which keeps moving, Not necessarily the case. And not necessarily a problem. I have been known to create and/or otherwise provide graphic and video content that is used during live performances. I'm under the impression that there is a general perception among both event organizers and attendees that it enhances the listening experience. Visual takes precedence over audible in human sensual perception. "Seeing" relegates "hearing" to second-class status, generally speaking. And while I laud your restraint in keeping the camera still on a video production of an audio event ( I guess that's what you are saying, above), most video producers of audio events aren't so circumspect. 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. This opinion seems to be at odds with the preferences of the general public. Now, I'm expected to answer for the general public? A public who's interest in music is very superficial, at best? Let's face it most people don't care about sound quality. If they did, more audio equipment would be sold. Most are satisfied with boom boxes and iPods. I'm not belittling anyone for that, different strokes and all that, I'm merely saying that public taste is public taste and it's usually not the best arbiter what's actually good or right. In fact, the "vox populi" is notorious for it's terrible taste in just about everything. 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? When you're doing video, you do whatever you want to do that works for the audience and event organizers, no? I don't produce video at all and I disagree violently with how most music events are presented on video. Remember, I don't listen to pop or rock - EVER. I don't care about it. I mention this only to make sure that you understand that my comments apply only to video concerts of classical (and occasionally jazz) such as one sees occasionally on PBS. What they do in rock and pop videos, I have no idea about because I don't watch or listen to those kinds of music programs. 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. This would appear to contradict much of what you previously said. Not at all. Opera is a visual medium. Concerts are most an audio medium. I "listen" to music, I "watch" operas. To me an opera is a movie with a ton of music that is performed live. Actually, It's a stage play with a ton of music. Being performed live puts some pretty dramatic contstraints on it, but it can still be very enjoyable. You've obviously never seen an elaborate stage production of one of Wagner's "Ring Cycle" operas or you would not be saying that live performances are restraining, dramatically. I recommend that everyone catch at least one major production like this in their lifetime, even if, like me, you find the overall concept fairly unapproachable. (Yes, I'm saying that I don't particularly appreciate opera - although I love Wagner's music.). |
#29
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
On Thu, 13 May 2010 09:13:54 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ): "Audio Empire" wrote in message On Wed, 12 May 2010 06:28:35 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote (in article ): "Jenn" wrote in message ... In article , "Arny Krueger" wrote: I recently participated in blind listening tests comparing a $12,000 speaker system from a well-known designer with excellent technical chops to a European-designed, China-built studio monitor system that sells for under $400 the pair. They did sound a little different from each other. The listening panel was about evenly split as to which they preferred based on dynamic range, tone quality and imaging. They all agreed that both pairs of speakers sounded very, very good. So, what were the speakers? Behringer B2031A I have a pair of those connected to my computer. I use them as "near-field" monitors when I'm using my computer as a DAW. They're pretty good and well made, (I'm actually a big Behringer fan and have lots of their gear. They generally represent good value and performance for money spent)), You may be under-appreciating what you have before you. but the B2031As are similar to a lot of near-field monitors in that price-range. For instance, they have little in the way of bass below about 60 Hz. We were listening to classical orchestral and choir music, not rap. The B2031s do have audible response below 60 Hz and it was good enough. I will say that they are better than ANY "audiophile" speakers of that size at up to three times the price. But a pair of Magnepan's new 1.7s will blow em out of the water at $2000, as will M-L's little Source ES hybrid at the same price. I do agree that they are a great buy at less than $500/pair street price. Phrases like "blow them out of the water" does not exactly sound like the results of a careful evaluation to me. :-( Much like the details of your "careful" evaluation above, the one where you won't say what the $12000 speakers were, don't know whether the test was double or single blind, Don't know what music was used, etc., etc., etc. Pot, Kettle, black. BTW, when I use a phrase like "blow them out of the water", I'm referring to the speaker's ability to convey some of the feeling and characteristics of real. live music, playing in a real space. Specifically, the Behringers, while excellent for their purpose, do not provide as satisfying a listener experience as do the other above named speakers. How do you DBT listener satisfaction, Arny? Hmmmm? Also, I see no efforts to control some biases that based on previous and this post, seem to be very pronounced. Pot, kettle, etc. Interestingly enough the larger speakers were also bipolar transducers, but they used multi-way direct radiating drivers with a more typical design. What were they? |
#30
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
On 5/13/2010 9:51 AM, Audio Empire wrote:
You know as well as I do, that's not right. Visual takes precedence over audible in human senses. This is a gross generalization and therefore pretty meaningless. Depends on what one happens to be focusing on along with a persons native abilities. For example, my auditory memory is better than my visual memory, the latter of which is very common among musicians. |
#31
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
On Wed, 12 May 2010 06:28:21 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ): "Audio Empire" wrote in message ... On Tue, 11 May 2010 07:17:06 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote (in article ): "Audio Empire" wrote in message ... Good ones aren't. Good speakers, especially, are quite expensive. For instance, there is little decent in the way of speakers below about the $1K level (actually I only know of one really decent speaker below $1K and that's the Magnepan MMG at $599. I certainly hear artifacts in lossy compression, but I wouldn't exactly characterize them as a crackling noise, I would say that it's more like a buzzing bee-like distortion that rides the waveform. It's only audible during low level passages and during transitions between loud and soft passages (and vice versa) and then only on headphones and very loud speaker listening. As background music and in the car, lossy compression artifacts are lost in the ambient noise. I find it ironic that the entirety of the previous comments could be put into a vastly different perspective if unbiased listening techniques were used by the writer. I don't need a DBT to tell me what I hear. Nobody does. A DBT can't possibly tell you what you hear. The alternative to bias-controlled listening is to *hear* with your prejudices fully engaged. If you want to listen to the true quality of sound, then you must take advantage of bias controlled tests. When I'm trying to decide whether a difference makes any difference at all, I agree. But speakers are a matter of taste (because none are perfect and people pick and choose the characteristics of music that are important to them and tend to focus on those). and therefore DBTs are pretty worthless for comparing one speaker to another. If you want to reinforce your prejudices, then avoid bias controlled tests. I agree that bias controlled tests are the gold standard for finding out if there are significant differences between components, but they can't tell me which speakers are the most accurate (since all speakers are terribly flawed, what would one use as the control?), nor can they tell me, ultimately, which of all the speakers in a given price range that I like. |
#32
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
On May 12, 10:25=A0am, Audio Empire wrote:
On Tue, 11 May 2010 20:22:56 -0700, Dick Pierce wrote (in article ): well, given that I am actually in that business, the materials you list are NOT expensive at all, not in the quantities found in loudspeakers. And, frankly, materials like carbon fiber and "dense space-age resins" are simply not exotic in the rest of the world. They might well be in high-end audio circles, but that's because the high-end audio biz is late to the party. I was specing off-the-shelf OEM carbon fiber drivers 20 years ago, and B&W was doing kevlar drivers 35 years ago. Also, development costs get amortized over far fewer units of any one model in small company as well. Again, being in the business, the amortized development costs are a small part of the total cost of pretty much ANY speaker, be they from large or small companies. And, by the way, those are sunken costs, =A0not amortized costs. You spent them up front and you don't get to pay them over time. Now, maybe you get to use your current cash flow to fund the next experiment, but you don't get to travel back in time. Plus the fact that most of these high end speaker companies,despite what you might read, do NOT have very large engineering budgets. Like I said, the MAJOR cost elements of speakers are magnet structure, cabinet, overhead and profit. When I said "everything else seldom adds up to be equal to any one of these components," that included what you're talking about here. And it's still my contention having been intimately involved in the business for a long time, that there is no intrinsic physical basis behind your assertion that "there is little decent in the way of speakers below about the $1K level." If there is truth to your claim, it's due to grotesque incompetence, cultural biases, add the fact that the market is so small that no competent practitioner could afford to be in this business, leaving the hucksters, cranks, charlatans and loonies to run loose in the high-end business, always encouraged by the rabid blitherings of their high-end magazine groupies If Fremer believes "stereo has become an object of scorn," he has but himself and his ilk to blame. And while we're at it, we can line up people Lumely, Pearson, Cardas, Tice, mPingo, and the rest of the blithering hordes against the proverbial wall. MP3 ain't to blame for the decline of stereo, the high-end yahoos are. So what you're saying is that high-end speaker manufacturers such as Magnepan, Martin-Logan, Wilson Audio, Vandersteen, et al are ripping their customers off big time? No, what I am saying is what OI said above. If you want to misinterpret and misconstrue what I said into something different, you get to do it, but you also get to have full ownership of that misinterpretation and the consequences. |
#33
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
"Audio Empire" wrote in message
BTW, when I use a phrase like "blow them out of the water", I'm referring to the speaker's ability to convey some of the feeling and characteristics of real. live music, playing in a real space. Or, you are referrring to hyperbole, prejudice and expectation rather than the actual sound of the loudspeakers? Specifically, the Behringers, while excellent for their purpose, do not provide as satisfying a listener experience as do the other above named speakers. An effect that seems to go away when the identity of the speakers is concealed by a scrim. How do you DBT listener satisfaction, Arny? You let people listen to the speakers under bias-controlled conditions and ask them how satisfied they are???? |
#34
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
On Fri, 14 May 2010 06:27:40 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ): "Audio Empire" wrote in message BTW, when I use a phrase like "blow them out of the water", I'm referring to the speaker's ability to convey some of the feeling and characteristics of real. live music, playing in a real space. Or, you are referrring to hyperbole, prejudice and expectation rather than the actual sound of the loudspeakers? Specifically, the Behringers, while excellent for their purpose, do not provide as satisfying a listener experience as do the other above named speakers. An effect that seems to go away when the identity of the speakers is concealed by a scrim. How do you DBT listener satisfaction, Arny? You let people listen to the speakers under bias-controlled conditions and ask them how satisfied they are???? I dunno, I think bias-controlled tests on speakers would be pretty inconclusive. Speakers all sound so different, I don't believe that "Controlled tests" will tell one anything except perhaps which is the more or less spectacular (as opposed to accurate) of the speakers under evaluation. DBTs are good for detecting differences (and in speakers, these differences are so great, that one doesn't need a DBT to either notice or characterize them) not which is "better". Now, if one could blindly switch between real, live music and a speaker under evaluation, then PERHAPS, using the live music as a control, we could get somewhere. But without a reference, you only get to hear the differences, not the absolute quality. OTOH, I remember back in the 1960's when Acoustic Research had a showroom in Times Square in NYC. They were conducting "Live vs Recorded" demos there. Behind a sheer scrim was a pair of AR3ax speakers and a string quartet. The quartet had been recorded in the exact location that they were playing in and the tape was being played back while the musicians pretended to play (all one could see from the audience perspective was outlines of the musicians through the scrim). At some point, the speakers were silenced and the musicians played for real. The challenge was for the assembled audience to tell which was which. I went back to that store several times over a week that I was staying in New York. The thing that struck me was that most people couldn't tell the difference between the real musicians playing and the speakers. AR was clever because they didn't stop the tape, but let it run so that tape hiss would be present whether the sound was coming from the musicians or from the pre-recorded program. One couldn't use the absence or presence of tape hiss as a clue. Here's my point. By today's standards, a Crown reel-to-reel tape deck, a pair of 60 Watt McIntosh tube amplifiers and a pair of AR3ax speakers is pretty primitive stuff. If the vast majority of listeners couldn't, in 1963, tell the difference between that equipment and live music, then I'm not so sure what the value would be of a similar "live-vs-recorded" DBT today where everything in the equipment chain is so much better than it was then. Hell, even our self-powered Behringer B2131A speakers are better than a pair of AR3s and a a couple of McIntosh tubed sixty-Watters! |
#35
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
"Audio Empire" wrote in message
So, when people try to hold you to the same rules of evidence wrt to opinions about sound, to which you hold everybody else, we find that you don't even hold yourself to those same rules of evidence to which you hold everybody else! I see. Not a very convincing argument, Arny 8^) I do find it hard to communicate with people who do not understand that the scale of audible differences among speakers and speaker cables are vastly different. |
#36
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
On Fri, 14 May 2010 09:43:51 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ): "Audio Empire" wrote in message So, when people try to hold you to the same rules of evidence wrt to opinions about sound, to which you hold everybody else, we find that you don't even hold yourself to those same rules of evidence to which you hold everybody else! I see. Not a very convincing argument, Arny 8^) I do find it hard to communicate with people who do not understand that the scale of audible differences among speakers and speaker cables are vastly different. I don't follow you. There is NO audible difference between speaker cables. None, nada, zip! there is a lot of differences between between speakers. None of which has anything to do with my comment that you seem to have different standards with regard to what you will accept as a valid "bias-free" test for yourself and what you will accept as a valid "bias-free" test from others. [ Let's move away from the realm of the personal, please, on all sides of this discussion. -- dsr ] |
#37
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
... "Audio Empire" wrote in message So, when people try to hold you to the same rules of evidence wrt to opinions about sound, to which you hold everybody else, we find that you don't even hold yourself to those same rules of evidence to which you hold everybody else! I see. Not a very convincing argument, Arny 8^) I do find it hard to communicate with people who do not understand that the scale of audible differences among speakers and speaker cables are vastly different. You can still have bias when comparing speakers, Arny, which is why the questions are in order. I notice you haven't answered my follow-on questions which are highly germane to your conclusion.....who was sponsoring the test, and what types of listerners/with what listening references were doing the evaluation? |
#38
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
On Fri, 14 May 2010 15:58:06 -0700, Harry Lavo wrote
(in article ): "Arny Krueger" wrote in message ... "Audio Empire" wrote in message So, when people try to hold you to the same rules of evidence wrt to opinions about sound, to which you hold everybody else, we find that you don't even hold yourself to those same rules of evidence to which you hold everybody else! I see. Not a very convincing argument, Arny 8^) I do find it hard to communicate with people who do not understand that the scale of audible differences among speakers and speaker cables are vastly different. You can still have bias when comparing speakers, Arny, which is why the questions are in order. I notice you haven't answered my follow-on questions which are highly germane to your conclusion.....who was sponsoring the test, and what types of listerners/with what listening references were doing the evaluation? And what was the $12000 speaker? |
#39
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
"Audio Empire" wrote in message
I dunno, I think bias-controlled tests on speakers would be pretty inconclusive. This from the same source that thinks that CDP 101s must have ringing, despite their minimum-phase analog filters. What we think doesn't always matter. There is the slight matter of the relevant facts! Speakers all sound so different, Long ago many of us discovered that if you ameolorate the larger frequency response differences between speakers, then not so much. Speakers are getting better and in a good room, some of them can sound remarkably similar. I don't believe that "Controlled tests" will tell one anything except perhaps which is the more or less spectacular (as opposed to accurate) of the speakers under evaluation. Tell that to Sean Olive. They've been doing DBT speaker taste testing for at least a decade. DBTs are good for detecting differences (and in speakers, these differences are so great, that one doesn't need a DBT to either notice or characterize them) not which is "better". The " I don't need a DBT" litany has been proven wrong soooo many times.... And of course it comes from the people who aren't out there doing lots of DBTs. How can you be an expert about a testing methodology that you've rarely if ever used and are obviously not the least bit comfortable with? Now, if one could blindly switch between real, live music and a speaker under evaluation, then PERHAPS, using the live music as a control, we could get somewhere. There's another fallacy - that you need live music to be present to compare 2 speakers???? Please notice that we're comparing loudspeakers, not live versus recorded. And also notice that much of what's wrong with live versus recorded happens at the live performance end of the system. |
#40
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back
"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
... "Audio Empire" wrote in message snip There's another fallacy - that you need live music to be present to compare 2 speakers???? Please notice that we're comparing loudspeakers, not live versus recorded. And also notice that much of what's wrong with live versus recorded happens at the live performance end of the system. Cutting "live music" out of the equation is what is wrong with much of the "objectivist" philosophy extant today. IF, and only, IF you attend lots of live music concerts of your choice (in my case unamplified, but that is my choice) can you decided what set of speakers you think sound most like live, in your room, with your equipment. "Obective" comparative testing of speakers may be useful for development of speakers, but it is hardly a mechanism for deciding even which speakers are "best" or "preferred" when it comes to long term satisfaction. That comes from monadic evaluation against an imbedded sense of "rightness" about live sound. And with all due respect to Sean Olive and Harmon International, despite a decades worth of objective testing there is hardly any consensus among pro audio folk or home audiophiles that their speakers outperform any number of competing designs when it comes to which speakers people feel best for their assigned tasks or tastes. If you listen to a lot of live music, and then carefully audition equipment both in-shop and at-home before making choices, you can assemble a system that is unfailingly musical (for music of your choice) and satisfying to you with nary a blind test in the process. |
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