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Audiophilia and its discontents

MattHooper

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Really. You compare your son to a supposed audiophile who thinks his (dubious) opinions are worth spreading.

No I compared my son being thrilled listening to music on his chosen platform to the author being thrilled listening to music through his new Klipsch speakers.

The author clearly found his encounter with large horn-based speakers to be revelatory. In trying to pin down what it was that he found moving about the speakers he talked to audiophiles like Herb who put some of it in to words like “believable corporeality" which clearly resonated with the author's experience and own descriptions. Steve G. understood what the author liked and recommended Klipsch as an affordable way of getting that type of sound. And, indeed, the author expressed that the Klipsch gave him just what he'd been seeking.

Seems like a win for the author. Tons of audiophiles (myself included) have made very happy purchases via a similar route.

It's one thing to put out information on speaker design - what measurable parameters have which sonic characteristics, and why certain people have come to hold certain "best practice" ideals. Information is great in that respect. But I wouldn't condone someone's purchases, or try to disabuse them of their happiness with the sound of their purchase if they are thrilled. Just like I'd be an *asshole to constantly point out to my wife how awful her laptop speakers are, that she should recognize "that's terrible sound!" (by my lights) rather than simply enjoy music on her laptop.


When a persons thinks speakers that measure terrible and sound as bad as they measure (from Amir ". I was expecting bad sound but man, this is really, really bad sound. No detail. Muddy bass and somewhat but not extremely bright. ) are great why believe any of his fancy words.

Sure. But plenty of people love the Klipsch speakers, the author of the article included. The Klipsch gave the author more of that "live" vibe he was seeking.
I actually just listened to some Klipsch speakers at Best Buy a few days ago. Ultimately they aren't for me, I hear the "trick," but I still get why people would be attracted to that sound.
 

Cbdb2

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"Seems like a win for the author. Tons of audiophiles (myself included) have made very happy purchases via a similar route."

But I wonder how much happier he would have been buy buying good speaker instead of audiophile BS.

Also wonder if he would have picked those if he blind tested them against some good speakers.
 
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birdog1960

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Let's hypothesize a bit. Let's say I'm well familiarized with sound of accoustic instruments played in various spaces thanks to attending live acoustical events throughout my life. Now let's say we have a recording of accoustic instruments that was carefully recorded with realism in mind and then only minimally altered in mastering with huge crest factor. Now it would seem logical to me that I want my system reproduce it without any blemish if I want to retain the intended realism, I don't want any imd, thd, emphasis on any frequency etc. Now when all that is achieved and what I hear is consistent with what I'm familiar, then I'd say my system is natural and accurate or at least it can resolve what is natural and accurate.
My ultimate goal verbalized clearly and occasionally achieved.
 

MattHooper

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"Seems like a win for the author. Tons of audiophiles (myself included) have made very happy purchases via a similar route."

But I wonder how much happier he would have been buy buying good speaker instead of audiophile BS.

Well the "audiophile BS" speaker clearly made him extremely happy. He even described his feelings as "reverent" upon hearing music through his new speakers.
How much "happier" do you need him to be?

"Good" is subjective, remember.

Also wonder if he would have picked those if he blind tested them against some good speakers.

Dunno. Odds are I suppose that in blind testing he would have picked something that measure like the Revel speakers.

That doesn't mean that the sound he heard in his new Klipsch speakers wasn't an upgrade to what he'd been used to, and didn't provide him with the thrills he describes.

We all, likely, own all sorts of substandard choices by the lights of an educated enthusiast. Any TV geek can tell me "You bought the wrong TV" and any computer geek "there are better computers than the one you use, you know!" and any smart phone geek "Android is better than your apple phone" and on and on. That doesn't mean my purchases were crap, worthless or that I shouldn't be enjoying them as I do. Whether the author would have picked Revel speakers over the Klipsch under blind conditions doesn't mean the Klipsch aren't providing him with thrills, using speakers under his real-world listening conditions.
 

symphara

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"This thread started with a non-audiophile's description of how his first enjoyment of GOOD SOUND affected him.". He did not say good music.
“Good sound” is subjective. It just means “sound I like”.

It’s like “good wine”. We could probably find criteria for objectively good wine but I think opinions would vary just as widely.

I went to buy KEFs, twice. R7/R11 first time, Reference 5 the second time. Because they measure well and are praised on ASR. Waste of time. I don’t care anymore that they measure well, I’m done with KEF. They don’t offer believable sound, as in, I would never listen to a KEF speaker and think that an instrument or person is almost there in the room. Perhaps this is what they mean by "believable corporeality”.
 

MattHooper

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I'm sorry. Bringing up James Joyce in any sort of comparison, analogy, or whatever, with the ramblings of the current crop of "audiophile" writers is just totally insane.

That's just...like...your opinion, man.

(Objecting to a portion of an argument without understanding it, or actually showing how it doesn't serve the point being made, may not be insane...but it is lame)
 

Axo1989

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I'm sorry. Bringing up James Joyce in any sort of comparison, analogy, or whatever, with the ramblings of the current crop of "audiophile" writers is just totally insane.

I don't know about Joyce, But Melville cobbled together over 200,000 words and Ahab never ran an actual tape measure up against that whale. Don't give me that mystical and well nigh ineffable crap, measurements or it ain't worth reading.
 

MattHooper

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I don't know about Joyce, But Melville cobbled together over 200,000 words and Ahab never ran an actual tape measure up against that whale. Don't give me that mystical and well nigh ineffable crap, measurements or it ain't worth reading.

^^^^ Well, wuddya know! Someone who understand the use of an obvious example adduced to demonstrate a general principle!

"Son, if your pal Jimmy told you to jump off a bridge, would you do that too?"

Cheers!
 

birdog1960

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i went to a concert by a local amateur symphony with 2 children's choirs and a kids violin school in a magnificent hall this weekend. Been trying to come close to the experience all last week and so far the closest is the crappy iPhone recording I have of 30 seconds. Some of the suggested Christmas tracks in that thread come close on my system but the experience is best simulated by the clip. In that way, I agree with the writer.
tempImagedooseg.png
 
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MarkS

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I went to buy KEFs, twice. R7/R11 first time, Reference 5 the second time. Because they measure well and are praised on ASR. Waste of time. I don’t care anymore that they measure well, I’m done with KEF. They don’t offer believable sound, as in, I would never listen to a KEF speaker and think that an instrument or person is almost there in the room.
Interesting! Now I'm curious as to what speakers you have/like ...

FWIW, I have Goldenear Triton 7's, which are not ASR approved, and to me they sound very realistic ...
 

symphara

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Interesting! Now I'm curious as to what speakers you have/like ...

FWIW, I have Goldenear Triton 7's, which are not ASR approved, and to me they sound very realistic ...
A few but at home I have old Triangle Celius. They’re pretty good and can do something no KEF or Revel I heard can, which is to startle you with some voice or acoustic instrument which sounds as if it’s actually there in the room.
 

Mal

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I was watching one of Guttenberg & Reichert's chat sessions and they started talking about realism, and they said their high end systems never sounded exactly like the real thing. Steve said that if he was walking down the street and heard the sound of a piano or guitar from a window he would know instantly if it was real or a recording, whatever speakers were involved. If he was blindfold in a room he could tell from one note if it was piano or a speaker, whatever $100 000 high end system is playing. So isn't this quest for realism a chimera?
 
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symphara

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I was watching one of Guttenberg & Reichert's chat sessions and they started talking about realism, and they said their high end systems never sounded exactly like the real thing. Steve said that if he was walking down the street and heard the sound of a piano or guitar from a window he would know instantly if it was real or a recording, whatever speakers were involved. If he was blindfold in a room he could tell from one note if it was piano or a speaker, whatever $100 000 high end system is playing. So isn't this quest for realism a chimera?
It is, I think at best you can get a glimpse, or some aspect of realism.

A family friend had the B&W Nautilus and they could do this trick, of making some stuff sound hyper-realistic, like saxophone.

I was invited to someone - a McIntosh dealer - who had installed these massive wall-of-sound type speakers (lots of drivers) and a subwoofer the size of a chest of drawers. Two people could sit on it, literally. We watched a Roger Waters concert and the sense of scale was rather amazing.
 

Kal Rubinson

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A few but at home I have old Triangle Celius. They’re pretty good and can do something no KEF or Revel I heard can, which is to startle you with some voice or acoustic instrument which sounds as if it’s actually there in the room.
Both KEFs and Revels that I have heard can do this. (I have no comment or knowledge of the Triangle Celius.)
 

symphara

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Both KEFs and Revels that I have heard can do this. (I have no comment or knowledge of the Triangle Celius.)
I went to audition the Reference 5 literally two weeks ago and not only they were unable to produce this (for me) in an hour of changing tracks, but I didn’t think they’re capable of it*. Perhaps the Meta, but at this stage I’m fully and utterly done with KEF and their sound.

But then again I’ve been in other situations where I’m presented speakers others think are great and I just hear two boxes making noise.

(*) Another example of ”it”: I have this old Jean-Michele Jarre disc called “Aero”, in DTS. There‘s a track that starts with a bird that flies around the room, and it stays in the corners for a while. On my speakers it just sounds like the bird is physically in the speaker, struggling to get out. It’s quite startling.
 

DonR

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A lot of the writing and vigorous, boarding on vehement, defence of audiophilia seems to have many cult-like and quasi-religious overtones. I suspect this is part of human nature we will have a hard time correcting it if we ever can.
 

kemmler3D

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I've said it before and I'll probably keep saying it, I think trompe l'oreille (fools the ear) experiences from loudspeakers are mostly a white whale, something that is mostly impossible from the beginning.

The sound of an instrument in a space doesn't just come from its dynamic / harmonic content. It's also from its unique radiation pattern within the room. Loudspeaker radiation patterns are shaped differently than those of instruments. So even with infinitely perfect frequency and phase response, and whatever polar plot you may prefer, a loudspeaker generally won't sound quite like the instrument you are playing on it.

If you've ever taken a recording class, they show you where to put the mic(s) in order to capture a good sound from different instruments. Let me tell you that the radiation patterns of an acoustic guitar or cello are just not replicable with a speaker, unless you purpose-built it to have an F'd up radiation pattern like a guitar. At which point you have a guitar simulator in your room, not a normal stereo.


Like, sound comes out of the front in a couple places, plus the back and (to some extent) sides of a guitar. Capture all of those with several mics, fine. In order to (in theory reliably) make it sound really-real in a room, you need a speaker with transducers that fire more or less in the same directions as the guitar does. And you need to feed each transducer with the corresponding mic's signal.

I am not aware of this having been done EVER, even as an experiment, let alone via commercial stereo recording!

What we hear in recordings is what was picked up by microphones, which categorically sounds different than what you hear in a live space. If your speakers happen to make a mic sound like a live instrument, it's probably a synergistic coincidence, "broken clock is right twice a day, but in a good way" sort of thing.

The chances are maybe better if you record close, in a very dead space, mix it very dry, and play it back in a nice, live room. But this is generally considered to sound bad in terms of mixing. Not many recordings like this out there, guitar with no reverb at all.

When the natural radiation pattern is similar to that of a speaker, I think illusions are pretty achievable. So basically... close-mic'd voice and certain brass and woodwind instruments are plausible candidates. (if you play them only on one speaker at a time.) Electric guitar, totally doable since it comes through a speaker anyway. Piano, organ, orchestra, choir, full bands, drums in general... very iffy.

This is my ideological problem with trying to make recorded music sound "really real". It's a spurious illusion that probably involves some departure from true fidelity. It involves making some recordings better than they are, and by the same token, some worse. A truly accurate speaker will make recordings sound like themselves.

So I understand this is a compromise some people are willing to chase, but to me it feels like a gamble on a game I don't totally understand.
 
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