Describe your decisive experience that completely changed your view of audiophilia with a comment.

[Talisman]

When at the first audio show overheree, 10 years after the fall of iron curtain I bring house music mixed CD and played it at an $30k speakers. I wasn't unable to recognise the tracks, 1/3 of the content was missing. Back at home where my Jamo D365 ($600 -1993 retail price ) moped the floor with those ridiculously expensive bricks.

Sincere question, what do you attribute the fact that perhaps non -qualitatively excellent speakers, but still presumably quite decent may they not reproduce important parts of a song? It seems very strange, almost incredible.

 

[HalSF]

Two formative experiences:

1) Growing up in the Bay Area and going to Grateful Dead shows in the 1970’s, and hearing brilliant loud, clear, balanced sound. And later hearing Dead recordings in various dorm rooms and bedrooms that also sounded great. Inspiring a desire to someday own gears that could reproduce that music with equal clarity and presence.

2) Hearing Edgar Choueiri’s 3D audio demo at his Princeton lab and being blown away by a sound that transcended ordinary stereo. Prof Choueiri also had some choice off-the-record comments about the follies of audiophilia, all of which pointed me in a more objective direction. I wrote up the visit for the Atlantic.

What Perfection Sounds Like

Get ready for 3-D sound. A Princeton rocket scientist wants to bring it to your living room.

www.theatlantic.com

 

[terryforsythe]

Too many to count, my view has continued to change for the last 40 years, and still does. Here are some highlights:

1. The realization that moderately priced electronics can sound transparent which, luckily, I experienced early on in my journey.

2. The realization that baffle width and diffraction have an audible impact on sound, especially imaging characteristics.

3. The realization that cheap laminated steel core inductors are not good for audio. I learned that through a blunder that left me with egg on my face. I had a good crossover design, it measured well, but the client immediately detected a problem the sound. Debugging the issue it turned out it was the damn inductor core - core losses to be specifc. I replaced ith with an air core inductor and it sounded great. The client, though, had lost a little bit of faith and ended up not using my design in production and kept his original design.

4. Experiencing the power of DSP.

 

[stony2275]

Describe your decisive experience that completely changed your view of audiophilia with a comment.

Planars - first Apogee and then Magnepan. They revealed to me the soundstage box speakers could not,
Ripping my CDs to FLAC and putting them on a server - spending more time listening instead of fussing with CDs.

 

[JohnnyAudio]

When at the first audio show overheree, 10 years after the fall of iron curtain I bring house music mixed CD and played it at an $30k speakers. I wasn't unable to recognise the tracks, 1/3 of the content was missing. Back at home where my Jamo D365 ($600 -1993 retail price ) moped the floor with those ridiculously expensive bricks.

House would sound good on the Jamo D365's

 

[antcollinet]

Sincere question, what do you attribute the fact that perhaps non -qualitatively excellent speakers, but still presumably quite decent may they not reproduce important parts of a song? It seems very strange, almost incredible.

Most likely poor room interaction, and/or massive environmental noise. It was at a show.

 

[Mikig]

the first configuration done with criteria.

I had just received a new amplifier as a gift, but the dealer, who would later become a great friend over the years, had sold us the speaker stands and had explained how to configure the system and how to position the speakers with criteria.
I had put it in a study, so no longer in the bedroom. It was the most beautiful sound I have ever heard, but above all it opened up a world to me.
The system, amplifier aside, was substantially the same, but like any good teenager it was in my room with the speakers placed randomly, where there was space, and totally without any logic.
It was enough to change rooms, form a triangle, speakers at listening point, and put everything in an orderly manner on a rack and the result had truly amazed me. We are talking about the early 90s.

 

[111db]

In 2009 1999, while helping a pro venue sound tech set up a system for an outdoor concert at Mishawaka Amphitheater in the beautiful Cache la Poudre canyon west of Fort Collins, Colorado, I heard a Gov't Mule CD track played over their flown FOH mains, and the sound of a nylon tipped drumstick striking the bell of a cymbal triggered me to note the brand (Klipsch) and decide then and there that I wanted some horns in my life. Some months later I bought some Forte 1s and thought I'd never own better. I now own much better thanks to pro quality 3-way horns and sub, room measurements, and DSP multiamping.

 

[Randyman...]

Hearing the spoken word played back in an actual recording studio monitoring chain when I was a teen in 1993. Never heard a playback system make the human voice sound "real" in that way before then. I specifically remember the phantom center image took my breath away - like the person was floating right in front of me.

Then spent the next few years there in the Audio Program And then hearing my own voice played back for a "spoken word" recording assignment we were given was eerie...

Not audiophilia by any means: But second (probably 1988-1989 - well before the above experience) was hearing Metallica "And Justice For All" in a crazy car stereo with 4x 15"s in a Toyota X-Tra cab pickup. My low-frequency addiction hit me hard, and has been with me ever since then. Luckily, subs have gotten MUCH more efficient since then so we can get similar sensations from more practical subwoofer stages these days. The single 12" JBL W12GTi that's currently in my ride probably has more SPL than those 4x 15's from the 80's

 

[Talisman]

Most likely poor room interactio, and/or massive environmental noise. It was at a show.

In this case, however, it would not make sense to associate a bad performance with a bad speaker but rather with a bad environmental integration.
I doubt that bad €30,000 speakers can omit 1/3 of the musical content compared to excellent €360 speakers.
If the conclusion had been that from that experience he had understood how important the environment was in the reproduction I would have accepted the episode calmly, but the conclusion was that his €360 speakers outclassed €30,000 speakers.
Even the worst €60 speakers a pair reproduce at least 7 octaves from 80hz to 10,000hz which with the. House music should guarantee that at least 90% of the content is there

 

[sergeauckland]

Hearing the spoken word played back in an actual recording studio monitoring chain when I was a teen in 1993. Never heard a playback system make the human voice sound "real" in that way before then. I specifically remember the phantom center image took my breath away - like the person was floating right in front of me.

Then spent the next few years there in the Audio Program And then hearing my own voice played back for a "spoken word" recording assignment we were given was eerie...

Not audiophilia by any means: But second (probably 1988-1989 - well before the above experience) was hearing Metallica "And Justice For All" in a crazy car stereo with 4x 15"s in a Toyota X-Tra cab pickup. My low-frequency addiction hit me hard, and has been with me ever since then. Luckily, subs have gotten MUCH more efficient since then so we can get similar sensations from more practical subwoofer stages these days. The single 12" JBL W12GTi that's currently in my ride probably has more SPL than those 4x 15's from the 80's

I have always thought the greatest test for a loudspeaker is male speech. For it to sound like a real person, it needs to have extremely low coloration, albeit the recording microphone and location is equally important, as many mics are coloured in a way that enhances voice, but then it's not real.

S

 

[dedobot]

Sincere question, what do you attribute the fact that perhaps non -qualitatively excellent speakers, but still presumably quite decent may they not reproduce important parts of a song? It seems very strange, almost incredible.

If I remember correctly there wasn't any detail in the mid-low bass , despite LF had presence .

 

[Chris A]

Describe your decisive experience that completely changed your view of audiophilia with a comment...

My experiences with "audiophilia" can basically be broken into two time periods:

1. before 1978 (graduating undergraduate engineering school), and
2. after 2007 "empty nesting" to begin in earnest educating myself as I had always wanted to deeply learn about hi-fi audio (acoustics, psychoacoustics, engineering of loudspeakers and signal chain, etc.).

The first period was distinguished by close association with someone that was knowledgeable (university EE professor and practicing engineer...my father). I knew then about industry regulations enacted to stop corporate lying about hi-fi amplifier power output capabilities, and the very limited knowledge of the general public when it came to what hi-fi actually was and sounded like. [Note that my first university major was music (scholarship), but I had to change universities to go to engineering school.]

My best buddy in engineering school was an EE major that liked to build his own DIY loudspeakers (as I had done over the past 10 years or so with my father) and electronic gadgets for his hi-fi.

He also read a few of the "audiophile" magazines of that time (plus music magazines like Rolling Stone, etc.). I was aware even then at how readily people would accept subjective-only assessments of electronics and loudspeaker capabilities--without measurement to back up their "conclusions". This kind of thing was of course anathema to anyone with an engineering background. I was amazed at the BS that even my EE buddy would echo in his passing comments, and how insidious that "information" (actually...disinformation) was.

Back then, I would simply ask questions about how what he read was calibrated to reality, since I was curious where he got that information. That usually cut short those discussions when he always admitted there was no "engineering" in any of it--only opinions from some uncalibrated random source.

I never read those publications after that, because I found that they were completely filled with BS (...and remember it's the mid-1970s). After that, I went to hi-fi stores to listen to my potential purchases first hand after I had earlier taken my buddy's advice on buying AR90s--the single worst hi-fi loudspeakers I ever bought, over his recommendation not to buy a Khorn-Belle-Khorn (fully horn-loaded three-channel stereo) setup. That was a watershed moment. I never forgave myself that mistake. I eventually sold the AR90s to my buddy (after he graduated and could afford them in his new job).

Post 2007, I had raised my offspring (who were now each at university), and wanted a post-career-career in my chosen hobby at that time: real hi-fi (i.e., NOT "high dollar" hi-fi). Since then, I've even seen JAES articles contaminated by "audiophilia" (fortunately, very few), but the rest of the audio forums completely saturated by resident experts (i.e., "audiophiles" that actually know nothing about what they think they know). My setup doesn't look at all like a typical "audiophile" setup. And that's perfectly okay with me: my ears know the difference.

That's about as short of a story on my experiences with "audiophilia" that I can muster. I've learned a great deal about how people make discretionary buying decisions since then. I've never ceased to be amazed how far removed those decisions are from the stated goals (i.e., "hi-fi sound").

Chris

 

[dalbert02]

I'll mention something that may be heresy on these pages but let me explain my experience with speaker wire. I have always been interested in audio from as young as I can remember. I was cutting lawns around age 12 to save money so I could experiment with the different drivers sold at Radio Shack, the only store I knew that sold individual drivers and was close enough to arrive by bicycle. In high school, I was building speaker boxes for the kids who wanted loud deep bass in their cars. Sometimes I'd be asked to install a complete system from a head unit to door speakers. One guy gave me a giant roll of copper "lamp cord" speaker wire along with new door speakers I installed the speakers first, and they sounded okay. But then I installed the thick copper speaker wire and they sounded great. The 20 or 22-gauge factory wire was white with corrosion and had plastic press-on connectors and installing fresh copper wire with soldered connections made a world of difference. The path to audio nirvana must be good speaker wire! When the bass hit, the speakers no longer cut out from the loose connections or corrosion or both. I was ecstatic about the improvement this magical cable produced. And this led me down a very embarrassing path. If thicker copper wire sounded better than thin car factory speaker wire, then obviously thicker and more expensive home audio cables had to be better. I found myself buying boutique cables that were almost the same price as the audio components they were connecting. This continued into my 30's. In hindsight, I wanted to believe they sounded better, but I can't tell you they did. I had only that one instance from when I was a child where cable made a noticeable difference when it was connected securely. Today, Belden brand "bulk" speaker wire is as expensive as I prefer to go. But more important than the brand of wire is simply to make sure your connections are solid and not loose or corroded.

 

[Chris A]

...I was aware even then at how readily people would accept subjective-only assessments of electronics and loudspeaker capabilities--without measurement to back up their "conclusions". This kind of thing was of course anathema to anyone with an engineering background. I was amazed at the BS that even my EE buddy would echo in his passing comments, and how insidious that "information" (actually...disinformation) was...

Just in case you didn't catch this the first time...

Chris

 

[Audionaut]

Very nice experiences
Grundig Monolith at a HiFi trade fair in Düsseldorf, which showed me the incredible effect of line arrays for the first time.

Pink Floyd Dark side of the Moon as a laser show at Madame Tussaud's in London and with surround sound. I wished I could have it at home.

My first encounter with precisely tuned, large horn loudspeakers was an ear-opening experience.

The unspectacular but harmonious reproduction of the Manger transducer.

Yello and Beethoven on CD for the first time without any crackling and rumbling.

 

[Balle Clorin]

The day I replaced my Grado Gold cartridge with something else vinyl started to sound good. The wholly distant sound went away, I just regret I spent so much money and time on a dull sounding cartridge I did not like, Just because the shop and magazines said it was good. I knew from then that the Hifi magazines cannot be trusted and subjective reviews are not reliable sources for buying decisions

 

[XpanD]

I'd always been a bit skeptical, but I think the tipping point for me was when my 22kg class AB/A monster of an amplifier finally died. Sent it in for repairs, bought a cheap B-stock pro amp just so I could still have sound, and ended up barely hearing any difference. Subjectively it did sound a bit harsher at higher volumes, but I might've just been running it a bit too hard there... and it was also a tenth of the price of the big amp!

I eventually replaced the big amp with a Yamaha P3500S, which sounded identical but was way more usable, and cheaper to boot. Shame that the common internet "wisdom" of pro gear sounding "boring and emotionless" turned me off on that stuff before, but thankfully the amp died before I got too deep down the rabbit hole.

Oh yeah, and that cheap temporary amplifier? It's still kicking 10 years later! I disconnected its fan right after I first got it, and have been abusing it in all sorts of side setups for all those years... and it still runs great. Funny how that works. (it's a JB Systems 200.2 if anyone's curious)

 

[Arindal]

Have to say in advance that since I got at a very young age in contact with recording and pro audio, I was very skeptical on anything high end, audiophilia or esoteric-related. My socialization took place among people for whom the term ´hi-fi´ was an insult, never understood audiophile's adoration of expensive cables, CD-demagnetizers and flawed loudspeakers in even more flawed rooms.

Nevertheless there were some decisive moments opening my eyes suddenly about the contrary position that everything is measurable and determinable. For years, I had been fine with loudspeakers and a room just meeting the studio standards at the time, thinking ´if it meets the necessary technical requirements, it is as good as it gets´. This changed dramatically during some collaborations with pro audio legends who taught me that at least some audiophile assumptions on loudspeakers are actually true, and there is more to sound quality than measurements show.

I think, Time Vine-Lott of AIR studios was the one to intentionally replacing studio monitors by ultra-expensive high end speakers for mastering, and these (TAD Reference One) taught me that there actually is such thing like transparency, smoothness, detail resolution, silkiness in sound, apart from standards like low distortion. Heard a few more eye-opening demos at the time, some concerning imaging of stereo speakers (MEG got very popular in control rooms particularly of EBU member broadcast studios) and sensational bass reproduction (KS Digital´s first active speaker with sensor-controlled diaphragm really hooked me).

So ever since, I consider myself one showing understanding for both audiophile goals as well as objective positions on audio reproduction.

 

[Audionaut]

ever since, I consider myself one showing understanding for both audiophile goals as well as objective positions on audio reproduction.

Yes, it is a connection and not a contradiction, as is often postulated here on ASR.
Every reasonable audiophile is someone who recognizes and promotes the importance of measurements, research and room acoustics.