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End Game Speakers

symphara

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@srrxr71 You'd probably like a 992 Carrera T!

@rcarlbe I'm also curious if you got to the end of this
 

zajogungster

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Sal, that is great to hear. I'm with ya there. He's into the Legacys and if that is what turns him on, we'll heck. I'll talk over the other options with him. At the end of the day I want thd old guy to smile when he turns up the volume.
hello, this year, like every year, I attended a few exhibitions, after a long time I was at Munich's high-end. As always, the horns came closest to reality... for example Avantgarde Acoustic! 104 dB is "finito" even for an elderly man
 

srrxr71

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hello, this year, like every year, I attended a few exhibitions, after a long time I was at Munich's high-end. As always, the horns came closest to reality... for example Avantgarde Acoustic! 104 dB is "finito" even for an elderly man
Did you see the 25% price increases after December 31? Insane.
 

Puddingbuks

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Axo1989

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Did you see the 25% price increases after December 31? Insane.

On that note, the importer/distributor for my speaker brand (Audio Physic) and some others in Oceania upped the price 50% during the pandemic. I mean I have mine, so maybe it helps resale value, but it probably kills sales over here: the dealer I acquired them from has removed listings for that brand, in protest/despair.
 

Spkrdctr

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hi sorry for jumping in but i have to
this a very strong and interesting statement
i wonder if there is a wide agreement on this
after all is the holy goal of a playback system
realism
A good well balanced horn three way can sound amazing. Beyond amazing. The key problem is that is must be well balanced. Very few companies do the "well balanced" part. For horns, that seems to be "the magic". Or if you prefer, the "secret sauce". When done right it can send shivers into your nether regions. :)
 
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GXAlan

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i wonder if there is a wide agreement on this
after all is the holy goal of a playback system
realism

Not everyone agrees that the goal of a playback system is realism —> some look for reproducing everything on the recording.

In real life, I have never heard the “rosin on the bow” or the “moistening of a singer’s lips before the next ballad” or the “breath of the pianist.” These are on recordings and can be reproduced on audiophile speakers.

My bias is that, within a normal budget, there gets a point where you can invest more R&D money into detail/resolution or more R&D money into dynamics/efficiency/lack of compression. The detail/resolution is easier to appreciate but less realistic.
 

Sal1950

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hi sorry for jumping in but i have to
this a very strong and interesting statement
i wonder if there is a wide agreement on this
after all is the holy goal of a playback system
realism
I don't know about "wide agreement".
But it works for me. ;)
 

steve59

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For me "end game" is an obvious excuse to spend outside ones comfort zone to get the latest thing. I've owned lots of quality gear and a local salesman/buddy often scolds me saying I should quit flipping gear and just 'get it right once and for all'. For me the fun is in listening to different gear and how new speaker/amp combo's offer new presentation to old familiar recordings. I buy used so I can afford to try all the different interesting gear, and measurements have very little to do with what interests me.
 

Sal1950

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Not everyone agrees that the goal of a playback system is realism —> some look for reproducing everything on the recording.
I believe them to be one and the same.
Unless your talking about distorting the sound on the recording to add
something to your taste.

For me "end game" is an obvious excuse to spend outside ones comfort zone to get the latest thing. I've owned lots of quality gear and a local salesman/buddy often scolds me saying I should quit flipping gear and just 'get it right once and for all'. For me the fun is in listening to different gear and how new speaker/amp combo's offer new presentation to old familiar recordings. I buy used so I can afford to try all the different interesting gear, and measurements have very little to do with what interests me.
An unfortunate approach for you.
The end-game of high-fidelity should and is to reproduce the sound on the recording.
Why not just play with tone controls instead, a whole lot cheaper.
Your money. :facepalm:
 

gino1961

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Not everyone agrees that the goal of a playback system is realism —> some look for reproducing everything on the recording.
Hi thank you for the very kind and valuable reply
Clearly the recording must have captured a sort of realism and the system must be true to the recording for the good and the bad
I liked so much this video.
In particular in the end there are some interesting comments and some listeners enjoyed the reproduced sound even more than the live one!!!
In real life, I have never heard the “rosin on the bow” or the “moistening of a singer’s lips before the next ballad” or the “breath of the pianist.” These are on recordings and can be reproduced on audiophile speakers.
My bias is that, within a normal budget, there gets a point where you can invest more R&D money into detail/resolution or more R&D money into dynamics/efficiency/lack of compression. The detail/resolution is easier to appreciate but less realistic.
I see However some sound engineers have been en able to capture particularly well a music performance Imho a same recording can sound quite different especially depending on the room and the speakers
Another interesting review where the writer put in words what i mean
And what i would like to achieve one day
When I listened to my own voice, as recorded on The Ultimate Test CD (out of print), I was taken by surprise at how the Antares put me—not just my voice—in my own room, nasal twang and all, without added colorations. It was an out-of-body experience.
 
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GXAlan

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I believe them to be one and the same.
Unless your talking about distorting the sound on the recording to add
something to your taste.

Yeah, the popularity of tubes to color the sound is one goal for some. In that case, the goal is "emotion" which is subject to sighted bias and hard to put hard measurements on. Sony's DSEE is free for Windows users and it's intentionally distorting the sound with often very favorable results. Since it's free, I highly encourage everyone to try it. It's a much cheaper "mod" to buy a used Windows PC if you're a Mac/Linux user than add another piece of audiophile gear.

Altering the sound may very well be a part of why B&W and Klipsch speakers continue to sell so well. Bose had great marketing too, but Bose home speakers have ultimately lost in the market. Clearly there is a population of customers who do in fact enjoy Klipsch and B&W.

Though I love my 708P, I also have my XPL90's and this description of the XPL200 against the M2 seems apropos.
 

steve59

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I believe them to be one and the same.
Unless your talking about distorting the sound on the recording to add
something to your taste.


An unfortunate approach for you.
The end-game of high-fidelity should and is to reproduce the sound on the recording.
Why not just play with tone controls instead, a whole lot cheaper.
Your money. :facepalm:
Allow me. Buying and selling used only costs what I decide it does and reselling keeps me only out the difference, like buying and selling stock(I think). To say my interest is unfortunate doesn't compute in my puny brain. Tone controls are way to predictable to be interesting and there are beautiful sounding speakers out there that excel by balancing their values to create unique listening experiences by revealing layers otherwise hidden. Perfectly flat? nope, fun and exciting for several months that I feel lucky to experience? oh yea. Buy a perfect house and never leave and miss everything else the world has to offer? that's unfortunate. We can agree to disagree, but some things are absolute other things are just fun. If playback is absolute for you I respect that, I just want to ask you 1 question. How often do you get out of your chair/couch and just get up and dance? personally, I usually only do it when i'm alone, but sometimes I just get after it, wife joining in and I promise I'm not holding a measuring device while i'm doing it.

I know this is a serious forum, I respect that, but you guys need to remember we're talking about music too.
 

Sal1950

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I know this is a serious forum, I respect that, but you guys need to remember we're talking about music too.
I apologize for the attack.
Your world, as long as your having fun I guess.

It's just the opposite of my ideals and the thing the subjectives always accuse us of,
we being all gearheads and not caring for the music. :(
IMO and the reason/focus of this site is that the golden goal is the music and it's reproduction of the source as accurately as possible..
 

steve59

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No accusation, just a question to further our different perspectives. I put no value on choice as we all pay our own way. Enjoy (damn hippies, lol)
I do sometimes think some wanderers get swept up in the sheer energy this forum has generated and for these I want to remind of another reason we buy into hifi.
 
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BrokenEnglishGuy

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To me what really is fun is sitting to listening my music and stop to change things in the chain... to me it's really boring listening to different things and bla bla... it's everything the same with little changes that nobody cares except a few audiophiles...

I don't find any fun in wasting money, maybe some audiophioles are trying to deal with his own '' boring '' state and that's why they wanna changes, because they just get bored again and again...




A weekend of '' changes things in the chain '' sounds like a waste of time to me rather to make it a interesting weekend.. maybe im too young for see the fun over it
 

steve59

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money is only wasted or well spent by the person earning and spending it. I was to young to understand that for a long time.
 

MattHooper

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Not everyone agrees that the goal of a playback system is realism —> some look for reproducing everything on the recording.
I believe them to be one and the same.

Yes, I think in principle that would be the case.

In practice the variability of recording quality, the various distortions added by choices of micing/mixing etc, and then any possible colorations in speakers (even "neutral" speakers) tend to break that game of "telephone."

So, as it happens, changing the signal from what is on the recording can very often result in greater realism/naturalism. Even something as simple as a slight dip in EQ to tame exaggerated sibilance in a recording. Much of the job of our dialog editors and mixers in film post production is doing precisely that: Altering the characteristics of the original recording (e.g. the production track made on set) to sound more natural - EQ dips and boosts, de-essing, cutting out extraneous sounds or tones from the original track, adding tones, you name it. The original tracks are messed with in all sorts of ways. So one is distorting the original recording, but with the result being a more natural, realistic character to the sound.


Unless your talking about distorting the sound on the recording to add
something to your taste.

See above. If we are talking about trying to produce more realistic/natural sound, altering the original sound (which is thus distorting it) doesn't automatically
mean it's being altered away from realism "to someone's taste." It can in fact be altered TOWARDS greater realism.

And once we realize that, it's perfectly reasonable to ponder how other ways of distorting a track can not just "be altering to taste" but "altering towards greater natural/real sound."

Along those lines: Unless we can appeal directly to very well constructed live vs reproduced tests with different types of recording, different types of distortion etc, I don't think certain claims can be settled as to "X distortion enhances or detracts from the realism." It's more argument from inference, personal experience suggesting things, etc.

Since I have no such well constructed tests, I can't offer anything to help settle such questions. I just have my personal experience and inferences. So for instance, as I've said I'm very often comparing the sound coming from speakers to real sounds. If I hear a vocal that strikes me as sounding fairly "real" I will often take a moment to listen to a real voice (for instance my wife) and then "oh yeah, real voices have a different character than the reproduced voices."
But my little Spendor LS3/5s can sound amazingly close to capturing the essence of a human voice. They survive this comparison better than maybe any speaker I've owned. Except...when I replaced my CJ tube amps with a Bryston solid state amp at one point! Voices that seemed regularly rounded, organic and human via the CJs sounded a bit squeezed, harder, brittle, "recorded" on the Bryston. Slightly more accurate to how that recording sounds? Likely. More realistic sounding? Not to my ears. It didn't seem to survive those little "real vs reproduced" tests I'd do as well as when I drove them with the CJs.


This isn't meant to convince anyone else - but if the CJs are changing the sound they seem to distort it with those speakers in a way that doesn't seem just "to my taste" but actually "a bit more real."

Which is one reason I keep the CJs. (Though if it were easy enough, it would be interesting to do a live vs Cj/Bryston blind test. But, alas, not so easy...)
 
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