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Extreme Snake Oil

A list of the most expensive speakers.

I assure you, the vast majority of them are snakeoil.

Edit: I think this website is blocked by ASR. It's on that headphone honest website.
 
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PristineSound said:
A list of the most expensive speakers.

I assure you, the vast majority of them are snakeoil.

Edit: I think this website is blocked by ASR. It's on that headphone honest website.
Click to expand...
Wow! That list is truly insane. Even if I had money to burn I'd never go that crazy.
 
tony_ee said:
I urge you to go listen to real music.

I've been following, and lurking, on ASR a bit longer than you. I also have a background in electronic test equipment and (analog, digital and RF) equipment, and music, etc...

ASR is well known in many forums.. there have been tons of discussions over the years. Some, I've had in person, some on forums, observations.

Do not conflate measurements with a set of instruments as being able to reproduce the real thing. It is outside the scope of ASR. Just because an amplifier measures correctly, doesn't mean it can realistically reproduce a performance.

Let me ask you something else... have you ever done any recording? I did, back in my youth, from '79 to 84.
Click to expand...
You go too far. Many here have all the credentials you do, and more besides.

Before you can claim a recording sounds live it has to have been mixed and mastered with that objective. It almost never is. But many want to take a recording that was mixed and mastered for, say, clarity, and turn it into a live performance in a hall with a 5-second RTA-60 like their favorite cathedral. The philosophy of playback for most here is not to make a common recording something it wasn’t even intended to be, but rather to present it as exactly how it was intended as possible.

That may not be the best outcome for some recordings, but it demands better evidence than assertion that making it better is something, say, a pricier amplifier (or whatever) can do.

The audiophile commentariat rarely makes the claim that it sounds more like live performance, of course. That’s so 1965 (when such comparisons—conducted blind—were like the Coke-vs.-Pepsi taste tests in terms of advertising). No, the judgements typically include:

-blacker background
-makes me want to listen more
-dropped veils
-wife heard the difference from the kitchen (where audiophile wives are apparently doomed to reside)
-life-changing difference (compared to last week’s SOTA, which was also life-changing)
-finally hear the truth in the music
-PRAT

I find that just about any reasonable recording sounds like live music when played at live listening levels. I play tuba, so I’m used to sitting in the ensemble as much as in front of it. One of my use cases is playing along with recordings. Tubas are loud, and I don’t want to have to hold back, and that requires sustained output in excess of 100 dB without any obvious breakup or distortion.

But it also means the dynamics of the recording need to be similar to actual performance, and that is too rarely the case. Pre-digital recording equipment could not do it, for one thing. And too few listening environments allow the dynamic range of a good concert hall—recordings need to work in, for example, cars in addition to an optimized listening space. Usually, when the brass is loud enough in the fortissimo orchestral tutti, the solo English horn solo in the next movement will be way too loud, at least from my seat, because the dynamics have been compressed.

With rock music, mostly it’s just a matter of being loud enough without clicks (caused by clipping) overlaying the kick bass drum on 110+ dB peaks.

I have played equipment that compresses dynamics because it runs out of steam, and loses realism as a result. My current system does not do that. It comprises a CD player, a Holman preamp (but I had the same sense from several other preamps—a B&K Sonata MC-201, a Kenwood C1, an Adcom GFP-565, and others), an NC502MP stereo amp (330 wpc into my speakers), an unbalanced-balanced amp, a Yamaha commercial digital parametric equalizer, and Revel F12 towers. All of that adds up to less than $2500 on the used market. It sounds real because it can make reference loudness without distortion.

The only problem is that live sound levels for rock music are intolerable in my listening space, as would be the actual band set up and performing there. My ears distort at lower levels, for one thing. You limit peaks to 95 dB, but I think that precludes a live-sound experience with music that is performed amplified. But it sounds great from the kitchen :)

But I’ve heard a real brass quintet in my listening space any number of times, and good recordings of brass quintets, when played similarly loud, sound completely real in comparison.

Rick “real power that was clean used to be real expensive” Denney
 
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rdenney said:
You go too far. Many here have all the credentials you do, and more besides.

Before you can claim a recording sounds live it has to have been mixed and mastered with that objective. It almost never is. But many want to take a recording that was mixed and mastered for, say, clarity, and turn it into a live performance in a hall with a 5-second RTA-60 like their favorite cathedral. The philosophy of playback for most here is not to make a common recording something it wasn’t even intended to be, but rather to present it as exactly how it was intended as possible.

That may not be the best outcome for some recordings, but it demands better evidence than assertion that making it better is something, say, a pricier amplifier (or whatever) can do.

The audiophile commentariat rarely makes the claim that it sounds more like live performance, of course. That’s so 1965 (when such comparisons—conducted blind—were like the Coke-vs.-Pepsi taste tests in terms of advertising). No, the judgements typically include:

-blacker background
-makes me want to listen more
-dropped veils
-wife heard the difference from the kitchen (where audiophile wives are apparently doomed to reside)
-life-changing difference (compared to last week’s SOTA, which was also life-changing)
-finally hear the truth in the music
-PRAT

I find that just about any reasonable recording sounds like live music when played at live listening levels. I play tuba, so I’m used to sitting in the ensemble as much as in front of it. One of my use cases is playing along with recordings. Tubas are loud, and I don’t want to have to hold back, and that requires sustained output in excess of 100 dB without any obvious breakup or distortion.

But it also means the dynamics of the recording need to be similar to actual performance, and that is too rarely the case. Pre-digital recording equipment could do it, for one thing. And too few listening environments allow the dynamic range of a good concert hall—recordings need to work in, for example, cars in addition to an optimized listening space. Usually, when the brass is loud enough in the fortissimo orchestral tutti, the solo English horn solo in the next movement will be way too loud, at least from my seat, because the dynamics have been compressed.

With rock music, mostly it’s just a matter of being loud enough without clicks (caused by clipping) overlaying the kick bass drum on 110+ dB peaks.

I have played equipment that compresses dynamics because it runs out of steam, and loses realism as a result. My current system does not do that. It comprises a CD player, a Holman preamp (but I had the same sense from several other preamps—a B&K Sonata MC-201, a Kenwood C1, an Adcom GFP-565, and others), an NC502MP stereo amp (330 wpc into my speakers), an unbalanced-balanced amp, a Yamaha commercial digital parametric equalizer, and Revel F12 towers. All of that adds up to less than $2500 on the used market. It sounds real because it can make reference loudness without distortion.

The only problem is that live sound levels for rock music are intolerable in my listening space, as would be the actual band set up and performing there. My ears distort at lower levels, for one thing. You limit peaks to 95 dB, but I think that precludes a live-sound experience with music that is performed amplified. But it sounds great from the kitchen :)

But I’ve heard a real brass quintet in my listening space any number of times, and good recordings of brass quintets, when played similarly loud, sound completely real in comparison.

Rick “real power that was clean used to be real expensive” Denney
Click to expand...
Veils aren't dropped; they're lifted.
 
Latest
1776168158550.png
 
Only 50 bucks premium for cryo ... a bargain :cool:
 
rdenney said:
You go too far. Many here have all the credentials you do, and more besides.

Before you can claim a recording sounds live it has to have been mixed and mastered with that objective. It almost never is. But many want to take a recording that was mixed and mastered for, say, clarity, and turn it into a live performance in a hall with a 5-second RTA-60 like their favorite cathedral. The philosophy of playback for most here is not to make a common recording something it wasn’t even intended to be, but rather to present it as exactly how it was intended as possible.

That may not be the best outcome for some recordings, but it demands better evidence than assertion that making it better is something, say, a pricier amplifier (or whatever) can do.

The audiophile commentariat rarely makes the claim that it sounds more like live performance, of course. That’s so 1965 (when such comparisons—conducted blind—were like the Coke-vs.-Pepsi taste tests in terms of advertising). No, the judgements typically include:

-blacker background
-makes me want to listen more
-dropped veils
-wife heard the difference from the kitchen (where audiophile wives are apparently doomed to reside)
-life-changing difference (compared to last week’s SOTA, which was also life-changing)
-finally hear the truth in the music
-PRAT

I find that just about any reasonable recording sounds like live music when played at live listening levels. I play tuba, so I’m used to sitting in the ensemble as much as in front of it. One of my use cases is playing along with recordings. Tubas are loud, and I don’t want to have to hold back, and that requires sustained output in excess of 100 dB without any obvious breakup or distortion.

But it also means the dynamics of the recording need to be similar to actual performance, and that is too rarely the case. Pre-digital recording equipment could not do it, for one thing. And too few listening environments allow the dynamic range of a good concert hall—recordings need to work in, for example, cars in addition to an optimized listening space. Usually, when the brass is loud enough in the fortissimo orchestral tutti, the solo English horn solo in the next movement will be way too loud, at least from my seat, because the dynamics have been compressed.

With rock music, mostly it’s just a matter of being loud enough without clicks (caused by clipping) overlaying the kick bass drum on 110+ dB peaks.

I have played equipment that compresses dynamics because it runs out of steam, and loses realism as a result. My current system does not do that. It comprises a CD player, a Holman preamp (but I had the same sense from several other preamps—a B&K Sonata MC-201, a Kenwood C1, an Adcom GFP-565, and others), an NC502MP stereo amp (330 wpc into my speakers), an unbalanced-balanced amp, a Yamaha commercial digital parametric equalizer, and Revel F12 towers. All of that adds up to less than $2500 on the used market. It sounds real because it can make reference loudness without distortion.

The only problem is that live sound levels for rock music are intolerable in my listening space, as would be the actual band set up and performing there. My ears distort at lower levels, for one thing. You limit peaks to 95 dB, but I think that precludes a live-sound experience with music that is performed amplified. But it sounds great from the kitchen :)

But I’ve heard a real brass quintet in my listening space any number of times, and good recordings of brass quintets, when played similarly loud, sound completely real in comparison.

Rick “real power that was clean used to be real expensive” Denney
Click to expand...

You folks keep putting words into my posts.... my point is not based on audiophilia, but just on listening to real live music.

"Before you can claim a recording sounds live:...

But that's exactly my point.. they can not sound live...

Look-

I'm playing a Nitsch DAC right into a DIY clone of a FW XA25... into a pair of Fostex full range speakers in their ported speakers.

Playing 24/96 off Tidal HiFi, Willy Nelson, small band music, and it sounds extremely good... In my small home office room. It's dynamic, I can hear the sonority of the guitar, how the bass is being picked/slapped, the harmonica, Willy's nasal voice, the layering of the instruments front to back... it's an extremely enjoyable performance.

Peaks are likely 75 db... measured with my Android phone, about four feet in front of the speakers...

In my main system I run Pass Aleph 2s and bridged FW F4s for about 200 wpc of class A... yet, yet...

It's not that you can't enjoy music with a good system.. it's just the acoustic power of instruments is really big... and most audio recordings simply can not capture nor reproduce them. My point is that when I close my eyes I can tell if it's live... or Memorex... I've never run into a system that could play a recording that sounded... live.

Oh.. 110db... yikes.

My neighbor has a baby grand in her living room....

Gotta go... Whiskey River is coming on... fun song! I gotta sing along with Willy on that one... ;-D

Whiskey River Don't Run Dry...
 
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ObjectiveSubjectivist said:
I cannot believe such words from an engineering guy
Click to expand...
integrity can be bought. If someone asks me to say that I hear an improvement when switching from this network router to that (more expensive) network router, no way. But if they pay $1000, maybe. $10k, absolutely. If they pay $100k, I will advocate for life!
 
Another manufacturer you can easily dismiss.
Keith
 
ObjectiveSubjectivist said:
I cannot believe such words from an engineering guy
Click to expand...
Some people are idiots; some, gullible, some, too afraid to miss out; and some, easily or expensively bought. A very few seem to have good old-fashioned integrity.
 
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