Introductions anyone?

Not forgetting with-it younger members.

 

Hello everyone, I have registered to learn and try to solve some doubts I have.
See you for this great forum

 

Hi Morphine. ...You play sax?

 

hi NorthSky , no, they are my favorite group

 

Hi everybody. I have been following this great forum for sometimes and decided to jump in.
I will try to share some ideas and ask a few questions. I unfortunately don't own any measurement equipment and will rely on you guys who do. Thanks by the way, for all the effort put in...
I have multiple interests in life, music, sound and the brain!
See you!

 

Hi, Everyone. I'm the new(est) guy. My name is Alex and I live in the Washington, DC area. I first came to audio in the mid-70's as a teenager. I have always loved music and shiny things, so audio was always an attraction, but then life happened and really cut into my spare time. Wife (2x), kids (3x), dogs (Jake, for example, to your left), career. Now that I have a little more spare time (still working, but not strained) and before my three small grandchildren are joined by more and I get overwhelmed by succeeding waves of ruthless and demanding ankle-bitters [joke], I have been pursuing with renewed vigor several of my life-long passions -- squash, kayaking and, of course, audio! This began a couple of years ago as I started going about refreshing my audio system and reading on-line about current developments in audio.

As you can imagine, I soon came across the now-dominant publications (Stereophile, Absolute Sound, 6 Moons) and sites (head-fi, Steve Hoffman forums, Audiogon, SBAF, really too many to name). Since I got back into the hobby, having come of age in the era of Julian Hirsch testing, I have been uncomfortable with the prevailing subjectivist tilt (cant?) and the astronomical increase in prices of audio equipment with, in many cases, no data at all to back up the prices. (Can I get an amen for Synergistic Research?) I have also been quite uncomfortable with the brutish level of discourse on-line. How many posts have we seen that go like this: "Speaker X positively [slays] [destroys] [kills] [humiliates] Speaker Y" that get little or no pushback and a bunch of likes? Huh? What are they talking about? Putting aside the knuckle-dragging aggression, if we're talking about, say, a top of the line Magico vs. a dilapidated 40 year-old Realistic speaker with its surrounds falling off, I'm happy to accept "slays" as short-hand. But, often there's almost no justification at all. Maybe a few adjectives or the like: "deeper bass" and "more air" being two of my favorites. (Always reminds me of Christopher Walken's "more cowbell.") [Ok, rant over.] I had come to accept this state of affairs as "the way it is" until , to be honest, I was recently on the SH Audio Hardware forum and observed Amir getting bashed from all sides with arguments that one could charitably describe as specious. At the same time, Amir was, as everyone here doubtless knows, more than holding his own. So, I checked Amir out and that soon led me here -- where the level of discourse seems higher, the air is "fresher" and the members better looking. (Amir, if you're reading this, you'll recall the post about "This guy must be new to using his Audio Analyzer." I haven't laughed so hard in a long time when I looked up your background then and realized "that guy" isn't qualified to carry your golf clubs, were you so inclined to golf! Too funny!)

More seriously, I should say that I am not well-educated in technology, however some (but not all) of my grandchildren think I'm pretty smart and because of my formal education and career (let's leave it to one side, largely irrelevant), I can usually spot an illogical argument from 50 paces. So, I have that to contribute, I hope. I also hope to be someone who reminds us from time to time, lest hubris not grow too great, of Einstein's great saying "not everything that counts can be counted." I hope to add something positive to the community.

Cheers, Alex

 

Welcome aboard, Alex. I do have to clarify for you, however, that I have it on good authority that it is not Amir in his avatar. Not sure about Thomas; may be, though not sure we're looking at the right end of the horse...

 

Thank you very much, Amir. I'm very happy (and somewhat relieved) to be here. And thanks @DonH56. Good point, that.

Cheers, Alex

 

Welcome Alex! Now we're two contemplative dogs at this place, it seems.

 

Jake was always very Zen.

 

Just realised now this thread exists, sorry for not seeing it earlier.

I'm Raul from Iasi, Romania, graduated Computer Science in 1999, love music and Hi-Fi equipment and also electronics. I really think there's a correlation between a good sounding audio device and related measurements and every "audiophile syntagm" can be proved:
- "good channel separation": >90dB diff. between the channels
- "good soundstage": >90dB diff. between the channels (sometimes a slight channel imbalance might induce a better soundstage to some subjects)
- "great instrument separation": lower than -100dB of 2nd and 3rd harmonics
- "very detailed sound": perfectly flat treble response with less than 0.1dB difference
- "black background": <-110dB of background noise across audible spectrum
- "grainy sound": high jitter, higher harmonics, bad PCB, high ripple PSU
etc.
So I really do believe in measurements because I trust science.

 

Well played, sir!

 

I have the latest incarnation of the Woo WA6. Yes, solid state may very well measure better, but the Woo sounds damned good. And I can use it to warm my hands on cold winter nights in Boston.

As for me - I was educated as a chemist, including the completion of all of the coursework for a PhD in Physical Chemistry. But I strayed (never wrote my dissertation) and earned my MBA at the Booth School at U Chicago. My career has been varied, ranging from hedging mortgage backed securities to working on strategy for a medical diagnostics firm and architecting business intelligence systems (which really is an oxymoron).

My interest in audio goes back as far as I can remember. But I really went over the edge the first time I heard a Martin Logan electrostatic speaker.

 

I am new, but this post seems dangerously close to tooting your own horn. Oh wait, you ARE tooting your own horn. Nevermind.

 

It’s not

Sounds like hurdles easily overcome by modern «digital» active speakers. Which explains why such devices are in the minority