What is your audio Philosophy?

[tomelex]

After a certain point, I agree, the correlation between price and sound quality is not very strong. I don't see an issue paying for as much quality as you can afford, but price does not equal best sounding by any means, ie agree with your number 8 pretty much.

 

[Sal1950]

After a certain point, I agree, the correlation between price and sound quality is not very strong. I don't see an issue paying for as much quality as you can afford, but price does not equal best sounding by any means, ie agree with your number 8 pretty much.

We find that in most goods, the point of diminishing returns usually take on early. But that is in the technical realm. We do have assemblage of components in works of industrial art cases worth many times over whats inside. High End Audio long ago made the jump from the focus of creating better sound gear to selling Luxury Goods. A very high end watch in comparison to a Timex is very apt.
It's all fine and good except that sadly the print and web based media has sold out to their luxury good advertisers. To listen to them you have to believe a investment of $50,000 MIGHT get you to a mid fil level.

 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

OK, I think my philosophy is going to be:

1. Stereo is good. I am not particularly interested in more channels or anti-crosstalk algorithms
2. I am not very interested in headphones, vinyl, valves, reel-to-reel.
3. What emerges from the speaker should be the same as the recorded signal - as far as is practical or desirable...
4. I like 'realistic volume'.
5. Speakers shall be not too directional; not too omni-directional; smooth off-axis and all that good stuff.
6. The room shall be free to do what it wants. If I don't like it, I'll move the speakers or change the room, not change what's coming out of the speakers.
7. Sensible amplifiers, cables and DACs all sound the same.
8. I believe the correlation between price and sound quality is not very strong.

We have debated this before elsewhere, but I differ on your points 3. and 6., as you know. In an ideal world, rooms would never intrude on the sound. But, we know that is not true from both science and measurements anyone can make routinely, especially in the bass. Yes, speaker or listener repositioning can help somewhat. Room treatments are generally ineffective much below 100 Hz, however.

I prefer that the sound at my ears, rather than the sound emanating from the speakers, be as close to the recorded signal as possible. If only they were identical! So, I will gladly use a tool like DSP EQ to achieve the kinds of of narrow band corrections necessary, as measured near my listening chair, provided there are no other audible downsides - audible transparency except for the controlled, specific improvements.

But, you are, of course, entitled to whatever philosophy you choose. That I do not debate.

 

[Cosmik]

We have debated this before elsewhere, but I differ on your points 3. and 6., as you know. In an ideal world, rooms would never intrude on the sound. But, we know that is not true from both science and measurements anyone can make routinely, especially in the bass. Yes, speaker or listener repositioning can help somewhat. Room treatments are generally ineffective much below 100 Hz, however.

I prefer that the sound at my ears, rather than the sound emanating from the speakers, be as close to the recorded signal as possible. If only they were identical! So, I will gladly use a tool like DSP EQ to achieve the kinds of of narrow band corrections necessary, as measured near my listening chair, provided there are no other audible downsides - audible transparency except for the controlled, specific improvements.

But, you are, of course, entitled to whatever philosophy you choose. That I do not debate.

I think it really is a point of "philosophy". If the result of electronic room correction is an acoustic that couldn't physically exist, then do our brains find it confusing? I just prefer to live with whatever the room does so that I don't have to worry about that question.

 

[Purité Audio]

Any type of room 'correction' whether passive or active merely attempts to ameliorate the unwanted contribution of the room, to reproduce the file as intended.
You should hear the Beolab a90's they almost completely remove the room and sound absolutely superb.
Keith

 

[fas42]

I think it really is a point of "philosophy". If the result of electronic room correction is an acoustic that couldn't physically exist, then do our brains find it confusing? I just prefer to live with whatever the room does so that I don't have to worry about that question.

I agree. What I have found is that if the sound leaving the speaker drivers is good enough, then the ear/brain does all the adjusting as needed, with zero conscious effort. The problem with Fitz's approach is that if the sound is 'dirty' when pumped into the room then huge amounts of effort need to be done on fiddling with the room to minimise the audible impact of the artifacts ...

 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

I think it really is a point of "philosophy". If the result of electronic room correction is an acoustic that couldn't physically exist, then do our brains find it confusing? I just prefer to live with whatever the room does so that I don't have to worry about that question.

I do not understand the concept of "an acoustic that couldn't physically exist". Each room is different as to physical dimensions, materials, furnishings, etc., so there are an infinite number of possible resulting room acoustic signatures. The identical speaker system will sound differently in each of those different rooms. I think we agree on that. It is also possible by speaker or listener placement or passive treatments to alter that characteristic room acoustic at the listening chair. Your own room may be unique and special to you because of long familiarity with its acoustic signature. But, a more idealized room signature can exist "physically" somewhere, and there is a likelihood that an improved room signature might be preferred by most listeners.

Your philosophical objection seems to be to using active, mike calibrated DSP EQ filters to change the room acoustic via controlled, specific alterations to the output from the speakers to compensate for frequency and other room-induced abberations, which can be shown by measurement to physically exist at your ears in the room. But, what if (a.) it could be shown that the net perceived result at your ears via that means was no different from some other untreated room, without the application of EQ or a more idealized acoustically treated room? What if (b.), it could also be shown that the insertion of DSP EQ into the signal path was transparent and imperceptible when all EQ filtering is turned off?

Philosophically, we differ, which is fine. I believe from experience in a number of different rooms with a number of different speakers and DSP EQ systems, the answers to (a.) and (b.) are it most definitely can be shown. You, for whatever reasons, do not agree, and you believe that the result must be "confusing" to the brain. I have found no one yet among the listeners I know who agree with you. Ok, I am not writing a scientific paper, nor are you. My sample is anecdotal based on sighted A-B comparisons, and it is in the 10's, not hundreds or thousands of listeners. But, I know of no one who has the room EQ capability in their system who regularly turns it off because they think it sounds confusing or more implausible. They all think it sounds much "better".

You are perfectly free in your philosophy to disagree with audio science, as representated in many papers and commentaries at this forum. But, I believe if you see a, say, +10 dB narrow peak (I have measured worse) or a similar dip at one or more frequencies with your speakers in your room, it is a problem that will not go away. That is a big, readily audible frequency response issue that can be caused by the room with even great, anechoically "perfect"speaker response. In my philosophy, now that we have good tools to deal with it, such an issue is more disturbing to listening pleasure than trying to ignore or deny it.

 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

I agree. What I have found is that if the sound leaving the speaker drivers is good enough, then the ear/brain does all the adjusting as needed, with zero conscious effort. The problem with Fitz's approach is that if the sound is 'dirty' when pumped into the room then huge amounts of effort need to be done on fiddling with the room to minimise the audible impact of the artifacts ...

Frank, I do not advocate the use of speakers or anything else with "dirty" response. That is a starting point for a good system.

You quite overdramatically overstate the effort involved in correction via Room EQ of response issues, which is to be expected since you have no demonstrated knowledge or experience with it at all.

Yes, if you have not heard something better, you adjust and live with room artifacts subconsciously, as "good enough". Ignorance is bliss! And, to stay in that blissful fantasy, never, ever measure what simple frequency response is actually like at your listening chair. Just go on believing that your ear/brain does all the adjusting needed for ultimate enjoyment with zero conscious effort.

 

[fas42]

Frank, I do not advocate the use of speakers or anything else with "dirty" response. That is a starting point for a good system.

You quite overdramatically overstate the effort involved in correction via Room EQ of response issues, which is to be expected since you have no demonstrated knowledge or experience with it at all.

Yes, if you have not heard something better, you adjust and live with room artifacts subconsciously, as "good enough". Ignorance is bliss! And, to stay in that blissful fantasy, never, ever measure what simple frequency response is actually like at your listening chair. Just go on believing that your ear/brain does all the adjusting needed for ultimate enjoyment with zero conscious effort.

The "dirtiness" is due to non-linear, not linear distortion - and that's because the electrical behaviour of the chain prior to the drivers is not adequate. FR is not part of the equation that I'm concerned with - which was beautifully illustrated when I visited the home of an audio enthusiast several times a year or so ago. He was using a full blown active system, with DEQX correction - that had been run through calibration runs a number of times by a rep from the company that actually manufactures these boxes, in Sydney. And the SQ was all over the place, for a variety of reasons - ranging from pretty awful to rather impressive - at no times was the FR touched, this was all about electrical behaviour anomalies.

Another instance of the DEQX "magic" not working for me, was a demo at an audio club meeting. Again, a chap from the company did the calibrating, and then ran a with/without EQ comparison - yes, you could hear a difference, but the basic tonality, 'sound' of the system did not change - which was just of an OK hifi standard.

Why I have that "believing" is because it happened accidentally 30 years ago - and I have been able to switch it on and off by following a standard approach to tweaking a variety of systems ever since. This is called "learning" - knowledge is acquired by experimenting until one has complete control over required behaviour; and this is still in progress, for me.

 

[amirm]

We provide a pretty wide latitude in posting in ASR Forum. Still, members should attempt to stick to the topic thread as much as possible. Please refrain from having the same argument in every thread.

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

It was safe when I didn't know much. I wrote something about me having been a Classic Audiophile. At one point in my life and one of life's greatest irony was that when I was studying for my Master in EE , TAS (The Absolute Sound ) was my audio bible... It was safe: There was an Absolute Sound and the purpose of our gears was to reproduce it. And those gears were those sold by Audiophiles rags and manufacturers. Simple, safe and correct... Everything made a difference from AC outlets to the speakers cones ... Cables made "night and day" differences then...

Then I began to frequent not entirely audiophile fora.. Places like AVS, Home Theater Shack and even at one point Hydrogen Audio! (Aggressive, impolite, fellows and abysmal moderators reactions) and my audiophile views changed.

I am at a strange point. I lost my audiophile-approvable system a while a go and decided to go headphones. It has been a wonderful journey. The better headphones teach you how things should sound. They lack the tactile feeling of loudspeaker and I came to hear too much music inside my head. So I am back to pursuing a n interim speaker based system while building my dream room in my dream house.

I am not of the everything sounds the same philosophy. IOW to my ears all amps don't sound the same, nor all DACs. There is no debate speakers are very different from each other but at what cost? Does a Geddes Suma NS 15 at $10,000 the pair the equal of a JBL 4367 at $15K or of a Magico Q3 at around $45K? I don't care much once a speaker reached 60 HZ 100dB + with no distortion. bass to me, should be always served by subwoofers but to come back to that point.. What money to spend for the sound I will eventually like?

All that to say that at this point in time my Audio philosophy is to retain the notion of High Fidelity i.e. what goes in the medium has to be reproduced as faithfully as possible while spending the least amount of money.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Hi

It was safe when I didn't know much. I wrote something about me having been a Classic Audiophile. At one point in my life and one of life's greatest irony was that when I was studying for my Master in EE , TAS (The Absolute Sound ) was my audio bible... It was safe: There was an Absolute Sound and the purpose of our gears was to reproduce it. And those gears were those sold by Audiophiles rags and manufacturers. Simple, safe and correct... Everything made a difference from AC outlets to the speakers cones ... Cables made "night and day" differences then...

Then I began to frequent not entirely audiophile fora.. Places like AVS, Home Theater Shack and even at one point Hydrogen Audio! (Aggressive, impolite, fellows and abysmal moderators reactions) and my audiophile views changed.

I am at a strange point. I lost my audiophile-approvable system a while a go and decided to go headphones. It has been a wonderful journey. The better headphones teach you how things should sound. They lack the tactile feeling of loudspeaker and I came to hear too much music inside my head. So I am back to pursuing a n interim speaker based system while building my dream room in my dream house.

I am not of the everything sounds the same philosophy. IOW to my ears all amps don't sound the same, nor all DACs. There is no debate speakers are very different from each other but at what cost? Does a Geddes Suma NS 15 at $10,000 the pair the equal of a JBL 4367 at $15K or of a Magico Q3 at around $45K? I don't care much once a speaker reached 60 HZ 100dB + with no distortion. bass to me, should be always served by subwoofers but to come back to that point.. What money to spend for the sound I will eventually like?

All that to say that at this point in time my Audio philosophy is to retain the notion of High Fidelity i.e. what goes in the medium has to be reproduced as faithfully as possible while spending the least amount of money.

This. It's hard for me to imagine why anyone would seek anything else.

Tim

 

[Sal1950]

All that to say that at this point in time my Audio philosophy is to retain the notion of High Fidelity i.e. what goes in the medium has to be reproduced as faithfully as possible while spending the least amount of money.

+1, When all is said and done that's why we started down this path in the beginning. Taking a few side roads along the way was also educational.

 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

Hi

It was safe when I didn't know much. I wrote something about me having been a Classic Audiophile. At one point in my life and one of life's greatest irony was that when I was studying for my Master in EE , TAS (The Absolute Sound ) was my audio bible... It was safe: There was an Absolute Sound and the purpose of our gears was to reproduce it. And those gears were those sold by Audiophiles rags and manufacturers. Simple, safe and correct... Everything made a difference from AC outlets to the speakers cones ... Cables made "night and day" differences then...

Then I began to frequent not entirely audiophile fora.. Places like AVS, Home Theater Shack and even at one point Hydrogen Audio! (Aggressive, impolite, fellows and abysmal moderators reactions) and my audiophile views changed.

I am at a strange point. I lost my audiophile-approvable system a while a go and decided to go headphones. It has been a wonderful journey. The better headphones teach you how things should sound. They lack the tactile feeling of loudspeaker and I came to hear too much music inside my head. So I am back to pursuing a n interim speaker based system while building my dream room in my dream house.

I am not of the everything sounds the same philosophy. IOW to my ears all amps don't sound the same, nor all DACs. There is no debate speakers are very different from each other but at what cost? Does a Geddes Suma NS 15 at $10,000 the pair the equal of a JBL 4367 at $15K or of a Magico Q3 at around $45K? I don't care much once a speaker reached 60 HZ 100dB + with no distortion. bass to me, should be always served by subwoofers but to come back to that point.. What money to spend for the sound I will eventually like?

All that to say that at this point in time my Audio philosophy is to retain the notion of High Fidelity i.e. what goes in the medium has to be reproduced as faithfully as possible while spending the least amount of money.

Well said, Frantz.

As to headphones, I think it is obvious that they can magnify system differences that may be obscured or masked by speakers, even in well treated and EQed rooms. But, for me, that is not all upside. They may also introduce their own colorations or issues, real deep bass response, for example. They key negative for me is that they just do not image as I would like. And, there are, of course, the long term comfort and fatigue issues.

Before I could afford a stereo pair of speakers, I used some Koss headphones for a number of years back in ancient history. I moved on and never looked back. Maybe that experience biased me against them, although they are clearly much, much better today.

 

[FrantzM]

Allowing myself to think aloud in this forum:

I tend to think that there is a sociological aspects to becoming/being an audiophile. Few of us audiophile will get any poorer for acquiring the gears. We have dreamt of systems , components and we indulged along the way, the systems getting more expensive (more resolving ?) as our financial means evolved. And I believe somewhere it became a game of a certain price threshold for a system to bear the seal of audiophilia approval. There is also a threshold for SOTAness. Furthermore there is a threshold of money spent that grants an audiophile gravitas too. We must notice that nowhere there are metrics for systems performance and in the current state of affairs in the High End Audio Industry, this is not encouraged as it wouldn't help when $300K speakers or systems could be routed by $5k ones.

What does the future hold? I am not very optimist about the future of High End Audio. It could well die with us the mostly over 50. The industry is trying too hard to milk as much dollars as possible from the current audiophile philosophies.

 

[FrantzM]

I agree. What I have found is that if the sound leaving the speaker drivers is good enough, then the ear/brain does all the adjusting as needed, with zero conscious effort. The problem with Fitz's approach is that if the sound is 'dirty' when pumped into the room then huge amounts of effort need to be done on fiddling with the room to minimise the audible impact of the artifacts ...

fas

I am often befuddled by your POVs. It is all a matter of the uniqueness of your views and findings. Seldom if ever have you shared the process with us. Even less an howto. When it comes to metrics, your methods are as bare as the Sahara of water or outer space from oxygen
At the end it is a forum you can post whatever you want but I must say it is getting more and more obtuse.
More than willing to delete the post if the mods think so, I had to vent a bit though

 

[Thomas savage]

fas

I am often befuddled by your POVs. It is all a matter of the uniqueness of your views and findings. Seldom if ever have you shared the process with us. Even less an howto. When it comes to metrics, your methods are as bare as the Sahara of water or outer space from oxygen
At the end it is a forum you can post whatever you want but I must say it is getting more and more obtuse.
More than willing to delete the post if the mods think so, I had to vent a bit though

No the mod agrees but frank is a nice guy and loves music, is never rude and has a good sence of humour...

its all upside down in oz, all bets are off

Mad frank even +1ed his own post the other day

I put my ear up to my tweeter today, as per franks 'anomaly ' finding instruction... Just sweet music so I guess all is well Ear was a bit sore after though...

 

[tomelex]

Hi

It was safe when I didn't know much. I wrote something about me having been a Classic Audiophile. At one point in my life and one of life's greatest irony was that when I was studying for my Master in EE , TAS (The Absolute Sound ) was my audio bible... It was safe: There was an Absolute Sound and the purpose of our gears was to reproduce it. And those gears were those sold by Audiophiles rags and manufacturers. Simple, safe and correct... Everything made a difference from AC outlets to the speakers cones ... Cables made "night and day" differences then...

Then I began to frequent not entirely audiophile fora.. Places like AVS, Home Theater Shack and even at one point Hydrogen Audio! (Aggressive, impolite, fellows and abysmal moderators reactions) and my audiophile views changed.

I am at a strange point. I lost my audiophile-approvable system a while a go and decided to go headphones. It has been a wonderful journey. The better headphones teach you how things should sound. They lack the tactile feeling of loudspeaker and I came to hear too much music inside my head. So I am back to pursuing a n interim speaker based system while building my dream room in my dream house.

I am not of the everything sounds the same philosophy. IOW to my ears all amps don't sound the same, nor all DACs. There is no debate speakers are very different from each other but at what cost? Does a Geddes Suma NS 15 at $10,000 the pair the equal of a JBL 4367 at $15K or of a Magico Q3 at around $45K? I don't care much once a speaker reached 60 HZ 100dB + with no distortion. bass to me, should be always served by subwoofers but to come back to that point.. What money to spend for the sound I will eventually like?

All that to say that at this point in time my Audio philosophy is to retain the notion of High Fidelity i.e. what goes in the medium has to be reproduced as faithfully as possible while spending the least amount of money.

Well, I hear what you are saying. I am not sure all audiophiles measure their worth or status based on the cost of their systems. I would think that more folks on this site actually care more about specifications and circuits and such, I know I do. For example, I can trace the THD (and IMD if I do the measurment) of my system from cartridge through to speakers at one watt output. Also, I think many of us here are less influenced by changes in sound vs what we consider an improvement. I would hope that folks here purchase gear based on knowing what their current system AUDIBLE weaknesses are and upgrade or sidegrade accordingly, and I would think folks here realize that there is a goal of accurate reproduction (of a recording that is our only "reference") and also a goal of a satisfying sound from their current system and economic discretionary income. I for one, listening to all kinds of systems over the years, know there is no one "perfect" system for me but I do expect certain technical thresholds to be reached, whether it is SET amp or 450watt mono solid state amp. Lucky for me, I do thoroughly enjoy headphones, and the differences between them as much as I do listening to others systems...again..there is no right system, just our system at any point in time. Yes, there is an entry fee to get "pretty good to good sound" but no one has the number, with a set of headphones and a source and nothing in between except some sort of volume, a person can be an audiophile, that is one who enjoys quality reproduction of music.

 

[fas42]

fas

I am often befuddled by your POVs. It is all a matter of the uniqueness of your views and findings. Seldom if ever have you shared the process with us. Even less an howto. When it comes to metrics, your methods are as bare as the Sahara of water or outer space from oxygen
At the end it is a forum you can post whatever you want but I must say it is getting more and more obtuse.
More than willing to delete the post if the mods think so, I had to vent a bit though

Frantz, I have described the process I have used many times, in many places - I can't help it if it never connects ! The biggest problem is that people want a nicely packaged set of instructions, but it doesn't work that way - you might as well drive your car over to a mechanic, say Sal , and tell him, "Fix my car!" and walk off, having only uttered those 3 words as the full extent of the conversation. He would be fully justified in awarding you Jerk Of The Year award ...

So, every system that has a unique set of weaknesses, limitations, issues that prevent it delivering optimum sound - Step 1: identify where it has problems, so one has to learn to listen, really listen; Step 2: start to investigate and search, based on experience, for where the problems might be; Step 3: having identified a specific cause of audible issues, fix it, using whatever method seems best, lowest cost and based on good engineering principles. Keep repeating steps 1, 2 and 3 until the sound is as good as you want it to be ...

If your reaction now is, my system has no problems, but I reckon it could sound better - then we immediately have a major hurdle to overcome ...

 

[Cosmik]

...having identified a specific cause of audible issues, fix it, using whatever method seems best, lowest cost and based on good engineering principles.

I would have thought that the best engineering principle of all is to design something so that it doesn't need fixing retrospectively - it would probably work out a lot cheaper in the end.

It's not as if the general principles are mysterious: to reproduce the full audible spectrum at high SPLs with low distortion and noise requires certain minimum, obvious levels of "engineering" - and minimum levels of real hardware. A portable TV with a 3 inch full range speaker (or whatever) cannot reproduce bass, cannot reproduce upper treble, cannot reach higher volume levels without distorting electronically and mechanically, is noisy, has peculiar dispersion patterns and so on. There's nothing you can do to get anywhere near "high fidelity" to the recording without completely rebuilding it - there would be nothing left of the original. Why bother?