Miscellaneous ramblings on hi-fi magazines

It was a complaint in the latest “Stereophile†that started me on these vague meanderings. (Well, that, plus a particularly indigestible European Patent Office opposition brief, which I couldn't face on the train last night). Why, said the complaint, does “Stereophile†say that everything it tests is good? Why doesn't it say that this is good and buy it, but that is not good and avoid it like the plague? The same sort of accusation could have been levelled at “Gramophone†in the good old days of John Borwick and Geoffrey Horn. “Gramophone†would never say, “this is badâ€Â. For example, Geoffrey Horn disliked the LS3/5a and said so in so many words, but he never said they were bad.

To me the answer is obvious –it IS all good – to somebody. My mother enjoys music but owns some little all-in-one CD boom-box. To her, my stuff is just a total waste of money. This is an extreme example, but nevertheless I think that the law of diminishing returns sets in quite low down the scale, and above that differences are harder to pick and ever more prone to subjective judgement.

In a recent thread, someone said that a hi-fi that is “accurate†in its reproduction (or even the master tape!) can be “unmusicalâ€Â, “uninvolving†and so on. As Michael and Bub among others pointed out, this is a contradiction in terms. It is axiomatic that the more accurately a hi-fi reproduces the original recording, the more musical it must be. Thus, it follows that this “musicality†and “involvement†are either actually colourations that the equipment is adding to the reproduction, thus detracting from accuracy (which, by definition, means that they're unmusical), or figments of the hearers' imaginiations. In fact, these terms are really only a jargon way of saying “I personally like thisâ€Â, and are therefore completely subjective. It seems to me that the same can be said of all the other wonderful buzz-words, such as “flat earthâ€Â, “round earthâ€Â, “grooveâ€Â, “timingâ€Â, “PRaTâ€Â, “following the tuneâ€Â, etc., etc., etc. I personally have yet to hear any bit of equipment that didn't follow the tune! Hands up, how many have you listened to a bit of equipment and the tune just got further and further behind the accompaniment? They are only saying, “This appeals to meâ€Â, nothing else.

Now there's nothing wrong with this, just so long as those using the terms realise that that's what they're doing. When I first seriously started looking at musical production beyond the Dansette record player we owned, people divided loudspeakers into “British†and “US†sounding, “British†being more clear, if a bit cold, and “US†being a warmer sound. It was accepted that this was purely a matter of personal preference, not that one was “good†and the other “badâ€Â. However, opinions seem to have become more robust, with people making very definite (and definitive) statements – for which there is no objective basis.

Sound does not exist between the loudspeakers and the listener. It comes into existence in our heads as the atmospheric vibrations detected at the eardrum are converted by wonderful mechanical-electrical-chemical processes into a perception of sound. And, as the brain is involved and as we are all individuals, these perceptions will be different and heard in different ways by each individual. In other words, “reality†will be different in each case. Thus, there is no right and no wrong at all. The person who says that vinyl is superior to CD is as right – or as wrong – as the one who says the converse. The person, such as my sceptical self, who says that exotic cables, equipment supports, mains leads, etc., aren't worth it, again is as right or as wrong as the true believer in such things. In the end, there is only one criterion – trust your own ears and ignore what everyone else thinks.

So, how then can people be so definite that their view is the right one? To a large extent, it flows on from what I'll call “expert arroganceâ€Â. It starts with the magazine writers, who opine so definitively on things. I think they see themselves (if only subconsciously) as “experts†with superior discrimination – they have heard so much and experienced so much hi-fi, that they think they know, if not it all, at least a substantial part of it. In addition, I guess they must be aware that if they don't, or don't appear to, who's going to pay any attention to them? Consider the latest HFC awards issue. A couple of random quotes:

“It manages to keep little details in place while bellowing forth a vast musical climaxâ€Â

“Its tendency if any is to make the music sound better rather than opt for maximum starknessâ€Â

I consider my decision never again to buy a hi-fi magazine to be totally vindicated! What in heaven's name were these guys drinking and/or smoking when they wrote this rubbish? If this were academic literature, as opposed to the garbage of a couple of pretentious posers, I'd seriously consider entering these for the University of Miami's famous Bad Writing Contest (see

http://www.miami.edu/phi/misc/badwrite.htm

for some fine examples).

This attitude has, unfortunately, passed on to many non-magazine folk, who see themselves as experienced listeners and buyers who feel qualified to pontificate just a little, who see their personal path to audio Nirvana as being The One, who cannot see that all they have done is satisfy their own ears, and who have difficulty when someone doesn't agree with their well-entrenched position. What's wrong with you/your equipment? tends to be their reaction. However, I think it's a bit like being a parent – the only children on which you can definitively comment are your own.

And of course there's that other aspect – having paid £xxx for something, you WANT to hear a difference (a.k.a. “The king's new clothes syndromeâ€Â). I've caught myself doing this, and that has helped turn me into the sceptic I am.

This is a long and convoluted way of saying that I think that the “Stereophiles†and “Gramophones†have got it right and all the rest have got it wrong. However, to fill an important gap in the market, I modestly propose my own new hi-fi magazine for sceptics, provisionally entitled “Tonesworldâ€Â. This will be guaranteed completely garbage-free. No “musicalityâ€Â, no “involvementâ€Â, no tunes will be followed above and beyond the call of normal duty and PRaTs will be left where they belong, writing for HFC et al. It will consist only of news, advertising, and brief descriptions and technical specifications for any new products. There will be no testing of products whatsoever, but readers will be invited to comment on what they've bought, and these will be printed and stored on a database for all to access. Potential subscribers, please form a line here.

 

Tones, I think you've definately struck the tack on the flat bit.

 

I agree with most of what you say, but I will make a comment on systems "holding a tune".

I have listened to some systems whereby the result was a very detailed, but over-seperated collection of sound effects, and it didnt really have a tune to speak of. In some cases, the result has been so much different to how I think it should sound that the tunes were barely recognisable. However, this is the only time I've ever felt that something couldnt hold a tune.

However, as for the rest of your post, I find your views some of the most refreshing on this forum, and if theres one person I seem to find myself agreeing with the most when I read posts, it is yours. I think this stuff is shrouded in bullshit, but it always will be. I've never bought a hifi rag, but if I did, then it would be "Tones world"

 

My list of meaningless terms used to describe sounds made by hi-fi gear:

Musicality
Groove
Ebb-and-flow
Fluid
Liquid
Emotion
Foot-tapping
PRaT
Authority
Organic
Analogue
Digital

 

I wish magazines would post bad reviews as well, as it would make me take positive reviews much more seriously. Bad reviews can also be pretty funny . The trouble though I assume is that reviewers are always going to be conscious that the magazines, and ultimately themselves, are dependent on advertising revenue and so do not want to go around offending manufacturers. This is where internet based review sites and fora have a distinct advantage IMO.

I see what you're saying, but I think there are limits to this. I would have thought that if say you gathered together all of the £500 speakers you could find that there would be some that no-one would take given a completely free choice. That is all manufacturers are not equal, be that from designer skill, material/construction quality, or profit margins.

 

In my opinion these terms are only of real use to articulate what is heard in comparative dems. All hi-fi equipment is inevitably flawed and variable in performance, nothing is perfect. It is abundantly clear for the hearing that some kit plays in time and is more pitch accurate than other kit. I find a lot of kit unacceptable from both these perspectives, for example a lot of ported speakers seem incapable of rendering low frequencies with accurate pitch and timing. It is IMHO fair to describe a product that gets these aspects more right than another as being more musical and involving – they are just words, and words are painfully inadequate to describe what we hear, but they are all we have.

The master tape argument is interesting, it is one of the few absolutes available assuming of course you are able to use the recorder it was made on. It is however only an absolute when looked at as a source component, and yes it will kick the crap out of any turntable or CD player. I've been lucky enough to bring several studio recorders and both multitrack and 2 track masters home over the years, it is something all audiophiles should ideally do, it really teaches you a thing or two!

The studio amps and speakers are simply variables, and in most cases the vast majority of mixing will have been done on Yamaha NS10s driven by a cheap amp. The big full range Tannoy / Westlake / ATC etc. monitors tend only to be used to monitor the initial recording stages and for a final double check at the end. It is far more important that a track works on a midi system / in the car / on a walkman than working for the miniscule percentage of people who have full range high end stereo systems. NS10s are not especially nice or accurate sounding speakers (they are actually pretty horrible), they do however give a fairly accurate indication of how the track will work on Joe Bloggs's Richer Sounds system, and that is an important factor. The view held by many audiophiles that recording studios are some sacred pinnacle of absolute quality would be quickly dispelled with a little real world experience!

Tony.

 

bub,
you missed out:
Accurate

cheers


julian

 

The view held by many audiophiles that recording studios are some sacred pinnacle of absolute quality would be quickly dispelled with a little real world experience

Yes, this is clear just by listening to a few records or CDs: the variation in quality is very large. Some are superb, others middling, others poor. I guess the same goes for studios, the equipment used therein, engineers, and even musicians.

 

Re: Re: Miscellaneous ramblings on hi-fi magazines

Nail on the head Paul . Everybody hears differently and has a different perception of what should be heard. Some would say "Listen to a proper live event for how it should sound" but the same issues apply. We ALL here things differently but in most cases we hear the same things. Ok contradictory but how many times have you been listening to something and somebody says "oh, listen to the sax way in the background of the mix" but you have been blissfully unaware that it was there until somebody pointed it out. Now - it's obvious and your not likely to miss it. The same works for faults. Once those are pointed out then it's a slippery slope.

Buy something you like the sound of and possibly the look of; then you can forget about the rest. Hell, dable in some cables if you want to. If you like it - keep it. If you don't - sell it to me .

A nice thread Tones .

 

Tony, those are the ones with the white woofers aren't they ?
I've always wondered how recording/mastering suites could do a decent job of capturing frequences <40hz when using small monitors.

 

Excellent post, Tones. Refreshing to get away from the mains cable/turntable bad tempered nonsense going on here ATM.

I completely agree with you. In the last year or so I've had a chance to meet a few people from the forums, and hear their systems, all of which use very different components, and none of them sound flat-out bad, in fact, I could probably live with virtually any of them. Some use valves, some solid-state, some are CD-only, some involve vinyl, some use ported speakers, others sealed-box, some use humungous floor standers, others mini-monitors or electrostatics, some use huge subwoofers, some don't. My conclusion from this is that lots of kit is good, and which kit you choose to rack in your own house is entirely down to personal preference. I'm also convinced that a lot of non-hifi factors come into play (aesthetics, convenience, brand loyalty, pride of ownership, even the colour), much more so than any of us are prepared to admit.

It's also become clear to me that when reviewers or posters on forums talk about "huge differences" they're nearly always talking about small differences, once over a basic quality threshold (there are some exceptions to this. Titian's system remains by some margin the best system I've heard in a domestic context, much closer to the real thing than most by some order of magnitude). ISTM that we all hear huge differences when we make changes to our own systems, but those huge differences become much more subtle when we make changes to systems under bake-off conditions, with other people in the room. I think that tells us quite a lot about the psychology of upgrading.

Hi-fi magazines can be an entertaining enough read, but I think hi-fi reviewers, on the whole, have an agenda (often unconscious, I don't think most of them are deliberately venal), and it's the same agenda that we, the punters, have: a desperate desire to hear something that will blow us away. So, they exaggerate differences, and flat-out contradict themselves. (It's instructive to read the way a single reviewer changes his mind about, for example, what he most highly prizes in a preamp, over the course of a year of reviewing several such items. When reviewing a Naim preamp, there's praise for how it extracts the rhythmic content of the music, which is the most important element of musical involvement; when reviewing a valve preamp, suddenly timbral accuracy and imaging become the most important things.)

I haven't made any new year resolutions, but refusing to take any of these debates seriously any more may as well count as one.

-- Ian

 

Tones, since I represent a similar viewpoint, I think I should comment.

First of all, I wouldn't go as far as using the term "unmusical"; nonetheless, in my opinion, a hi-fi system or a particular component that sounds 'accurate' in an overtly clinical sense also has the tendency to portray an overall balance that, to my ears, is cold, unforgiving, and quite often highlights defects in the recording at the expense of my enjoyment of the music. Since my hi-fi system was bought to provide me with fun and entertainment, and not as an audiophile's analytical tool, I don't consider my viewpoint to be in any way heretical.

I fully appreciate that maximum source information retrieval is the purists ultimate goal, but from a personal point of view, I prefer to build a system that gets as close to how I perceive real instruments and the human voice to sound, but that first and foremost showcases music (the way I like to hear it), even if that means allowing for some coloration in the process. Like I said before, ALL hi-fi equipment introduces an element of coloration that's not present on master tape, so if we accept this fact, how can any hi-fi system ever be considered truly accurate? Furthermore, in the absence of an established reference criterion, it is an entirely subjective matter whether or not one hi-fi system is more 'accurate' than another. If people wish to delude themselves into thinking that's not the case, then that is entirely up to them, but without meaning to be flippant, I like living in the real world.

Indeed; I always do, although one can always learn from others with greater experience, and use this for one's own benefit - I always do that, too

Marco.

 

Yes, that's them.

When recording the instruments, vocals etc the engineer will use the best monitors the studio has, this is what the huge ones are for – they are clear, full range and have tremendous headroom and will highlight any errors easily. This is the first stage, i.e. to get the different instruments recorded onto multi-track with as few errors or compromises as possible.

The next stage is to mix the recording (i.e. eq and balance the various components of the track) so it will work best for the typical consumer. The NS10s are a pretty global standard for near field mixing, nearly every studio has a pair - this is also incredibly useful for any visiting engineers or producers as they will have a familiar reference point in every studio.

Tony.

 

Does the lack of a review imply a bad review?

Are bad / less than glowing / damming or critical reviews not posted all that often for fear of possible legel action, loss of advertising revenue or what?

Does not reviewing a bit of kit imply that it is lacking is some department?
Do kit makers have editoral control over any published reviews?
Does an "automatic right of reply" lessen any review?

Prehaps someone in the trade could answer this.

Auric

 

Re: Re: Miscellaneous ramblings on hi-fi magazines

Why assume "accurate" = "clinical"?

If a system sounds like real instruments and voices it is, by definition, accurate, since sounding like real instruments and voices is precisely what "accurate" means in a hifi context.

-- Ian

 

...a hi-fi system or a particular component that sounds 'accurate' in an overtly clinical sense also has the tendency to portray an overall balance that, to my ears, is cold, unforgiving, and quite often highlights defects in the recording...

Systems or components that sound like this are by (my) definition inaccurate.

 

From my personal point of view, I prefer to build a system that stops me going to bed at night, stops me watching the TV etc. i.e. one that I personally enjoy.

It's obvious to me that since every system I've ever heard sounds different to mine and to each other there are no absolutes here, in the real world. Some of those other system would also have the same effect on me as mine, even though they are dramatically different in presentation.

Couldn't give one hoot about any HiFi term to describe it, although I may have been caught doing exactly this, before I get bombarded with evidence

Andy.

 

Re: Re: Re: Miscellaneous ramblings on hi-fi magazines

IMHO, clinical = inaccurate. Why? Because real music does not sound "clinical".

EDIT: The Devil beat me to it...

 

I've always pretty much interpretted the description "musical" to mean enjoyable. That is you get sucked into the music (as it should be) rather than being overtly conscious of any particular floors in the reproduction. Is that too simplistic?

 

Re: Re: Re: Miscellaneous ramblings on hi-fi magazines

Ian, I'm not assuming the above; my comment arises from my experience whenever I listen to a system that puts absolute neutrality and maximum detail retrieval above all else. Whilst arguably being 'accurate sounding', I usually find such systems bland, indistinct, and ultimately rather boring. If I wanted an analytical tool instead of hi-fi system, I'd install the kind of equipment Tony L was praising earlier.

Yes, but how does one determine through a hi-fi system (with all its inherent colorations) what's 'real' and what isn't? How 'real' an instrument sounds to me will only be as good as my perception of it from memory, which even if recent, is still liable to be as inaccurate as the system's attempt at portraying how the instrument sounds in reality. This will apply to anyone, unless they themselves play an instrument, or have frequent access to the sound of real instruments, un-amplified. Therefore, I don't concern myself with such lofty hi-fi expectations, and instead listen to music through a system that delivers accuracy, as I perceive it, but most importantly makes music a joy to listen to.

Marco.