Yet another bold claim...

BD...the great crusader ...fighting against the "non believers " in the kingdom of Richard the Lionheart...coll. :MILD:

Jorge

 

Wm,

I really don't understand you... you are a drummer, (I tried to be one myself but not enough accuracy in timing), you play in a band, you should know exactly how music is suposed to sound like. You know the real thing...

So, why are you happy with just "breast implants"?

Just because you haven't yet got it other way, it doesn't mean you have to stop looking for... In fact you are always looking for it, because you are changing equipment all the time... I think this was the reason you got involved in the business in the first place.

 

So Merlin,

What are you looking for in your audio system? Have you found it already? When do you think you'll find it?

Because as far as I know you are always changing equipment...

 

You are right again BD, I'm always changing equipment

I guess that's because a) I like shiny boxes, and b) I'm lucky enough to be in a position to do so.

I'm looking for the best possible portrayal of the artist's likely musical intent. You appear to be focussed on the best possible reproduction of a recorded medium. It is here where we have a fundemental difference.

I have experienced your goal with a full Tact system. It is very impressive indeed. You should try to hear one.

 

One day you might find out how true this is also in your case.

 

Titian,

I hope I do because most of the times I know I am still hearing music through shiny boxes... I want the real thing like everybody else.

 

BD,

I'm afraid I don't do handfuls of sand (silicone ) Real ones all the way for me . I understand how the music that we play should sound, it is true. Doesn't mean it hold the same for everyone, we all have our personal preferences, mine just happens to be timing/coherence & the live feel as I precieve it to be.
When I'm playing I'm maybe 1.5 to 3 feet from the snares/kick/cymbols etc, I feel/hear REAL dynamics, instainiously with feeling & the nth degree of thwack, together with bass player WE are the driving Rythym & timing section that underpins the whole band, they take they cues of us (or hang out the solo's longer than one of Mike B's dac 64 parise ups ) Now, you are never going to recreate that sort of dynamic in your front room not even with some serious kit, it just aint gunna happen, however one can get close
Besides, some one else may like they drums some what muted and 34 rows back
You see BD, you don't have to understand me (besides you humans are some what limited in rudimentery intelligence and somewhat lacking in the grasp of the very basic fundementals of existance) to 'get' what I try to achieve, you see its not forevery one, I make no bones about it, I also don't ram it down their throats as to why I KNOW I'M RIGHT .
Quite the opposite, remember there are those that are partial to Handel/Mozart/Vivalidi and boyzone, so whats top of their 'must have aspects' isn't neccessarly mine or others.
However I believe I managed to get a very happy all round presence and texture, I haven't heard anywhere else, does that make it the best?, not of coarse not, its just my slant on music.
Very simple really

Now Vasco thats most uncharitable sir, I've never stated what I have is the 'ONE TRUE WAY', just a different approach, I'm always looking for it?, don't want to 'Burst your bubble' (Excellent album BTW, Company of Snakes), however, my cdp has been Wadia for the last 30 months, my speakers have been Meadowlark for the last 23 months, and my amps have been a Belcanto for the last 24 also (I have built some rather interesting monoblox, though these are a PWM derivitive).
So I'm afarid your not going to tar me with that bursh my old china'.
I would like you to consider long and hard before 'Thinking' again, it obviously plays havoc with your cognitive functions Vasco, I suggest a coarse of liptmus tea, some st johns wart and deep breathing excerises, this should help you stave off those irritating 'thoughts'
I decided to enter the land of anality simply because I couldn't find anything off the shelf that preformed the way I wanted it too. Nothing more, besides racing cars becomes Irksome after a few years, mind you even some of the characters that hang around that particular male bastain arn't a patch on some of the frequenters here
Hope some of the information now present assists you, trying to escape that deluded little bubble of self inflated egoness that you've enveloped yourself in of late, here's hoping that magicain can break that spell of nullness thats got you caught in a tempral causality loop. Wm

 

Merlin,

I clearly understand your point. But if you get the best possible reproduction of a recorded medium like CD, which was designed to faithful reproduce the music event like vinyl was (but unfortunetely there is a pratical and physical limitation for vinyl), you are getting the maximum from the medium and by doing so you are hearing more from the artists, the musicians and the sound engineers because they work together.

Now, when you try to tune the system to your liking you are acting like a sound engineer but without having any knowledge whatsoever about the real event. You may tell me that you find it musically more rewarding but then again, you don't need high fidelity for that. Either you become a electronic musician yourself or a sound engineer...

The concept of high fidelity is in its words: HIGH FIDELITY... for people singing and for people playing physical instruments.

The proof that your approach is misleading lies on the fact that you are always changing your equipment without necessarily getting better results but only different ones... eventually it becomes a fashion thing with shiny clothes over nice and round breast implants.

 

That's the point BD: I don't believe that everybody wants 'the real thing'.
I would rather say there are groups of people that want the same thing but there are very many other people who want their own taste.

 

Excelent post Wm... seriously! Thank you.

But what do you see wrong about Tube Dude's null test for getting timing/coherence & the live feel?

My problem (and maybe it is really a problem of mine) is that I can see no other way of getting it from an amp... do you?

Is there any other way of getting the live feel without accuracy?

It's like taking a picture from a scenario you don't like and painting it your way... where is the live feel?

Even for music you need time accuracy... look what happened to me, I wanted to be a drummer...

 

CD was indeed designed to be perfect. Sadly it isn't. The main problem is the mastering of the majority of commercial recordings (get a Tact, it will prove this to you!). Michael's link was highly enlightening on this subject.

So with the majority of music I own on CD, I am subjected to clipping distortion, where the tops of the sound waves are clipped or cut off. this means the wave is not an accurate representation of the recorded sound. This ruins the illusion of the truth, making certain things sound artificial and processed It subjectively results in harshness, that has no foundation in real instruments.

Now the medium itself is capable of so much more. Some CD's are properly mastered. Good examples that I own are Rumours, Leftism, and some Underworld albums. These recordings are very close to their analogue counterparts. Sadly I cannot think of many others in my collection. So the promise of high fidelity is there with digital mediums. It is currently the record industry that fails us. And don't even get me started on copy protection!

So high fidelity reproduction must start with a high fidelity source IMO. And you won't get that with CD, all you will do is amplify it's inherrent failings. Don't get me wrong, it can still be highly enjoyable. It's just that you cannot claim to have an accurate, distortion free replay chain when the software itself is distorted.

I like to think I know what a piano or acoustic guitar sounds like.Also some drum sounds. I find it easier most of the time to believe I am listening to the real thing when using an analogue source.probably because the record contains all the parts of the jigsaw to enable the system to sound like it.

CD is of course far more user friendly,and has a silent background, but I am rapidly forming the opinion that it takes a great deal of the blame for the decline of real music listening as a passtime.

If you dig though the history of my posts with the diligence you have shown in the past, you will find that I arrived at this conclusion after advocating accuracy almost as passionately as you do now. What I say now comes from the experience of going down your path and finding tedium at the end of it. My valve and vinyl setup is far from perfect, but I will tell you something. A cymbol sounds far more like a real cymbol on this than it ever could with an ultra-low distortion setup playing a commercial compact disc. That is far more important to me than specifications. And one of the reasons I cannot oncentrate on anything other than the music when I am listening these days.

I do hope you enjoy your journey as much as I have. I feel confident that you will reach the same conclusion if you keep an open mind and learn from your experiences.

 

Dude, are you saying that those tits of yours are real? I could have sworn you'd had implants.

-- Ian

 

merlin - the problems with clipping distortion on CDs as a result of recording at too high a level is largely confined to pop/rock music. Classical CDs are on the whole pretty good in this respect. Classical music also tends to have a much greater dynamic range so the better dynamic range of CD (compared to vinyl) helps here also.

A third benefit of CDs for classical music is that many classical pieces are longer than the 20mins or so you get on the side of an LP meaning that you can listen to most pieces of classical music (other than very long symphonies and operas) on a CD without interruption.

It seems to me that fans of vinyl are much more vocal amongst non-classical listeners, perhaps the above are reasons why?

Michael.

 

Vasco,
I have nothing against the null test, I do have an issue with your promotion of it, at all costs its the silver lined cloud, I do have a 1062, and in my main system when inserted the live feel deminishes back a significant factor,as does the detail, drive and 'correctness' of the instrument sounds.
This is in my system, the Moon I-5 does not loose anywhere near the amount of 'live feel' as the 1062, this doesn't make the Rotel a bad amp, consiedering the company its keeping its doing pretty well.
Because you can see no other way of extracting this from an amp, doesn't mean it cannot be achieve, though I'll say this, may sound is achieved by the SUM OF THE PARTS, not anyone particular component shinning more brightly than the other. I've taken My Personal Wadia to My brothers system, doesn't have the effect there (still ), or at work.
Always have an open mind, never dismiss anything until you have personally thought man this is turbo bollox.

I can assure you, I have a very real live 'in the basement raw sound' if the music warrants it, also I have those delicate atmospheric moments too.
Its all about getting the balance right, it takes time, but when it there its
One other item I'd like to point out, in the last 4 weeks I've purchased over 100 new cd's, this is obviously the action of a man so dispondent with his sound he's going to buy a Harmonix Remo and studio master power leads like NOT!!!.
So just to recapp, No handfulls of sand, same kit, awesome live performance, lots of music purchases, sorta kinda of says to me? though you may tell me different

 

Ian,

All real mate, no soya oil in sight either!!!

 

Merlin,

I completely agree with you here... but the real problem, the pratical one, the one that we are able to do somehting about... is the reproduction system.

If we don't have an accurate amp and speakers we will never know how capable the medium itself is.

What I found amazing is that Tube Dude's amp (the most accurate one I know of) makes the best of every CD. It comunicates music in a totally open and transparent way.

Merlin, I'm in some kind of advantage here because I've heard an amp that it is as accurate as I can think of, and you have not...

However, I found the 1062 to be an excelent example of accuracy because I null test it. I know you like it, I know you don't think that is the best, but I also know that you, like me, feel there is a "rightness" to it!

It is that "rightness" that keeps me listening my Moon Eclipse and my compressed CDs with a joy and emotion like never before.

 

Fair points and I'd agree. I don't listen to much classical music however. Indeed it represents a very small proportion of music sales globally as far as I know, suggesting Cd excels in a niche market.

The theoretical dynamic range advantage is again dependent on both the recording and the headroom of the system. To fully apreciate it IMO you need a lot of power and some very large speakers.

I find it interesting that Graham N was considering a turntable after visiting Titian.

And IME, analogue often sounds subjectively more dynamic with all other musical genres, no doubt due to being able to listen at higher levels without suffering fatigue.

 

Try a Tact Millenium Mk111. You will soon understand the comical nature of that post

 

Maybe it's your thinking or experience thas limited, so in your experience TD's amp is the most accurate you have heard, maybe you should hear some more before being so evangelistic about your path being the only one.

 

No... No... and No!

You are putting it the other way around...

There's nothing comical about the null test. Me and Michael, we are the only ones here who can really say that we've heard a virtually perfect amp, and therefore accurate, because we have seen with our own eyes and listening with our own ears the output being equal to the input in an amp driving real speakers with normal music from a CD player.

We are the exception you are the norm... Whithout null test an amp no one can tell if it is accurate or if it is not.

My problem with your approach is very simple:

You are trying to find something to your liking that was manufactured and VOICED to the likes of somebody else... that way it's very easy to get lost...

Wm takes a little different approach... he tries to voice to his liking without any specific criterion but his ear, what was voiced by someone else, by doing some electronic mods... but how does he knows what mods to make? By trial and error?

Wm,

How do you know?