Being aware of misbehaviour of the playback chain

[fas42]

I had the thought, while attempting to digest christopher3393's D&Ms in another thread, that very few seem to have the inclination or interest when listening to a system, to actively note what the setup is getting wrong - picking up where the sound is noticeably flawed, as a guide to then attempting to improve the integrity of the whole. I couldn't possibly do the type of modifying or optimising I carry out, without having this "ability" to monitor progress made - something I've built up over the years, as I try to keep pushing forward.

 

Anyway, just curious who if any adopts this way of thinking to any degree - and what their experiences are ... and, as a counterpoint , what the thoughts of those who would totally reject this attitude are.

 

[fas42]

Just became aware of this recent review by Chris,

 

I've come across many posted experiences of this particular DAC which indicate that the engineering has been got right, inside the box - no modding, or excuses need to be made for the component, as is.

 

Why this is relevant to this thread is because Chris is describing what listening to recordings when the flaws are low enough in level, is like. If the experience is anything less than that, then the poor ear/brain is struggling to deal with the anomalies in the playback - the ease and pleasure in the listening is the marker for low levels of misbehaviour.

[gmgraves]

2 hours ago, fas42 said:

I had the thought, while attempting to digest christopher3393's D&Ms in another thread, that very few seem to have the inclination or interest when listening to a system, to actively note what the setup is getting wrong - picking up where the sound is noticeably flawed, as a guide to then attempting to improve the integrity of the whole. I couldn't possibly do the type of modifying or optimising I carry out, without having this "ability" to monitor progress made - something I've built up over the years, as I try to keep pushing forward.

 

Anyway, just curious who if any adopts this way of thinking to any degree - and what their experiences are ... and, as a counterpoint , what the thoughts of those who would totally reject this attitude are.

 

OK, I'll bite. My system, Which sounds very good, BTW, suffers from the following faults: It lacks the dynamic range of a real, live performance, and so do all of the recordings I play on it. Real brass has a certain palpable bite, that is lacking in my system. My speakers only go down into the mid thirties, and I want to go down to 20 Hz at least. I only get real stereo from real stereo recordings and I want all my playback to be "real" stereo. So tell me, Frank, how can your "procedure" fix these shortcomings for me. I don't have any problems with RFI, my mains is clean as whistle (with my hospital isolation transformer), and I don't use USB to stream my music from my computer to my DAC. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide. 

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

Just became aware of this recent review by Chris,

 

I've come across many posted experiences of this particular DAC which indicate that the engineering has been got right, inside the box - no modding, or excuses need to be made for the component, as is.

 

Why this is relevant to this thread is because Chris is describing what listening to recordings when the flaws are low enough in level, is like. If the experience is anything less than that, then the poor ear/brain is struggling to deal with the anomalies in the playback - the ease and pleasure in the listening is the marker for low levels of misbehaviour.

Has Chris gone through your "procedure"? No? Then how can he possibly have a system that is low in flaws? You have said on more than one occasion that it has nothing to do with the quality or price of the components and that mid-fi components and junk speakers will give state-of-the-art sonics if your "procedure" is followed. Now, I'm reasonably sure that Chris hasn't performed your procedure on his system (I'm also sure that dCS would not appreciate Chris soldering his audio interconnect cables to their review sample!). So how do you reconcile Chris' listening bliss with the fact that he hasn't done to his system what you have done to yours (whatever that is) when you have made not clear that without your "procedure" every other system is junk?

[fas42]

9 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

Has Chris gone through your "procedure"? No? Then how can he possibly have a system that is low in flaws? You have said on more than one occasion that it has nothing to do with the quality or price of the components and that mid-fi components and junk speakers will give state-of-the-art sonics if your "procedure" is followed. Now, I'm reasonably sure that Chris hasn't performed your procedure on his system (I'm also sure that dCS would not appreciate Chris soldering his audio interconnect cables to their review sample!). So how do you reconcile Chris' listening bliss with the fact that he hasn't done to his system what you have done to yours (whatever that is) when you have made not clear that without your "procedure" every other system is junk?

 

I'll respond to this one first  ... I only go through the "procedure " as much as necessary - if the components are engineered excellently, or to a high level, in the first place then far less has to be done after the matter; price doesn't figure in getting a solution, if the engineering hasn't been done in the right places. And that can be a learning exercise, for the company, for over some years ... I've mentioned hearing the most expensive dCS CD rig made, about 15 years ago - vastly more expensive than the Rossini - and that was awful to listen to, a very poor standard. Well, it's been clear from reviews that dCS quite recently jumped dramatically in subjective quality - knowledge, experience have accumulated at the company, and it shows in the current range.

 

Not "everything" has to be done - only a certain standard has to be reached in perceived SQ, and one does what gives the most gains, for the particular gear. Cheap gear uses poor quality hardware parts in the connector, switches areas; so it makes sense to deal with those early in the piece.

[fas42]

1 hour ago, gmgraves said:

OK, I'll bite. My system, Which sounds very good, BTW, suffers from the following faults: It lacks the dynamic range of a real, live performance, and so do all of the recordings I play on it. Real brass has a certain palpable bite, that is lacking in my system. My speakers only go down into the mid thirties, and I want to go down to 20 Hz at least. I only get real stereo from real stereo recordings and I want all my playback to be "real" stereo. So tell me, Frank, how can your "procedure" fix these shortcomings for me. I don't have any problems with RFI, my mains is clean as whistle (with my hospital isolation transformer), and I don't use USB to stream my music from my computer to my DAC. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide. 

 

Nicely presented ...

 

The perceived dynamic range of a live performance comes about, because it goes loud, "effortlessly". What the latter really means, is that when a point of peak SPLs is produced is that there is no apparent audible disortion going along for the ride. If it does distort, as in a typical audio rig, then our ear/brain adjusts, in part to "protect" our hearing, and that peak "sounds wrong" - the palpable bite of real brass is pushing hard on that Achilles Heel of most setups; that they can't deliver the intensity of the HF energy in the waveform, without excess distortion. Our brains trigger on that distortion, and the result is that it doesn't sound real.

 

Trying to plumb the lowest frequencies is completely unnecessary, IME. The sense of the deep rumbling of big pipe organ spectaculars, say, comes about from much higher frequencies emerging correctly - the brain adjusts to "insert the fundamental" if it's not actually there; something builders of real organs have exploited for centuries.

 

If you do want to take me seriously , try playing a recording where the brass is obviously lacking, but it's still a "good recording" - and listen closely to the brass climaxes at different volumes, going right down to the softest gain setting where you can still hear what's playing - is there a point where the tonal quality of the brass changes, or is it totally consistent throughout the range of volumes?

 

 

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

 

I'll respond to this one first  ... I only go through the "procedure " as much as necessary - if the components are engineered excellently, or to a high level, in the first place then far less has to be done after the matter; price doesn't figure in getting a solution, if the engineering hasn't been done in the right places. And that can be a learning exercise, for the company, for over some years ... I've mentioned hearing the most expensive dCS CD rig made, about 15 years ago - vastly more expensive than the Rossini - and that was awful to listen to, a very poor standard. Well, it's been clear from reviews that dCS quite recently jumped dramatically in subjective quality - knowledge, experience have accumulated at the company, and it shows in the current range.

It's called progress, Frank. Engineering is a process not a fixed set of rigid rules that must be followed. A Boeing 737 is made from aluminum, but a 777 is made largely from carbon fiber and other composite materials. As a result, the more modern plane is lighter, stronger, more fuel efficient, somewhat cheaper to build (in adjusted dollars), and has a higher speed cruise. I would hope that the dCS Rossini would sound better than a rig from the same company or 15 years ago. It would be pretty depressing if it didn't.

 

So now you are saying that good components can be assembled into a system without your "procedure" and still have really good sound? That's a different tune you're singing, my friend. Why just a couple of days ago you were still asserting that the cost of components didn't matter. And that without your secret "procedure" no system could come ben close to sounding like real music, but with it any lash-up of components could not only sound like real, live, unamplified music, but could make the worst recordings, those that are veiled, distorted, poorly recorded dull sounding perform like the finest audiophile-grade recordings. My what a difference a day makes!

Quote

 

Not "everything" has to be done - only a certain standard has to be reached in perceived SQ, and one does what gives the most gains, for the particular gear. Cheap gear uses poor quality hardware parts in the connector, switches areas; so it makes sense to deal with those early in the piece.

Yet cheap switches and connectors give the same extremely low resistance connections as do expensive connectors and switches - they might not stay that way for as long, but believe me, they work just as well over their useful life. An anecdote here: About 10 years ago, I bought, at an electronic flea market (I believe in other English speaking countries its called a "jumble"), a Harman Kardon Citation I preamp from the early 60's. When it came out it was quite expensive, and was touted to be the cleanest, most accurate preamp in the world. It was designed by a legendary audio designer named Stewart Hegeman. He called it a "straight wire with gain". Anyway, this Citation I I bought had no tubes, a frayed line cord, and one of the rotary switches wouldn't rotate. It did come with it's walnut cabinet, but that was water damaged. I set about restoring it. I replaced the power supply caps with bigger ones, all the power supply resistors were replaced with film resistors; the paper signal caps were replaced with polypropylenes and all the disc ceramics with polystyrenes. I replaced all the resistors in the signal path with Vishay low-noise plastic film types. I also cleaned the rotary switches and freed-up the one that was frozen. The preamp had a series of slide switches as well, and they were really cheaply constructed. Made out of bent "tin" with thin phenolic back plates holding the contacts, I was dubious that I could get them to work as they should. I replaced all the tubes, and re-finished the walnut cabinet. One thing that I wanted to do, but couldn't because of the preamp's construction, was replace all of the then standard tin-plated RCA inputs and outputs. This was the era before one could buy factory-made RCA interconnects (one made one's own), so there was no space between the plugs for molded strain relief. That meant that modern RCAs could not be plugged in right next to each other. Well at that point I gave up. I wasn't about to make-up a dozen hand-made interconnects, so I sold the mostly finished project (after it languished in a closet for a couple of years) to a friend. He did something that I hadn't thought of. He removed the long strip of connected RCA jacks, used a sheet metal nibbler tool to open up the panel where the RCA jacks had fit, made up a new panel, drilled holes to take the screw-type (WBT-style) gold plated RCAs and solved the spacing issue by only connecting those RCAs that he knew he would be using: Phono, three line-level, and an output pair. He did not wire up the tape loop, the second pair of pre-amp outs, and several more line-level inputs. When he fired it up it worked perfectly, sounded great (when he brought it over to my place and we compared it to my Audio Research SP-10, it sounded better!). The cheap controls worked perfectly, including the cheap phenolic rotary switches and the junk slide switches too and the cheap pots were quiet and felt silky. All that was needed was some strategically sprayed Radio Shack TV tuner cleaner! 

 

Below see a rebuilt Citation I similar to the rebuild I did. Notice how close the RCAs are to one another. Next to that see the front panel of the Citation I. Notice the cheap slide switches. In the first picture you can see the back of the phenolic rotary switches  

[opus101]

4 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

A Boeing 737 is made from aluminum, but a 777 is made largely from carbon fiber and other composite materials

 

I suspect you meant to write 787 here, the 777 has about 9% (according to Wikipedia) composites.

[gmgraves]

38 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Nicely presented ...

 

The perceived dynamic range of a live performance comes about, because it goes loud, "effortlessly". What the latter really means, is that when a point of peak SPLs is produced is that there is no apparent audible disortion going along for the ride. If it does distort, as in a typical audio rig, then our ear/brain adjusts, in part to "protect" our hearing, and that peak "sounds wrong" - the palpable bite of real brass is pushing hard on that Achilles Heel of most setups; that they can't deliver the intensity of the HF energy in the waveform, without excess distortion. Our brains trigger on that distortion, and the result is that it doesn't sound real.

But of course, your "procedure" can fix that, right? At least that what you have been touting for weeks here on CA. 

38 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Trying to plumb the lowest frequencies is completely unnecessary, IME. The sense of the deep rumbling of big pipe organ spectaculars, say, comes about from much higher frequencies emerging correctly - the brain adjusts to "insert the fundamental" if it's not actually there; something builders of real organs have exploited for centuries.

So your "procedure" can't fix that? And you don't think it's necessary? How can you get the "realism" you brag about constantly without the foundation of that bottom octave of the musical spectrum?

38 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

If you do want to take me seriously , try playing a recording where the brass is obviously lacking, but it's still a "good recording" - and listen closely to the brass climaxes at different volumes, going right down to the softest gain setting where you can still hear what's playing - is there a point where the tonal quality of the brass changes, or is it totally consistent throughout the range of volumes?

It has nothing to do with volume; it's the complex harmonic structure coupled with the transient response of all speakers (even ESLs) that is insufficient to reproduce it, and of the best condenser microphones for being unable to capture it!

 

[gmgraves]

2 minutes ago, opus101 said:

 

I suspect you meant to write 787 here, the 777 has about 9% (according to Wikipedia) composites.

Which ever one is dubbed the "Dream Liner" is the one to which I'm referring. 

[fas42]

28 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

It has nothing to do with volume; it's the complex harmonic structure coupled with the transient response of all speakers (even ESLs) that is insufficient to reproduce it, and of the best condenser microphones for being unable to capture it!

 

 

Right, you're not interested in taking me seriously, we've got that sorted ... what I just mentioned is exactly what I would do if I happened to witness your system, and was curious how it behaved ...

 

Quote

So your "procedure" can't fix that? And you don't think it's necessary? How can you get the "realism" you brag about constantly without the foundation of that bottom octave of the musical spectrum?

 

Because it's not necessary - as I stated earlier. I find the bass behaviours of nearly all systems quite unrealistic, and even those that have that low bass meat well sorted still don't get the sound right - the whole spectrum has to be in balance, just chucking in a bit of low bass doesn't fix the rest.

[fas42]

1 hour ago, gmgraves said:

So now you are saying that good components can be assembled into a system without your "procedure" and still have really good sound? That's a different tune you're singing, my friend. Why just a couple of days ago you were still asserting that the cost of components didn't matter. And that without your secret "procedure" no system could come ben close to sounding like real music, but with it any lash-up of components could not only sound like real, live, unamplified music, but could make the worst recordings, those that are veiled, distorted, poorly recorded dull sounding perform like the finest audiophile-grade recordings. My what a difference a day makes!

 

Ummm, that's not what I've been saying, George - rather, if a system one has doesn't deliver what one hoped for, that careful attention to deficiences will "rescue" the setup, and, the recordings that you want to enjoy.

 

And you keep forgetting the key ingredient - the "low class" recordings are translated, inside your mind, to match how you 'know' the sound should be - you no longer are aware of the issues of the recording quality, unless you deliberately focus on that aspect. This bit of 'inner magic" only kicks in when key aspects of the presentation quality are good enough - and, note again, it most likely won't work for everyone.

 

Quote

Yet cheap switches and connectors give the same extremely low resistance connections as do expensive connectors and switches - they might not stay that way for as long, but believe me, they work just as well over their useful life. An anecdote here: About 10 years ago, I bought, at an electronic flea market (I believe in other English speaking countries its called a "jumble"), a Harman Kardon Citation I preamp from the early 60's. When it came out it was quite expensive, and was touted to be the cleanest, most accurate preamp in the world. It was designed by a legendary audio designer named Stewart Hegeman. He called it a "straight wire with gain". Anyway, this Citation I I bought had no tubes, a frayed line cord, and one of the rotary switches wouldn't rotate. It did come with it's walnut cabinet, but that was water damaged. I set about restoring it. I replaced the power supply caps with bigger ones, all the power supply resistors were replaced with film resistors; the paper signal caps were replaced with polypropylenes and all the disc ceramics with polystyrenes. I replaced all the resistors in the signal path with Vishay low-noise plastic film types. I also cleaned the rotary switches and freed-up the one that was frozen. The preamp had a series of slide switches as well, and they were really cheaply constructed. Made out of bent "tin" with thin phenolic back plates holding the contacts, I was dubious that I could get them to work as they should. I replaced all the tubes, and re-finished the walnut cabinet. One thing that I wanted to do, but couldn't because of the preamp's construction, was replace all of the then standard tin-plated RCA inputs and outputs. This was the era before one could buy factory-made RCA interconnects (one made one's own), so there was no space between the plugs for molded strain relief. That meant that modern RCAs could not be plugged in right next to each other. Well at that point I gave up. I wasn't about to make-up a dozen hand-made interconnects, so I sold the mostly finished project (after it languished in a closet for a couple of years) to a friend. He did something that I hadn't thought of. He removed the long strip of connected RCA jacks, used a sheet metal nibbler tool to open up the panel where the RCA jacks had fit, made up a new panel, drilled holes to take the screw-type (WBT-style) gold plated RCAs and solved the spacing issue by only connecting those RCAs that he knew he would be using: Phono, three line-level, and an output pair. He did not wire up the tape loop, the second pair of pre-amp outs, and several more line-level inputs. When he fired it up it worked perfectly, sounded great (when he brought it over to my place and we compared it to my Audio Research SP-10, it sounded better!). The cheap controls worked perfectly, including the cheap phenolic rotary switches and the junk slide switches too and the cheap pots were quiet and felt silky. All that was needed was some strategically sprayed Radio Shack TV tuner cleaner! 

 

Below see a rebuilt Citation I similar to the rebuild I did. Notice how close the RCAs are to one another. Next to that see the front panel of the Citation I. Notice the cheap slide switches. In the first picture you can see the back of the phenolic rotary switches  

 

Nifty project there - shame you didn't reap the benefit of all your efforts!! You might have noted similar quality controls in the NAD amp innards I posted on STC's thread, but these definitely didn't pass muster - everything bypassed, shorted out or removed from circuit that wasn't essential; this is what I do to lift the standard high enough - sound is too "dirty", otherwise.

[PeterSt]

3 hours ago, gmgraves said:

So tell me, Frank, how can your "procedure" fix these shortcomings for me.

 

You really want an answer without interpreting this as sarcasm ?

 

Quote

It lacks the dynamic range of a real, live performance, and so do all of the recordings I play on it.

 

Per your description, indeed it does.

 

Quote

Real brass has a certain palpable bite,

 

It should sound like Chris Barber will be shattering your windows. Your system is slow. Real slow. It is slow on all sides. Get a new super fast speaker here won't do the job. You have to start all over.

 

Quote

My speakers only go down into the mid thirties

 

So, get yourself a pair which go down to late teens.

 

Quote

I only get real stereo from real stereo recordings and I want all my playback to be "real" stereo.

 

So George, you think you can be funny. That's fine.

But you are hopelessly lost in the base and went all the wrong direction. Frank can't help you here.

Of course I am asking you to take this with a few grains of salt but at the same time you are the testimonial of exactly what Frank implies in his first sentence in the OP. Implying that this is all BS is exactly what you should not have done, although everybody including you can do what he likes, of course. But it isn't going to bring you progress.

 

Quote

My system, Which sounds very good, BTW,

 

I don't know where you get that from. It sounds lousy. Maybe good to your ears, but not to mine. 

Fact seems to be that you are satisfied with your system anyway, and apparently don't even start seeking for improvement (Frank's stance). Yet you derail this thread right from the start. But maybe Frank was challenging you for exactly that - hard to tell from the distance. CA is not much serious, lately.

Fact is also that you are too young to have given up on this and that you could be too ignorant to solve it. You already know. Too much experienced.

Right.

 

The procedure works out over here though. I estimate the improvement a factor of 2 (whatever that means) each year, for the 10 years I am doing it with the whole chain under my technical control. Prior to that I was only the lousy consumer for 40 years or so which gave me a good start for these past 10 years. These 10 years go like this, day in day out each and every day. It is about listening for the hopefully improvements realized in the past few days. 3-4 hours each day (this is 1100 hours a year at least and 11000 hours in total by now). Btw, if I would have done this solely for myself, the explicitly spent time on listening for improvement would have been significantly less. However, because the key for me is improving for you, this is a whole of a different ball game. So if I come forward with a new version of the software (each ~ 6 months these days) it will sound better for all of you. It may even let sound your plastic flutes a bit more metal (brass would be too difficult, coming from plastic ). And that is only software - the so-called least influencing part of the chain. But, it is the most common to what everybody could possess never mind it is the weak means. Then we have PC's, D/A converters, amplifiers, loudspeakers, PC interfaces, cables, power supply in general. Only the latter I can't control for people's homes but man, what can that (mains and grounding) be wrong. Fun is, though, that once a whole set is not working out (say shipped from here to you), it has to be the mains and grounding in general.

 

All is in the very last sentence above. It tries to bring across that once you have a component you can 100% trust for its transparency (like 100% neutral), you can build from there. Getting such a component is like winning the lottery and this is still about one component. But I can tell you, once you have gathered them all and you have all consistently working, improvement becomes as easy as starting your car because when the change is no improvement at all, you will perceive that in seconds. This is because the change has no ambiguity in it; The remainder in the chain was at "100%" so that can't be it.

 

I hope this made sense. And don't forget the grain of salt.

Peter

[Blackmorec]

12 hours ago, fas42 said:

I had the thought, while attempting to digest christopher3393's D&Ms in another thread, that very few seem to have the inclination or interest when listening to a system, to actively note what the setup is getting wrong - picking up where the sound is noticeably flawed, as a guide to then attempting to improve the integrity of the whole. I couldn't possibly do the type of modifying or optimising I carry out, without having this "ability" to monitor progress made - something I've built up over the years, as I try to keep pushing forward.

 

Anyway, just curious who if any adopts this way of thinking to any degree - and what their experiences are ... and, as a counterpoint , what the thoughts of those who would totally reject this attitude are.

 

To be honest, I would have thought that almost every audiophile actively engaged with the hobby is looking to isolate problems with their systems and improve its shortcomings to achieve a more realistic sound.  Read any review of hi-fi equipment and what you get is a list of 'more' and 'less'. More, such as dynamics, frequency range, detail, spacial information etc. address system 'shortcoming and limitations' whereas 'less', such as distortion, noise etc. address system 'failings'.

I would have thought that audiophiles' constant upgrading is a measure of the effort they are putting into chasing down the system shortcomings they perceive.

In my opinion, where most systems fail is in room matching and system set up. Too large speakers in a small room, speakers too close together or with large pieces of furniture between, difficult-to-position ported speakers in small rooms, turntable and electronics sitting on resonant structures, cables sub-optimally routed, use of domestic mains rings,  TTs and electronics that 'wobble on 3 of their 4 feet or that are placed in corners with maximum acoustic energy.

Finally, a word about emulating the live event and a question; is this something we really want to do?  With a Joe Bonamassa concert still ringing in my ears I remember my overriding impression of the sound. Very loud, so my ears actually start to distort, very blurry, such that I could not follow any of the lyrics that Joe sang so passionately and with a huge overblown bass guitar that should have had a good 10-15 dB cut in gain relative to the rest. There's no doubt in my mind that those guys who set up these concert sound systems are pretty much deaf from all their exposure to super-loud noise.  I tried ear plugs, but they just act like massive cross-overs, dramatically reducing some  frequencies while doing nothing for others. The day after the concert I took a listen to my system....how incredibly pleasant. Each instrument well separated and delineated, with tremendous timbre and acoustic air and information...lyrics I could follow and not a trace of distortion.....so much nicer to listen to. Does it have the live concert dynamics? No. Do I want the live concert dynamics? Probably not because long term that'll damage my hearing and overload my room. For me hi-fi and live are 2 entirely separate things....like eating at home every day and dining out.  What you want are beautifully cooked, delicious but nutritionally well balanced home cooked meals and the occasional restaurant treat of food cooked to taste great without much regard for the fats and sugars they contain; but home cooked or restaurant, you certainly want all the ingredients to taste great....fresh and authentic.  

And that's exactly what I want in a hi-fi system.....instruments to sound totally authentic but not necessarily played at concert hall levels. I want the sound to integrate perfectly with my room and involve me fully, with nothing to detract from my enjoyment of the music.  Generally speaking, massed instruments are not designed to be played in the typical small listening room found domestically, so by definition, out systems must dilute the intensity in a way that doesn't damage the realism, and therein lies the trick. Instruments replayed at levels lower than the original recording, with no loss of fidelity and the sense of realism, at reasonable SPLs.

So, chasing down system shortcomings is IMO no magic formula but rather a fundamental of the audiophile hobby that doesn't necessarily involve perfect emulation of the live event, but rather the creation of a perfect facsimile that is involving, enjoyable and 100% convincing, that doesn't damage our hearing.

[semente]

11 hours ago, gmgraves said:

OK, I'll bite. My system, Which sounds very good, BTW, suffers from the following faults: It lacks the dynamic range of a real, live performance, and so do all of the recordings I play on it. Real brass has a certain palpable bite, that is lacking in my system. My speakers only go down into the mid thirties, and I want to go down to 20 Hz at least. I only get real stereo from real stereo recordings and I want all my playback to be "real" stereo. So tell me, Frank, how can your "procedure" fix these shortcomings for me. I don't have any problems with RFI, my mains is clean as whistle (with my hospital isolation transformer), and I don't use USB to stream my music from my computer to my DAC. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide. 

 

Unlike @PeterSt  I find that your post is a very good starting point for this discussion.

 

For starters one cannot expect a domestic reproduction system of recorded music to reproduce what the recording system was not able to capture, and which is obviously not in the signal.

Live sound is live sound, and many aspects or attributes of live sound cannot be recreated in your home with your reproduction system due to limitations in both the recording and the reproduction processes.

Still, it is my experience and conviction that good recordings of live acoustic unamplified music such as those from PlayClassics are the best for assessing not only "naturalness" or "realism" but also several other attributes of the system's performance. Other kinds of recordings and music genres also have their use in the listening evaluation.

It is also extremely important to know what can be achieved in reproduction, to have solid references to which compare what we are listening, to set standards and expectations. I would tend to believe that will more likely find those references in private systems that at dealers' or shows. In fact I am always surprised by the profusion of praising comments on show demos.

 

But since there's only so much one can assess through listening we also have to resort to measurements.

It is my experience that what's generally accepted as being below the limits of audibility for certain parameters can sometimes not be realistic and in most cases I have foound that better measurements produce more "realism" from the right recordings and manifest less and/or lower in level shortcomings. The problem here is that people like me do not perform their own measurements and have to rely on third party such as those performed by magazines, which leaves us somewhat handicapped.

 

Finally we have yet another an approach to problem solving which is not confined to replacing the equipment with one that improves on it's shortcomings but addresses problems in the design of that specific piece of gear. Unfortunately most of us are not knowledgeable enough in electronics or electro-acoustics to recognize problems in the circuits or components nor able perform such modifications or optimisations; and even if we were I suspect that many would rather not tamper with their equipment for fear of damaging the resale value or voiding the manufacturer's warranty. But again it is my experience that all commercially available equipment can be made to perform better, with some modifications in certain components sometimes producing a significant improvement.

The system I use as reference consists of a couple of modified/optimized CD players, a couple of custom-designed DACs (one PCM-only NOS DAC, one Sabre), a custom-designed integrated and a pair of large 3-way speakers which has also seen work to it's crossover. It's sound is to my ears superior to that of an all-top-of-the-range-TAD demo I listened to once, which in turn was the best sound I've listened to from a commercial (virgin) system. There's only so much you can achieve using commercial gear, then you have to do it yourself (or have someone do it for you). That's what Peter is doing, or this friend of mine who designed my amplifier and who's system I use as reference.

 

Everything matters in audio, what changes is the magnitude with which something affects performance (audibly or below audibility) and the more shortcomings one addresses the better the overal performance (avoiding their combined effects). But there's no point in worrying about things which have minimal impact if you have more notable problems to address (it may even be possible that your system cannot expose to listening a few of those minimal impact shortcomings).

[pkane2001]

2 hours ago, Blackmorec said:

I would have thought that audiophiles' constant upgrading is a measure of the effort they are putting into chasing down the system shortcomings they perceive.

 

That's right, and I really like the rest of your post and the eating out analogy! Where the problem occurs and where opinions differ is in how to determine these shortcomings and how to then go about fixing them. 

 

Frank's (@fas42) approach is deeply subjective, based entirely on his 30 years of hearing experience. Not something that can be repeated by anyone else. I'm glad the process works for him, but it's not useful to me, regardless of how many times he mentions it. I don't (and can't) hear what Frank hears. Short of visiting his listening room and evaluating what he hears, I have no way of applying his process to my own system. 

 

7 hours ago, PeterSt said:

It is about listening for the hopefully improvements realized in the past few days. 3-4 hours each day (this is 1100 hours a year at least and 11000 hours in total by now).

 

Peter is also basing his equipment and software design choices on personal preferences and hearing/perception. Again, very subjective, but at least his results can then be evaluated by others who can decide for themselves whether they like them, or indeed, can even hear the differences.

[Ralf11]

audiophiles' constant upgrading is a measure of the effort they are putting into chasing unicorns

[christopher3393]

https://books.google.com/books?id=-bcaAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA346&lpg=PA346&dq=consuming+audio:+an+introduction+to+tweak+theory&source=bl&ots=UV-c1iCgdR&sig=201qfE-KzESqBHivnoayK_j0EeQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiMuM6kvfjZAhWDhOAKHa_6BJcQ6AEIRzAE#v=onepage&q=consuming audio%3A an introduction to tweak theory&f=false

[pkane2001]

 

21 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

audiophiles' constant upgrading is a measure of the effort they are putting into chasing unicorns

 

I like unicorn as much as the next guy. Tastes like chicken.

 

[gmgraves]

14 hours ago, fas42 said:

Right, you're not interested in taking me seriously, we've got that sorted ... what I just mentioned is exactly what I would do if I happened to witness your system, and was curious how it behaved ...

Well, of course not. I'm mocking your unsubstantiated, unsupported, and altogether impossible claims.You didn't get that?

 

13 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

You really want an answer without interpreting this as sarcasm ?

 

 

Per your description, indeed it does.

 

 

It should sound like Chris Barber will be shattering your windows. Your system is slow. Real slow. It is slow on all sides. Get a new super fast speaker here won't do the job. You have to start all over.

 

 

So, get yourself a pair which go down to late teens.

 

 

So George, you think you can be funny. That's fine.

But you are hopelessly lost in the base and went all the wrong direction. Frank can't help you here.

Of course I am asking you to take this with a few grains of salt but at the same time you are the testimonial of exactly what Frank implies in his first sentence in the OP. Implying that this is all BS is exactly what you should not have done, although everybody including you can do what he likes, of course. But it isn't going to bring you progress.

 

 

I don't know where you get that from. It sounds lousy. Maybe good to your ears, but not to mine. 

Fact seems to be that you are satisfied with your system anyway, and apparently don't even start seeking for improvement (Frank's stance). Yet you derail this thread right from the start. But maybe Frank was challenging you for exactly that - hard to tell from the distance. CA is not much serious, lately.

Fact is also that you are too young to have given up on this and that you could be too ignorant to solve it. You already know. Too much experienced.

Right.

 

The procedure works out over here though. I estimate the improvement a factor of 2 (whatever that means) each year, for the 10 years I am doing it with the whole chain under my technical control. Prior to that I was only the lousy consumer for 40 years or so which gave me a good start for these past 10 years. These 10 years go like this, day in day out each and every day. It is about listening for the hopefully improvements realized in the past few days. 3-4 hours each day (this is 1100 hours a year at least and 11000 hours in total by now). Btw, if I would have done this solely for myself, the explicitly spent time on listening for improvement would have been significantly less. However, because the key for me is improving for you, this is a whole of a different ball game. So if I come forward with a new version of the software (each ~ 6 months these days) it will sound better for all of you. It may even let sound your plastic flutes a bit more metal (brass would be too difficult, coming from plastic ). And that is only software - the so-called least influencing part of the chain. But, it is the most common to what everybody could possess never mind it is the weak means. Then we have PC's, D/A converters, amplifiers, loudspeakers, PC interfaces, cables, power supply in general. Only the latter I can't control for people's homes but man, what can that (mains and grounding) be wrong. Fun is, though, that once a whole set is not working out (say shipped from here to you), it has to be the mains and grounding in general.

 

All is in the very last sentence above. It tries to bring across that once you have a component you can 100% trust for its transparency (like 100% neutral), you can build from there. Getting such a component is like winning the lottery and this is still about one component. But I can tell you, once you have gathered them all and you have all consistently working, improvement becomes as easy as starting your car because when the change is no improvement at all, you will perceive that in seconds. This is because the change has no ambiguity in it; The remainder in the chain was at "100%" so that can't be it.

 

I hope this made sense. And don't forget the grain of salt.

Peter

I WAS being sarcastic. 

[kumakuma]

50 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

 

I like unicorn as much as the next guy. Tastes like chicken.

 

 

[Ralf11]

the Borg has assimilated your image...

[gmgraves]

14 hours ago, fas42 said:

Because it's not necessary - as I stated earlier. I find the bass behaviours of nearly all systems quite unrealistic, and even those that have that low bass meat well sorted still don't get the sound right - the whole spectrum has to be in balance, just chucking in a bit of low bass doesn't fix the rest.

Then you haven't been around much. I know an 80-some year old who's system consists of two huge cabinets, each containing FOUR 15 inch Altec Lansing woofers. That's EIGHT in all. I've never before heard such realistic bass, neither have I heard a system which loads the room with bass quite like this one does. It's more visceral than loud at the levels he plays it. It's incredible. OTOH the rest of his speaker system is terrible; comprising as it does of a pair of Altec Lansing 500Hz Treble Horns. Probably one of the most colored and least flat (frequency response-wise) transducers ever made. But Oh that bass!   

[gmgraves]

5 hours ago, pkane2001 said:

 

That's right, and I really like the rest of your post and the eating out analogy! Where the problem occurs and where opinions differ is in how to determine these shortcomings and how to then go about fixing them. 

 

Frank's (@fas42) approach is deeply subjective, based entirely on his 30 years of hearing experience. Not something that can be repeated by anyone else. I'm glad the process works for him, but it's not useful to me, regardless of how many times he mentions it. I don't (and can't) hear what Frank hears. Short of visiting his listening room and evaluating what he hears, I have no way of applying his process to my own system. 

 

 

Peter is also basing his equipment and software design choices on personal preferences and hearing/perception. Again, very subjective, but at least his results can then be evaluated by others who can decide for themselves whether they like them, or indeed, can even hear the differences.

The main problem with Frank's posts is that he touts his process in every post, yet in all of his posts he has failed give the rest of us even the slightest soupçon of anything that would help anybody replicate his findings, and in fact, seems to go out of his way to avoid doing so. When I see such unsubstantiated bragging, I am inclined to suspect that the person doing the bragging is being less than truthful. My taunting of Frank was, at first,  an effort to shame him into coming across with some really useful advice. Then I realized that he is just posting whatever comes into his head, and even contradicts himself. From that I have concluded that not only has he not done the things he says, but he doesn't know enough about either electronics, physics or acoustics to come up with anything at all as novel as what he asserts. 

[gmgraves]

5 hours ago, pkane2001 said:

Frank's (@fas42) approach is deeply subjective, based entirely on his 30 years of hearing experience. Not something that can be repeated by anyone else. I'm glad the process works for him, but it's not useful to me, regardless of how many times he mentions it. I don't (and can't) hear what Frank hears. Short of visiting his listening room and evaluating what he hears, I have no way of applying his process to my own system. 

Well, short of visiting his listening room, we don't even know that he has a listening room, or, for that matter, a stereo system, or whether that "process" he says that he has used to "tune" his system to perfection (or at all) even exists.