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American Hi-Fi: Inferior?


GUTB

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7 hours ago, Richard Dale said:

http://www.audioxpress.com/article/Interview-with-Nelson-Pass

 

But at no point can I find him saying something like 'he is not interested in high fidelity'. When he says 'Whatever the deal is, ultra low distortion doesn’t seem to have much to do with it.', I take 'Whatever the deal is..' to mean 'Whatever high fidelity is as perceived by the human brain..'. 

 

High fidelity is reproducing the content of the recording such that it delivers the impact of the performance if it were experienced in the space where the recording was made; and that one is completely unaware of the mechanism producing this experience. "Ultra low disortion" is just a numbers game, and has as much meaning as saying one car can reach a certain speed slightly sooner than another - and therefore is a superior vehicle, in every way.

 

One could say that you haven't heard the true piano sound until you are made aware of every mechanical noise it emits while working - thanks George :), every creak or squeak; the body noises the player makes ... ummm, how many ways can you say, fetish ... ^_^. Some might want to listen to music as if it were an IQ test - others just listen for, err, pleasure ...

 

 

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Just saying, have heard a few rigs with big Pass amplfiers - and I haven't fallen off my chair. Same ol' problems - most likely a good place to start from to evolve the sound to a good standard; but just buying a name item doesn't provide aspirin relief to listening unpleasantness.

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3 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

I disagree.

 

High fidelity refers to whether or not playback is faithful to the recording.  

 

Whether or not the recording is faithful to the performance is a completely differently issue and is not something we have any control over.

 

I'm quite certain that my methods are faithful to the recording - because as one progresses, on very different setups, the sound of a particular album converges to a single point - that of the intrinsic nature of the musical event, and how it was recorded. Something like a particular string quartet playing, and the hall or space you heard them in - as a comparable, live example. This happens every time - and now and again one digs deeper into a particular recordings, has even more insight into the subtleties of the capture. But the intrinsic, overall sense of the particular set of tracks, the gestalt, always remains the same.

 

I had an interesting example of this, by coincidence the Beethoven violin and piano piece on my YouTube page, with the friend down the road. He has the LP of this, and one time when I turned up he played it - and the tonality was "all wrong" - I shook my head. We did a major round on investigating, and sure enough, there was a solid problem with the mechanical setup of TT - can't remember what it was; but sorted it ... ah! Here we go, the familiar feel, vibe of the the duo playing was nicely in place - the core of what it should sound like was restored.

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9 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

 

Thank you, I was surprised as well.  Maybe I am not as funny as I think I am, or you and I are the smart people here that get my humor...

Well, I'm still thinking it was a win and enjoying them. 

 

I can't believe this thread still has posts. 

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7 hours ago, gmgraves said:

I think that in it's original conceptualization, Frank is right. High-Fidelity meant a large degree of faithfulness to the original performance. And in the early days of the LP and Hi-Fi, when the recordings were mono, they were made with one omni-directional microphone  and they used one that was a flat in frequency response as the technology of the time could get it (Schoeps/Telefunken M201 and Neumann U47 usually). The idea was simply to make a "documentary" recording of the work at hand. No attempt was made for the engineers and producers to be "creative". It was a straight-forward business. Get the performance on tape and then cut it to lacquer and then press records. After stereo recording started, in the mid-1950's, a number of different avenues of approach became available to the people making the recording and the idea of "creative control" occurred to them. At that point, the emphasis shifted from faithfulness to the performance to faithfulness to the recording. As Kumakuma said, at that point, the consumer had little control over what the recording engineers' thoughts about what was "proper" recorded sound. When stereo was applied to what was then called "top 40" performers, the rule book went out the window altogether. The entire emphasis changed from making an accurate document of a performance, to creating on tape that which often did not even exist in real time and space. Below, the 'head' of the strange looking Schoeps/Telefunken M201 microphone used by C. R. Fine of Mercury Records for practically all of the mono "Living Presence" recordings, and at first two of which, then three of these were used for all of the later stereo recordings. 

m201_two_way_cardioid.jpg

I once had pristine copies of nearly all the Mercury Living Presence Monos.  Never heard LP with more dynamics than that.  Thrilling to the point you never missed stereo.  

And always keep in mind: Cognitive biases, like seeing optical illusions are a sign of a normally functioning brain. We all have them, it’s nothing to be ashamed about, but it is something that affects our objective evaluation of reality. 

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Maybe OT

 

Do people really care where their audio or any other product is made? My Audio gear comes mainly from Europe mostly because US audio is very expensive due to transport, Dutch VAT, dollar euro conversion, I don't know.

 

If I like product and I can afford it and want to buy it I'll buy it regardless where it is made, it could be made in North Korea, Israel or Iran. It's all the same to me.

 

There are some products I prefer to buy from local sources, but that is mainly foodstuffs or products from small (family) businesses. 

[br]

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5 hours ago, mordante said:

Maybe OT

 

Do people really care where their audio or any other product is made? My Audio gear comes mainly from Europe mostly because US audio is very expensive due to transport, Dutch VAT, dollar euro conversion, I don't know.

 

If I like product and I can afford it and want to buy it I'll buy it regardless where it is made, it could be made in North Korea, Israel or Iran. It's all the same to me.

 

There are some products I prefer to buy from local sources, but that is mainly foodstuffs or products from small (family) businesses. 

 

I’m quite sure that some people are concern where the hifi gear is made. I don’t, but like you I prefer to buy food that is locally produced if I can.

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