Massively improve the SQ of computer audio streaming?

[RickyV]

7 hours ago, pkane2001 said:

 

I seriously doubt it. Maybe it reads like that if you read it in isolation. Perhaps you should read it in the context of the response to Ricky who said exactly this "Bickering about thing you have no knowledge about is useless." I seek knowledge, and I will never agree to this: "trust your ears is only thing we can do."

 

 

 

Oh man, I think you should read my “ bickering” remark in the correct context. I was talking about you guys dismissing AudioLinux ramboot before you try or heard it for yourselves, maybe that was unclear. So bickering about things you have of no knowledge about is useless, because you never heard it.

In the next sentence I say “ So keep an open mind and try things for your self if you like, trust your ears is only thing we can do”.

 

 

 

[Johnseye]

9 minutes ago, esldude said:

People can 'hear' gigahertz radar signals if strong enough.  But this is not hearing in the normal sense.  Bone conducted ultrasonics can show up as perceived lower frequencies, but listening via the air such things are of no real consequence. 100 khz or so sound high enough in level enters the eye sockets and vibrates some auditory nerves.  Again in normal situations of hearing they are of no consequence.  Infra sound can be felt, and if high enough in level it can vibrate us enough our vision is effected.  Would you say we see infrasound?

 

 

 

I would say our vision is effected by it, not that we see it. 

 

[pkane2001]

13 minutes ago, RickyV said:

Oh man, I think you should read my “ bickering” remark in the correct context. I was talking about you guys dismissing AudioLinux ramboot before you try or heard it for yourselves, maybe that was unclear.

 

Got it.

[jabbr]

On 11/29/2018 at 1:46 AM, PeterSt said:

Of course, the underlaying explanation is the RFI from the M Scaler which, btw, is shielded on the inside in every possible way. So nothing about poor engineering - the contrary. Still the cable won't make a difference SQ wise, while it hugely does.

You have two different possibilities then:

 

a) your cable firms an efficient waveguide which channels EM/RF from one device to the other

 

OR

 

b) your cable absorbs RF/EMI 

 

Which is it? Do you know?

[phusis]

On ‎11‎/‎29‎/‎2018 at 6:08 PM, Jud said:

 

We know this is possible, and some devices to aid the deaf rely in part on bone conduction.

 

However, for purposes of consumer audio, I personally feel it's a rabbit hole I don't wish to go down.   

 

 

 

Infra-sonics has an ardent following especially with movie playback. Looking at the bass charts of Blu-rays/UHD's many of them have sub 20Hz information all the way down to 1Hz, oftentimes with little to no diminishment in level. For frequencies this low below the audible threshold to have the desirable reverberative effect you need loads of cone radiation area and a lot of power. A quartet say of four pro 21" driver-fitted sealed subs with a kW or more and EQ'd would get one a long way in achieving this, certainly with proper room gain and the right wall/floor/ceiling materials.

 

Audiophiles at large may scoff of bass drivers that big and in those numbers, and from a certain point of view that's quite understandable (a friend of mine is using two 2x18" fitted ported cinema subs from Electro Voice in his living room, and when let loose truly scares you), but when you feel bass this effortless and how it literally shakes the air (and that's from some 20Hz and up), even a moderate levels, it makes perfect sense. Of course, it's all more or less in vain if integration with the mains and overall respons smoothness isn't up to the task. 

 

Personally I feel going for reproduction much below 20Hz can compromise central to upper bass performance, and thus put at risk a successful integration with the mains - depending of course on how high the sub(s) are low-passed. Close to full output down to 20Hz is potentially extremely effective for most any musical material, and instead of seeking even lower frequencies I'd opt for bigger air displacement area and higher SPL capabilities; not as a max. SPL means in itself, but to strive for more headroom (i.e.: ease) and physicality in reproduction. 

[Ralf11]

https://www.strangerdimensions.com/2013/06/21/infrasound-the-fear-frequency/

[sandyk]

14 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

https://www.strangerdimensions.com/2013/06/21/infrasound-the-fear-frequency/

 

It is well documented that these symptoms can even be caused by Electricity "Wind Farms" several KM away.

[Ralf11]

acoustically?

 

or do you mean by electrical transmission?

[sandyk]

58 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

acoustically?

 

or do you mean by electrical transmission?

 

Acoustic. Although, many authorities will dispute a connection with Infrasonic.

 Even the relatively low level LF noise and "thump.thump" from large trucks on a nearby Motorway Overpass can result in similar symptoms, with a great night's sleep possible on major Public Holidays free from the 24 hours large truck movements.

 We have the M1 overpass just over 100M further down the road .The M1 is part of the major highway between Sydney and Brisbane.

[Johnseye]

1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

https://www.strangerdimensions.com/2013/06/21/infrasound-the-fear-frequency/

 

oooo ghosts!

[Ralf11]

the wind farm transmission does not surprise me

 

BTW, subsonics were used to good effect on the War of the Worlds movie - which is quite god if you cut out all scenes with that scientologist in them

[esldude]

1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

the wind farm transmission does not surprise me

 

BTW, subsonics were used to good effect on the War of the Worlds movie - which is quite god if you cut out all scenes with that scientologist in them

So you just need a video filter for scientologists.  

 

I know if you have a mic that goes pretty low you can pickup on a meter freight trains 15 miles away well before you can hear them at all. 

 

PS_ I don't know how far away you can pick up scientologists. 

[PeterSt]

4 hours ago, phusis said:

For frequencies this low below the audible threshold to have the desirable reverberative effect you need loads of cone radiation area and a lot of power. A quartet say of four pro 21" driver-fitted sealed subs with a kW or more and EQ'd would get one a long way in achieving this, certainly with proper room gain and the right wall/floor/ceiling materials.

 

Btw, nice matching avatar you have. 

 

 

4 hours ago, phusis said:

 

Audiophiles at large may scoff of bass drivers that big and in those numbers, and from a certain point of view that's quite understandable (a friend of mine is using two 2x18" fitted ported cinema subs from Electro Voice in his living room, and when let loose truly scares you), but when you feel bass this effortless

 

(I agree, which only shows at the end of my post)

 

Being from the era of Guust, up to 6 years or so ago I have always said the same and with the same enthusiasm and a lot of charisma. And besides depth bombs shaking the house literally, the 3rd (or 4th) track of The Yellow Shark (Zappa) draping the curtains horizontally because of the positioning of my ported subs and the famous trouser flapping being literal at watching Ralf's referred Tripods, ... I reflected and came back on this.

Subs distort too much.

 

I suppose no figures can be found on your mentioned Electro Voice subs (great stuff btw) but the least distorting sub of moderate SPL is always still exhibiting a THD of 10% at moderate levels. Many show 60% (at more inordinate levels).

I did quite a bit of research on this when I was creating the "Audiophile" speaker and about its SPL should be (at a level I dictated myself and which ended up to be 89dBSPL (continuously)). Soon I was measuring for THD and its audibility. This turned out to be 2.7% (mostly second harmonic, but obviously also 3rd etc. but which always are lower in level). What I'm saying is : when the THD at the proposed level remains under 2.7% you won't perceive the 2nd harmonic distortion and 20Hz, 19, 18, 17, 16, etc. etc. Hz all are inaudible and felt only. And mind you, where 20Hz should be inaudible, any spur of too much THD at 40Hz is the most well audible because we hear so much better in that range. Regarding this, 24Hz is a nice frequency to focus on because we can hear that too but not all that easy, while the second harmonic at 48Hz is super easy to hear for us.

 

When you focus on this matter and you are able to execute this for real and at for audio realistic levels like mentioned 89dBSPL (1W, 1m) then I can't begin to explain the transformation of ALL music, because most has sub-low information (you indirectly say the same) as long as it is not high passed for LP. The whole perception is different because it makes no sound. So imagine how otherwise the low level information does make sound, but which is not for real. And the really interesting part is: you won't even know how things should sound, because no normal instruments produce such low level sound except for a handful of church organs in the world which you coincidentally never visited and so you can't even know how things are supposed to sound. And yes, synths can do it easily and do it all over ... but for those you also can't know how it was suppose to sound ...

Funny eh ? You'd just need to re-learn how to listen and what is normal (behavior).

 

I have the idea you must live in the neighborhood over here. Supposed you'd give me a visit I can show you the gag I ever so many times showed others as well: track 6 on World Power (Snap!) - Witness The Strength. Fairly in the beginning there's the text "yo yo yo man, where's the bass" and for more than 30 years I am used to the huge whoooshh that  shows up right behind this text and that indeed shakes the house. Of course and the most obviously it was meant to do this or else it wouldn't have been in there like this. Today, however, there's totally nothing. Yeah, you feel somewhat and at feeling the woofers you surely can "measure" the sub low going on. But no whoosh and no shake. It is inaudible now because there's no sufficient distortion to make it audible. So the gag is that the creators (Snap!) already listened to the result everybody would be supposed to listen to in living rooms etc. and tuned it for that, unconsciously.

 

So I agreed for some 35 years with you quite explicitly. But I finally changed.

If you are from my regions, you may know Hatfield's End. That great stuff shows sub low all over. But look how it's transformed ...

 

And then the finale:

 

5 hours ago, phusis said:

A quartet say of four pro 21" driver-fitted sealed subs with a kW or more and EQ'd would get one a long way in achieving this, certainly with proper room gain and the right wall/floor/ceiling materials.

 

 

Yes, it looks like wer'e on the same line of thinking. My text started out "against you" to hopefully emphasize the importance of doing it well. "A sub" as in any commercially available sub that I know of, won't bring you there. But carefully tuned with DSP which even must include the woofer section of the normal speakers (assumed both sub and speakers are separate), can.

 

PS: My woofer surface equals the 4x 18" of the Electro Voice and it is the (measured) minimum to equalize the pressure of a kick drum in a fairly large room (which is surface and excursion related just the same). I have a customer in Belgium who approached all with the same principles and he recently finished an 8x 18" setup. I should visit him some day to enjoy such an over-powered setup.

[PeterSt]

15 hours ago, jabbr said:

You have two different possibilities then:

 

a) your cable firms an efficient waveguide which channels EM/RF from one device to the other

 

OR

 

b) your cable absorbs RF/EMI 

 

Which is it? Do you know?

 

No (but your gestures seem perfect). But I do think I know that it is not the best to run 2 higher frequency digital cables for ~ a foot, 1mm apart. And that happens here.

 

 

Never mind the edge you see in the right hand (which is not good of course - also see the wringing of the connectors - but unrelated), you can image how this goes on for a foot at least. It is also not related to the wires, although this seems obvious.

 

So there's two streams of 50MHz data and they are actually equal because the both form one logical channel of double the frequency (same as happens in your NOS1 and up to the same frequency (49MHz)). So I expect that because they carry highly correlated data, the mutual influence becomes too profound (too severe). Also observe this :

One cable carrying this 50MHz works. The other one works too. Both carrying somewhat less at 705.6K implied audio frequency (at 45MHz) also work. So only at the 49MHz / 768K it does not work and the device chokes. And yes, if you see me writing this, it can also be about reflections. This, however, I don't believe because the lot is too much of 75 Ohm throughout, plus it works out the same at 50cm and 120cm of cable length.

 

I could solve it by making the screening anticipate the situation (yeah, go figure but think "more decent") but I'd say that the setup implies an illegal "cable run" to begin with. Would I have thought of this when I had designed that device ? No. But a first customer would have pointed out the (il)logic and I would have to agree.

[Jud]

6 hours ago, phusis said:

 

Infra-sonics has an ardent following especially with movie playback. Looking at the bass charts of Blu-rays/UHD's many of them have sub 20Hz information all the way down to 1Hz, oftentimes with little to no diminishment in level. For frequencies this low below the audible threshold to have the desirable reverberative effect you need loads of cone radiation area and a lot of power. A quartet say of four pro 21" driver-fitted sealed subs with a kW or more and EQ'd would get one a long way in achieving this, certainly with proper room gain and the right wall/floor/ceiling materials.

 

Audiophiles at large may scoff of bass drivers that big and in those numbers, and from a certain point of view that's quite understandable (a friend of mine is using two 2x18" fitted ported cinema subs from Electro Voice in his living room, and when let loose truly scares you), but when you feel bass this effortless and how it literally shakes the air (and that's from some 20Hz and up), even a moderate levels, it makes perfect sense. Of course, it's all more or less in vain if integration with the mains and overall respons smoothness isn't up to the task. 

 

Personally I feel going for reproduction much below 20Hz can compromise central to upper bass performance, and thus put at risk a successful integration with the mains - depending of course on how high the sub(s) are low-passed. Close to full output down to 20Hz is potentially extremely effective for most any musical material, and instead of seeking even lower frequencies I'd opt for bigger air displacement area and higher SPL capabilities; not as a max. SPL means in itself, but to strive for more headroom (i.e.: ease) and physicality in reproduction. 

 

I'm not that concerned about huge infrasonics.  I tend toward the "I'd love to hear some music" rather than the "sonic spectacular" end of the scale.  Yes, I've got the Pink Floyd and Roger Waters stuff, and some others (folks like The Bug for instance), but I've got them because I like listening to them rather than showing off to friends "what this baby can do."  If you play your friends some well reproduced music, they'll probably be pretty happy without having to be blown back in their chairs.

[phusis]

7 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

Btw, nice matching avatar you have. 

 

 

Thanks Always enjoyed reading the comics of Franquin, be they Gaston Lagaffe or Spirou et Fantasio.

 

Quote

 

(I agree, which only shows at the end of my post)

 

Being from the era of Guust, up to 6 years or so ago I have always said the same and with the same enthusiasm and a lot of charisma. And besides depth bombs shaking the house literally, the 3rd (or 4th) track of The Yellow Shark (Zappa) draping the curtains horizontally because of the positioning of my ported subs and the famous trouser flapping being literal at watching Ralf's referred Tripods, ... I reflected and came back on this.

Subs distort too much.

 

I suppose no figures can be found on your mentioned Electro Voice subs (great stuff btw) but the least distorting sub of moderate SPL is always still exhibiting a THD of 10% at moderate levels. Many show 60% (at more inordinate levels).

I did quite a bit of research on this when I was creating the "Audiophile" speaker and about its SPL should be (at a level I dictated myself and which ended up to be 89dBSPL (continuously)). Soon I was measuring for THD and its audibility. This turned out to be 2.7% (mostly second harmonic, but obviously also 3rd etc. but which always are lower in level). What I'm saying is : when the THD at the proposed level remains under 2.7% you won't perceive the 2nd harmonic distortion and 20Hz, 19, 18, 17, 16, etc. etc. Hz all are inaudible and felt only. And mind you, where 20Hz should be inaudible, any spur of too much THD at 40Hz is the most well audible because we hear so much better in that range. Regarding this, 24Hz is a nice frequency to focus on because we can hear that too but not all that easy, while the second harmonic at 48Hz is super easy to hear for us.

 

When you focus on this matter and you are able to execute this for real and at for audio realistic levels like mentioned 89dBSPL (1W, 1m) then I can't begin to explain the transformation of ALL music, because most has sub-low information (you indirectly say the same) as long as it is not high passed for LP. The whole perception is different because it makes no sound. So imagine how otherwise the low level information does make sound, but which is not for real. And the really interesting part is: you won't even know how things should sound, because no normal instruments produce such low level sound except for a handful of church organs in the world which you coincidentally never visited and so you can't even know how things are supposed to sound. And yes, synths can do it easily and do it all over ... but for those you also can't know how it was suppose to sound ...

Funny eh ? You'd just need to re-learn how to listen and what is normal (behavior).

 

Very few actually measure subwoofer distortion levels (not to mention main speakers), but looking over at the data-bass website the ones that are tested aren't spared, and gives you a good indication of what's at play, so to speak (measured at 2 meters). The whole point with power abundancy, be it in the form of BIG direct radiating units or similarly (although fewer) aided by horns in some iteration, is to have loads of headroom and thus minimize distortion. And yet, I can tell you what I'm referring to is achieving distortion levels in single digits down to 20Hz at substantial SPL's - that's quite an achievement, but not unrealistic. I haven't seen distortion figures of my friend's EV subs (TL880DM), but at levels not leading to structural dis-integrity I take it they're quite low (relative to subs). The two tapped horn subs I'm having build (each fitted with a 15" B&C driver) will not exceed 5% THD at a bit over 20Hz in excess of 115dB's..

 

Quote

 

I have the idea you must live in the neighborhood over here. Supposed you'd give me a visit I can show you the gag I ever so many times showed others as well: track 6 on World Power (Snap!) - Witness The Strength. Fairly in the beginning there's the text "yo yo yo man, where's the bass" and for more than 30 years I am used to the huge whoooshh that  shows up right behind this text and that indeed shakes the house. Of course and the most obviously it was meant to do this or else it wouldn't have been in there like this. Today, however, there's totally nothing. Yeah, you feel somewhat and at feeling the woofers you surely can "measure" the sub low going on. But no whoosh and no shake. It is inaudible now because there's no sufficient distortion to make it audible. So the gag is that the creators (Snap!) already listened to the result everybody would be supposed to listen to in living rooms etc. and tuned it for that, unconsciously.

 

So I agreed for some 35 years with you quite explicitly. But I finally changed.

If you are from my regions, you may know Hatfield's End. That great stuff shows sub low all over. But look how it's transformed ...

 

And then the finale:

 

 

Yes, it looks like wer'e on the same line of thinking. My text started out "against you" to hopefully emphasize the importance of doing it well. "A sub" as in any commercially available sub that I know of, won't bring you there. But carefully tuned with DSP which even must include the woofer section of the normal speakers (assumed both sub and speakers are separate), can.

 

PS: My woofer surface equals the 4x 18" of the Electro Voice and it is the (measured) minimum to equalize the pressure of a kick drum in a fairly large room (which is surface and excursion related just the same). I have a customer in Belgium who approached all with the same principles and he recently finished an 8x 18" setup. I should visit him some day to enjoy such an over-powered setup.

 

Most any commercially available sub, for it to really matter, would need to be in multiples and/or becoming quite expensive to accomplish what we're going after here. DIY with big pro drivers, as I see it, is the way to go, but I've chosen to go away from direct radiation to horn-loaded (that is: tapped horns). Big drivers have mass and inertia to deal with, and in my case a pro 15" in the tapped horns that's currently build to me will see a force multiplier of factor ~3 (per cabinet w/a single 15" unit) and excursion minima at the tuning frequency (22Hz). This equates into some two direct radiating 18" units, but with the tapped horn itself doing the "heavy lifting" to further relieve the 15" driver used here.

 

To give you a further idea of the power of tapped horns I've read of a favorable comparison between a pair of 2x12" fitted Danley horns (DIY DTS-10, I believe) and 8x18" direct radiating drivers (we're talking close to factor 5 in radiation area difference here). They sounded different, but the overall feeling of impact and power was same-ish. Perhaps the distortion characteristics are a giveaway, as you've come about so interestingly above. 

 

What's you current sub-setup? It must be powerful to equate 4x18" radiation area. I live in northern Europe (Denmark), quite the distance to the US  

[phusis]

7 hours ago, Jud said:

 

I'm not that concerned about huge infrasonics.  I tend toward the "I'd love to hear some music" rather than the "sonic spectacular" end of the scale.  Yes, I've got the Pink Floyd and Roger Waters stuff, and some others (folks like The Bug for instance), but I've got them because I like listening to them rather than showing off to friends "what this baby can do."  If you play your friends some well reproduced music, they'll probably be pretty happy without having to be blown back in their chairs.

 

It's a common misconception I believe to associate what I'm referring to with "Spectacular, spectacular" (cue 'Moulin Rouge!') as the sole or primary goal in reproduction (even so, what's wrong with "spectacular"?). I can certainly understand your inclination here, because this is mightily powerful stuff that could likely pop windows (+ -sills), make for an effective organ massage, modulate one's voice and lead to blurred vision if given the opportunity.

 

The whole point though, as is my intention with this, is to more or less revert "hifi" into its more proper meaning - as an approximation, at least - for what is effectively a more realistic approach to the reproduction of music. I know, there are a plethora of ways in doing this (and different priorities to come by, which is totally cool), but physics aren't to be avoided whichever route one seeks - certainly not if realism is sought. At times this is hifi in a nutshell (and an act of snobbery, I find): to disregard power and SPL-capabilities (through which uninhibited dynamics and not least ease is more easily achieved) as a brute or Mr. Simpleton's game, when in fact it's a vital part in attaining authenticity of reproduction. 

[jabbr]

9 hours ago, PeterSt said:

No (but your gestures seem perfect). But I do think I know that it is not the best to run 2 higher frequency digital cables for ~ a foot, 1mm apart. And that happens here.

 

You’ve lost me here ... if you are concerned about crosstalk in 50Mhz channels, that should be a trivial issue to solve - really.

 

Consider a 10 GHz Ethernet cable  or what the heck just use Belden 10G and don’t worry about it. 

 

Or perhaps youve just lost me?

[Jud]

1 hour ago, phusis said:

 

It's a common misconception I believe to associate what I'm referring to with "Spectacular, spectacular" (cue 'Moulin Rouge!') as the sole or primary goal in reproduction (even so, what's wrong with "spectacular"?). I can certainly understand your inclination here, because this is mightily powerful stuff that could likely pop windows (+ -sills), make for an effective organ massage, modulate one's voice and lead to blurred vision if given the opportunity.

 

The whole point though, as is my intention with this, is to more or less revert "hifi" into its more proper meaning - as an approximation, at least - for what is effectively a more realistic approach to the reproduction of music. I know, there are a plethora of ways in doing this (and different priorities to come by, which is totally cool), but physics aren't to be avoided whichever route one seeks - certainly not if realism is sought. At times this is hifi in a nutshell (and an act of snobbery, I find): to disregard power and SPL-capabilities (through which uninhibited dynamics and not least ease is more easily achieved) as a brute or Mr. Simpleton's game, when in fact it's a vital part in attaining authenticity of reproduction. 

 

These are simply different approaches that strike different listeners as more realistic. No need for either group to accuse the other of snobbery. I believe it has much to do with the audio setups each of us has encountered at dealers, shows, friends' homes, etc., and chosen for our own homes throughout our lives.

 

The rigs that have tended to make me feel that what I'm hearing is more 'real' with most of what I listen to have some element of creating an acoustic space, a "soundstage." That just happens to be what grabs me personally, and I imagine it has to do with both innate preference and the fact that I've spent so much time listening to Vandersteen speakers and reinforcing that preference.  I've never heard systems with separate subwoofers that do this as well as a two-speaker system.

 

Many folks prefer systems that can reproduce concert volume levels, particularly in the lower frequencies, because that's what strikes *them* as more real - as more nearly duplicating the concert experience.

[PeterSt]

1 hour ago, jabbr said:

Consider a 10 GHz Ethernet cable  or what the heck just use Belden 10G and don’t worry about it. 

 

That is twisted pair. What we can talk about there (M Scaler stuff) is parallel pair (and also not comparable with flat cable ). At least I think that could be the culprit.

And hey, I am only a kind of messenger here. I never saw such a device in real life.

[Superdad]

6 hours ago, phusis said:

...because this is mightily powerful stuff that could likely pop windows (+ -sills), make for an effective organ massage...

 

Hey, watch it. This is a family forum! 

 

(Though I did have a friend that referred to his as “The mighty Wurlitzer”—I never saw it thank goodness.  )

[Ralf11]

3 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

That is twisted pair.

 

Hey, watch it. This is a family forum! 

[phusis]

1 hour ago, Superdad said:

 

Hey, watch it. This is a family forum! 

 

(Though I did have a friend that referred to his as “The mighty Wurlitzer”—I never saw it thank goodness.  )

 

Something about Rorschach..? Perhaps I should have elaborated with "[internal] organ massage"..

[jabbr]

5 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

That is twisted pair. What we can talk about there (M Scaler stuff) is parallel pair (and also not comparable with flat cable ). At least I think that could be the culprit.

And hey, I am only a kind of messenger here. I never saw such a device in real life.

Oh ok I got lost because I thought we started with USB ... USB cables ... BNC cables ... who knows

[phusis]

6 hours ago, Jud said:

 

These are simply different approaches that strike different listeners as more realistic. No need for either group to accuse the other of snobbery. I believe it has much to do with the audio setups each of us has encountered at dealers, shows, friends' homes, etc., and chosen for our own homes throughout our lives.

 

The rigs that have tended to make me feel that what I'm hearing is more 'real' with most of what I listen to have some element of creating an acoustic space, a "soundstage." That just happens to be what grabs me personally, and I imagine it has to do with both innate preference and the fact that I've spent so much time listening to Vandersteen speakers and reinforcing that preference.  I've never heard systems with separate subwoofers that do this as well as a two-speaker system.

 

Many folks prefer systems that can reproduce concert volume levels, particularly in the lower frequencies, because that's what strikes *them* as more real - as more nearly duplicating the concert experience.

 

Let me re-post your initial reply:

 

Quote

I'm not that concerned about huge infrasonics.  I tend toward the "I'd love to hear some music" rather than the "sonic spectacular" end of the scale.  Yes, I've got the Pink Floyd and Roger Waters stuff, and some others (folks like The Bug for instance), but I've got them because I like listening to them rather than showing off to friends "what this baby can do."  If you play your friends some well reproduced music, they'll probably be pretty happy without having to be blown back in their chairs. 

 

Lot of assumptions here, the core of which is trying to instill the image of some immature "show it off to the lads"-type of person (the sonic delivery, guys, nothing else) which, implicitly, you're saying is me, right? Does the part concerning snobbery (or arrogance) ring a bell now, by any chance? 

 

To reiterate: it's a common misconception of yours, and one that fails to understand that this, in my case, is less (if at all) about aiming to "blow them back in their chairs," and almost wholly about ease of presentation, bandwidth (dynamically as well as in regards to frequency extension downwards), more or less uninhibited SPL-capabilities (when needed, as in real, live acoustic performances), and physicality. These are vital traits in the pursuit of a fairly authentic reproduction, and while anyone can prioritize whether to achieve this it doesn't make it any less vital for realistic reproduction. 

 

As to your latest reply, I can only agree with you; it comes down to preference for a variety of reasons, yes, though I might add that my own pursuit - although it involves reproduction gear one might associate with pro-installments - isn't any less in the effort towards musical satisfaction, or so I gather