Home audio and classical recording evaluation

Started by dissily Mordentroge, November 30, 2019, 07:02:59 PM

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dissily Mordentroge

#100
Quote from: Florestan on December 06, 2019, 12:06:28 PM
I wouldn't put it that radically.

I'd say that the audiophiles are as entitled to their opinion as the non-audiophiles, as long as they acknowledge that what they claim is personal experience, not fact.
A great deal of what so called audiophiles claim to hear can be proven with scientific evidence. Macro & micro dynamic contrasts, tonal accuracy, separation of individual elements within a performance etc. However, wealthy (usually elderly) audiophiles I've known can be significantly deluded about their perceptions. Take, per example, ultra expensive moving coil cartridges. Many of these have a profoundly exaggerated upper treble which happens to compensate for their diminished (aged) treble hearing.
Speaking of objective scientific tests there's one area where the opportunity for objectivity is almost totally absent in the audiophile world. High-end ( read silly money)  audio reviewers never accompany their evaluations with the results of their clinical hearing tests .  On the other hand I've known a number of middle aged and up organists whose treble sensitivity is atrocious. Some however are aware of this and will ask a younger organist or organ pupil to listen to their choice of stops from the body of the church rather than at the console.

Mandryka

Quote from: Florestan on December 06, 2019, 01:39:03 PM
I haven't found such examples yet.

And I will probably never find them.

Can you guess why?

Because you only have crap hifi
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

dissily Mordentroge

Quote from: Daverz on December 06, 2019, 08:47:05 PM
Made up audiophile jargon.
Micro and macro dynamics can refer to live music performance without ever needing to be used as audiophile jargon. With all due lack of respect, you have no idea what you're talking about.

Florestan

Quote from: Mandryka on December 06, 2019, 09:52:21 PM
Because you only have crap hifi

I have what I can afford. And I'm perfectly happy with that.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

dissily Mordentroge

#104
Quote from: Florestan on December 07, 2019, 12:32:18 AM
I have what I can afford. And I'm perfectly happy with that.
This hints at the worst claims made by so called audiophiles. There is no need to spend a fortune to obtain an absolutely brilliant home audio system.
In fact the higher you get up the cost scale the more you hit the law of diminishing returns. Granted it takes more money than most people are willing to splurge to get near the best but compared to some of the other domestic expenditures today such as wall to wall video screens, networked systems in every room of the house and home automation it's nothing. All a matter of priorities. My addiction to decent hi-fidelity started when, at age 16, I inherited my late uncles system which at the time was near state of the art. Studying the pipe organ at the time it was a real thrill to be able to reproduce a 16Hz organ note at home. My parents weren't quite as overcome with glee, neither was the cat who become so upset at the noise I was generating urinated up against a speaker.

relm1

Quote from: Florestan on December 06, 2019, 11:08:16 AM
You are certainly making sense to me.

I have never ever been able to tell the difference between mp3 and flac on any of the equipments I've ever used. Granted, they have always been low end, yet somehow I have always been able to "detect the emotional content" of any given piece I listened to and this makes me think that "emotional content" is much more dependent on performance than on recording.

Yes, makes sense to me but I'm one of those who can always tell the difference between mp3 and flac even after arguments with other sound professionals.  They tell me to take one of those online A/B tests and I do and score above 80% each time.  The differences are very subtle but that was my point, most people don't care for which is better, it isn't worth the marginal improvements but the connoisseur will.  I also don't think the psychology of thinking its better because of the expense is the case with me because first of all, some of this is objective.  Frequencies ARE lost in mp3.  If they sound identical, that just means the loss of frequencies doesn't have a big impact to you but it is objectively inferior to flac (I'm talking about all else being the same, same recording, etc...not fair to compare something like a 1950 flac and a 2019 mp3 recording for example).  Additionally, audiophiles frequently have a sense that the audio isn't good enough because it is only as good as the weakest element.  That is why in some cases we get in to power supplies, vacuum tubes, cables, etc.  Not just very high end speakers but you realize there is something lacking, it isn't as good as it should be and you work to improve the next weakest aspect in the workflow of sound production. 

relm1

Quote from: dissily Mordentroge on December 06, 2019, 09:06:11 PM
A great deal of what so called audiophiles claim to hear can be proven with scientific evidence. Macro & micro dynamic contrasts, tonal accuracy, separation of individual elements within a performance etc. However, wealthy (usually elderly) audiophiles I've known can be significantly deluded about their perceptions. Take, per example, ultra expensive moving coil cartridges. Many of these have a profoundly exaggerated upper treble which happens to compensate for their diminished (aged) treble hearing.
Speaking of objective scientific tests there's one area where the opportunity for objectivity is almost totally absent in the audiophile world. High-end ( read silly money)  audio reviewers never accompany their evaluations with the results of their clinical hearing tests .  On the other hand I've known a number of middle aged an up organists whose treble sensitivity is atrocious. Some however are aware of this and will ask a younger organist or organ pupil to listen to their choice of stops from the body of the church rather than at the console.

Yes, exactly.  I am an audiophile and a music professional spending a lot of time mixing and engineering and agree with your point.  I realize I am not representative of 99.9% of listeners.  That is true with any connoisseur in any other field too.

André

Quote from: relm1 on December 07, 2019, 06:50:52 AM
Yes, makes sense to me but I'm one of those who can always tell the difference between mp3 and flac even after arguments with other sound professionals.  They tell me to take one of those online A/B tests and I do and score above 80% each time.  The differences are very subtle but that was my point, most people don't care for which is better, it isn't worth the marginal improvements but the connoisseur will.  I also don't think the psychology of thinking its better because of the expense is the case with me because first of all, some of this is objective.  Frequencies ARE lost in mp3.  If they sound identical, that just means the loss of frequencies doesn't have a big impact to you but it is objectively inferior to flac (I'm talking about all else being the same, same recording, etc...not fair to compare something like a 1950 flac and a 2019 mp3 recording for example).  Additionally, audiophiles frequently have a sense that the audio isn't good enough because it is only as good as the weakest element.  That is why in some cases we get in to power supplies, vacuum tubes, cables, etc.  Not just very high end speakers but you realize there is something lacking, it isn't as good as it should be and you work to improve the next weakest aspect in the workflow of sound production.

One of the friends I regularly listen to music with is an audiophile - a card carrying member of such a club actually. A few years ago he had a separate electrical outlet installed just for his sound system in order to have a steady signal. Cost him a few thousand bucks. I'm no electrician and I'm not sure I'm describing it correctly but anyhow, he assured me that proper electrical feed made a difference.

Irons

Quote from: André on December 07, 2019, 09:24:44 AM
One of the friends I regularly listen to music with is an audiophile - a card carrying member of such a club actually. A few years ago he had a separate electrical outlet installed just for his sound system in order to have a steady signal. Cost him a few thousand bucks. I'm no electrician and I'm not sure I'm describing it correctly but anyhow, he assured me that proper electrical feed made a difference.

He could, and maybe did, invest in a couple of Nordost mains cables. One to the CD player, and the other to the preamp at £4,850.00 each. The price of perfection does not come cheap.  https://www.analogueseduction.net/mains-cables/nordost-valhalla-2-mains-cable.html
You must have a very good opinion of yourself to write a symphony - John Ireland.

I opened the door people rushed through and I was left holding the knob - Bo Diddley.

dissily Mordentroge

#109
Quote from: André on December 07, 2019, 09:24:44 AM
One of the friends I regularly listen to music with is an audiophile - a card carrying member of such a club actually. A few years ago he had a separate electrical outlet installed just for his sound system in order to have a steady signal. Cost him a few thousand bucks. I'm no electrician and I'm not sure I'm describing it correctly but anyhow, he assured me that proper electrical feed made a difference.
Proper electrical feed for massive power guzzling amplifiers is only logical.Try and get an electrician to install an electric range top/oven at the end of a lighting circuit and see what they say. Your insurance company would have a lot to say too. Actually, not a lot "Your policy does not cover the usage of such appliances on a lighting or lower amperage circuit" Then we have that other thorny issue, filtering out digital noise generated back into the mains by who knows how many shonky digital devices. Granted competently designed audio gear should have it's own filtering circuitry as part of it's internal power supply but it's surprising how even  some ultra expensive audio gear omits this.

Daverz

Quote from: dissily Mordentroge on December 06, 2019, 11:19:35 PM
Micro and macro dynamics can refer to live music performance without ever needing to be used as audiophile jargon. With all due lack of respect, you have no idea what you're talking about.

Define it the terms in a meaninful way, then.  And really, lack of respect?   Your such a jackass.

dissily Mordentroge

Quote from: Daverz on December 07, 2019, 01:31:48 PM
Define it the terms in a meaninful way, then.  And really, lack of respect?   Your such a jackass.
It's turtles all the way down.

Mandryka

#112


I just wanted to point to another recording which, in my experience, demands excellent hifi to be appreciated, in a second rate system, the voices will not separate enough to let the polyphony be heard in an effective way, and the hall ambience caught by the recording engineers will not come across well. The music making will sound grey and lifeless. This and the Busnois below are two of the main reasons why I think anyone reviewing a recording seriously needs to have outstanding hifi, and indeed hifi which can fill a room with a full range of frequencies, and form a large and stable aural image with all the details of the sound accurately reproduced and clear to hear like they would be in a live music experience. More than one system too IMO, the Gombert works best on one of my systems, the Busnois on another, for reasons I'm not clear about. Neither are state of the art recordings either, certainly not the Gombert.




As far as the above discussion about cost is concerned, good new hifi is very expensive, prohibitively so for me. There are still bargains to be had in the used market, in Europe at least, but the fact remains that hifi is a luxury item.

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

aukhawk

Quote from: Madiel on December 06, 2019, 02:19:10 PM
The label "audiophile" has been thrown around. I don't think I'm an audiophile. The system I bought this year is still fundamentally at the cheap end of the spectrum. I'm just conscious that I do have some minimum standards, and that's simply because I do remember the relatively rare occasions that I've EXPERIENCED a direct comparison and I remember the lessons learned.

I don't buy mp3s because of the experience of hearing the exact same album on mp3 and CD. I bought my CD player and not an even cheaper one because of the experience of hearing how much clearer the same music was.

Trust me, you're an audiophile.  Though in my book that's not a derogatory term.  Not in the least.


Quote from: Madiel on December 06, 2019, 01:08:43 PM
Not one of the audiophiles has said the performance is irrelevant as far as I can see.

Well - I would say that of the three pillars of the listening experience - that is, the music itself, the performance, and the recording/reproduction - the performance is the least important to me of those three.
* If it isn't music I like, I won't be listening at all - so that comes first.
* Then I want to hear good or very good recorded sound, well reproduced.
* In this list of priorities, something has to come last - and so for me it is the performance (though I still consider it important).

Florestan

Let me clarify my position lest I be misunderstood.

I've been in love with, and listening to, "classical" music for more than 30 years (I'll turn 47 on coming December 13th), and it was love at first sight hear). Yet my equipments --- all of them --- were never high-end. Actually, the first "classical" music I've ever heard was on a mono radio set when I was about 13  --- yet it got me hooked and transfixed (go figure, it was a potpourri of, among others, Tchaikovsky and Grieg PC and A Rhapsody in Blue --- but at the time I had no effing idea about that). Next, upon my insistent request, my parents bought me a stereo turntable "Made in GDR" (ie, the defunct German Democratic Republic) and I started amassing a collection of over 500 LPs (I think) --- which might, indeed does, seem a trifle, but given that we were then living in the Socialist Republic of Romania, was no small feature for a teenager under 18.

After 1989, I turned to CDs but my equipment was still low-end (I could not afford better) yet my library and taste expanded greatly.

After 2010, I turned to digital but my equipment was still low-end (I could not afford better) yet my library and taste expanded exponentially.

Today I'm married and have a 6-yo son to raise so 99% of my listening time is late at night, using a Philips Go Gear mp3 player (which doesn't play flac at all and whose battery is so badly worn out that I must back it up with a power bank) through cheap, no-name earbuds. (I hope, and am confident, to be able to replace it with a Fiio m3k equipment playing both mp3 and flac before 2019 ends).

Bottom line, I've never had, and I'll probably never have, enough money to spent on high-end equipments yet I've been passionately in love with "classical" music ever since I've first heard it, on the crappiest of the most crappy equipments. Be it as it might, I've always been able to "detect the emotional content", or "lack thereof", of any piece of music I've ever listened to.

So bottom line, to borrow and correct aukhawk's terminology, there are not just three "pillars of listening experience", ie music in itself, performance and recording, but four: the three above plus the equipment. And based on my experience I feel that the least important to me is the latter.

Please note "my experience" and "I feel" and "to me". I do not claim that my personal, limited experience is the universal yardstick by which all and sundry experiences should be measured.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

premont

Quote from: Mandryka on December 08, 2019, 05:01:31 AM
As far as the above discussion about cost is concerned, good new hifi is very expensive, prohibitively so for me. There are still bargains to be had in the used market, in Europe at least, but the fact remains that hifi is a luxury item.

Which cost levels are we talking about? Can you acquire a reasonably good stereo system (CD deck, Amplifier(s), Floorspeakers, cables) from new for about 10.000 £ ? Or must we spend three or ten times as much?

With "reasonably good" I mean a system which reproduces the music so well, that we are able to say something about the recording quality and the interpretation.
γνῶθι σεαυτόν

Florestan

Quote from: (: premont :) on December 08, 2019, 12:54:39 PM
With "reasonably good" I mean a system which reproduces the music so well, that we are able to say something about the recording quality and the interpretation.

How much does "reasonably good" mean for you in terms of Euro?
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

premont

Quote from: Florestan on December 08, 2019, 12:57:23 PM
How much does "reasonably good" mean for you in terms of Euro?

10.000 £ is about 13.500 Euro's. But this arbitrary amount is only meant as a point of departure for Mandryka as to the question I pose to him.

My own opinion is, that a reasonably good system, which allows us to say something more or less definitive about the recording, can be had for less than 1000 Euro's.

Like Aukhawk I think the music has got the first priority. But contrary to him I value the interpretation much higher than the reproduction. A first class reproduction can't rescue a bad interpretation, but a good interpretation can be appreciated despite a maybe less than first class reproduction. With recordings dating later than 1935 it is only rarely, that the reproduction is so bad as to spoil the musical experience.
γνῶθι σεαυτόν

Florestan

#118
Quote from: (: premont :) on December 08, 2019, 12:54:39 PM
Can you acquire a reasonably good stereo system (CD deck, Amplifier(s), Floorspeakers, cables) from new for about 10.000 £ ?

Well, tell you what: 10.000 £ means 12.000 Euro, ie 1000 Euro a month, ie what I and my wife cumulatively earn a month.

I simply can't afford to be an audiophile. And I'm not sure I'd be one even if I could afford it.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Mandryka

#119
Quote from: (: premont :) on December 08, 2019, 12:54:39 PM
Which cost levels are we talking about? Can you acquire a reasonably good stereo system (CD deck, Amplifier(s), Floorspeakers, cables) from new for about 10.000 £ ? Or must we spend three or ten times as much?

With "reasonably good" I mean a system which reproduces the music so well, that we are able to say something about the recording quality and the interpretation.

I can only speak from my limited experience here.

I don't know anything about CD players, and I use cheap cables.

Second hand you could buy wonderful speakers for around £500 -£800  (I'm thinking Spendor SP1 or BC1s, Rogers Studio 1 - though not floor standing speakers, you'd need stands) and good power amps for even less than that (I know someone who's selling a Leak stereo 20 for £450, refurbished for example.  In fact,  I think the Quad 306 is an outstanding amp and you can pick one up for less than £300 often.) If you didn't want to play recordings of enormous cathedral organs then I think you could pay even less for your speakers (I'm thinking JR 149s -- which with the right amp, are unbelievably good.) The trick is to be patient, and only buy good clean models.  I'm a great believer in no preamp (if you have digital volume control and just one source) or passive preamps for around £300.

I have three systems I'm really pleased with.

System 1 (This is the one for big organs!)

Quad ESL 63 -- £600 about 10 years ago, though at some point they will need servicing which will be more than £1K
Gradient subs and a rather good crossover -- £500 second hand
Krell KSA 50 -- about £1400 including a rebuild cost, I was lucky to find this amp very cheap. It was broken when I bought it (for £200) so I had it completely rebuilt
Quad 520 for the subs -- £200
Museatex DAC £400


System 2

Rogers JR 149 -- £300
Radford STA25 MK3 -- £1200
Theta DAC -- £350


System 3

Spendor SP1 -- £350 (noone else bid on ebay!)
Electrocompaniet ECI -2 -- £600
Deltec DAC £250

All the sources are rasberry PIs costing about £70 each altogether.

New is an area I haven't explored enough to comment with confidence really.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen