Building a Hi-Fi advice

[Covenanter]

There is a fundamental division and it centres around the word "fidelity". There are some of us who like the reproduction to be accurate, ie like the original or as close as we can achieve within out budget. Then there are those of us who want the reproduction to sound "good". These two things aren't neccesarily the same thing!

This division also tends to be reflected between those who like classical as opposed to "pop" music. I guess this is because classical music lovers tend to have more access to the "original" as they can go to concerts and recordings tend to reflect concert performance. In the "pop" world this isn't necessarily the case.

People like the sound of vinyl and there is nothing wrong with that. However it isn't accurate although it may sound good.

Chris

 

[Native_bon]

Well some know it all on this forum seem to think you have to listen to music according to rules of Hifi.. What a load of ****. First you have well recorded stuff. Then you have not so well recorded stuff. Then you have music you like or a type of music you like. Then you have music you like which is not well recorded. Then you got music you dnt like which is well recorded. Could go no & no... well will not bore you anymore.

Well I lied!!.. Then you got system matching & room acoustics. So if I got a system that is true to, or close to original, how would it sound with the type of music i like which is not so well recorded.? Rubbish? Am begining to ask the question, aprt from hifi being a hobby for some, is there still a need for traditional hifi? The concept of traditional hifi is begining to sound out of date to me.

 

[Vladimir]

Well technically this hobby isn't about apreciation of music but accurate musical reproduction. One doesn't need hi-fi to apreciate music as an art form.

 

[Native_bon]

Well technically this hobby isn't about apreciation of music but accurate musical reproduction. One doesn't need hi-fi to apreciate music as an art form.

Ok I see now. So instead of listening to music you rather concentrate on the accuracy of the music. How is that different from a hobby?.. A hobby is a hobby.. just like someone into cars or flying planes. In other words you saying accurate music reproduction does not, or can not fall into the category of a hobby. :?

 

[Vladimir]

Well technically this hobby isn't about apreciation of music but accurate musical reproduction. One doesn't need hi-fi to apreciate music as an art form.

Ok I see now. So instead of listening to music you rather concentrate on the accuracy of the music.

Exactly.

How is that different from a hobby?.. A hobby is a hobby.. just like someone into cars or flying planes.

It is a hobby just like with cars, planes, legos, kettles etc.

In other words you saying accurate music reproduction does not, or can not fall into the category of a hobby. :?

I'm saying this is a hobby about accurate reproduction of music, not music apreciation. You don't need hi-fi to be a music lover but you do need one to be an audiophile.

An audiophile is a person enthusiastic about high-fidelity sound reproduction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audiophile

High fidelity—or hi-fi or hifi—reproduction is a term used by home stereo listeners and home audio enthusiasts (audiophiles) to refer to high-quality reproduction of sound to distinguish it from the poorer quality sound produced by inexpensive audio equipment, or the inferior quality of sound reproduction characteristic of recordings made until the late 1940s. Ideally, high-fidelity equipment has minimal amounts of noise and distortion and an accurate frequency response. It has been shown that the time-domain response (temporal resolution) is also crucial for realistic sound reproduction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-fidelity

 

[chebby]

Well technically this hobby isn't about apreciation of music but accurate musical reproduction. One doesn't need hi-fi to apreciate music as an art form.

Ok I see now. So instead of listening to music you rather concentrate on the accuracy of the music. How is that different from a hobby?.. A hobby is a hobby.. just like someone into cars or flying planes. In other words you saying accurate music reproduction does not, or can not fall into the category of a hobby. :?

I know what he meant.

Plenty of people love music ("appreciation of music") but don't have any interest in hi-fi equipment ("accurate musical reproduction").

Vladimir was merely pointing out that of the overall set of people who like music, there is a subset who also enjoy the technical aspects of accurate musical reproduction as a hobby.

 

[CnoEvil]

Taken back to square one....it was the the wish to appreciate music in one's home, that was Hi-Fi's raison d'etre.

If you accept this logic, the technical aspect, while interesting and helpful, should be secondary. :shifty:

 

[matt49]

This division also tends to be reflected between those who like classical as opposed to "pop" music.

Another piece of linguistic usage I find interesting is when people say a system sounds "too hi-fi". I think what's meant is that detail and accuracy take the place of a "natural", "involving" and "musical" sound. OK, I'm just replacing one set of (meaningful or meaningless, depending on your view) descriptors with another.

The reason I bring this up here is that I've never heard the phrase "too hi-fi" used of the reproduction of classical music. It seems to be a comment about the presentation of rock/pop music. I have a theory about this. I think a system that's "too hi-fi" is one that reveals the artificiality of some rock/pop production: for instance, use of close mic'ing, "spotlighting" of instruments, creation of unnatural separation or width in the stereo field, in other words the various artificial techniques that are used in recording studios.

Since I've had my current speakers I've been amazed to discover how strange some rock/pop recordings are. I don't mean they're poorly recorded, just that they sound weird and unnatural. I haven't had this experience with a single classical recording.

Matt

 

[Vladimir]

Taken back to square one....it was the the wish to appreciate music in one's home, that was Hi-Fi's raison d'etre.

If you accept this logic, the technical aspect, while interesting and helpful, should be secondary. :shifty:

So a hypothetical situation here.

We have a person who likes a system A that has, according to measurements, less fidelity in musical reproduction than system B, which has more fidelity.

We are all good here. If you like it, enjoy it, buy it. By all means, it's your money.

Now what if this person publicly says that system A is better than system B because it makes him feel better personally and goes ahead and publicly recommends his affinity for system A. He claims that A is better than B and when asked what about the measurements, he says f*ck the measurements, what matters is what makes him feel better and he'll tell everyone to buy his choice.

"Everyone, use your own ears, scr*w the measurments and go buy this which my own ears prefered."

Problem?

 

[CnoEvil]

So a hypothetical situation here.

We have a person who likes a system A that has, according to measurements, less fidelity in musical reproduction than system B, which has more fidelity.

We are all good here. If you like it, enjoy it, buy it. By all means, it's your money.

Now what if this person publicly says that system A is better than system B because it makes him feel better personally and goes ahead and publicly recommends his affinity for system A. He claims that A is better than B and when asked what about the measurements, he says f*ck the measurements, what matters is what makes him feel better and he'll tell everyone to buy his choice.

"Everyone, use your own ears, scr*w the measurments and go buy this which my own ears prefered."

Problem?

You can make it as complicated or as simple as you like.

You can go on about the superiority of Active Speakers; the effects of Group Think, Placebo, Expectation Bias; the need for ABX and blind testing; you can get hung up on the distortion measurements of Vinyl / Valves; you can tie yourself up in knots, listening to every man and his dog on a hi-fi forum giving you conflicting advice, which only leads to further confusion.....

or you can forget all this unnecessary extraneous noise, and just go listen. :roll:

 

[Vladimir]

or you can forget all this unnecessary extraneous noise, and just go listen. :roll:

And then go online tell everyone to buy it or avoid it. Right.

 

[Overdose]

Taken back to square one....it was the the wish to appreciate music in one's home, that was Hi-Fi's raison d'etre.

If you accept this logic, the technical aspect, while interesting and helpful, should be secondary. :shifty:

I believe that to be nonsense.

Plenty of people appreciate music without feeling the need to buy hifi equipment.

They listen on portable devices, TVs small radios and the like. Probably as far from hifi as is likely to get, with the exception of portable devices and quality headphones, which can eclipse the sound quality of even the most expensive hifi systems.

 

[Native_bon]

Point taken, but still brings me back to the question, apart from the hobby or what ever you want to call it, does traditional hifi really matter, or am I the only one who sees it as just an idea stuck in peoples head about what good sounding hifi should be..? Either way, all in one systems these days do reproduce accurate music. So if many are honest with themsleves its not about the accurate music reproduction but more about the hifi.

Also may be about fine tuning the sound to taste. In other words if most HIFI NUTS fine tune to taste who then has got the accurate reproduction..? me?.. you?.. them..? So its just all a concept that does not exist.

 

[Vladimir]

I called NHS Direct to get Cno the subjectivist sectioned but the service got decomissioned on March 31st 2014.

The last fort for high fidelity has fallen...

 

[BryO]

'Accurate reproduction' seems to be mentioned a lot regarding what people want from their systems. I have experience of a good amount of different recording studios and due to the fact that noone at home will have the specific set up and speakers used for mixing a recording, then a different set up and speakers for mastering. How can anyone really believe they are getting an accurate reproduction of what went on in the studio.

I would suggest this doesn't happen. I think our systems reproduce a summation of what was recorded, but to say it is accurate in regards to the actual sound in the studio is not correct. When mixing and mastering most recordings are tested in the studio, at home, in the car and on ipods/portable players none of them sound the same but the question is do they all sound good enough?

 

[Native_bon]

I called NHS Direct to get Cno the subjectivist sectioned but the service got decomissioned on March 31st 2014.

The last fort for high fidelity has fallen...

What Cno says makes a lot of sense. Not jed.. no preconceptions, just in search of a system that sounds good to his ears and relays the music message. Cnt be more simple than that.

 

[CnoEvil]

I called NHS Direct to get Cno the subjectivist sectioned but the service got decomissioned on March 31st 2014.

The last fort for high fidelity has fallen...

What Cno says makes a lot of sense. Not jed.. no preconceptions, just in search of a system that sounds good to his ears and relays the music message. Cnt be more simple than that.

I may be nuts, but I'm not stupid! :twisted:

 

[Overdose]

'Accurate reproduction' seems to be mentioned a lot regarding what people want from their systems. I have experience of a good amount of different recording studios and due to the fact that noone at home will have the specific set up and speakers used for mixing a recording, then a different set up and speakers for mastering. How can anyone really believe they are getting an accurate reproduction of what went on in the studio.

I would suggest this doesn't happen. I think our systems reproduce a summation of what was recorded, but to say it is accurate in regards to the actual sound in the studio is not correct. When mixing and mastering most recordings are tested in the studio, at home, in the car and on ipods/portable players none of them sound the same but the question is do they all sound good enough?

I agree with the sentiment of this statement, but some systems are actively (no pun intended) designed to avoid any colouration and minimise it, creating as neutral a playback as possible, other systems are deliberately designed with various distortions to colour the sound.

Aiming for neutrality by focussing on clarity and lack of distortion is going to be the only way to get close to accuracy, mixing and matching equipment to give a multitude of colouration is certainly not.

Certainly, in a digital system, it remains the speakers as the only piece of equipment in the chain that cannot as yet be designed to give a completely flat response and a lack of audible distortion.

 

[Native_bon]

I called NHS Direct to get Cno the subjectivist sectioned but the service got decomissioned on March 31st 2014.

The last fort for high fidelity has fallen...

What Cno says makes a lot of sense. Not jed.. no preconceptions, just in search of a system that sounds good to his ears and relays the music message. Cnt be more simple than that.

I may be nuts, but I'm not stupid! :twisted:

your good Cno. Am nuts as well :rofl:

 

[chebby]

Certainly, in a digital system, it remains the speakers as the only piece of equipment in the chain that cannot as yet be designed to give a completely flat response and a lack of audible distortion.

Can't the manufacturer 'tailor' digital filtering in (or after) the crossover to correct known cabinet / driver vagaries?

 

[matt49]

Certainly, in a digital system, it remains the speakers as the only piece of equipment in the chain that cannot as yet be designed to give a completely flat response and a lack of audible distortion.

Can't the manufacturer 'tailor' digital filtering in (or after) the crossover to allow for known cabinet / driver vagaries?

That's what the Devialet SAM system does, but in the amp's DSP, not the speaker.

But it remains the case that all speakers distort in ways that DSP can't cater for, especially dynamic (cone) speakers, whether active or passive. And the distortion of cones moving in and out, especially if the cones are mounted in boxes, remains the grossest type of distortion in any audio system.

Matt

 

[TrevC]

Certainly, in a digital system, it remains the speakers as the only piece of equipment in the chain that cannot as yet be designed to give a completely flat response and a lack of audible distortion.

Can't the manufacturer 'tailor' digital filtering in (or after) the crossover to allow for known cabinet / driver vagaries?

That's what the Devialet SAM system does, but in the amp's DSP, not the speaker.

But it remains the case that all speakers distort in ways that DSP can't cater for, especially dynamic (cone) speakers, whether active or passive. And the distortion of cones moving in and out, especially if the cones are mounted in boxes, remains the grossest type of distortion in any audio system.

Matt

Which is why you need to spend more on speakers than anything else.

 

[Overdose]

Certainly, in a digital system, it remains the speakers as the only piece of equipment in the chain that cannot as yet be designed to give a completely flat response and a lack of audible distortion.

Can't the manufacturer 'tailor' digital filtering in (or after) the crossover to correct known cabinet / driver vagaries?

DSP can have its uses, but more a case of mitigation rather than elimination.

A good example would be the EQ package 'StudioEQ' used to calibrate the Event Opals to their environment.

 

[Native_bon]

Certainly, in a digital system, it remains the speakers as the only piece of equipment in the chain that cannot as yet be designed to give a completely flat response and a lack of audible distortion.

Can't the manufacturer 'tailor' digital filtering in (or after) the crossover to allow for known cabinet / driver vagaries?

That's what the Devialet SAM system does, but in the amp's DSP, not the speaker.

But it remains the case that all speakers distort in ways that DSP can't cater for, especially dynamic (cone) speakers, whether active or passive. And the distortion of cones moving in and out, especially if the cones are mounted in boxes, remains the grossest type of distortion in any audio system.

Matt

I dnt know alot bout the Devialet system, but something I want to look into & may be have a demo soon. If the Devialet was designed to work with electrostatic speakers, would this not further remove from the good old problem of cone distortion..?

 

[chebby]

Certainly, in a digital system, it remains the speakers as the only piece of equipment in the chain that cannot as yet be designed to give a completely flat response and a lack of audible distortion.

Can't the manufacturer 'tailor' digital filtering in (or after) the crossover to allow for known cabinet / driver vagaries?

That's what the Devialet SAM system does, but in the amp's DSP, not the speaker.

I was referring to active speakers. Sorry.