Discussion Of What Is "High End" - Page 14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clarkmc2 

Most importantly, if you want to improve your musical enjoyment, listen to better music. That is WAY more important than what gear you hear it on. That is no more or less subjective that what high end is! It does not matter what genre of music you listen to; find musicians who do it better than what you are listining to now.

What do you mean by "better"?

Quote:

Originally Posted by wind016 

 

What do you mean by "better"?

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leonardo Drummond 

 

But isn't that a huge contradiction? To me, the whole point of audiophilia is to seek a high fidelity reproduction in order to enhance the enjoyment of the music you like in the first place. To listen to other music just because it sounds better in technical terms sounds just like an inversion of priorities to me.

Who said anything about technical terms? I was speaking of how good the music, not the recording, is. Better - more talented and better situated by experience, inspiration or circumstance - musicians who are digging deeper to produce a more moving work than others mining the same musical vein are. David Sanborn is very talented; he sounds great until you hear Dexter Gordon. Hammett and Hetfield may seem a supreme accomplishment until you grok Green and Kirwan. And so on. Like some audio equipment makes more inspiring music reproduction, so it is with musicians making music. But with music and musicians, it is not a technical thing. Its not about THD and frequency response. But some do it better than others. Like Jack O'Neal said, "You know. B-E-T-T-E-R."

Something to ponder:-

http://www.head-fi.org/t/568406/why-hifi-experts-disagree 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clarkmc2 

 

Who said anything about technical terms? I was speaking of how good the music, not the recording, is. Better - more talented and better situated by experience, inspiration or circumstance - musicians who are digging deeper to produce a more moving work than others mining the same musical vein are. David Sanborn is very talented; he sounds great until you hear Dexter Gordon. Hammett and Hetfield seem a supreme accomplishment until you grok Green and Kirwan. And so on. Like some audio equipment makes more inspiring music reproduction, so it is with musicians making music. But with music and musicians, it is not a technical thing. Its not about THD and frequency response. But some do it better than others. Like Jack O'Neal said, "You know. B-E-T-T-E-R."

 

 

Oh, ok, I get it, sorry.

Now you have a point, but then again, I still think it's hard to think of the issue this way. I think we don't really choose what we like, we may know it's "better music", but it might not appeal to us. It's very subjective!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leonardo Drummond 

Oh, ok, I get it, sorry.

 

Now you have a point, but then again, I still think it's hard to think of the issue this way. I think we don't really choose what we like, we may know it's "better music", but it might not appeal to us. It's very subjective!

 

So sorry if I came off gruff; I tried to edit the tone but my ISP died for the night.

Yes, it sure is subjective. But I have found in my last sixty years of enjoying music that what floats MY boat - YMMV - is how well/how much/how far the music moves you as a listener. How powerful the experience is. If this is your criteria, and I think it is for most people who love to listen to music, then a little digging can almost always find someone who is doing the same sort of thing but moves you more. Unless you happen to have started out by listening to music by Bach, Coltrane, Jeff Beck, Bill Evans, Hendrix - at the pinnacle of each genre that you enjoy. Then I admit there is no place to go but down or even. Please don't critique the examples I gave. They may not be the best, I was only using well known examples of people widely considered to have been working at a very accomplished level.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clarkmc2 

So sorry if I came off gruff; I tried to edit the tone but my ISP died for the night.

 

Yes, it sure is subjective. But I have found in my last sixty years of enjoying music that what floats MY boat - YMMV - is how well/how much/how far the music moves you as a listener. How powerful the experience is. If this is your criteria, and I think it is for most people who love to listen to music, then a little digging can almost always find someone who is doing the same sort of thing but moves you more. Unless you happen to have started out by listening to music by Bach, Coltrane, Jeff Beck, Bill Evans, Hendrix - at the pinnacle of each genre that you enjoy. Then I admit there is no place to go but down or even. Please don't critique the examples I gave. They may not be the best, I was only using well known examples of people widely considered to have been working at a very accomplished level.
 

 

couldnt agree more with the above....I just happen to agree with the music choice but that is beside the point...I have found, as of late, that there are certain "subtle" qualities that I enjoy. I do like digital and all that it has to offer. With that said, I do also "long" for that certain "quality" of sound that can be elusive in the digital realm. I dont believe that those qualities are unobtainable in digital. With that premise, I have come to some satisfaction, to lend credence to the theory. It has been a bit of a journey though...To put it briefly - "massaging" the bits has yielded some good results. 16/44.1 has much "potential" and is arguably "all you need" in terms of text book resolution, but it needs some assistance. Much available now in the software arena. I am going to leave it there - much to be explored. From "upsampling" to adding DSP effects like tube amp simulation. Much of it for free. You have to go in faith, and hope. You may come to know the "truth" and you may come up short. It's worth the try.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clarkmc2 

 

Who said anything about technical terms? I was speaking of how good the music, not the recording, is. Better - more talented and better situated by experience, inspiration or circumstance - musicians who are digging deeper to produce a more moving work than others mining the same musical vein are. David Sanborn is very talented; he sounds great until you hear Dexter Gordon. Hammett and Hetfield may seem a supreme accomplishment until you grok Green and Kirwan. And so on. Like some audio equipment makes more inspiring music reproduction, so it is with musicians making music. But with music and musicians, it is not a technical thing. Its not about THD and frequency response. But some do it better than others. Like Jack O'Neal said, "You know. B-E-T-T-E-R."

 

Well, why didn't you say it like that?

Quote:

Originally Posted by wind016 

 

Well, why didn't you say it like that?

 

Aging Baby Boomer. The first try can be ugly. The second might not be much better... Heck, my avatar has been dead for over thirty years. The Earth will be yours soon enough.

Hi-end shows are terrible places to judge gear. Most expensive gear, rather most gear, sound like crap at hi-end shows. For that matter, head-fi meets are equally terrible places to judge gear. Anytime when someone says "headphone/source/amp/cable/room" makes no difference, I automatically take those comments to mean the person has had little or no experience with hi-end audio. These types of comments make little sense logically and even less sense when tested in the real world.

It's perfectly OK for people to be content on mi-fi equipments, and feel spending any more money is simply a waste. It's another matter when such person is ignorant of the fact that hi-end audio does exist and there are those who are willing to spend the money to enjoy music on a whole another sensory level.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clarkmc2 

Yes to the second part, but heck no to the first part. Something sounds great until you hear something better. Further, my more experienced friends who habituated the high end shows mostly noticed how the expensive, hyped stuff did not sound nearly as good as far lesser priced gear they already knew well. Exceptions were few.

 

And to hopefully still the silly chorus, cables, DACs, megabuck sources and other sideshow high end stuff will not make an amp, headphone or speaker better. If you want improvement, seek out a better sounding amp, headphone or speaker.

 

Most importantly, if you want to improve your musical enjoyment, listen to better music. That is WAY more important than what gear you hear it on. That is no more or less subjective that what high end is! It does not matter what genre of music you listen to; find musicians who do it better than what you are listining to now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by googleli 

You will know what high-end truly means when you get there. Most people here haven't yet. They just rant about all cables and expensive sources being snake oil, and say the graphs look all the same and stuff, but most haven't even tried. It is ok to say more expensive gear doesn't necessarily sound better, but it is completely ridiculous to state that what you own is the absolute best or the highest end gear without trying any other stuff, and just because you are happy about what you have you can call it high end without comparison to any other stuff. Unfortunately, many LCD2 owners fall into the latter category, and no, I still don't think the LCD2 fits here, although being a proud owner of such a great headphone myself.

Please stop digging up old threads - I just wasted 10min doing a reply in a yr-old thread

Quote:

Originally Posted by chesebert 

Hi-end shows are terrible places to judge gear. Most expensive gear, rather most gear, sound like crap at hi-end shows. For that matter, head-fi meets are equally terrible places to judge gear. Anytime when someone says "headphone/source/amp/cable/room" makes no difference, I automatically take those comments to mean the person has had little or no experience with hi-end audio. These types of comments make little sense logically and even less sense when tested in the real world.

 

It's perfectly OK for people to be content on mi-fi equipments, and feel spending any more money is simply a waste. It's another matter when such person is ignorant of the fact that hi-end audio does exist and there are those who are willing to spend the money to enjoy music on a whole another sensory level.

My friends I was talking about are long time audio dealers/installers and are plenty aware of room and other circumstances - and how to judge around them. If they didn't know what they were talking about, I would not have mentioned them. Your second paragraph is a complete assumption and frankly arrogant. That's OK, you can say whatever you want here as long as religion and politics is left out.

I listen to Alan Kimmel. I listen to Nelson Pass. I listen to audio people I know personally and who have proved their mettle over time. I don't know you and you don't know me or my associates. Why make assumptions? Let's be nice.
 

Clarkmc2,

You didn't, don't worry!

I guess you've convinced me. As much as I think we still don't choose, I think you're right in saying that with a little research we'll all probably find someone who does it even better.

It's subjective but for me high end is kit that more readily displays the message of a performance. It has nothing to do with price or bandwidth though what is sufficient in bandwidth may vary by individual. Basically a simpler unadulterated sound of high caliber. This can be had for a few grand if chosen wisely. A few grand is 10 fold below where an aficionado would think Hi End begins and yes if well chosen it does actually get better as you spend more but it becomes much more critical of setup, files and ancillaries.

When equipment gets between me and the music it's a distraction. I don't want to be thinkin' stuff like: if I had a $10,000 dollar cartridge would I get better tracking and more detail than with my Shure V15VMR, which I think BTW is set up correctly, but still not sure.  It's why I abandoned my vinyl for CD's. With digital, I can get into the music without the nonsense of wondering about the performance of my equipment. And, now with computer audio, I can have convenience too. It's great. Right now, I'm very satisfied with my iTunes media player downloaded on my Dell Inspiron 14 running Windows7 Home Edition. The iTunes 256k music I've purchased sounds  as good as SACD. Still, the computer is somewhat a challenge for me; nevertheless, I think it's the future for most music lovers, for a multitude of good reasons.