In my quest for the best sound I have been able to hear lots of rigs. Each set-up is a work of art. Each set-up is at times many years of thought and money. When you hear someone's rig you are at a point in audiophile life to make an opinion. What you do is try and act like the sound signature is nice even though it may not be for you. Maybe some of the best judgments happen after a prolonged time to hear the subtleties. Every system has good and bad sides. I would guess that there are no perfect systems out there. There may be some amazing ones which knock your socks off. Even then there are systems which will take the sock knockers down.
So what people do most of the time is make compromise. What? Yes, most of us here have made a compromise in sound quality. Few will admit it here. If we were to list the defects, we could see. The defects are always there. Most would say they have reached a great value for the money. The value for the money group is one group of people here. The next group of people are the ultra high end. These people always get the benefit of that old saying around here, "At that level it is only what sound you are going for, they are all good systems." Is this really true? I don't know?
This brings us to the title, " Do You Want Thick Or Thin Sound?" This may seem like a really dumb thing to make a thread about? Everyone wants a big thick sound, right?
The truth is the best systems that had a knack at getting all the detail down were thin. It seems to my ears the whole mid-bass, muddy-water, thick bass has an effect of covering a lot of high-mid detail. So now when I hear other peoples systems which at first seems to have a thin a sound, I think again.
Every time we hear a new system we bring all of our lifetime of sound history with us. Every time you see a new sight on the street you use your whole life history of vision/recognition to make micro-judgments untill you reach an opinion that makes complete sense! This is how the mind works. The problem is that it can be misleading. There is also another factor which has to do with sound conditioning. Try on a pair of rose colored glasses for half an hour. When you remove them everything will look light blue for a while. The relationship of sound can do this to if you hear something which has a complete change to your ears.
People out there have these really thin sounding systems and they are completely in love with them.(AKG k701s) To get the effect take your EQ and mess around till you get all highs. There would be a great experiment to do at a Head-Fi meet where you choose a song in I-Tunes and bring up the EQ window. Now have everyone there mess around with the EQ till they thought it was correct for the song. Some would have high bass. Some are purists who are never going to move a single slider around. So maybe this is not the perfect test. Most of us do all our EQs with the equipment and cables anyway. The I-Tunes EQ would show everyone has a sound signature preference.
How many times have you been at a live show and hated the bass but your friend just loved it? This is almost at the point of favorite color choices. Everyone has a favorite color and no one is wrong. OK, lets not go that far. We have all heard expensive systems which sounded like @#$%^%^&*. What a place in life to be in, the person is all excited like it is his new born son and asks, "What did you think?" "Killer huh?" At many places in life the little that you say the better. This is one of those places. Well one benefit of putting up with this rambling post is now you have a way out. Just remember it is just as they like it. Unless they are totally mislead and have gone down an unfortunate road like all of us audiophiles have at times. You know Beta Tapes,Laser Disks, Casette Tapes,Mini Disks, shall I go on? Oh yes, green CD pens, Surround Sound HI/FI, DTS, Silver Cables, and the best one which is buying old musical instuments which amplify the tonal resonances around the room and add to the sound quality. Someday we will have bottles of placebo pills which make everything sound better. Oh, they do make those now but we can't talk about it here. The same goes for the system where there is more bass than your local AMC cinema. They have all that crazy rumble which makes your head tickle and covers over everthing but the major highs. This is where I am at with my system now. So for along time I would make fast opinions about what other people loved in the high treble zone. After looking only for slam and authority in excess, I am starting to see the strong points of these thin sounders. What is your opinion?
So what people do most of the time is make compromise. What? Yes, most of us here have made a compromise in sound quality. Few will admit it here. If we were to list the defects, we could see. The defects are always there. Most would say they have reached a great value for the money. The value for the money group is one group of people here. The next group of people are the ultra high end. These people always get the benefit of that old saying around here, "At that level it is only what sound you are going for, they are all good systems." Is this really true? I don't know?
This brings us to the title, " Do You Want Thick Or Thin Sound?" This may seem like a really dumb thing to make a thread about? Everyone wants a big thick sound, right?
The truth is the best systems that had a knack at getting all the detail down were thin. It seems to my ears the whole mid-bass, muddy-water, thick bass has an effect of covering a lot of high-mid detail. So now when I hear other peoples systems which at first seems to have a thin a sound, I think again.
Every time we hear a new system we bring all of our lifetime of sound history with us. Every time you see a new sight on the street you use your whole life history of vision/recognition to make micro-judgments untill you reach an opinion that makes complete sense! This is how the mind works. The problem is that it can be misleading. There is also another factor which has to do with sound conditioning. Try on a pair of rose colored glasses for half an hour. When you remove them everything will look light blue for a while. The relationship of sound can do this to if you hear something which has a complete change to your ears.
People out there have these really thin sounding systems and they are completely in love with them.(AKG k701s) To get the effect take your EQ and mess around till you get all highs. There would be a great experiment to do at a Head-Fi meet where you choose a song in I-Tunes and bring up the EQ window. Now have everyone there mess around with the EQ till they thought it was correct for the song. Some would have high bass. Some are purists who are never going to move a single slider around. So maybe this is not the perfect test. Most of us do all our EQs with the equipment and cables anyway. The I-Tunes EQ would show everyone has a sound signature preference.
How many times have you been at a live show and hated the bass but your friend just loved it? This is almost at the point of favorite color choices. Everyone has a favorite color and no one is wrong. OK, lets not go that far. We have all heard expensive systems which sounded like @#$%^%^&*. What a place in life to be in, the person is all excited like it is his new born son and asks, "What did you think?" "Killer huh?" At many places in life the little that you say the better. This is one of those places. Well one benefit of putting up with this rambling post is now you have a way out. Just remember it is just as they like it. Unless they are totally mislead and have gone down an unfortunate road like all of us audiophiles have at times. You know Beta Tapes,Laser Disks, Casette Tapes,Mini Disks, shall I go on? Oh yes, green CD pens, Surround Sound HI/FI, DTS, Silver Cables, and the best one which is buying old musical instuments which amplify the tonal resonances around the room and add to the sound quality. Someday we will have bottles of placebo pills which make everything sound better. Oh, they do make those now but we can't talk about it here. The same goes for the system where there is more bass than your local AMC cinema. They have all that crazy rumble which makes your head tickle and covers over everthing but the major highs. This is where I am at with my system now. So for along time I would make fast opinions about what other people loved in the high treble zone. After looking only for slam and authority in excess, I am starting to see the strong points of these thin sounders. What is your opinion?
