[feifan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot /img/forum/go_quote.gif Vegetable ingredients and organic spices vary greatly by batch and freshness. For instance, an ounce of chili peppers may give you a hundred burning mouths in one batch, and a thousand the next. If it doesn't rain as much one month, the tomatoes don't taste as tomatoey, so you need to use more. Chefs need to be able to balance these inconsistencies by juggling quantities of ingredients and how they're prepared. It isn't like that with electrical components. If they varied that much from batch to batch, we wouldn't have computers, cell phones or any other sort of complex circuitry. Each unit would have to be custom designed and tested. Not a good analogy.

Yes, you're right!

Quote:

Originally Posted by hciman77 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm not - my "CD" player cost $60 and my DAC cost $35 !

LOL!

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot /img/forum/go_quote.gif Well, there isn't much point discussing which kind of microphone best reproduces the sound of one hand clapping or what kind of camera to use to photograph the light in a closed refrigerator!

Yes, you're right again.

 

[Thelonious Monk]

bigshot i admire how straightforward that you are, especially since i think that we have similar technological tastes, but i hope you aren't implying that subjectivity is necessarily a bad thing. while i sort of cringe whenever i see "tube-like" or "analogue-y-ish-y", objectivity isn't the only way to measure. of course you can only take objective opinions as a grain of salt, but enough grains of salt makes... uh... an ocean without water? too lazy to think up a good analogy...

 

[bordins]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot /img/forum/go_quote.gif Analogue is a method of reproducing sound, not a sound itself. ...it's a lot easier to logically figure out how to get there... frequency response, signal to noise, harmonic distortion, dynamic range... these are all descriptions of sound reproduction that anyone who understands the terms can instantly grasp. Using terms like "musical", "veiled", "analogue" or "emotional" sound great as poetry, but they don't get any concrete idea across.

Thanks a lot for these engineer's standpoints, bigshot. I like them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot /img/forum/go_quote.gif For instance, if by "analogue-like" you mean a slight degree of compression of the dynamics, a little bit of rolloff of the top end and slight boost of the mids around the vocal register, and a very tiny bed of hiss to mask the dead silence of digital recordings; there are a lot of very simple and inexpensive ways of achieving that without having to spend a lot of money on expensive CD players and DACs.

Very interesting. Please share your secrets.

 

[Awk.Pine]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bordins /img/forum/go_quote.gif People still hear differences once they change a Rotel CDP to an Accuphase. Many prefer the one that sounds more natural and closer to analog-like performance. Listeners can "taste" music and wine, can't they ?

Do they hear differences or do they have different experiences? Very different things, which are usually correlated but this does not imply a cause/effect relationship. The distinction between correlation and causation is one all too often blurred.

Oenophiles consistently report the same experiences with different wines, even blindly; even less-trained tasters can accurately identify wine X as being either wine A or wine B. Audiophiles do not consistently report the same experiences when blindly exposed to the same equipment. It is one thing to compare apples and oranges, but another to compare kumquats to capacitors.

If you take your experiences to be the ultimate arbiter of reality, CD players may have huge differences in sound. If you look to objective evidence to determine what reality is, CD players sound the same. I take a functional approach: I prefer my CD player even though I cannot honestly say it sounds any different, and so I listen to it. (Likewise, I acknowledge that there is no objective existence of God, yet I have found faith to be useful in my life, and so I believe.) The first two approaches are philosophically viable, and I hope the third one is as well.

Cheers.

 

[bordins]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Awk.Pine /img/forum/go_quote.gif If you look to objective evidence to determine what reality is, CD players sound the same. I take a functional approach: I prefer my CD player even though I cannot honestly say it sounds any different, and so I listen to it.

Let's imagine you are invited to audition awarded CD players. You can spend all week long listening the different players, in similar settings. At the end of the week, you are lucky enough to choose one player back home as a free gift. Which one would you pick ? If they sound the same, you may choose one that looks very good on the brochure and may not go to audition them.

Some people do not think CD players are good or bad, but it is a matter of personal listening and other preferences, like owning a "right" one already.

 

[bigshot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thelonious Monk /img/forum/go_quote.gif bigshot i admire how straightforward that you are, especially since i think that we have similar technological tastes, but i hope you aren't implying that subjectivity is necessarily a bad thing.

Subjectivity is great once you've put your system together, but when it comes to direct comparisons of one piece of equipment against another, it'll just send you into endless loops of buying-selling-regretting-rebuying-upgrading-etc. Logic works much better.

My personal approach is to get as close as I can objectively, and then adjust to subjective taste. It's like the similarity between tone controls and salt and pepper shakers. You make it flat, then people can spice it up as they see fit.

But the most important thing- and the thing a lot of people don't seem to have- is a sense of relativity. You have to know what +/-3dB and .01% sounds like. Otherwise you waste your time and money chasing that sideways figure 8.

See ya
Steve

 

[bigshot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bordins /img/forum/go_quote.gif Please share your secrets.

It's not a secret... it's horse sense, experience and logic.

In a nutshell, the biggest culpret in bad sound is the stuff folks usually don't address- frequency response imbalances. A good pro-grade equalizer, properly used, can work wonders even with low cost equipment. The same goes for room treatment. If you put your speakers on the floor against a wall, no amount of high end equipment is going to make them sound good. The place to spend money in hifi equipment is on the speakers or headphones, next the amp, and from there on, you hit the wall when it comes to bang for the buck very fast. Money doesn't mean quality- the proper combination of equipment and environment does. Lastly, sales literature for high end audio equipment and the blather of stereo salesmen is almost always a lie. Figure it out for yourself. Trust no one.

See ya
Steve

 

[morphsci]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot /img/forum/go_quote.gif Trust no one.

From the "horses'" mouth

 

[feifan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot /img/forum/go_quote.gif Figure it out for yourself. Trust no one. See ya Steve

Yup, from the horse's own . . .

 

[bordins]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot /img/forum/go_quote.gif It's not a secret... it's horse sense, experience and logic.

It is true that the proper combination of equipment and envirionment significantly affects overall sonic production thus perceptual experience. I see no better way to get analog-like sounds other than playing vinyl records. There exist decent CD players or DACs that can re-produce music as close to vinyl's, but without pops and clicks. Just experience or audition such players. Pick a right one that my ears like. I trust my ears.

Sounds from my Ori Zhaolu D-2.5A and my friend's Micro Seiki RX-1500 are alike. We prefer both players. My ex-Marantz SA-11S1's obviously differ from the two's. Is this a horse sense ?

 

[bigshot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bordins /img/forum/go_quote.gif There exist decent CD players or DACs that can re-produce music as close to vinyl's, but without pops and clicks.

Just about any CD player is going to give you more accurate reproduction than even the best turntable. The reason an LP sounds the way it does is the equalization and the compression. Frequency response was carefully balanced in the 1960s and earlier, and music was not allowed to be so dynamic you had to turn the volume up loud to hear the quiet passages. There was a slight rolloff to the highest frequencies to prevent premature groove wear, and a little bit of a boost to vocal frequencies to make them stand out. These are all mastering issues that have absolutely nothing to do with the DAC or CD player you use. A good pro grade equalizer and compressor would give you exactly what you hear on vinyl regardless of what CD player you use.

The only advantage of vinyl over CD that I can think of is that the type of artifacting found on records is more euphonic. Crackles and pops are things we hear in nature every day. It's much easier to tune them out than it is to tune out the rapid fire skipping loops and underwater/outer space gurgling sounds of digital artifacts. Dgital errors are not subtle. If you are getting even a tiny amount of them, you can hear them plain as day. If you can't, you're getting faithful reproduction.

See ya
Steve

 

[JohnFerrier]

I agree with about 90% of what Bigshot writes. Relative to the general wisdom, he shoots about 100%. Thanks Steve, for relavant and useful information.

 

[cjc]

What are some inexpensive pro-grade equalizer recommendations.. both vintage and new ?

 

[PhilS]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnFerrier /img/forum/go_quote.gif I agree with about 90% of what Bigshot writes. Relative to the general wisdom, he shoots about 100%.

I'm sure there's a few folks who agree with most of what Patrick82 says also. Extremist points of view always have their supporters.

 

[JohnFerrier]

110% in some cases.