[p a t r i c k]

Quote:

 

What does high end mean?

I think it means meeting an untimely demise whilst very very stoned.

 

[tvrboy]

Quote:

People overexaggerate the difference between digital playersrs today. Even the cheap ones are not a good analogy to bad halftones in a newspaper.

There's a reference here (http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/ipod/ipod.html) to the 2004 show where Wilson Audio fooled a bunch of audiophiles into thinking they were listening to a high-end source when they were really listening to an iPod.

Though there are differences in reliability, even cheap digital sources are quite good today. It's not like the birth of the "source first" myth 40 some years ago when Linn was promoting their turntables. Back then, a Linn turntable really was an improvement. Analog is touchy that way. But since then, digital has gotten very good and very cheap. My only reservation with a cheapo DVD player is that it would break down. Otherwise, it's not that much different from some four figure player with a 1" thick aluminum faceplate.

 
+1. I couldn't tell the difference between a uDac and my $1500 dac in a sighted test. Most digital sources sound fine to me. Amplifiers of the same operating principle are difficult to tell apart, if they both have adequate power and aren't obviously colored in some way. Quality of the recording is paramount. Even 128k mp3s can still sound good if it's a good recording, and lots of redbook CDs sound awful on my $3000 system cause they are mixed to sound good on a car stereo or ibuds.
 

 

[khaos974]

I really don't understand how some could place the recording in the middle or the bottom of the chain.
 
Let's examine what constitutes a recording:
 
From the recording session itself, several microphones, of different types, their positioning also influence what they record, none of them totally flat (they can b EQed though), the recording room acoustics, the different microphone preamps, with a possible analog compressor, not to mention the several ADCs.
Then mixing session, EQing any potential imbalance, left/right panning, delays, reverbs to recreate the stereo image, possible compression for some instruments, gating for others, adjusting volumes from each instrument, potential effects (think Sgt Pepper), not to mention all of this depends on both the mixing engineer's ears and his own listening equipment (DAC, amps, speakers)....
Then the mastering session, which means applying on the mixed track EQs, maybe adding harnonics, reverb, compressors/limiters, stereo widening tightening, all of this depending on the mastering engineers judgment and equipment again, especially if they are mastered to sound ok with ibuds.
 
All of this, and the influence of the recording on sound quality comes in the middle or at the bottom of the chain? I really don't understand some people.

 

[khaos974]

A post that adds a bit more precision to what I said.
 
Quote:

The fidelity to the original performance it totally out of reach of current technology. This is brillantly demonstrated in Floyd Tool's book "Sound Reproduction", figure 3.3 page 36, with the directionality of a violin at different frequencies.
 
From 200 to 400 Hz, a violin is omnidirectional. You hear the direct sound, plus the sounds reflected on the lateral walls, the wall behind the performer, the floor and the ceiling. At 425 Hz, however, the violin doesn't emit in the back-down direction. Reflection on the back wall is lower, and the secondary reflection that bounces on the floor, back wall, then ceiling is severely attenuated. At 500 Hz, however, that's the dominant direction of emission.
And the directionality changes drastically many times given the frequency range. No speaker can reproduce the same soundfield with the same directions of emission for each frequency.
And that's for violin only. Other instruments are completely different, and emit different amounts of energy towards the walls, floor and ceiling.
 
A practical consequence : violins used to be recorded with microphones situated aboveand a bit in front of the orchestra. In this direction, violins emit a lot of energy in the 2500 - 5000 Hz range, that is not at all emitted in direction of the audience. Therefore the recorded sound was very different from the sound emitted in the direction of the audience. Recording engineers knew that in such recordings, it was better to attenuate treble. It could be thought to be a modification of the original sound, but it was not. On the contrary, this helped to artificially remake a violin sound that sounds like the one that is percieved from the audience.
 
So what if we record directly from the listener's position ? This way, we capture exactly what should be heard by the listener. The problem is that the original acoustic adds up with the acoustic of the reproduction room in a way that is completely unbearable.
 
Therefore, recording music is an art of recreating a soundstage, given an average listening room with an average two-channel setup, that is necessarily very far from the original, but still enjoyable. For example, the reflections on the wall that is behind you can't be recorded and reproduced with a two-channels system. They are replaced by new reflections created in the listening room. Which means that it's better eliminating the original ones so that they won't add up with the ones in your own room, coming from the front.
 
Try to record your own hifi with a stereo microphone from your favorite listening position, and play the recording back in the hifi. No, the microphone is not crappy, that's your room that sounds that way ! Make another recording with the left and right microphones just in front of the speakers to check. This experiment was one of the biggest surprises of my audiophile life : I had the microphone in hand, closed headphones on the head, and was moving the microphone from the speaker to the listening position back and forth, and I didn't understand what was happening : why did the sound change so drastically from the microphone point of view, while it didn't if I did the same thing with my own ears ?
The answer was that the brain is extremely good at eliminating the tonal balance of the room from the listening experience.
 
All these things make us reconsider the original question about fidelity to the original performance. Most of this fidelity is actually in the hands of the recording and mixing engineers, that have no other choice than to recreate an artificial soundstage and an artificial tonal balance that simulates a good listeneing experience, given that it is going to be used on a two-channels system in an average room.
 
So we are left with fidelity to the recording instead of fidelity to the live performance. If we can define fidelity for a speaker, it is not possible for a room. In low frequencies, rooms have very strong resonances that amplify some frequencies and not others. Even anechoic rooms are not very anechoic in low frequencies. And anyway, stereo recordings, as made in studio, are not suited at all for listening in anechoic rooms. They have not enough reverberation. Making a room that is neutral in low frequencies in very difficult. Some advise the use of as many subwofers as possible, scattered in strategic positions, so that they don't act on the same resonant frequencies in the room.
 
For speakers, the basics of good quality are quite undertood : they must have a flat frequency response in the axis, and a smooth frequency response outside the axis. How must attenuation must they have outside the axis ? I am not sure that there is any standard about this.
Also, in France, a story goes about Cabasse loudspeakers. Some models were claimed to have an excellent frequency response, but were not appreciated by audiophiles. The reason was that they were only good at realistic listening levels. But since home listening is usually performed at lower levels, these speakers seemed to lack bass and treble, because the human ear has not the same frequency response at different levels. This is easy to see on Fletcher-Mundson curves. Thus, a coloured speaker allows a listening experience that is closer to the original than a transparent speaker at domestic listening levels.
 
All these parameters makes the question of fidelity a very complex one.

 

[DavidMahler]

Quote:

 

What does high end mean?

Well for example if you're dealing with reference-quality products...
 
HD800
Balancing Act
Meridian G08
 
 
if you were to switch one of the those three with another component of equal quality and value which would alter the sound the most.
 
so for instance
 
HD800
RSA B52
Meridian G08
 
HD800
Balancing Act
MSB Platinum DAC 3
 
LCD2
Balancing Act
Meridian G08
 
 
Of the three, which do you think would be the furthest sounding from the original?  This is just an example of what I'm asking, you could switch it with whatever you like but I'm just using these an example
 

 

[giedrys]

Quote:

If you pair a pair of HD800 with a good amp and an iPod, it's going to sound better than if you pair a a pair of skull candies with the world's greatest DAC and a great amp.

    This is classic. Many of self-proclaimed audiophiles should print this quote and hang on the wall where they can see it while using that snake-oiled amp which costs 2x or more than their main headphones

 

[ford2]

 
 
I love the way that the "reference" label is touted.
 
Just who or what determines that it is "reference".
 
Besides the extra $1000 on the tag.

 

[ford2]

 
 
Years ago there was a saying that Good speakers will make any amp sound Good,Bad speakers will make any amp sound Bad.

 

[Uncle Erik]

 


 


I love the way that the "reference" label is touted.


 


Just who or what determines that it is "reference".


 


Besides the extra $1000 on the tag.

I think you know the answer to that. A $5,000 piece of gear is five times better than a $1,000 piece of gear. Obviously.

Right?

 

[p a t r i c k]

Quote:

People overexaggerate the difference between digital playersrs today. Even the cheap ones are not a good analogy to bad halftones in a newspaper.

There's a reference here (http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/ipod/ipod.html) to the 2004 show where Wilson Audio fooled a bunch of audiophiles into thinking they were listening to a high-end source when they were really listening to an iPod.

Though there are differences in reliability, even cheap digital sources are quite good today. It's not like the birth of the "source first" myth 40 some years ago when Linn was promoting their turntables. Back then, a Linn turntable really was an improvement. Analog is touchy that way. But since then, digital has gotten very good and very cheap. My only reservation with a cheapo DVD player is that it would break down. Otherwise, it's not that much different from some four figure player with a 1" thick aluminum faceplate.

With respect to electronics I am a "source first" person.
 
However this concerns quality rather than cost. There is a huge difference.
 
If the iPod is a great source then of course that is ideal, but what matters is that the source is good, not what it has cost or if it has the blessing of some hi fi magazine or blog.
 
It looks like we might have reached a stage where high quality sources are cheap and plentiful, however it is still important that we use one.
 
In the "source first" approach the headphones or the speakers come last. I believe that is correct. It is true that headphones and speaker will change the sound enormously when you change them but on the subject of fidelity, then they can't obtain more data than what is being presented by the amplifier.
 
So there is a distinction between lateral changes in the sound by just swapping things around and actual fidelity.
 
With regard to fidelity I think source first is the best approach but I repeat that this very good source could be very cheap.

 

[nikongod]

 
Quote:

Well for example if you're dealing with reference-quality products...
 
HD800
Balancing Act
Meridian G08
 
 
if you were to switch one of the those three with another component of equal quality and value which would alter the sound the most.
 
so for instance
 
HD800
RSA B52
Meridian G08
 
HD800
Balancing Act
MSB Platinum DAC 3
 
LCD2
Balancing Act
Meridian G08
 
 
Of the three, which do you think would be the furthest sounding from the original?  This is just an example of what I'm asking, you could switch it with whatever you like but I'm just using these an example
 

In this specific case, Im having a hard time answering. 
 
Normally I would say that the headphones would cause the largest change, and indeed I doubt there are many people who could not tell the difference between an LCD2 and an HD800 driven by the same powerful amp. In spite of the fact that they are both different they are both outstanding, for different reasons.
 
The problem I have is that I really cant stand the G-08. Swapping it with a component of equal quality and value means replacing it with something that cost less than $750 new. It certainly dosnt hold its own when compared to players (or DAC+transport) in the half as expensive but not made by Meridian price bracket. To my ears it has a particularly abrasive grain/grit in the treble that simply dosnt belong.
 
I feel about the same way for the B52, and would say that the G08 and B52 make for a great $1500 front end.
 
So for the biggest change, swap the headphones. For the biggest improvement use the non-B52/meridian system. Of course this is very personal, and my own standards of improvement. You didnt really say what constitutes high end so I guess your own opinion of improvement could be quite different from my own.

 

[Anaxilus]

Quote:

With respect to electronics I am a "source first" person.
 
However this concerns quality rather than cost. There is a huge difference.
 
If the iPod is a great source then of course that is ideal, but what matters is that the source is good, not what it has cost or if it has the blessing of some hi fi magazine or blog.
 
It looks like we might have reached a stage where high quality sources are cheap and plentiful, however it is still important that we use one.
 
In the "source first" approach the headphones or the speakers come last. I believe that is correct. It is true that headphones and speaker will change the sound enormously when you change them but on the subject of fidelity, then they can't obtain more data than what is being presented by the amplifier.
 
So there is a distinction between lateral changes in the sound by just swapping things around and actual fidelity.
 
With regard to fidelity I think source first is the best approach but I repeat that this very good source could be very cheap.

Finally, some sensibility.  My iPod is cheap, it sounds great, therefore you don't need a good source.  Huh?  Headphones and speakers can never make anything sound better than what is fed to them.  QED. 

 

[indikator]

I think what p a t r i c k want to say is that cheap doesn't equal bad,
cheap source like such as ipod may already be very good,
therefore the difference to more expensive one is much less compared to changes in other component

 

[revolink24]

Quote:

Since you only know the content of your senses, everything is subjective.  In fact I don't think you even exist.


 

So you can pass judgment on things you have not even heard?   
 
 
I am not sure that ranking equipment in the audio chain makes any sense.   If your source material is crap a million bucks of subsequent equipment isn't going to make it sound good.  Likewise if you have a serious hearing loss nothing much is going to help.  There seem to be  some unstated assumptions about the minimum level of quality of equipment.
 
 
This thread seems to encourage departures from logic.
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 

I'm not sure what you mean by saying I can pass judgement on things I haven't heard, as I don't see how I have done that. Care to explain?

 

[edstrelow]

Quote:

Headphones
Source
Amp
 
All others are irrelevant, since tastes vary and highly expensive cables/tweaks are rubbish.

 
My point is that you can't possibly have heard every "highly expensive cable/tweak,"  that has or will be produced,  so you are calling rubbish some things you have not heard. That's the problem with making general statements.