"Andy Evans" wrote in message

Contrary to what Stewart and others think, I've spent 35 years
building and tweaking hifi with one aim in mind - to make the hi-fi
system sound like live music. I didn't use measurements for this, I
used my ears since I've been a professional musician for most of my
life. I also did all improvements methodically, switching one thing
at a time, and preferring a closer approach to the original sound,
more fidelity in instrumental timbre and more detail, reasoning that
any unrealistic timbre or detail masked was not 'fidelity' to the
source.

Ignorance of the need for level matching and blind testing for many of these
comparisons, noted.

OK. ~ Now the point is this: How many of us know exactly how
acoustic instruments and voices actually sound?

Yup, all acoustical instruments of a kind sound the same, regardless of who
plays them, where you play them or where you are standing with regard to the
instrument when it is played.

If one allows that the sound of a given kind of musical instrument varies
with the brand, model and even sample, that different players make them
sound different, that they sound different in different rooms and when you
are in various locations w/r/t the instrument then you come up with a simple
answer:

Virtually nobody ever knows a priori how the instrument sounds.

If you go to live
classical or jazz concerts where music is unamplified (plus folk
etc), it actually has a particular sound to it which is smooth,
natural, even bland.

Unless the particular circumstances make it sound otherwise...

It's unimpressive in many ways compared to our
"delusional" hifi kits and our delusional hifi language. It doesn't
have 'warmth', or 'bloom' or 'bass slam' or even PRAT. What it does
have is a lot of nothing - nothing between individual instruments
except space.

Except when it doesn't.

To reproduce this it's necessary to reproduce a lot of
nothing, which is the fantastically difficult bit. It means no gloss
on the treble, no large soundstage to instruments - they should sound
like small point sources in exact locations in the soundstage - no
'dynamics' that aren't actually there, and no 'bass slam'. Pretty
boring you might say. And very hard to achieve - you have to
eliminate resonances, all sorts of interferences etc etc. You don't
so much 'build' a syetem but 'take away' infidelities of all kinds.

However, the infidelities are always non-zero.

At this point Stewart must be rubbing his hands and saying "I told
you so - acoustically transparent". Jim must be happy that the
amplifier doesn't exist. It all sounds great.


Except that this isn't
the gospel according to Stewart. Because: a) I'm quite sure
amplifiers and indeed componants sound different, and I've been doing
systematic choices between componants to eliminate infidelities for
countless years.

IOW it's gotta be true because you've believed the same thing for years.
Wow, that must be a scientific theorum, right?

b) I've done all this by ear

No, by eye, ear, unmatched levels, not time-synched, etc.

c) I use all valve equipment,

Bragging or complaining?

and I don't think I could get transparency so easily with solid state.

IOW it's gotta be true because you've believed the same thing for years and
years. True science strikes again.

d) I don't think valves sound 'warm' - another delusion

Bragging or complaining?

- the ones I build sound smooth (to my ears smoother than solid
state) and dynamic (without a kind of 'greyness' I hear in some solid
state products)

definately bragging.

e) I don't think there is such a thing as
'acoustically transparent', only approximations towards this goal.


IOW it's gotta be true because you've believed the same thing for years and
years and years. Where is science when you need it?

Why this post then? I just eliminated another level of grunge - yes,
more has "gone" leaving the sound a lot better. I started by using
better speaker cables (solid copper core, the previous ones were
coloured).

More opinion stated as fact.

Then I wired my whole system through a monster variac
which I have (25 amps). Obviously an effective mains cleaner.


Not so obviously an effective mains cleaner, since some Variacs have
nonlinear cores.

Some
studios use huge toroids for this, like over 1K VA isolation
transformers, e.g. mine is over a foot in diameter and 6" high.

I got one just like that, but I use it for bringing up SS amps under test.
Saves a lot of fried parts.

My
first reaction was that the sound was boring. The "foreground" of the
sound was less obvious - the soundstage was the same, neither more
forward or backward, but instruments sounded relatively tiny and
melodies less 'obvious'. There was a lot of nothing between
instruments, and their actual location was spookily exact. The sound
seemed quieter because of this, and also the treble seemed dim
initially. In fact the treble was all there, and the sound of the
triangle and cymbals was exactly right, just not spread all over the
place. It took a while for it to dawn on me that this was the closest
I had come to the sound of live music. Yep, smooth, quite bland, a
lot of nothing but loads of fine detail, faithful timbre to
instruments - in short a step further towards acoustically
transparent. No warmth, no bloom, no PRAT, no bass slam. Spooky.

Probably delusional.

After a little while I started to get excited! And looking back on
the whole saga of 'warm valve amps', PRAT, slam etc etc, the whole
business of Hi-Fi seemed delusional. I'm sure this post will be of
little use to those who listen mainly to rock and amplified music,
but for those who listen to classical and acoustic music, getting
closer to 'nothing much except the live sound of music' may matter a
lot. It's taken me 35 years to eliminate enough grunge to actually
get this far, and no I couldn't have got there sooner or even at all
with a big Krell - I know that one very well, my brother has a Krell
and Apogees, and I've heard all manner of big ss amps in high end
demos. I'm quite unrepentant about how I've made my Hi-fi sound
natural, and all the changes I've done have been carefully thought
out. It's a bit like Salome's seven veils - you have to lift all the
veils to see what's really there, which is, errm, nothing. Thought
for the day.

This round of self congratuation was brought to you by Andy Evans.