Is Hi-Fi delusional?
 

what a load of cobblers. full of vague garbage like "warm" "nothing
there" "PRAT" (whatever it is)

Read it again - 'Warm' and 'PRAT' is exactly what I'm calling delusional. I
don't think "nothing added" is delusional. I'm talking of taking away garbage
in the sound, not adding to it.

=== Andy Evans ===
Visit our Website:- http://www.artsandmedia.com
Audio, music and health pages and interesting links.

Is Hi-Fi delusional?
 

Recreating fine detail, faithfully timbre in music is all very well but you
want those dynamics too - its all part of the listening experience. Good
live unamplified music is anything but boring surely?

Maybe I'm not describing this correctly - the dynamics are there, but what is
absent is the reproduction of sounds 'larger' than they are in real life
through added reverberation and hash in the hifi reproduction system. Take away
this added 'presence' and the original experience remains. If you are used to
resonances of various kinds enlarging the sound, then the effect is of removing
something or making the sound smaller. One example is a listening test I did
with three types of ICW capacitors (47uF) which increased in size and power
rating (160 to 630v) as the film used got thicker. The smallest was about an
inch diameter, the biggest the size of a coffee cup. The biggest was the most
acoustically dead, and the sound was as I describe - more focussed and less
lively. However, though I preferred the large cap, an audio designer sitting
next to me preferred the middle one, saying it was more lively and interesting.


=== Andy Evans ===
Visit our Website:- http://www.artsandmedia.com
Audio, music and health pages and interesting links.

Is Hi-Fi delusional?
 

Ian Molton wrote:
Andy Evans wrote:

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.


Of course, no-one else here wants their HiFi to sound like they are
'there' then...

what a load of cobblers. full of vague garbage like "warm" "nothing
there" "PRAT" (whatever it is) and plenty of SS digs with no evidence to
back them.


Not sure if you already knew this but thought it was meaningless, but
I'll mention it anyway.

PRAT means Pace, Rhythm and Timing, which is commonly used to describe
Naim equipment.

Is Hi-Fi delusional?
 

Andy Evans wrote:

what a load of cobblers. full of vague garbage like "warm" "nothing
there" "PRAT" (whatever it is)

Read it again - 'Warm' and 'PRAT' is exactly what I'm calling delusional. I
don't think "nothing added" is delusional. I'm talking of taking away garbage
in the sound, not adding to it.

=== Andy Evans ===
Visit our Website:- http://www.artsandmedia.com
Audio, music and health pages and interesting links.

Andy,

Could you format your quoted replies in a better way? You tend to
snip out the name of the poster whose post you are replying to.

Cheers.

Is Hi-Fi delusional?
 

"Andy Evans" wrote in message
...
Recreating fine detail, faithfully timbre in music is all very well but
you
want those dynamics too - its all part of the listening experience. Good
live unamplified music is anything but boring surely?

Maybe I'm not describing this correctly - the dynamics are there, but what
is
absent is the reproduction of sounds 'larger' than they are in real life
through added reverberation and hash in the hifi reproduction system. Take
away
this added 'presence' and the original experience remains. If you are used
to
resonances of various kinds enlarging the sound, then the effect is of
removing
something or making the sound smaller. One example is a listening test I
did
with three types of ICW capacitors (47uF) which increased in size and
power
rating (160 to 630v) as the film used got thicker. The smallest was about
an
inch diameter, the biggest the size of a coffee cup. The biggest was the
most
acoustically dead, and the sound was as I describe - more focussed and
less
lively. However, though I preferred the large cap, an audio designer
sitting
next to me preferred the middle one, saying it was more lively and
interesting.


=== Andy Evans ===
Visit our Website:- http://www.artsandmedia.com
Audio, music and health pages and interesting links.

I can understand the component differences but try and get hold a good
recording of a live event that you've attended (before mastering if
possible) and use that plus your own memory (which is unreliable at the best
of times but it's the best you've got) use that as your reference. Remember
if its a dry acoustic recording then mastering may well add reverb,
compression and additional processing which muddles your objective. Using
that original gives you a reasonable chance imo of component selection.

Is Hi-Fi delusional?
 

"Mike Gilmour" wrote in message
...

"Andy Evans" wrote in message
...
Recreating fine detail, faithfully timbre in music is all very well but
you
want those dynamics too - its all part of the listening experience. Good
live unamplified music is anything but boring surely?

Maybe I'm not describing this correctly - the dynamics are there, but
what is
absent is the reproduction of sounds 'larger' than they are in real life
through added reverberation and hash in the hifi reproduction system.
Take away
this added 'presence' and the original experience remains. If you are
used to
resonances of various kinds enlarging the sound, then the effect is of
removing
something or making the sound smaller. One example is a listening test I
did
with three types of ICW capacitors (47uF) which increased in size and
power
rating (160 to 630v) as the film used got thicker. The smallest was about
an
inch diameter, the biggest the size of a coffee cup. The biggest was the
most
acoustically dead, and the sound was as I describe - more focussed and
less
lively. However, though I preferred the large cap, an audio designer
sitting
next to me preferred the middle one, saying it was more lively and
interesting.


=== Andy Evans ===
Visit our Website:- http://www.artsandmedia.com
Audio, music and health pages and interesting links.

I can understand the component differences but try and get hold a good
recording of a live event that you've attended (before mastering if
possible) and use that plus your own memory (which is unreliable at the
best of times but it's the best you've got) use that as your reference.
Remember if its a dry acoustic recording then mastering may well add
reverb, compression and additional processing which muddles your
objective. Using that original gives you a reasonable chance imo of
component selection.

It helps to know a recording eng ..and most importantly get permission from
the artists, say its for your own tech use - some may refuse.

Is Hi-Fi delusional?
 

Andy Evans wrote:
what a load of cobblers. full of vague garbage like "warm" "nothing
there" "PRAT" (whatever it is)

Read it again - 'Warm' and 'PRAT' is exactly what I'm calling delusional.

Sorry, yes. however, you make reference to (as good qualities in your
system)

'less obvious' (what is? why? is that good for some reason?)
'spookily exact' (meaning what exactly?)
'boring' (meaningless)
'sounded tiny' (again, huh?)
'a lot of nothing' (cant all systems reproduce this 100% perfectly, if
you switch them off?)

and then you say 'no warmth, bloom, prat, or bass slam' which, if you
claim are meaningless, you cant claim you dont have.

oh, and whats 'grunge'? perhaps you should stop playing nirvana whilst
trying to get that 'classical jazz' sound out of your system?

Is Hi-Fi delusional?
 

"Keith G" wrote
(Björk - Telegram)

(Note to Fleetie - You need bigger bass drivers or a sub, not a bigger amp....)

I'd tend to disagree, Keith.

It's painfully evident that my current valve amp has insufficient
headroom to handle Bjork's obsession with deep bass. A 150W amp
would allow me to play some of her songs with the vocals at a
decent level, without the bass clipping to ****. Which is what happens
now if I try to listen to some of her tracks at such a volume that
the vocals are loud enough to sound really good.

A sub would *not* improve matters.

I know for a fact I need a bigger amp. If you could come here and
hear it, I think you'd know what I mean.

Anyway, I'm gonna have to wait until I can afford a bigger power
amp. :-(


Martin
--
M.A.Poyser Tel.: 07967 110890
Manchester, U.K. http://www.fleetie.demon.co.uk

Is Hi-Fi delusional?
 

Fleetie wrote:

"Keith G" wrote

(Björk - Telegram)

(Note to Fleetie - You need bigger bass drivers or a sub, not a bigger amp....)


I'd tend to disagree, Keith.

It's painfully evident that my current valve amp has insufficient
headroom to handle Bjork's obsession with deep bass. A 150W amp
would allow me to play some of her songs with the vocals at a
decent level, without the bass clipping to ****. Which is what happens
now if I try to listen to some of her tracks at such a volume that
the vocals are loud enough to sound really good.

A sub would *not* improve matters.

What speakers are you using?
Unless you have massive drivers on your speakers, a sub will usually add
more low level grunt.

Of course, it could be the case that your amp is unable to drive your
speakers at your preferred listening levels.


I know for a fact I need a bigger amp. If you could come here and
hear it, I think you'd know what I mean.

Anyway, I'm gonna have to wait until I can afford a bigger power
amp. :-(


you can always ditch your (low powered?) valve amp for a 100W SS amp
that will happily drive your speakers ...

;)

Is Hi-Fi delusional?
 

On Sun, 17 Oct 2004 20:06:52 GMT, (Don Pearce)
wrote:

On 17 Oct 2004 19:45:44 GMT, ohawker (Andy
Evans) wrote:

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.

Why is that 'contrary to what I think'? In point of fact, I'm sure
that it's absolutely true - I also think that you're going about it
the wrong way! :-)

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

At least three regular posters attend jazz and other unamplified
concerts on a regular basis. I'm one of them.

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. It's unimpressive in many ways compared to our "delusional" hifi
kits and our delusional hifi language.

Agreed. The common 'hi-fi' sound is anything but!

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.

It's absolutely *not* 'nothing', some of us call it atmosphere.....

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.
At this point Stewart must be rubbing his hands and saying "I told you so -
acoustically transparent".

Close enough for guv'mnt work................. :-)

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.

I'm quite sure that good ones don't, but I can still count the years!

b) I've done all this by ear

Me too, but under controlled conditions.

c) I use all valve equipment, and I don't think I could get transparency so
easily with solid state.

I use all solid-state equipment, because it's very difficult - and
extremely expensive - to achieve sonic transparency using valves.
OTOH, getting *added* 'nothing', i.e. reverberant hall ambience, is
very easy with valves.....................

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

Anything which does not sound *exactly* like a top-class solid state
amp is not removing 'greyness', it's *adding* artifacts. That these
artifacts are euphonic, so you obviously *like* that artificial sound,
is another matter. It's easy to make an amp sound smooth when you
knock off the edges that were in the input signal................

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

I do, and I can prove it with a bypass test.

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).

Oh, phukkin' L!!!........................

I hope you mean that they were yellow, not that they actually sounded
different. Otherwise, you're a maroon.

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

No, it has no effect at all, other than varying the voltage. That's
what a Variac is *for*, it varies AC - Variac, geddit?

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.

An isolation transformer is an *entirely* different beast, and
requires specialist grounding techniques to be effective. Your
imagination of course requires no such technical input!

snip gushing expression of vivid imagination

BTW, sounds like you may have a hum problem in your system, 50Hz as
opposed to PSU ripple. The best way to fix that is with a 'scope, as
it's difficult to hear, nearly subliminal in most systems. You really
just feel that an odd veiling has been lifted when you remove the hum.
Hey!............

Interesting essay, Andy - but you've wasted your time. The decision as
to whether what comes out of your Hi Fi sounds like live music has
been made long before any piece of media reaches your hands, and the
decision in pretty much 100% of cases is "no, it won't sound like live
music, it will sound the way the producer likes it". Unless you make
your own recordings, that is the situation you are stuck with and you
just have to make the best of it.

Quite so. But you have to admire ol' Andy's enthusiasm, however
misguided..... :-)
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering