Audio, hi-fi and car audio - Is Hi-Fi delusional?

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Is Hi-Fi delusional?

In article , 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. I didn't use measurements for this, I used my ears
since I've been a professional musician for most of my life.

Well, I've used both my ears *and* measurements. I find the measurements to
have been very useful in helping to identify what to do when my ears
weren't happy. Saved me a lot of 'flailing about' and helped me to get an
understanding of what it happening.

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?

These days I only go to half or dozen or so live unamplifier music events a
year. Used to go to far more when I lived in London. So in my case this is
a matter of 'memory'. I seem to be able to hear the 'sound' in my head a
lot of the time, but this obviously is fallible.

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. 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. 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 -

In general, I'd agree. For me the hard bits tend to end up with:

1) Silencing things like faint mechanical 'buzz' that affect my ability to
get quite bit and silence 'sounding right'.

2) Speaker choice and placement and acoustics. In my experience these
dominate the ability to get the kind of 'solid and clear' stereo image you
describe.

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".
Jim must be happy that the amplifier doesn't exist.

Afraid I don't know what the sentence above means.

[snip]

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

Having routinely used variacs during amplifier development I'd say that
they don't have any real effect as a 'mains cleaner'. Indeed, I'd say that
if anything they can upset the mains by producing a higher - and load
dependent - source impedance for the resulting 'mains'. The ones I've used
do nothing much to 'clean' the mains - either by ear or by measurement.

Can't recall the details of the variacs, but used a variety, and was
working on amps at the time that had to deliver very high powers as well as
pre-amps with MC stages.

[snip]

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.

FWIW I listen mostly to classical and acoustic music, but my own experience
seems quite different to yours. If I got the effects you describe I would
have redesigned the PSUs in the amps, or altered the amps to be less mains
sensitive. Indeed, I spent a lot of time sweating over just that. :-)

Slainte,

Jim

--
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Is Hi-Fi delusional?

A few detail corrections here, where my meaning doesn't seem to have been
correctly understood:

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..... (SP)

Yes of course - but what I was trying to say here was that there was 'nothing'
in the places bewteen instruments in place of the larger image of the
instrument caused by resonances etc.

b) I've done all this by ear
Me too, but under controlled conditions.(SP)
As I said, when I AB componants I do it one change at a time, and if possible
put the system back again to verify the change. I also control what I listen to
(acoustic music which is a known reference) and what I listen for (timbre and
known low level details which are nearly inaudible)
How, precisely, is Stewart listening differently from this?

ss versus valve - no comment, we've been there countless times, except:
"it's very difficult - and extremely expensive - to achieve sonic transparency
using valves."(SP)
It may be difficult and time consuming, but not expensive if you build
yourself. If you are going to buy, a Nagra VPA will set you back over £10k it
is true, but then so will a lot of ss amps.

"Anything which does not sound *exactly* like a top-class solid state amp is
not removing 'greyness', it's *adding* artifacts.(SP)
Well, this is where we disagree, as you well know and as I pointed out from the
first.

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 (SP)

Now this is where you constantly get into real trouble, Stewart. You are not
present when members of this newsgroup tweak their systems, you are not
listening so you can't possibly hear anything or comment factually, yet you
persist in telling people what they are hearing. Frankly, it's bizarro stuff.

That's what a Variac is *for*, it varies AC - Variac, geddit? (SP)
Stewart, you ar not the only person on this ng who knows what a Variac is

An isolation transformer is an *entirely* different beast,
An isolation transformer is a toroid with 230v in and 230v out, unless my
electronics catalogues are lying. You may be talking about balanced power lines
here?

BTW, sounds like you may have a hum problem in your system, 50Hz as
opposed to PSU ripple.

Now this is constructive. I've been reading about this on DIY audio, including
how to use probes since in some countries neutral is referenced to earth. I
really know very little about this, since cleaning mains supplies is completely
new to me.

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

Is Hi-Fi delusional?

Using that original gives you a reasonable chance imo of component selection.

Well, I've recorded myself alone and in various bands countless times but not
recently and not well enough. I could do this, since I have a double bass and a
Bechstein grand right next to the hi-fi, and I have a Tascam DAT recorder. Not
sure about mics - I'm not a recording engineer. But yes, this could be done.
Andy

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

Is Hi-Fi delusional?

In reply to Ian: I don't know any alternative to using descriptive language
when describing sound in words, any more than wine tasters can't do better than
'a hint of blackberry and elderflower' when describing wine. It's one of those
things we're stuck with, faute de mieux.

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

Is Hi-Fi delusional?

tony sayer wrote:

Unless you make
your own recordings, that is the situation you are stuck with and you
just have to make the best of it.

Very good point and sadly..all too true....

Sad, no, an opportunity, yes. There is nothing more satisfying than making
and listening to your own recordings. I have been doing it for 40 years.

Ian
--
Ian Bell

Is Hi-Fi delusional?

I don't know if you are doing that deliberately (trolling) or have just
subconsciously absorbed the vocabulary. Either way it isn't a helpful way to
proceed. (DP)
I'm not trolling (I don't) and I try to use my own vocabulary as much as
possible, but as I said - what's the alternative?

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

Is Hi-Fi delusional?

Re Stewart and Variacs:

- apologies here, it appears my Variac is an autoformer, I had presumed it was
an isolation transformer. This leaves the question, why does it appear to have
a beneficial effect? And, of course, what better effect could be achieved with
a similar size isolation transformer? Has anybody tried putting two toroids in
series with their highest secondaries tied together? This has been recommended
elsewhere. Andy

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

Is Hi-Fi delusional?