- snip -

I suppose its all about experiences, but if you can't tell
the difference in sound between a Quad 34/306 and a Naim nait3....


My word, a trip back to the seventies.... Quad - a straight wire plus
gain. Naim (and its chum Linn) - "if you can't hear or understand the
difference you're stupid". Audio's version of Jehova's Witnesses.

Experiences? Many years of listening to and enjoying music, plus a distinct
aversion to bovine ordure.

Geoff MacK

In article
,
borosteve wrote:
No stirring really. That's just the common opinion of people who work
with audio as opposed to audiophile hobbyists. Source quality matters
(and I mean the recording, not what plays it.) Speaker choice and
placement matters. Everything else needs to be competent, and mostly
is these days.

What do you mean by "work with audio"? Do you mean people who use
audio in their work? i.e.musicians,producers etc?Or do you mean people
that repair equipment, like a service engineer? If its the latter then
fair enough. The guy who does my servicing can't tell the difference
between a radiogram and a high end set-up! If its the former then I
can tell you that I have done MANY comparative audio demonstrations of
cd players,amplifiers and the rest to PROFFESSIONAL musicians (most
you will have heard of!) and they appreciate the differences that are
there to hear.

Strange. In my experience of pro musicians they are no better than any
other at determining decent audio. Often rather worse.

Of course recording quality is paramount (silk purse/
sows ear). I suppose its all about experiences, but if you can't tell
the difference in sound between a Quad 34/306 and a Naim nait3....

Strangely enough even Mr Vereker couldn't tell the difference between his
NAP 250 and a Quad 303 once the frequency response error on his amp was
equalised out...

--
*Sleep with a photographer and watch things develop

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Fri, 21 Dec 2007 16:42:06 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

Strange. In my experience of pro musicians they are no better than any
other at determining decent audio. Often rather worse.

I've found that, given a system without gross distortion, they home in
on the music and are rather uninterested in audiophile issues. I've
never met one who had the slightest idea what jargon like "speed"
meant.

Laurence Payne wrote:

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:

Strange. In my experience of pro musicians they are no better than any
other at determining decent audio. Often rather worse.

I've found that, given a system without gross distortion, they home in
on the music and are rather uninterested in audiophile issues. I've
never met one who had the slightest idea what jargon like "speed"
meant.

Does anyone here know what 'speed' means or is supposed to mean ?

There was a time of course when 'speed accuracy' was an important spec for
turntables.

Graham

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:

borosteve wrote:

No stirring really. That's just the common opinion of people who work
with audio as opposed to audiophile hobbyists. Source quality matters
(and I mean the recording, not what plays it.) Speaker choice and
placement matters. Everything else needs to be competent, and mostly
is these days.

What do you mean by "work with audio"? Do you mean people who use
audio in their work? i.e.musicians,producers etc?Or do you mean people
that repair equipment, like a service engineer? If its the latter then
fair enough. The guy who does my servicing can't tell the difference
between a radiogram and a high end set-up! If its the former then I
can tell you that I have done MANY comparative audio demonstrations of
cd players,amplifiers and the rest to PROFFESSIONAL musicians (most
you will have heard of!) and they appreciate the differences that are
there to hear.

Strange. In my experience of pro musicians they are no better than any
other at determining decent audio. Often rather worse.

Indeed. Many of them have hearing loss from playing too.


Of course recording quality is paramount (silk purse/
sows ear). I suppose its all about experiences, but if you can't tell
the difference in sound between a Quad 34/306 and a Naim nait3....

Strangely enough even Mr Vereker couldn't tell the difference between his
NAP 250 and a Quad 303 once the frequency response error on his amp was
equalised out...

LMAO !

Graham

borosteve wrote:

Laurence Payne wrote:
borosteve wrote:

WOW! That stirred things up a bit!! So there we have it,Cd players all
sound the same,as do amplifiers.Cables make no difference but speakers
make all the difference. Now I now where I've been gong wrong all
these years.

No stirring really. That's just the common opinion of people who work
with audio as opposed to audiophile hobbyists. Source quality matters
(and I mean the recording, not what plays it.) Speaker choice and
placement matters. Everything else needs to be competent, and mostly
is these days.

What do you mean by "work with audio"? Do you mean people who use
audio in their work? i.e.musicians,producers etc?Or do you mean people
that repair equipment, like a service engineer?

Pro-audio circuit / equipment designer here (mixers and power amplifiers
mainly but recently did some DSP and wrote my own reverb algorithms) and
occasional live sound mixing engineer. I've recently also been active again
in the recording studio business.

Currently designing a microprocessor controlled (ramps the voltages and
allows remote power up/down of multiple supplies) very low noise kilowatt
power level multi-rail power supply for large Neve consoles (they need up to
3 of them) as an replacement alternative to the original offering (they get
'tired' after many years).


Graham

Pro-audio circuit / equipment designer here

With so much to do how do you find the time to be here so often?

Steve

Stevie Boy wrote:

Pro-audio circuit / equipment designer here

With so much to do how do you find the time to be here so often?

It's not THAT much to do ! Besides, too much work and no play makes one
a dull boy.

Usenet is an exceptionally valuable resource IMHO. I have occasionally
received invaluable design advice in sci.electronics.design for example
where I am a regular contributor too.

Graham

"borosteve" wrote in message


What do you mean by "work with audio"?

When I say I work with audio, I mean that I:

Am an audiophile
Setup and mix live sound
Record stereo and multitrack
Design, build and repair audio equipment

Do you mean people
who use audio in their work? i.e.musicians,producers
etc?

Yes.

Or do you mean people that repair equipment, like a
service engineer?

It's not necesarily an either/or

On 21 Dec, 09:23, "David Looser" wrote:
"Eeyore" wrote in message

...

Reviewers who talk of differences in pace, rhythym, speed, darkness and
the like are simply blowing nonsense out of their backsides. If the they
found no differences, they'd be out of a job, so they make them up and
call them non-scientific names and claim they can't be measured so as to
ensure their next pay check. Charlatans, the lot of them.

Agreed 100%. I remember the first time I met this sort of thing in a review,
it was for the original Linn Sondeck turntable. After describing the "sound"
of this turntable in the sort of overblown language previously only seen
from wine reviewers, the reviewer went on to claim that *any* system using
this turntable would sound better than any other system that didn't. So all
the deficiencies of a cheap arm, cartridge, amp or speakers apparently
mattered less than the supposed inferiority of all other turntables.

That was the day I stopped buying Hi-Fi magazines.

David.

Oh dear someone's spelt Sondek wrong, ooohh!!!