Blackmetalboon
pfm Member
a massive shiny CNC-machined alloy box, slapping bright blue LEDs all over the place and charging the price of a house for it
Have you snuck in my house and looked at my system while I’ve been at work?
a massive shiny CNC-machined alloy box, slapping bright blue LEDs all over the place and charging the price of a house for it
In general and not referring only to your remarks, the fundamental flaw about how unheard audio components and systems sound is the assumption that at some vague point they're just excessively expensive with no other legitimate reason for being.As you so kindly quoted my post I am sure you noticed my use of the word “cheaper“ used in a thread about a system that used a $350K server/DAC/PSU. Take your pick on where you can get “top-level-sound for a pittance”.
All three of those items are now mature technology, available for significantly less. If you are unaware of this I would suggest you got out and listen and compare more equipment.
I have access to a digital front end that, while expensive, cost 1/10th of the Wadax. I do not use it all as my main source as UI, reliability, speed and functions have improved over the years. Technology has trickled down and I get the same audio performance using equipment that cost a fraction of the price.
Make no mistake, I have no delusions about where the major BOM costs of my equipment are.
Sorry, but this is becoming increasingly absurd. Universal population sampling is essentially impossible for any question of real world scale. Also, why are you ascribing normative views on what people should and shouldn’t do with their money to me? I come from the position that, in a democratic society at least, once people have paid the taxes that society collectively decides appropriate, people should be free to do with their money what they want.Probabilities and likelihoods. That <IS> statistics.
But that's a data-driven discussion about how far from random chance our predictive power can be made to perform.
There is never a substitute for the ultimate in granularity (call it customer obsession); just ask them. My entire point is that rather than judging people who purchase luxury items that may not make sense to any of us....and rather than ridicule those decisions....based upon group data and categorical assumptions about drivers/motivations/other factors....maybe we just SHOULDN'T JUDGE these people at all, prior to engaging them personally.
None of us are required to postulate an opinion about other individuals. It seems like the worst case of 'judging a book by the cover' that I have yet seen. It seems my call for embracing nuance and complexity here is being lost...
Leaving aside that my ‘immediately obvious’ point was about watches, I’ll start with mains cables, ethernet cables, many isolation products and the foo accessories charade in general. My view (and granted, it is a semi informed one because I’m no physicist) is that transducers and the speaker/room interface are likely to be by far the most important contributors to the end sound.Excellent. Next, I look forward, again, to your listing the "immediately obvious" excesses in high end audio, as you originally put it. You can itemize actual gear or you can cite general principles of electroacoustics.
For me a studio control room sound is the ‘right’. It sounds like what you hear through a really good pair of headphones, but presented in your room.
If they played a bit more Captain Beefheart or The Sonics at hi fi shows, I might think about going.They played quite a few passages in the large, end-opposed room. Some show fodder, some electronic, some live acoustic stuff. Dozens of songs that I heard. The smaller room with the stand mounts was playing a more acoustic music bent but also included some electronic stuff.
I happened to be in the room when Mark Henninger was recording the YT video for Stereophile on the Borreson X6's. Seated about 3 rows behind him and his camera.
In general and not referring only to your remarks, the fundamental flaw about how unheard audio components and systems sound is the assumption that at some vague point they're just excessively expensive with no other legitimate reason for being.
About their sound no other evidence is offered because none exists. There's just something wrong up there in that price class, we somehow all know it, it has to be a fraud, and you're an idiot for not sharing my opinion. That's the general assertion.
This central fallacy is often presented in terms designed to sound scientific. Demands for proofs and generalities about rudimentary engineering principles and so on. But there are no data and there's no supporting argument and of course the stuff in the crosshairs hasn't been heard.
Whether you approve of $350k in digital front end is irrelevant to its sound. We both know this. Whether you think X is a 'mature technology' is also irrelevant. Those are opinions - generally wrong opinions at that - but they're expected to pass for and consistently substitute for actual finding, which is also an unsupported and untrue projection.
As other commenters have said, it's the new judgementalism around places like PF. What's perhaps most bizarre about it is the commingling of its utter irrationality with the sober intonations of the self-importance its conveyed with.
As for whether I've heard enough equipment to speak meaningfully on all this, your problem is that not only can I deconstruct the obvious flaw in that thinking above, I can also point to a very long list of credible experiences, collaborations, and observations with, about, and on audio that make it plain that the magical threshold you allude to is damn hard to audibly identify to the point of impossibility.
Which is why those who appeal to what they hope is a universally regarded preposterous pricing can't identify its sound either, and why they run from the task. It's just somehow self-evident instead. Has to be.
Is there an absurd pricing level? I think there is. You apparently think there is. But while apparently I'm more qualified to opine on it in real sound terms, neither of us knows exactly where it is or what it sounds like. I'm just not going to conflate my opinion with fact.
Oh, and if you want 'the ultimate in granularity' then you'll have to ask every individual what they think about things more than once, indeed *constantly*, because - shock revelation - people are human and therefore their perceptions, reactions to the myriad stimuli they experience and how this structures their future behaviour is... constantly changing.Probabilities and likelihoods. That <IS> statistics.
But that's a data-driven discussion about how far from random chance our predictive power can be made to perform.
There is never a substitute for the ultimate in granularity (call it customer obsession); just ask them. My entire point is that rather than judging people who purchase luxury items that may not make sense to any of us....and rather than ridicule those decisions....based upon group data and categorical assumptions about drivers/motivations/other factors....maybe we just SHOULDN'T JUDGE these people at all, prior to engaging them personally.
None of us are required to postulate an opinion about other individuals. It seems like the worst case of 'judging a book by the cover' that I have yet seen. It seems my call for embracing nuance and complexity here is being lost...
Only if I'm nice in the WBR.What, you mean you are going to be qualified soon?
I think you should use a dictionary.
I can only assume you mixed up imminent with eminent but it’s me who is confused by your towering intellect.
I give up.
Well I guess I will have to defer to your extensive personal experience on the matter.Look, Borresen is charging 100 k for a two way stand mount loudspeaker. None of the technical sophistication matters here, it is pure marketing speak.
Oh dear. No, I don't. Not unless I plan on establishing an opinion regarding "every individual".Oh, and if you want 'the ultimate in granularity' then you'll have to ask every individual what they think about things more than once, indeed *constantly*, because - shock revelation - people are human and therefore their perceptions, reactions to the myriad stimuli they experience and how this structures their future behaviour is... constantly changing.
And I write this on the day that this sadly happened https://www.ft.com/content/c1a7f8d1-ffd3-4454-b93e-6007d4579018
Totally agree! I also found it very depressing and I actually find this kind of total over-the-top expense kind of offensive. I think I also spotted at most one woman in the clip and the vast majority were old white guys. Nothing wrong with old white guys, I'm an old white guy but it is depressing - or maybe not - that an event like this has such a limited audience. And the music..... pedestrian and bland "audiophile-music" designed to not offend or challenge anyone in my opinion. If you really wanted to put a system through its paces how about Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra, or The Rite of Spring or something like that?FWIW here’s the room in question:
(10 minutes in if my direct link doesn’t work)
PS As many here know I’ve pretty much lost all interest in modern audio. Certainly this sort of stuff. The best audio of the golden age was all about finding new and innovative ways to bring high quality home audio to the majority of listeners. Quad, Klipsch, Leak, Garrard, Thorens, AR, Rega, Naim etc were never cheap, but they were all attainable. Far too much modern audio is the exact reverse to my eyes; the selling of very old technology to a super-wealthy elite just by adding increased mass, bling and pseudoscience. I watched the whole show walk around above and as usual found it hugely depressing. A once innovative and vibrant industry reduced year by year to recursively selling the same stuff encrusted in ever more bling to ever richer people. A quick look inside Trump Tower before the bailiffs arrive.
I know what you mean. I noticed that a previous instance of the show was on but I refused to go on the assumption I would see stuff that was so far over-the-top that I would not enjoy the day out. I find no attraction in promotional headlines such as "million pound systems" because over decades of listening it's clear to me that any correlation between price and quality disappears way before you get there. However, if people have priorities other than mine, OK. IMHO there's no need for strong apologists.Totally agree! I also found it very depressing and I actually find this kind of total over-the-top expense kind of offensive. I think I also spotted at most one woman in the clip and the vast majority were old white guys. Nothing wrong with old white guys, I'm an old white guy but it is depressing - or maybe not - that an event like this has such a limited audience. And the music..... pedestrian and bland "audiophile-music" designed to not offend or challenge anyone in my opinion. If you really wanted to put a system through its paces how about Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra, or The Rite of Spring or something like that?
Yes, you are talking utter nonsense.Only if I'm nice in the WBR.
Wow, auto-incorrect gets me once and you really saw through my charade, huh?
You know what I actually think? That you should settle down and go find yourself some manners.
This is one reason why there's no "best". Do you want the MEN Arena sound, Maine Road or do you want an acoustic set in a pub? Or none? You choose.Yes, control rooms were pretty dead in that era, though I’ve always been very comfortable with that. I hate hi-fi in a live sounding room, I seem to hear every clattery echo, slap-back, reflection etc. It just gives me a headache real fast. I have never wanted my hi-fi to sound like some rock band playing in a pub, I don’t like that sonic aesthetic at all despite having played in several such bands. For me a studio control room sound is the ‘right’. It sounds like what you hear through a really good pair of headphones, but presented in your room. Any reverb or acoustic clues are on the recording from the mics or added via FX, they should not be your room adding its clattery echoey signature. To my ears my Lockwood monitors in my pretty well damped listening room sound very similar to my HD600 headphones. The nearfield system upstairs (either JR149s or LS3/5As) sound very much like the smaller nearfield monitors in a studio. This is exactly what I want. Exactly what I am aiming at. Others may prefer different.
I'm getting silly? You got childish. I've given my advice and opinion, and I remain confident in this. We could engage in an interesting conversation about what constitutes "best" and how we deal with the fact that the audio industry is mature and has made very few advances in the last 20, 30 or 50 years compared to cars, TVs or (brace yourself) computers. I have access to more computing power in my pocket than NASA in 1974, and I use it to phone my mother. Cars 50 years ago had carburettors and did 30 mpg at best. Electric cars were milk floats. TVs had CRTs and weighed a tonne. 28" was a good size. What's hifi done? The CD. Pretty good. 40 years old, but pretty good then. Computer audio. That's good. DSP. But compared to the other stuff, that's bugger all.You're getting silly. SO now you don't really have ANY advice to give? Nothing that could even remotely steer a decision? Odd....you seemed so confident upthread. Now, we are "strongly suspecting" and "I'd have to try them" and everybody has a different opinion?
You obviously are very ignorant about Borreson (I own none of their things and have no desire to change this in the future, btw). They are contemplating using additive manufacturing to make voicecoil assemblies, complex rear back chambers for tweeter and midrange drivers (that cannot be machined by CNC), the usage of Ti + forged carbon fiber, etc.
This is all public domain information, too. You don't have to have an opinion on everything.
I guess the perfect hi-fi system, being neutral, would do both with equal realism.This is one reason why there's no "best". Do you want the MEN Arena sound, Maine Road or do you want an acoustic set in a pub? Or none? You choose.
True in a technical sense though advances in streaming are huge and wireless earbuds have come a long way. Also, the ability to go into the kitchen and say "play xyz" and have it play moments later is a big advance in usability. My current dream is how to get effective Atmos surround (or similar) in the rather awkward rooms we live in.the audio industry is mature and has made very few advances in the last 20, 30 or 50 years compared to cars, TVs or (brace yourself) computers.
For sure. What I'm saying though is that streaming is a computer led bit of progress. "Play XYZ" is also computer driven. Hifi in contrast is lagging, especially amplifiers. If we had made similar levels of progress in hifi, a Quad 2 or a Leak Stereo 20 would have all the relevance of a milk float alongside a Tesla, or a 20" CRT TV next to a current LCD 80in thing. But it doesn't. A Garrard, Leak, Quad ESL system isn't like looking at an MGB alongside a modern sports car. That's before the petrol car becomes a thing of the past.True in a technical sense though advances in streaming are huge and wireless earbuds have come a long way. Also, the ability to go into the kitchen and say "play xyz" and have it play moments later is a big advance in usability. My current dream is how to get effective Atmos surround (or similar) in the rather awkward rooms we live in.
That's what you would hope. A good system gets close, but we have had many years to get there and the progress is slo-o-o-o-w.I guess the perfect hi-fi system, being neutral, would do both with equal realism.