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Concept of incremental losses...

JemHayward

pfm Member
It's Sunday, I started on the Rioja about ten hours ago, but, listening to some really beautiful music via my now restored music system (my MDAC has returned from Czech this week) I'm rather more aware that the job of listening to music at home is a task of minimising losses, and nothing in the chain can add anything to our enjoyment of music.

Although I will accept that the interfaces between various boxes can influence the transmission of the music, I refuse to accept the concept that anything in the journey from microphone of original performance to my ear can improve anything.

I once went to a musica evening organised by Quad ( the British company owned by Mr Walker ) and the presenter was a professional musician, a saxophonist... He'd almost convinced me to spend my life savings on a set of ESL63s but then he played his Sax in the same room, to "prove" that the speakers were the "closest approach to the original sound" - if that was the closest, for me, it simply wasn't close enough, and I almost gave up on hi fi at that point. I still try to spend more on music than I do on the technology, but having just had one of those rare "window opening" moments, I'm made much more aware that we are dealing with a lot of losses, and there are simply no gains in the game...

Sorry for the philosophical wibbling, but it makes sense to me...
 
I heard a AUDIOROMY FU29 valve amp with some Q acoustics Concept 20 speakers yesterday and with a price of £600 it blew away systems costing many thousands of pounds.

Just occasionally someone wins in the pounds versus sounds battle.
 
One of the reasons why I'm trying to phase out of this "hobby". :)
It's just much more pleasant for me to play a guitar or piano with some friends - it sounds better, is more fun and I feel like the time is well spent, as opposed to arguing whether USB cables make a difference.

Don't take me wrong, I enjoy my upgraded MDAC, but the whole hifi thing is starting to be more and more "passive" to me, like buying a vacuum cleaner. I appreciate a good one, but don't go discussing its various internal components on web forums.

Obsessing over something doesn't sound like a good idea anyway. :)

So, ... yeah. Enjoy the music, go out, find some small local bands and - who knows - you can even support them.
 
I don't agree that a straight wire with gain and minimising losses is the only way

There are plenty times when you want to introduce losses and add artefacts - for eg equalisation in the lower bass by cutting peaks which will actually improve your sound , or modifying treble to tame an excessively bright recording , or a loudness curve for quiet listening or even order distortion rather than odd and so on.. by the very nature of musical reproduction and mastering, it has to be coloured compared to live..so you might as well add the colourations you like.
 
I don't agree that a straight wire with gain and minimising losses is the only way

There are plenty times when you want to introduce losses and add artefacts - for eg equalisation in the lower bass by cutting peaks which will actually improve your sound , or modifying treble to tame an excessively bright recording , or a loudness curve for quiet listening or even order distortion rather than odd and so on.. by the very nature of musical reproduction and mastering, it has to be coloured compared to live..so you might as well add the colourations you like.

I think this is perfectly valid, IF you have already achieved the impossible goal of perfect transfer from mastertape (?) to your ears, so you know what the artist wanted the performance to sound like. BUT I feel that the intention of a hifi system should be to minimise the losses and add nothing.

I sell photographs, and I'd like to think my customers want them to be printed exactly as I intended them to be in terms of colour, detail, cropping etc. I'd feel a bit miffed if someone took my image, scanned it, and reprinted it with a different colour balance and cropped a portion of the image, but I suppose they have a right to do so...
 
I sell photographs, and I'd like to think my customers want them to be printed exactly as I intended them to be in terms of colour, detail, cropping etc. I'd feel a bit miffed if someone took my image, scanned it, and reprinted it with a different colour balance and cropped a portion of the image, but I suppose they have a right to do so...

Surely not, as you own the copyright of the image?
 
Surely not, as you own the copyright of the image?

Theoretically, yes, but if they buy an digital version of one of my images for, say, a magazine cover, and they have to crop it to fit the page size, and then tweak the colours so that it doesn't clash with the magazine logo, they will, and as they have given me money, I grin and bear it!

The amount of stuff I sell, I'm glad of the sale, and couldn't afford to sue, even if I added up all my sales, ever!
 
No one actually has a reference of what your original was meant to be , but yourself..the problem with photos today and with hifi/music is the output device (in most cases ) is not calibrated to the one you or the mastering engineer use.

So your pic of the sunset might appear dull in the viewers monitor..it's perfectly valid for them to tweak the image or the monitor so it appears as they think it should or the way it pleases them.
 
I have always gone along with Pablo on this one and try to ensure anything I borrow is completely stolen. I can usually work out how to steal anything in the public domain. No idea is sacred.

Regarding the OP I'm pretty sure I'm not in the hi-fi game any more. I just potter about listening to my records how I like to hear them and dislike most live music. If someone started playing a bloody Saxophone in my living room I'd set the dogs on them! I know my vinyl system is not very accurate but I prefer it like that.
 
A good Rioja and music go together very well and if the taste and sound are to your liking so much the better!
 
Interesting conversation, would like to see the views of more forum members on this topic.

All any system can ever do is degrade the signal. But the level of degradation reached sank below audibiklity about 35 years ago.

So th OP is exactly right. Buy your kit like you buy a washing machine. Both are just commodities now.

Chris
 
But the level of degradation reached sank below audibiklity about 35 years ago.

A recent upgrade has enabled me to hear things on recordings I was convinced I'd got everything out of... I was quite surprised at what had become clearly audible that I'd simply not heard before. This wasn't a frequency response change (that I can detect anyway) - and unlikely that any reduction in the noise level would make any difference, so I think the system is now just letting through more "information". I don't know what aspect of the design was masking this before, but it was really quite a (pleasant) surprise.
 
All any system can ever do is degrade the signal. But the level of degradation reached sank below audibiklity about 35 years ago.

So th OP is exactly right. Buy your kit like you buy a washing machine. Both are just commodities now.

Then what is left to discuss on an audio forum, and why bother coming to one if you believe that?
 
A recent upgrade has enabled me to hear things on recordings I was convinced I'd got everything out of... I was quite surprised at what had become clearly audible that I'd simply not heard before. This wasn't a frequency response change (that I can detect anyway) - and unlikely that any reduction in the noise level would make any difference, so I think the system is now just letting through more "information". I don't know what aspect of the design was masking this before, but it was really quite a (pleasant) surprise.

I think that most of us have at one point or another experienced this wonderful feeling. We have in particular experienced it after changing/upgrading kit.

I have reached the conclusion that what separates members of audio forums as opposed to members of music forums (ignoring the overlap) is NOT that we have different experiences of this sort, but the tendancy to link those experiences of insight to kit, and the desire to get that experience in the future by doing stuff with kit.

Some people seem to be able to get the result they want by pressing that button. Some people seem to get the result they want without pressing that button. Some people keep pressing the button and not getting anything.

I guess it's all fine as long as it makes people happy.
 


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