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Listening techniques to evaluate high-end hi-fi systems

Disbeliever said:
High End means high price , you can not change the laws of physics, my system could probably be described as mid-fi but I have not heard a better one irrespective of price and believe me I have tried, e.g. the IMO over hyped for SQ Devialet and expensive PMC speakers etc. all auditioned in my listening room.
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Yes, but your system would be considered 'broken' by most people's standards.

Where the salesperson might have a point is people tend to go a bit wayward over time. Your system would be unlistenable to most people, but you have grown so acclimatised to it that normal things sound wrong to you. You might need to say to someone that they aren't listening properly if what they think is good is so far off kilter they wouldn't know what good is if it walked up to them and sang live in their face.

It's like being punched repeatedly in the face. After a while, you become so used to being punched repeatedly in the face that you think it normal and when you aren't being punched repeatedly in the face, it feels wrong.

That might be a bit extreme, but having heard the Aurousal VSx speakers you think so wonderful, being punched repeatedly in the face seems like the better option.
 
Blzebub said:
Any definition is arbitrary, but one system cost >£20,000, and the other was more than double that.
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OK. Next q was this a vinyl or digital system or both in those price boxes?

I'm just trying to get a handle on the type of kit that you heard. For example my kit handles piano well at least to my ears and I compare that to my upright in the next room.

Cheers,

DV
 
EVIL EMPEROR : Absolute garbage. I have a lot of experience with Live v recorded sound and have owned many speakers in the past with a lot deeper bass than the Aurousals plus electrostatics but at the end of the day it is the speaker room interaction that counts most and in my listening room the VSX are excellent they are also fitted with resonant absorbers, you have not auditioned my setup especially in mch so your comments re I am using a broken system are nonsense.
 
YNWOAN said:
I do think the whole question of 'listening techniques' is an interesting one though and I have certainly encountered audio enthusiasts listening in a number of very different, and yet structured, ways.

I think many 'music lovers' as opposed to 'audio enthusiasts' listen to the music from a more distant perspective, the equivalent of standing back from the painting and observing the broad strokes, balances and structure - occasionally dipping in to specific elements for closer inspection. On the other hand, aficionados of hi-fi often focus on a specific aspect (or limited number of qualities) and many times this is at the expense of the whole.

The other classic fault that audiophiles commit is to have a very limited range of music they use for evaluation -often I found this to be a single album, or even a small section of a specific track.
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I think it's perfectly ok to have focus on specific aspects as a designer, since that's essential if you want to give your product some distinction and shape out in the market. However it's quite another matter seeking to teach people how to listen to music. People will listen in their own way and latch onto those aspects of music and how it's reproduced which are important to them.

I suspect that if a person is guided quite strongly during a demonstration to focus on one aspect of the reproduction which doesn't tally with his natural inclination, dissatisfaction with the product purchased will set-in rapidly after the sale as the listener's natural listening habits kick in.

The whole tune thing and 'musicality' which a handful of manufacturers focus on does exist IME - it's very real and I can easily recall products which excel in these areas and those which don't. But you have to want and recognise this quality, and be prepared to forgo performance in other areas since, as a largely contrived style of presentation, something somewhere always takes a hit.
 
Blzebub said:
The two words mean different things, and mute has an audio meaning. Thanks for your kind attention.
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It's both a moot and a mute point that I'm Mutt & Jeff. :D

I've had very few dem's in my life, and at the penultimate one I simply couldn't tell the difference between two Meridian CDPs; mine and the shop's second generation successor to mine. It took nearly three hours with my own CDs to fail to distinguish between them in the best sydtem they could find for me. A year later the successor machine wiped the floor with my old CDP, but IN MY SYSTEM.

Yes, I'm sure there are superbly set-up dealer systems out there with sympathetic auditoriums. However, the point I'm making is that the 'better' the system, the more dependent it is upon careful and effective set-up, surely. Why would a dealer be any more adept at getting the best out of a system than the dedicated audiophile? In fact, they have to demonstrate many different aspects of hifi in rooms more suitable to one or two.

I wouldn't equate a RRP multi-source system of £20K with anything except verging on the higher end.

High-end (sic) hifi is definitely not fit and forget
 
Disbeliever said:
EVIL EMPEROR : Absolute garbage. I have a lot of experience with Live v recorded sound and have owned many speakers in the past with a lot deeper bass than the Aurousals plus electrostatics but at the end of the day it is the speaker room interaction that counts most and in my listening room the VSX are excellent they are also fitted with resonant absorbers, you have not auditioned my setup especially in mch so your comments re I am using a broken system are nonsense.
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No, I've not auditioned your system. But I have auditioned your speakers, and I have absolutely no wish to repeat the 'experience'. They manage to combine all the wrong parts of full-range driver designs and transmission lines with none of the benefits.

Music doesn't sound like that in the wild. It just doesn't. Yes, room/speaker interactions are vital, but there's only so much you can do with a speaker system as fundamentally wrong as that one. In fact, the only room/speaker interaction I would tolerate long term is not being in the same room as the speaker.

I'm willing to put up with all kinds of audio oddity and idiosyncrasy, but saying these speakers are 'excellent' is stretching things too far. Actually, saying these speakers are 'not abysmal' is probably stretching things too far. 'Able to reproduce some frequencies tolerably' or maybe 'they may be as boring as root canal work, but fortunately not as uncomfortable' is probably as far as I'd venture.

I'd like to say 'YMMV', but I really can't. But that's my last word on the matter, because it's OT.
 
Evil Emperor said:
Yes, but your system would be considered 'broken' by most people's standards.

Where the salesperson might have a point is people tend to go a bit wayward over time. Your system would be unlistenable to most people, but you have grown so acclimatised to it that normal things sound wrong to you. You might need to say to someone that they aren't listening properly if what they think is good is so far off kilter they wouldn't know what good is if it walked up to them and sang live in their face.

It's like being punched repeatedly in the face. After a while, you become so used to being punched repeatedly in the face that you think it normal and when you aren't being punched repeatedly in the face, it feels wrong.

That might be a bit extreme, but having heard the Aurousal VSx speakers you think so wonderful, being punched repeatedly in the face seems like the better option.
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You can't possibly say that most people would think is sounds broken until most people have heard it and said so. Too many times I have had high expectations of "high end" kit and then been dissapointed when I have actually heard it, similarly I have been blown away by budget kit that had I not heard by chance, I'd not have given a chance.
 
Evil Emperor said:
No, I've not auditioned your system. But I have auditioned your speakers, and I have absolutely no wish to repeat the 'experience'. They manage to combine all the wrong parts of full-range driver designs and transmission lines with none of the benefits.

Music doesn't sound like that in the wild. It just doesn't. Yes, room/speaker interactions are vital, but there's only so much you can do with a speaker system as fundamentally wrong as that one. In fact, the only room/speaker interaction I would tolerate long term is not being in the same room as the speaker.

I'm willing to put up with all kinds of audio oddity and idiosyncrasy, but saying these speakers are 'excellent' is stretching things too far. Actually, saying these speakers are 'not abysmal' is probably stretching things too far. 'Able to reproduce some frequencies tolerably' or maybe 'they may be as boring as root canal work, but fortunately not as uncomfortable' is probably as far as I'd venture.

I'd like to say 'YMMV', but I really can't. But that's my last word on the matter, because it's OT.
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I do love a bit of plain speaking :)
 
Blzebub said:
Are there special techniques and if so, what are they?
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Preparation
Fast for at least 24 hours.

Then take a long hot shower followed by a cold plunge bath. Wrap yourself in warm towels. As the heat starts to dissipate, shave your whole body. Head, chest, pits, toes, back, sac, crack and nose. Then bathe again with lemon oil and lotus blossom.

Readiness
Out with the yoga mat, sandalwood candle and frankincense. Turn you system on - then assuming the first prone posture, meditate on the flame for at least an hour.

Summon three concubines and cleanse your mind of lustful thoughts through the freedom of orgasm.

Don the saffron robe and finger cymbals.

Begin
Start with something simple, like a solo piano, violin or cello piece. As each note or chord is played, stop half way through - sound the finger symbols and imagine how the second half of the note or chord should sound. Then un-pause and match the actual sound to your expectation.

It is always the expectation that is correct. When actuality equates with expectation then nirvana is reached.

Mastery
Over time you will be able to do this with more complex types of music. You may need longer fasting, bathing and additional concubines to start with.

The great masters can achieve one-ness without the preparation and by simply tapping their feet along with the tune - but this takes years of dedication to truly comprehend. If you meet anyone who can "tune-dem" at will, simply bow down before these great masters and believe everything that they say.

If a master requests, give them your wallet. And they may need your wife as an additional concubine.

Next Steps
Buy my book.
 
The dominant factor is the room

Even a good system can sound "broken" in a room with poor acoustics

Much hifi is voiced to sell rather than for long term enjoyment by being immediately impressive but wearing in the long term
 
Mistah Ribee,

You are truly a gem, much like the stylus on the end of a boron cantilever.

Joe
 
I tried JR's excellent advice and all was going well until I tried to cue the record while wearing the finger cymbals. After that it all went rather expensively pear shaped. Be warned.
 
Robert said:
I think it's perfectly ok to have focus on specific aspects as a designer, since that's essential if you want to give your product some distinction and shape out in the market. However it's quite another matter seeking to teach people how to listen to music. People will listen in their own way and latch onto those aspects of music and how it's reproduced which are important to them.

I suspect that if a person is guided quite strongly during a demonstration to focus on one aspect of the reproduction which doesn't tally with his natural inclination, dissatisfaction with the product purchased will set-in rapidly after the sale as the listener's natural listening habits kick in.

The whole tune thing and 'musicality' which a handful of manufacturers focus on does exist IME - it's very real and I can easily recall products which excel in these areas and those which don't. But you have to want and recognise this quality, and be prepared to forgo performance in other areas since, as a largely contrived style of presentation, something somewhere always takes a hit.
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I don't disagree, and I don't condone dictating how one should listen to potential customers.
 
Tony L said:
I've witnessed enough dems to realise there are many ways of listening to things, many agendas, many versions of the truth. This applies to everyone: dealers, punters, 'gurus' etc. I realised quite a long time ago now that the only opinion that matters to me is my own and understanding that is plenty enough of a challenge! I honestly don't care about anyone else's viewpoint and neither do I expect any consensus as I've seen far too many folk actively prefer things that sound wrong or just plain awful to me. As such I'm not defensive as I'm not attempting to convert anyone to anything - I expect disparity. I find the way many others listen to music quite fascinating, but that's a whole other topic.

FWIW if I'm in any doubt as to whether any 'distortion' I'm hearing is on the track or not (a huge 'if' with things as heavily processed and smothered in FX as the Massive Attack example) I'll use headphones. I have a pair of Sennheiser HD-600s and in matters like this I trust them over *any* system as they entirely remove the room, the crossover and any multi-driver time / phase distortion from the equation. As my own interest is vintage audio kit I've found them very useful indeed when fault-diagnosing etc. I've even got a Can Opener box that enables me to connect them to the speaker outputs of the amp so I can establish if what I think I'm hearing is in the amp or speaker (useful with vintage tube amps). In the overwhelming majority of cases issues where I've felt were distortions were in the system they were actually clearly present on the source material via the cans, just highlighted or emphasised by the system in a slightly less than balanced manner. That's when it all starts to get confusing!
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Excellent reply - this is essensially the 'professional' way of doing things I was taught a long time ago at the BBC; a decent pair of headphones cuts out a lot of the crap when it comes to analysing precisely what is going on in an audio chain. Even a fairly modest pair can be revealing enough to pinpoint any problems much faster than faffing around using the 'speakers as the monitor.

Cheers, H.

:(
 
Tony is also right about not caring what others think. I learnt a long time ago that the main listening technique I employ is to listen to myself.

I have some HD600's too but am so flued up right now I wouldn't hear anything even through them. Having said that mine are power by a quartet of lovely 1950's valves so Miles & the original Quintet do sound rather lovely through them.
 
Robert said:
I think it's perfectly ok to have focus on specific aspects as a designer, since that's essential if you want to give your product some distinction and shape out in the market. However it's quite another matter seeking to teach people how to listen to music. People will listen in their own way and latch onto those aspects of music and how it's reproduced which are important to them.

I suspect that if a person is guided quite strongly during a demonstration to focus on one aspect of the reproduction which doesn't tally with his natural inclination, dissatisfaction with the product purchased will set-in rapidly after the sale as the listener's natural listening habits kick in.

The whole tune thing and 'musicality' which a handful of manufacturers focus on does exist IME - it's very real and I can easily recall products which excel in these areas and those which don't. But you have to want and recognise this quality, and be prepared to forgo performance in other areas since, as a largely contrived style of presentation, something somewhere always takes a hit.
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I like to think that musicality involves human factors (composition, interpretation, appreciation, etc.) and listening to music that way is altogether different from listening to assess sound quality of equipment. When it comes to equipment, slogans about tunefulness, prat, or musicality are imo impressionistic shorthands at best, for certain aspects of sound highlighted by technology, and have little to do with the art of music.

But of course people should also feel free to talk about televisions in terms of how 'musical' they portray a ballet dancer.
 
Also - my tuppence on trying to trip up a system into revealing its weaknesses is to play:-

a) some well-recorded solo piano &

b) some choral music.

a) shows up transient ability, tonal purity (horn 'speakers often fall on their arse here . . .) , the sense of the recorded acousic and the purity of the notes decay.
And b) is a bugger to reproduce without the massed voices 'hardening' as IM distortion shows up, mostly from the 'speakers drive units playing up, crossover nasties or sometimes the amp running out of puff.

If the system passes these tests, I can then put Massive Attack on at ear-bleeding levels . . .

:)
 
Evil Emperor said:
No, I've not auditioned your system. But I have auditioned your speakers, and I have absolutely no wish to repeat the 'experience'. They manage to combine all the wrong parts of full-range driver designs and transmission lines with none of the benefits.

Music doesn't sound like that in the wild. It just doesn't. Yes, room/speaker interactions are vital, but there's only so much you can do with a speaker system as fundamentally wrong as that one. In fact, the only room/speaker interaction I would tolerate long term is not being in the same room as the speaker.

I'm willing to put up with all kinds of audio oddity and idiosyncrasy, but saying these speakers are 'excellent' is stretching things too far. Actually, saying these speakers are 'not abysmal' is probably stretching things too far. 'Able to reproduce some frequencies tolerably' or maybe 'they may be as boring as root canal work, but fortunately not as uncomfortable' is probably as far as I'd venture.

I'd like to say 'YMMV', but I really can't. But that's my last word on the matter, because it's OT.
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I would be interested to know what your unbroken system consists of.
 
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