GoodSoundClub - Romy the Cat's Audio Site

Playback Listening
Topic: Any artform could apply

Page 1 of 1 (5 items)

Posted by Romy the Cat on 01-22-2015

Let leave music alone. I am taking about pure audio and I do not need the "ordinary suspects" to drop public tears and shriek that audio is all about music. If I decided to waste one of my evenings during a Seattle or Singapore visits and to spend time in a company of a new to me audio installation of a local aborigine then it is not because I need to learn how to phrase the opening "Farewell to Life" from the Bruckner 9. I have specific audio interests and all that I would like to have is to be amused and ask myself: how the hell they did it?

I know audio, I think I do. I have seen/hear to some extent. I do not have in-depth theoretical knowledge of many audio subjects but I do have a lot of ability to apple common sense in audio and a lot of guts to experiment with it. I also have no problem to recruit for my needs some very deep specialists who dig for me in audio the questions that I have developed during my audio practice. All of it, and many other things, gave to me experiences that enable me very fast and very accurate recognize and to a great degree to predict audio results. Consequentially I very seldom surprised in audio and usually if I hear any very bad or very good audio results then I do have a very clear reasoning why and how that good or bad was accomplished. Still, very seldom I come across to the situations that delivered to me absolute amazement and I ask myself: how the hell THAT was done?

It is no deferent that cooking.

I love cooking. I am not so good cook and mostly what I cook is eatable only if you like me too much. It is not that I cook very badly but I do not have a talent to it and some of my cooking taste good and some taste like shit. However, since I do practice cooking I can go to a restaurant and kind of reverse engineer the meal that I liked. Sometimes and not so infrequently, I come across meals that are spectacular and I have no idea how that eatable beauty was made. There is more to it. Sometimes and not so infrequently, I come across meals that so much further then my familiarity of anything in cooking that I absolutely feel demolished by huge gap between my understandings, somebody's cooking capacity and multiplied by the mind-twisting taste of the meals. THAT is what I always am craving to experience in audio.

Play to me your playback and make me wonder. Let me leave your house not with the ugly face and feeling that I wasted one more evening in my life but rather make me to experience ownership envy, playback design mystery and infinite sense of curiosity…. "How the hell that was done" is not a question but rather a state of mind…..

Rgs, Romy The Cat

Posted by rowuk on 01-22-2015

This has to be the single post that has most moved me since coming to the goodsoundclub.

I think the difference in cooking is that good cooks all have equivalent equipment (knives, pots, spoons) and create the experience through their choice of software (the ingredients) and the unique processing. The fine cook can destroy a prejudice about a particular vegetable, meat, dish. In audio, I think it is tougher because a "Romy" has and knows the software intimately - and has well defined views of the processing procedure. Is there really ROOM for demolishing someone so far into the art/process?

I think not. I think playback is a lot harder to turn into art concieved by an artist painting with specific colours on purpose. The tools (including the room) are not consistent enough. That does not mean that things cannot be better than our hosts playback, it just means that the cook needs to have comparable depth, creativity and the means and will to succeed.

For the moment, my audio is a very lonely sport. The taste is much different than it used to be even although the "ingredients" are very consistent.

Posted by anthony on 01-22-2015

Romy the Cat wrote:
Still, very seldom I come across to the situations that delivered to me absolute amazement and I ask myself: how the hell THAT was done?

... snip
Play to me your playback and make me wonder. Let me leave your house not with the ugly face and feeling that I wasted one more evening in my life but rather make me to experience ownership envy, playback design mystery and infinite sense of curiosity…. "How the hell that was done" is not a question but rather a state of mind…..

Rgs, Romy The Cat

...but perhaps this is an example of a design that has to fit within different constraints.

There is a fellow in my part of the world that builds some relatively amazing two way standmounts. The limitations of two way and standmounts are well known, but this guy hits a market for speakers that actually fit into most peoples rooms (unlike 2m tall horn monsters). He does not use super expensive drivers but seems to get his results from very clever box designs (read resonance control - making full use of the drivers capabilities) and very upmarket passive crossovers (crossover is worth much more than the drivers). He has managed to all but eliminate the "boxy" sound of conventional speakers and has a level of colouration (or lack of colouration) that I have only ever heard in good horns or stats. For my preferences, they outperform the vast majority of floorstanders out there, including his own floorstander which incidentally costs more.

They are very neutral (i.e. equipment and system changes are usually quite easy to hear) image well, they play loud and they are not "boxy". But they are standmounts, and because of their size they do not couple as efficiently to the air in the room as large speakers and therefore do not have the same level of immediacy or ease with which a great and much larger speaker system performs. Within the bounds of a small footprint speaker that fits into most peoples room these are right near the top of the pile (I have not heard any that I prefer).

So not exactly what you asked for because I am yet to have that blow-me-down-that's-perfect moment in audio, but for me this is an example of a loudspeaker design that works very well within its own size constraints. The lengths to which this guy goes to eliminate resonances and really make those affordable drivers work well may be applicable in the design of bass cabinets for a horn system such as the Macondo, not that I am suggesting you need such a thing, but just giving an example of where his experience may be beneficial for larger systems.

Cheers,

Anthony

Posted by Romy the Cat on 01-23-2015

rowuk wrote:
I think the difference in cooking is that good cooks all have equivalent equipment (knives, pots, spoons) and create the experience through their choice of software (the ingredients) and the unique processing. The fine cook can destroy a prejudice about a particular vegetable, meat, dish.

That is an interesting thoughts provoking question that have a lot of reflection in audio: do all good cooks all have equivalent equipment? Ironically I would answer this question to myself: yes and no. A great cook would take very ordinary or even very mediocre ingredients and would make a great meal that would make you to wonder how it was possible? At the same time a great cook in order to accomplish his/her ultimate greatness would use very special ingredients, frequently those that ordinary people have no common access. The derivative question in audio would be: if an audio cook has some very evolve and very narrow objectives then can a person to go there with "Best Buy" ingredients? (for foreigners: "Best Buy" is US mass-market audio store)

Posted by rowuk on 01-24-2015

Romy the Cat wrote:
rowuk wrote:
I think the difference in cooking is that good cooks all have equivalent equipment (knives, pots, spoons) and create the experience through their choice of software (the ingredients) and the unique processing. The fine cook can destroy a prejudice about a particular vegetable, meat, dish.

That is an interesting thoughts provoking question that have a lot of reflection in audio: do all good cooks all have equivalent equipment? Ironically I would answer this question to myself: yes and no. A great cook would take very ordinary or even very mediocre ingredients and would make a great meal that would make you to wonder how it was possible? At the same time a great cook in order to accomplish his/her ultimate greatness would use very special ingredients, frequently those that ordinary people have no common access. The derivative question in audio would be: if an audio cook has some very evolve and very narrow objectives then can a person to go there with "Best Buy" ingredients? (for foreigners: "Best Buy" is US mass-market audio store)

Well, yes, a person could go there with "Best Buy" ingredients. It would require narrow objectives for sure. It would require the person practicing the audio to be well along in the seven level listening benefits to get at the content however.
Staying with food, many times when eating at a special place, there is someone present without an "attitude" about food and they can't figure out why the fuss. I have even had magnificent hamburgers made by a top chef "without" hard to find ingredients. When asking to see the chef, they often even tell you what they do and why. Whether you can understand it well enough to replicate the taste or not is another issue. What many miss is that the meal itself is only a small part of why we are impressed. I even read a study recently on how listening to different types of music makes things taste differently. Then I thought about the Scherzo in B8 and how cool it would be to pop a cork of a great bottle of champagne where the trumpet comes in..........

Page 1 of 1 (5 items)