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Posted by Paul S on
10-16-2021
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Not to hijack the Dannoy (Dunnoy) thread...
Yes, the It question is a Big One. I am now thinking of a sort of sonic Gestalt that I have experienced on several occasions, and that I currently ascribe to/associate with (perhaps mistakenly) specific equipment, or arrangements of equiment, when everything seemed to "gel", to the point where the system was not a part of my sonic awareness. It might have been dPOLS, and/or perfect electricity, but the feeling/reflected sense is that the Sound is "unassailable"; it just IS. I spoke of this early in my ML2 saga. I touched on it regarding the Decca cartridges. Tough to "get to the bottom of it".
Paul S
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Posted by rowuk on
10-23-2021
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When the stars align and the playback through a stroke of luck happens to align with that the recording/mastering is. The problem is that recording engineers are not recording for audiophile playback. They use tons of microphones to create an "intelligible" image instead of giving us a geometry that we can mirror. Most symphonic recordings have a very distorted geometry with the winds being closer miked than the strings and opera has the voices directly miked, but the orchestra more diffuse - they sound like they are in different rooms. The close miking has an even bigger problem, acoustic sum and difference tones (intermodulation) present in the concert hall are no longer present in our audio playback.
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Posted by Paul S on
10-23-2021
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Robin, I totally agree about the (ultimately) random recording methods. For years I sought out and bought "good" records, or at least I tried to do this, and I'm glad I did. But at some point I doubled back and started working to get "more" from more records. I do find it's difficult to listen past a 12' wide piano, or a violin that's 10+ feet forward of the orchestra, for example, at least this is true most of the time. But the great thing about "It" for me is that, when It kicks in, I no longer hear the same, and I suppose I am not listening the same way that I do when I am "noticing audio problems". I have long maintained that a poor big system is worse than a decent small system. It seems like there is some sort of line we cross with an overwrought version of horrific sound. And there might be some sort of "minimum requirement" that can/will foster the sort of involvement we associate with "It". While my cars have always had inarguably bad sound by any "objective measure", yet I have lost myself in Music in my vehicles over the years.
Something worth thinking about, I think, is whether the "It" we're talking about/around is a specific, constant "quality" of a/any given audio component that consistently brings/gives "It" to the listener.
Best regards,
Paul S
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Posted by Paul S on
10-23-2021
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I want to add the (very not original...) idea that a given component can "help the listener to find It", which allows that It is not embodied in the component while still "giving some credit" to the component. Then it might be "a matter of degree" to which a component "does its job". I think, at it's root, this is the way most of us think of our chosen components.
Paul S
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Posted by rowuk on
10-24-2021
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We have all run into the situation that IF we toe in the speakers, we increase localization of the recorded sonic events, if we toe out, the "imaging" becomes more diffuse. I will maintain that for a given type of listener and genre, we do not have to fool around too much with the "imaging" issue BUT if we have a broad selection of genres, we will always have issues with toe in.
In addition, I have mentioned sum and difference modulation as a "natural occurrence" in live music and due to our loudspeaker geometry and close miking, an "unnatural occurrence." It goes so far as not being able to "hear" if an event is in tune with itself or not - something immediately apparent in a live situation.
Sum and Difference are 2 different phenomena - the difference being mostly LF and the sum being mostly HF. This means that artifacts are dealt with with different amplifiers, drivers and physical positions in a multi way system. These artifacts are then presented in different spaces instead of together with the sound sources. We are more sensitive to "height" at HF.
So, is "IT" perhaps easier to achieve without "extreme" multi way setups?
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Posted by Paul S on
10-24-2021
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I have tried both simple, "FR" drivers and multi-ways, and I think you are on to something with the "simpler presentation". As a generic example, think of the "cult" "FR" drivers driven by cult SETs, playing cello music. I have gotten goosebumps from this sort of set-up. However, this particular dog and pony show depends on a "simple message", going in. Who knows for sure how much hardware one needs to "bring across", say, Brukner? While a given table radio might "do It" if "the listener is ready", the "objective reality" of the sound is more like a comic book version of War and Peace. Again, there are so many issues with the Sound of the Music by the time we move to decode It that the notion of "faithful recreation" is pretty much something like a touchstone. So, back to the individual aspect of Audio; like the Alchemist, each of us has to find It in the sound for ourselves.
Best regards,
Paul S
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Posted by rowuk on
10-24-2021
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We have university level training for professional musicians, conductors, recording engineers, scientists and doctors for perception/hearing. Hell, we even have doctors to reprogram our brain to "stop" hearing Tinnitus - but no training for LISTENING. In addition, we only have the "art of good enough" in the marketing departments. Everyone else is left pretty much to fend for themselves.
I think about Romys "break" with Macondo - as well as his description of the non-scientific room position of the Dunnoy - in principle, almost random everything - except for the analysis of previous frustration. Now we are at the level of Gödel and Einstein. I really wonder about the coordinate system here.
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Posted by Paul S on
10-24-2021
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Not sure about schools for listening to hi-fi, but plenty of "Eastern" programs for enhancing the senses. It sure seems like there is a "psychological" component at work here, something apropos of Jung (qv), perhaps, for "us Westerners". And remember that Goedel was invoked not for his own co-ordinate system, but for the fact that his "cited system" spelled it's own implosion. Sounds like a Zen koan to me.
Paul S
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Posted by N-set on
10-24-2021
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"...like the Alchemist, each of us has to find It in the sound for ourselves."
Exactly! The Sound It is like the philosophers' stone and the claim is that the search for it is governed by the similar psychological process because we don't know what is responsible for what just like alchemist didn't know how chemical reactions happen. Now we teach that to kids at the age of 12! Five-six centuries ago that was something available to few individuals in the world (btw Newton was also doing alchemic research). Intellect is a part of psyche and the knowledge how psyche works helps to understand and guide the workings of the intellect. For example, when confronted with the darkness of the matter, psyche tries to illuminate it with own projections (hence e.g. animating the Nature) and use the language that has worked so far in understanding the world (for christian alchemists the word of the Bible). However simple it sounds, it has a deep consequences which e.g. first facilitated and then blocked the development of quantum mechanics (with Bohr's obsessive insistence of using classical notions and building the classical-quantum cut into the theory). This is not dissimilar from what Romy has been preaching for years - a system is a reflection of the owner's personality as while random walking, in the vast majority of audio cases, through the equipment the builder tries to use own projections as a guiding light. At the risk of repeating myself, I strongly recommend Jung' "Psychology and Alchemy", Part III.
Edit: Despite Goedel's result, math has been working wonders from information transfer to sending people into the space to modeling modern pharmaceuticals.
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Posted by Paul S on
10-24-2021
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For those with good eyes and lots of time and patience, I agree that the thick and largely obtuse "Psychology and Alchemy" may be a good read for insight into Jung's thinking. But I also recommend starting into Jung with his posthumously published autobiography, "Memories, Dreams, Reflections", which IMO best puts his thinking into a personalized context. Not to forget, this audio stuff is personal, at least it is in these parts.
Paul S
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
10-25-2021
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What I found is very interesting in this whole subject that it
looks like out efforts to make audio better, according to anything we know
about audio conventionally, looks like not necessarily bring our playbacks to
have more “it”. In the contrary when our playback, for one of another reasons,
have more “it” then we do not care too much about our conventional audio
objectives. >>
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
10-25-2021
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 rowuk wrote: | | I think about Romys "break" with Macondo - as
well as his description of the non-scientific room position of the Dunnoy - in
principle, almost random everything - except for the analysis of previous
frustration. |
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It is possible but I see it differently.
Macondo was child of building audio by brain. I have consents, I have reasons,
I have believed, I have listening practice and I am agile enough not to become a
slave of believes of to take myself too seriously. Anything that I did with Macondo
and Milq is in a way understood or predicted by me. It was in way about control.
I am not making it secret that do not want to have control anymore and I want fuzzy
randomness that warm soil. I would like playback
to be adopted not by brain but by hart. I might be fool myself but what I remember
there is much more “it” payload in sound of Dunnoy. Have no idea what it was
but I am not an idiot to walk away from it.
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Posted by Amir on
10-25-2021
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I guess it was shock for many GSC readers and most of us are thinking about this subject , changing from brain (high performance macondo) to heart (lovely Dunnoy) is very interesting subject in Audio.
Imagine Macondo went away and romy listened only to Dunnoy for 5 years .
the question is :
Is it possible romy feels missing Macondo after long listening of Dunnoy?
I think the right answer could be very meaningful.
If i had not the right answer then i modified Macondo alittle toward more relax sound and keep both Macondo and Dunnoy in my home.
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
10-26-2021
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Something is very strange going on with me, I wonder if it is some kind of brain cancer or some kind of neurological things. I still have no speakers arrived but I was listening today broker 5 with Danlavy 2021 driven by Yamaha B3. There we multiple reasons why I didn't like the sound of this B3 but in the end of the session I stood up and I suddenly begin to feel as music as a mountain river stream flooding from my loudspeakers to my music room. I was so close to call many to ask her to bring them a map. I do not use any drugs or any another incentives. But it was very strange feeling, a beautiful feeling, but at the same times it happened during listening installation that I didn't particularly appreciate the sound... Very strange
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Posted by N-set on
10-27-2021
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| Romy the Cat wrote: | |
What I found is very interesting in this whole subject that it
looks like out efforts to make audio better, according to anything we know
about audio conventionally, looks like not necessarily bring our playbacks to
have more “it”. In the contrary when our playback, for one of another reasons,
have more “it” then we do not care too much about our conventional audio
objectives.  >gt;
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Perhaps it is like with technical parameters: THD , impulse responses, and other parameters fetishized by the industry turned out ot only loosely relate to sound quality. Maybe on the next level, sound quality only loosely relates to "it"?
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Posted by Paul S on
10-27-2021
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The idea of a big system is to approach "verisimilitude", as some of us enjoy the Sound of [live] Music in its own right. But it seems there are "other issues to reckon with" where It is concerned. It's been my experience that I find no Musical satisfaction, and no "It Factor", either, with some big systems, regardless of their design disiderata. And, as we have discussed, I have enjoyed "It" via systems that offer me no sense of "listening to live Music", whch is my own basis for system design. Big Systems might deliver It. Small systems will never (or, very rarely) deliver "verisimilitude". Pick your Poison.
Paul S
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Posted by Paul S on
11-09-2021
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I was thinking about the obvious disparity between the
“sound of live music” and the times of special involvement with Music that I’ve
experienced over the years, and for decades I have been turning these notions
around like puzzle pieces, trying to fit them together. Probably everyone has
experienced an electronically reproduced sound that was so “realistic” that the
response to it was very “immediate”/visceral, what the late JG Holt called the
“jump factor”. On the “other side” are the times when we just get caught up and
fully “involved” in a song or a given musical piece that “objectively” sounds
like crap, and not at all “realistic”. Are
these “two aspects” of Music playback exclusive of one another? Is there a
“sonic minimum” that can bring It across, and, if so, what is it? Turning this
question around, since we know we can “get involved” with minimal sound, “how
much system” does it take to spoil our chances of involvement? Can a system be
“too big”? It certainly seems like at some point the sense of the system can be
a spoiler. Staying with Romy’s example of Sakuma, it appears one can do
“repeatable It” with the “right combination” of ingredients, from system to
music sources. In this case, I referred to this approach – generally speaking –
as the “simple message” method. I did a version of this for many years, gearing
my system to get “a good balance” with Music as evolved as orchestral jazz. Big
orchestral and chorale Music was and has
been another matter, however, at least for me. I’m not saying Big can’t be done
“simply”; but even Audio Note “loses traction” as the compositions and the
performances get “bigger”, and so far it’s seemed to me one has to go big to
get big. And good luck with small when you go big! Yes, we might need more than
“two vectors” to understand this, and I do not mean by this to drag the
listener back into this little part of the discussion.>>
Paul S
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