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Posted by Romy the Cat on
12-18-2024
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...and response.
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Posted by Paul S on
12-19-2024
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It has been a little saddening to see the devolution of "professional" audio commentary since I started my subscription to Sterephile, in the mid 60s, when things audio seemed to be looking up. I miss the genuine curiosity and willingness to experiment and listen to and be guided by results that marked the early years of JGH and "subjective testing", when there was literally no advertising, and no quid-pro-quo for reviews. I would not hazard a guess at Michael Fremer's actual audio accumen, but the YouTube exposition tells its own story like thick fog on San Fransisco Bay, topped by a proffered example of sound that could not be rescued by a better server, etc. After MF's build-up, I would have been surprised and delighted if good Music poured forth from that pile of bespoke equipment. Of course, that did not happen. Of course, I was not targeted by this video in the first place. I guess everyone is selling something, but am I amazed that there are buyers who spend that kind of money for results like that following a pitch like that. Truly, what did any of it have to do with audio, let alone advanced audio? One might just as well wonder how The Robb Report stays afloat.
Paul S
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Posted by Amir on
12-19-2024
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I wrote an article about “audio Critique” in an audio forum and Michael Fremer answered to my topic but his answers were irrelevant.
At first Michael Fremer and most audio reviewers have no high performance audio system and also they do not know about proper condition of audio critique, they compare A vs B in wrong condition so their judgments are not trusted.
Their reviewing method is also wrong and they have no idea about it.
They do not care about music and they just describe the sound ,for example amp X has better bass, amp y has better midrange, amp x is bright amp y is laidback and … all are completely bullshit.
Minimum condition for comparing audio equipments :
- advanced high performance audio system
- perfect AC power quality
- Perfect speaker position
- perfect amplifier speaker matching
- proper method for audio judgment
If any audio reviewer change the amplifier (or dac or …) then he should change the speaker position.
The internet is full of wrong judgments and there are very few expert audiophiles.
Audio reviewers do not care what we want, they just help the industry sales.
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Posted by JJ Triode on
12-19-2024
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There is an article in the current New York Times about the stratospheric prices and declining quality in high fashion:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/19/opinion/vuitton-chanel-burberry-lvmh-hermes.html
It is a funny article but the situation it describes (brand-name mania and huge prices for poor results) is very applicable to commercial high-end audio. The only difference is that the article sees the disaster as starting about 10 years ago, while the audio high end has been going that way a lot longer.
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Posted by Amir on
12-20-2024
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I told before the real problem is the high end audio is very complex subject and audiophiles are not educated by experts.If there was an university for teaching training audio then we did not have those problems.
Most Audio Reviewers misguide audiophiles.
Imagine if most audiophiles learn about high end then they will not read audio magazines.
I bet under 10% of audiohiles know what dynamic means.
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Posted by PeterA on
12-20-2024
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My real learning started when David Karmeli started to teach me about system set up. After I took that old system as far as I could, I bought a new system from him. I had thought I knew what dynamics means. Then I heard 105 to 110 dB horns and SETs and began to rethink dynamics. I have not read the magazines for years.
Good video Romey. I agree MF's video is not about good sound. He does not describe what he hears. I particularly enjoyed the last ten minutes of your video.
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
12-20-2024
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David is very good source, and despite relatively high prices he has, you surprisingly get better results for those prices then out there. I was looking for at your writing "What is Natural Sound". I certainly see David influence. I debated it with David a month or so ago. I understand where you and David come from and I'm not necessary disagree. However, the big question is if the freedom from not naturality food automatically assure a success of messages delivered. I feel it is not. I feel that naturality of lack of this are also the expressive tools of sound reproduction efforts. This is a complicated subject....
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Posted by Amir on
12-21-2024
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 PeterA wrote: | My real learning started when David Karmeli started to teach me about system set up. After I took that old system as far as I could, I bought a new system from him. I had thought I knew what dynamics means. Then I heard 105 to 110 dB horns and SETs and began to rethink dynamics. I have not read the magazines for years.
Good video Romey. I agree MF's video is not about good sound. He does not describe what he hears. I particularly enjoyed the last ten minutes of your video. |
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Dear Peter, Welcome to goodsoundclub.com
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
12-21-2024
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I probably need to record a video about my disagreement with the concept of naturality. I absolutely do not undermine what Peter Express in his website but as I said, I feel it is methodological compromise.
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Posted by Paul S on
12-21-2024
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Is this sub-thread OK here, or should it have its own header?
The idea of "natural sound" is still facinatinating to me after many years of deconstructing and reconstructing old drivers and gear, trying to figure out what makes what sound a particular way. At this point, my own experience is that this is a healthy branch of the Simple Message School, like Audio Note, where "good sounding parts" are compiled to yield nice, warm cellos, classic jazz combos, etc, IMO well beyond what the Magico-alike compilations can do in terms of Music, and a nice resting place for those who can afford it. I understand what Romy is saying, as well, not to rain on anyone's parade but to use the opportunity to illucidate by differientiating his own well-thought out ideas about audio methodology and his own route for his own best results.
Paul S
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Posted by PeterA on
12-27-2024
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One area in which I agree with Romy is that natural sound begins with the Lamm ML2. David Karmeli and Vladimir Lamm were listening to the ML2 and David heard something magical. He asked Vladimir what it was and he said “that is natural sound”. At some point, David asked Vladimir what speakers are best for the ML2 and Vladimir said an early version of the Vitavox CN191. It is an exceedingly rare and unique combination. The S2 driver is not enough. That specific corner horn cabinet and bass driver is part of the magic. Combined with a source that can extract all the information in those precious record grooves and not corrupt it, one is left with a natural presentation of music in the listening room. The active search and choice and set up of this gear is an act of expression. It is not a cowering in the corner while pleading “don’t hurt me”. Romy‘s interpretation of natural sound is not correct. It is not merely a rejection of the audio file glossary of terms or what he calls “the absolute sound“. It is a celebration of using one’s knowledge and experience to assemble an audio system to create a listening experience at home, which reminds him of the experience of listening to live music. It is about Dynamics and tone and mass and energy presented naturally so that you can experience the music on the record. The ML2 is a big part of that.
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Posted by PeterA on
12-27-2024
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| Romy the Cat wrote: | | I probably need to record a video about my disagreement with the concept of naturality. I absolutely do not undermine what Peter Express in his website but as I said, I feel it is methodological compromise. |
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Romy, natural sound is only a methodological compromise if the goal is to be able to shape or manipulate the sound of a chosen system to suit ones preferences and moods, depending on recordings and music. my target is to create through the selection of my specific equipment and setting it up in a way to give me a listening experience that reminds me of the listening experience I have when listening to live music. Just as different instruments and musicians and concert halls and conductors sound different, a natural sounding system will sound different depending on the recording. I can also affect this in an active expression by switching cartridges on different tone arms based on the recording and my mood. The sound changes, but it is all within a range of natural sound just as it is with real music. I do not see the compromise that you identify. The difference between this approach and your third way of personal expression is simply a matter of degree. I do not see the inherent compromise. An approach is only compromised when you give up certain things and acknowledge weaknesses in a method to achieve the goal.
My approach is only a compromise when applied to your goals because you want something different and my approach won’t get you there because it is not as flexible. I don’t need the range of flexibility that you want from a system to shape the sound to your ideals. Yours is a more active approach, but only in degree.
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
12-27-2024
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| PeterA wrote: | | One area in which I agree with Romy is that natural sound begins with the Lamm ML2. David Karmeli and Vladimir Lamm were listening to the ML2 and David heard something magical. He asked Vladimir what it was and he said “that is natural sound”. At some point, David asked Vladimir what speakers are best for the ML2 and Vladimir said an early version of the Vitavox CN191. It is an exceedingly rare and unique combination. The S2 driver is not enough. That specific corner horn cabinet and bass driver is part of the magic. Combined with a source that can extract all the information in those precious record grooves and not corrupt it, one is left with a natural presentation of music in the listening room. The active search and choice and set up of this gear is an act of expression. It is not a cowering in the corner while pleading “don’t hurt me”. Romy‘s interpretation of natural sound is not correct. It is not merely a rejection of the audio file glossary of terms or what he calls “the absolute sound“. It is a celebration of using one’s knowledge and experience to assemble an audio system to create a listening experience at home, which reminds him of the experience of listening to live music. It is about Dynamics and tone and mass and energy presented naturally so that you can experience the music on the record. The ML2 is a big part of that. |
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I disagree with Vladimir’s explanation that it was a “natural
sound”. Let's face it. Any sound that comes from playback is not natural
by definition, it is not a result of the vibration of subjects in the open air
but a result simulation of those vibrations by artificial means. So, Lamm’s and
David’s concept of natural sound (in my view) is a desire to wrap something good
in a marketing (means transferable) narrative. There is nothing fundamentally
wrong with it if you are just an end user. However, if you are trying to build
something yourself creatively, like a loudspeaker or an amplifier then you cannot
operate by parameters of “natural sound”. You can sell it as “natural sound” but not design
it as “natural sound”. For instance,
David is producing his own TT. I am sure that he is claiming his TT produces “natural
sound” which might be appropriate in the context of the sale. However, when David
designs it, he does not even remotely think about “natural sound”. Instead, he operates by active engineering
actions, like mass, resonance, pressure, dumping, etc. You do not design by “natural
sound” but you achieve the “natural sound” utilizing very specific actions of
elimination of “unnatural sounds”. It is like sculpturing you take a large piece
of granite and remove anything that should not be there.
I do not see why ML2 should have any preference for Vitavox
CN191 and what Vladimir’s was reportedly saying is irrelevant. ML2 needs a speaker
with high sensitivity and easy to drive, there are not many of them out there. Vitavox
CN191 is not an “exceptional” speaker. It is a very good 2-way speaker with exceptional
drivers. Probably one of the best corner horns available off the shelf. If the
same Vitavox did with the same driver stand-alone 4-way version, then it will
be even more interesting (in my view). Look at what this guy from the North of
London does with the same drivers. It is not “better” it is different but still
very good. I must note that none of them, including me, can get out of Vitavox 15”
driver what CN191 can do in a good room. I do not feel that it has anything to
do with ML2. What I am saying is that if you dive into the world of vintage
drivers, then there is an array of very different opportunities. The Vitavox
CN191 is a very simple and very effective off-the-shelf solution. Do I feel
that Vitavox CN191 is the best representation of ML2? Nope, I do not feel it.
In my the original ML2 is much much much more intelligent and capable than ML2.
In fact, I do not know any acoustic system that I would recommend with ML2 that
would fully explore the ML capacity.
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
12-27-2024
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| PeterA wrote: | Romy, natural sound is only a methodological compromise if the goal is to be able to shape or manipulate the sound of a chosen system to suit ones preferences and moods, depending on recordings and music. my target is to create through the selection of my specific equipment and setting it up in a way to give me a listening experience that reminds me of the listening experience I have when listening to live music. Just as different instruments and musicians and concert halls and conductors sound different, a natural sounding system will sound different depending on the recording. I can also affect this in an active expression by switching cartridges on different tone arms based on the recording and my mood. The sound changes, but it is all within a range of natural sound just as it is with real music. I do not see the compromise that you identify. The difference between this approach and your third way of personal expression is simply a matter of degree. I do not see the inherent compromise. An approach is only compromised when you give up certain things and acknowledge weaknesses in a method to achieve the goal.
My approach is only a compromise when applied to your goals because you want something different and my approach won’t get you there because it is not as flexible. I don’t need the range of flexibility that you want from a system to shape the sound to your ideals. Yours is a more active approach, but only in degree. |
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We do not need to agree, and I certainly am not in a position
to say that you are doing something right or wrong. I can talk about with certainty
only about myself. I personally do not look
for a listening experience that reminds me of the listening experience I have
when listening to live music. I was a vocal and very persistent opponent of it over
the years and I have advocated against it a lot. In fact, I feel that that “teleportation
to listening event” is one of the surrogacies of selling the “Absolute Sound” experience
at level #1. It is all crap the sale people injected into consumers to move
more UPS boxes…
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Posted by PeterA on
12-28-2024
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| Romy the Cat wrote: |  PeterA wrote: | Romy, natural sound is only a methodological compromise if the goal is to be able to shape or manipulate the sound of a chosen system to suit ones preferences and moods, depending on recordings and music. my target is to create through the selection of my specific equipment and setting it up in a way to give me a listening experience that reminds me of the listening experience I have when listening to live music. Just as different instruments and musicians and concert halls and conductors sound different, a natural sounding system will sound different depending on the recording. I can also affect this in an active expression by switching cartridges on different tone arms based on the recording and my mood. The sound changes, but it is all within a range of natural sound just as it is with real music. I do not see the compromise that you identify. The difference between this approach and your third way of personal expression is simply a matter of degree. I do not see the inherent compromise. An approach is only compromised when you give up certain things and acknowledge weaknesses in a method to achieve the goal.
My approach is only a compromise when applied to your goals because you want something different and my approach won’t get you there because it is not as flexible. I don’t need the range of flexibility that you want from a system to shape the sound to your ideals. Yours is a more active approach, but only in degree. |
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We do not need to agree, and I certainly am not in a position
to say that you are doing something right or wrong. I can talk about with certainty
only about myself. I personally do not look
for a listening experience that reminds me of the listening experience I have
when listening to live music. I was a vocal and very persistent opponent of it over
the years and I have advocated against it a lot. In fact, I feel that that “teleportation
to listening event” is one of the surrogacies of selling the “Absolute Sound” experience
at level #1. It is all crap the sale people injected into consumers to move
more UPS boxes… |
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That is correct, we do not need to agree. Audio is a very personal pursuit centered around in individual's goals. There are many different approaches, and you have chosen three to discuss in your recent videos. The industry needs to sell boxes and come up with ways to convince the buyer that something is new and better this time. They do this with the help of magazines promoting ideas that emphasize how music at home is not like music in the concert hall. They talk about attributes, you call them properties, like dark backgrounds, pinpoint imaging, details. The designers chase these things, the magazines point them out, the consumer tries to hear more of them. It is about enhancing the experience. It has little to do with real music. It is about sound, removed and isolated, broken into pieces.
Natural sound is more about the holistic gestalt of music, experiencing it as the energy that produces emotions and carries away the listener. #1 and #2 are very different approaches, but they share in common with each other, and with the third approach of expressivity, the desire to shape the sound to one's ideals. We all think about what to buy based on these ideals. What we do with the gear once at home is where things become interesting.
I think I understand your talks being this: #1 is about the gear and the sound you get. #2 is about the gear and set up sounding like live music, but that is impossible, so it is a futile effort. But I say this is about getting the system right for the listener so it allows him to then focus on the music, and learn about the music. #3, the right way, your way, is about buying gear, modifying it, choosing it for flexibility, so that you can then manage, manipulate, change, the sound to enhance, amplify, the musical intent of the recording/composer/musicians, so that you Romy get a more intense emotional experience from the music you are playing.
I witnessed this with your enthusiastic pronouncements about Bruckner and watched you air conducting the symphony. You were truly absorbed, lost in the experience. I get that, and I appreciate what I think you are doing. Yes, that is the right way, the best way for you. This is you using the system as a tool to express yourself and enhance the experience.
My friend in Vienna, the former head archivist at the Vienna Opera, told me the genius exists in the mind of the composer. It is corrupted the moment he transcribes it to notes on paper. It is then interpreted by the conductor who instructs the musicians how to play it. Each step along the way, it is is changed and loses some of the genius. Yet, beauty, and power, and fear, love, and joy come through for the audience to experience. You are using audio to put your interpretation onto the music to make it a bit more of your own. It is a third way, and it is a good way.
If I am wrong in my understanding of what you are doing, let me know or do a video part three. The other thing you touched on and that I would like to learn more about is your ideas about subjective versus objective. You mentioned it in the second video, but I think this topic needs a new dedicated video.
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
12-28-2024
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Piter, this concept of us all subordinated to one "objective". Is very interesting. Surprise, surprise but first person who seated in me was Valadimir Lamm back in 2001. I told him that my observation that most of the people in the end of your life coming back to Bach music and he told me that in his view it was not an accident. We had very extended discussion about natural musical gravitations and you share some of his ideas is that his ML2 is built to comply with his vision how sound should be processed by amplification in order this process not to be violated. He did not reveal me any of his "secrets" or anything like this but it certainly made me thinking in this direction.
I am not completely as subscriber of many of Lamm's ideas or products but I think here is where your "naturality" maybe plugged very effectively.
Again, there is nothing wrong in naturality. But I repeat myself I feel that naturality is a way of a chooser, for an individual who obliged to choose what is more natural among what is available. However if you is a position of a creator then you do not operate by term of naturality, you might use naturality as an assessment of your evaluations, but you do not create naturality, you create active intrusion in reality in order perhaps achieve naturality. So, to me it is a difference between an observer and chooser vs active creator.
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Posted by PeterA on
12-28-2024
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The creator is the composer. That is then interpreted and represented by the musicians, and it is recorded. We then have that recording and must now decide what to do with it. How do we want to experience that creation that someone else made for us? We can corrupt it by choosing gear that takes us away from the music and gives us sounds, enhanced by our choices. We can try to enjoy it by choosing gear and setting it up to give us some experience with a target as guide to help us make decisions. If that target is the live music listening experience, that is the natural sound approach. Another way is as active creator taking the recording and shaping it to his ends using the audio gear as the tool. We all create to some extent by the choices we make. I agree with you that the reproduced is not the real. The real is not in our listening rooms, but what we experience from our systems is the new reality, and that is different for each one of us, regardless of our approach as it is described by others.
Do we all come back to Bach? That is a very interesting question. Perhaps in some way it is about patterns and variations for all of us. I have a friend who used to listen to a Bach cello suite each morning during breakfast. Vladimir told you his ML2 helps the music lover go to where he wants. Perhaps some of what we do is universal. In relative terms, those of us in this hobby are different from those who consume music through earpods on the move. Those with systems are all creating to some extent when we select, then set up, and then change stuff. The differences are in the targets. You just want to have more input in creating the sound that gets you to the emotion more than do some others.
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
12-28-2024
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Peter, I think you slightly over emphasized, or perhaps I did, the concept of creation. If you feel that my objective by virtue of cable elevators or VTA adjustment to create some kind of different sonic expressions that it is not what I am interested. I admit that sometimes I do those experiments but purely for sake of learning how the language. It is very much not my interest to write my own music. My interest is co-align that expressivity of given interpretation with expressivity of playback. Expensivity of playback it's not audio expressive statements. Expressivity of playback it is something which mitigate involvement and acknowledgment, listening attention, listening fatigue, holding psychological pressure and releasing where it's necessary. It is many other factors which absolutely nothing to do this out there and the sound. It is a certain psycho-acoustic, sometime conscious sometimes subconscious, witch in my view moderatable by efforts of playback. When you have your listening experience well oiled up and keep yourself open for old possible musical sentiments then different type of playback systems or different object apology can be more engaging, welcoming, embracing, hypnotizing, mesmerizing, revealing, humane... natural for any given interpretation and some of them not. Think about regular system resolution, but not Sonic resolution but musical resolution.
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Posted by PeterA on
12-28-2024
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is that something controllable or is that something that happens to the listener by playing back expressive music through an expressive system? I agree that the term resolution is not used in a comprehensive sense by the absolute sound crowd. It is much more holistic and involved. It’s basically a resolving of the information captured in the recording through to how the music is expressed to the listener. Is it the message in the brain of the composer getting to the soul of the listener? It is surely more than pixels or bits.
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
12-28-2024
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Oh, absolutely. This is the whole my infatuation with abhorrence of that first level of "Absolute Sound". Audio files listening Sonic definitions off musicalities, designers design Sonic properties of musicality and sales people sell it. It is in reality has absolutely nothing to do with listening experiences. When I am talking exclusivity I'm not talking that I taking specific sounds and begin to colorize them like a Christmas tree in order to make it subtractive. I am talking about musical resolution which actually very frequently back proportional to Sonic resolution. One of the greatest characteristics of first production ML2 that it's really psychologically filtered out sensational sounds and make a listener with adequate listening culture was able not to be distracted to irrelevant HFI crap. How it did it and why it is a completely separate subject.
Let me I give you a simple experiment that you can do yourself and do not necessarily subscribe obvious that I am spreading here. Take your DAC with digital volume control. Set some kind off listening level at your listening spot let's say at night a decibel. Listen whatever you feel is good. Then reduce volume at your digital volume control let's say to 10 decibel and add those 10 decibel at your amplifier. You will have ton of the Sonic oil changes is that you can identify at level of absolute sound. However, at third level you will observe is that your music become less engaging and you become more indifferent to this music. So, now put a tent that you develop listening techniques where you're acknowledgment of Sonic differences at first level is completely blind and you able to acknowledge musicality only at third level, not even at second level as it is irrelevant. So you can observe in this example that the efforts "efforts" of your playback made your perception of musicality significantly less important. Now is the question from me, if we acknowledge that efforts of the playback make a person less tuned, engaged, involved into a musical event then would it be appropriate to propose that the efforts of playback can elso to enrich list another musical engagement and involvement? Is that all that I am talking about. A listener as any normal human being is susceptible to propaganda. Playback system very much my business mechanism of propaganda which make person more likely to be engaged in anything starting from suspension of disbelief and ending this is the actual ethical message that musical piece care...
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