The HiFi Myth and Professional System Design

Rob Sinden

That's cool.
I can settle for being called Al Gore.

Basil Plumley

AVForums.com Assured Advertiser Information

And no - I'm not one...I just think that they should be allowed to do what they pay for without getting flamed for it.
At least when you roll over the post it doesn't expand to the size of the page so you can't see the rest of...

Sarcasm or cynicism...?

Rob Sinden

Would anyone care to discuss the content?
I'm genuninely interested in your feedback.......

scorpion88

No offence meant. Seriously, when I get a bit of spare time will research your initial post because some of the thoughts are quite profound. Cheers

Rob Sinden

Yeah, trying to reproduce "live sound" was probably a bit of a wooly goal.

I have heard a few killer systems at the Brixton Academy over the years. This venue hardly needs any power because it's an old music hall so it's been designed so you can hear someone talking at normal volume levels throughout the venue.

The best I heard it was with a TurboSound rig in the eraly days before they sold it to Harman. I remember distinctly how amazing it sounded - running off a £150 Yamaha tape deck!

Coaltrain

at the outset, let me state that i agree with rob. rooms do make a difference. so this isn't a 'gory' retort, merely a point of view.

while reading the post, a particular phrase caught my eye: "like sitting in front of live musicians."

now, here's a simple question: "what do live musicians sound like, before they've laid down 24 tracks and flicked every switch on the effects console?"

damned if i know.

i've just logged on after a 2 hour session with steely dan, a group i've been listening to for 30 years now. and, after 3 decades, i still don't know if fagen's squeaky plea to rikki is the real deal.

what i do know, however, is that the compositions, lyrics and musicianship still grab me by the short and curlies. i'm not striving to hear authenticity. i'm too busy drowning in the soul of the music.

one might ask, as my friends often do, why then do i spend thousands of dollars on my hi-fi? if it's the music that moves me, surely an mp3 should suffice?

well, the honest answer is that i love to hear more. my latest upgrade (a cdp) revealed a few asthmatic squawks and wheezes on the outro to 'haitian divorce' that i'd never heard before. what the hell was it? i haven't a clue. but you can bet there was a bloody big grin on my face as i unearthed another piece in the dan duo's eclectic mix.

one might also argue that it's acoustic music that needs to be treated with respect. after all, piano trios usually eschew fuzz boxes and whammy bars. wouldn't it be nice to have a bunch of live jazz musicians playing in your living room?

well, yes. if it was the coltrane quartet with eric dolphy, circa november '61.

unfortunately, the best hi-fi in this universe, and several parallel ones, won't manage that. and that's because the ORIGINAL recording sucks.

so, to summarise:
- most of the time, i haven't the foggiest what 'live' sounds like
- i don't care, as long as i hear more 'music'
- and, if it's donald, john, bob, miles, tom, or countless others, it shouldn't matter anyway

i guess ignorance is bliss, after all

Autopilot

Your service. Quite clearly your 'article' was an obvious advert for your business. Not only just an advert, but also an attempt to start an ongoing thread, like a kind of on-going interactive ad if you like. I'm not sure how seriously people can take it though, when you are obviously so highly biased and touting for business.

I'm not criticising per-say, it's intelligent enough marketing  i guess, and i believe you have paid for the right to do so, but don't treat us like we are daft and pretend its not

Since you have invited comment on an open forum, I'm not entirely sure there is anything ground breaking here. I was under the impression that most people with a passing interest in proper HiFi now that room acoustics play a huge part in how their kit will sound? Am i wrong?

And how far are people willing to go? I can't really change my livingroom just to get a marginal improvement on sound quality. How much of an effect can corrective equipment help, and is it really cost effective?

/dons asbestos pyjamas.

CJROSS

Rob you make much of a rooms interaction with the sounds from our hifidelity stereo and AV equipment, saying how important it is, yet you sell some very high end EQ/PARC gear that will alleviate this problem (a problem I have never encountered BTW), sorry but I have seen enough viral marketing on the net to be wary of such advertising & bluster. The absolutism of your opinions when we all vary in what we strive for and achieve in different manners is also a tad worrying. I have no doubt the kit you sell is great, the ideas you have suit some people, but they are not a universal truth for many of us.

I for one was surprised to see the type of content your post had in it, in relation to the services and equipment you sell. Assured advertiser or not. If you are honestly asking "what is for sale" then I think you are doing yourself no favours at all on this forum. (IMHO)

karkus30

Well thats a huge suprise to me that room acoustics make a difference

Read every one of most of the regular contributers to this particular forum and you will see that we all mention it as one of the most important part of choosing a system. The same reason that we recommend home demonstrations.

I'm trying to understand the point of your post and I'm afraid the cynic in me is pointing in the direction of pure salesmenship.

I had not realised that this was the way the AVforums were heading. From spending many happy years on this forum giving impartial advice in return for the help I was given in the past I think this new direction has made me think twice about bothering to contribute to this forum at all.

If you want to peddle your wares in an honest way thats fine by me, if you want to contribute as an average member of the public then sign back up as a normal contributer and drop the advertising.

ryart

This is a very interesting topic and deserves an airing from time to time. As to whether an assured advertiser should raise and discuss issues he can sell the solutions to should, IMHO, be balanced with the expertise and experience he can offer us.

My first experience of any form of room correction was with a Denon processor/amp and I have to say I wasn't convinced that the results were worth it. I now use a Meridian G68 with much better speakers and power amps and find the resulting correction (which is only up to 200hz) definitely worthwhile. The graphs that the Meridian generates reveal some quite severe effects from standing waves which no amount of moving speakers can ameliorate. These, the Meridian can deal with by filtering and the lower frequencies generally sound cleaner, less boomy and with more apparent detail, presumably because most of the lower frequencies aren't being overshadowed by those being "amplified" by the effect of standing waves.

The graphs also reveal some pronounced suck outs which the Meridian filters cannot deal with, on the basis that the affected frequencies would need a large amount of extra amplification.

The downside of using the Meridian G68 in the line instead of just using a valve BAT preamp and SS BAT power amp is that the overall sound loses a small touch of that difficult to quantify "organic" feel; e.g where cellos sound as though they are made of wood rather than some acoustically anodyne material. As ever with hifi it is a balancing act and different people will prefer different approaches.

coaltrain makes some very good points, and whilst my usual diet of classical music comes largely from acoustic instruments, the recordings were still made in a variety of halls each with different acoustic signatures. Trying to get some sort of close fidelity to the original sound is obviously going to be extremely difficult.

To my mind the the aim in setting up a hifi is to create an illusion of the performers in front of one. When this reaches a certain level than one can really enjoy the performance and music without the distraction of unconvincing sound reproduction. Using the room correction of the Meridian, overall, helps in creating that illusion and is definitely worthwhile.

This comes into the category of not knowing you have a problem until it is solved, and then thinking "how on earth did I put up with that". Anyone who has no problem with room acoustics affecting their sound reproduction quality for the poorer can consider themselves very fortunate indeed.