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Topic: “Get Better Sound” by Jim Smith

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Posted by Romy the Cat on 07-15-2009
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Here is another posts in the industry mockery section of my site where will not mock the subject. Yesterday a visitor of my site sent me a link to Jim Smith’s new book “Get Better Sound”:

http://www.getbettersound.com/

As I understand Jim formatted his Avantgarde marketing material that he developed for years into as book format and reshaped the content into a self-guided improvement book. There is nothing wrong with this; here is the table of contents:

http://www.getbettersound.com/toc.html

The book looks like having a few hundred pages – I hope they are useful pages, not the recitation of others what they think about the book. I did not read it myself and I have no idea what the book has inside.

Jim himself is a heavy industry player and I do not know how much in this book he was able to drop those mental industry chains and look at the things liberated. Usually it imposable for the people who are in the cage, it is sort of metal virus that makes them all to sing the very same senses-immune tune. Still, considering that Jim at his semi-retirement and is looking for finishing his audio career I think it might be worth to familiarize with his points of view. Furthermore, I feel that EVERYONE when they reach the age of retirement MUST WRITE A BOOK about own views and positions. Here is the Jim Smith’s book about his audio views…. I have to admit that I have a sweet spot in me to Jim as he was an instrumental person in the process of me embracing the multi-way horns - I found it very positive event in my audio progress.

Again, I have no idea what in the “Get Better Sound” but $65 it cost might be worth admission price to learn about it. A few years back I was visiting an audio guy, listening his playback, taking about audio and he was drooling, absolutely going over himself, about the hew amplifier that he just heard somewhere but was not able to afford at that time. He said: “Romy, I so loved the sound I heard that I would give up one inch of my own dick to have it.” Well, it was a colorful colloquialism, why do not apply it to the Jim’s new book? I am very confident that $65 that Jim asks for his book represents just one inch of interconnect between the components of most readers of this site. So, would you give up one inch of those cables for the opportunity to familiarize yourself what Jim Smith has learned during his years on audio?

The Cat

Posted by Amir on 07-15-2009
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excuse me for bad english
After reading 100 pages from this book, I think this book is useful for audiophiles.
Jim starts his book with discussing about why we spend so money but we do not get good sound.
It's stress is more on speaker placement and there are good tweaks for audiophiles in  his book.

It seems all recommendations is related to Jim experience and they are not based on general audiophile view.

100% recommended

I should Thanks Jim for his book
Amir

Posted by BWO on 09-02-2009
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I'v read the book (missing a few of the last pages). The boook definetly have som useful information. Especially about setup, placing speakers at different positions and some decent and brief info on acoustic treatment. Unfortunately, there is in my opinion also loads of snake oil and vodoo. He talks about the importance of turning on the equipment in the right sequence to avoid pollution, cables, cable risers, demagnetizing CDs. He's not spending much time on several of these topics, but he doesn't disregarg them an unimportant.

It's a little hard to understand why he is holding on to stupity when he clearly has a very good understanding in many areas. It brings the thought that he is simply avoiding to confront certain topics to not offend potential readers. That's just my thought however. Look here on some clipped out material Jim Smith says about computer and sound:

"Notebook drives currently top out at 500 GB. This is enough to store about 800 uncompressed CD’s and will cost around $100 in an external enclosure. You can use lossless compression (FLAC for the Windows or ALAC for Mac) to bump this up to around 1300 CD’s, but most people notice a slight reduction in sound quality. But this is a column on how to get better sound!  Presumably it’s because the computer’s processor is working harder when decompressing files on the fly instead of just loafing along playing the music.

Since this column is about getting the best sound, adding memory will improve the sound quality. (Don’t ask me why!) The same is true for using a Solid-State Drive for the computer’s main drive, but these are still somewhat pricey. Currently the best ones are the new models from Intel. They have an 80 GB model for around $230 and a 160 GB model for around $450. The 80 GB is plenty to run the applications you will need for a music server. The side benefits of an SSD are dead-quiet operation and incredibly fast boot-up times.

Another nice thing about the Mac Mini is that it has a FireWire port. This gives more flexibility when choosing an interface for your DAC and/or external hard drive. The sound quality will be slightly improved if the DAC and the external hard drive are on different interfaces. So if you have a FIreWire DAC, then use a USB hard drive and vice-versa. (Again, I have no idea why, but this column is about getting better sound!) If you have an Ethernet DAC, then either type of hard drive will work great. If you don't have a FireWire port, adapters are available for both notebooks (PC-Card) and desktops (PCI). Finally, there is a new type of external hard drive interface called eSATA that runs separately from any DAC."


Posted by Amir on 09-02-2009
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 BWO wrote:
I'v read the book (missing a few of the last pages). The boook definetly have som useful information. Especially about setup, placing speakers at different positions and some decent and brief info on acoustic treatment. Unfortunately, there is in my opinion also loads of snake oil and vodoo. He talks about the importance of turning on the equipment in the right sequence to avoid pollution, cables, cable risers, demagnetizing CDs. He's not spending much time on several of these topics, but he doesn't disregarg them an unimportant.
It's a little hard to understand why he is holding on to stupity when he clearly has a very good understanding in many areas. It brings the thought that he is simply avoiding to confront certain topics to not offend potential readers. That's just my thought however. Look here on some clipped out material Jim Smith says about computer and sound:


I disagree
I think Jim smith book differ from other sources because all of his points seems to come from his experience and it is not his typical audiophile illusion.
if you search internet you find many recommendation about better sound but none of them give you improvement scale.

most of reviewers and audiophiles just say acoustics is important and non of them give us true scale of it's importance but when you read romy article about DPOLS you undrestand that a cheap system at DPOLS destroy quality of a 250000$ system in general condition.

I think Jim smith book is one of few sources that give us scale of importance of tunes.
I do not say all of his scale is 100% true but i think i should thanks jim for sharing his experience.

good luck


Posted by Romy the Cat on 09-02-2009
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 BWO wrote:
Look here on some clipped out material Jim Smith says about computer and sound:...

Certainly the position that Jim took in there is highly arguable to say at least. The only “excuse” that I might see in it that looking at the prices he quoted the article was written 10-12 years back.

Anyhow, the most disturbing to me in this however is very different thing. It might some to do with my own disturbance but what it is – I just hate when people measure the size of hard drivers in CDs or even worse: in how many songs you can load to it. What I see people talk about hard drive that can hold 50000 songs I wish the whole American continent submerge in Ocean as this stupidity is only possible in USA. The Morons measure distances to stars in football fields, the size of hard drives in songs, taste of food in amount of hot dogs eaten per minute and the beautify of art in the amount of tickers sold… to the  people who understand the distances to stars in football fields.

The Cat

Posted by BWO on 09-02-2009
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Amir,

I'm not disagreeing with you. I think the book offer some very good advices. In many areas the book is definetly good, but it's unfortunate that he is holding on to what is snake oil in my opinion. It's not problem for me to overlook that material and to stick to what's "edible", but many will not be able to do that and will be miselad in certain areas.

I just received 'The Master Handboook of Acoustics'  by Everest and Pohlmann and I'm expecting it to be much better, and detailed on acoustics of course, then Jim Smith's book. I think there are better books out there then 'Get Better Sound'.

Posted by Jim Smith on 09-14-2009
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 Romy the Cat wrote:
 BWO wrote:
Look here on some clipped out material Jim Smith says about computer and sound:...
Certainly the position that Jim took in there is highly arguable to say at least. The only “excuse” that I might see in it that looking at the prices he quoted the article was written 10-12 years back.

Anyhow, the most disturbing to me in this however is very different thing. It might some to do with my own disturbance but what it is – I just hate when people measure the size of hard drivers in CDs or even worse: in how many songs you can load to it. What I see people talk about hard drive that can hold 50000 songs I wish the whole American continent submerge in Ocean as this stupidity is only possible in USA. The Morons measure distances to stars in football fields, the size of hard drives in songs, taste of food in amount of hot dogs eaten per minute and the beautify of art in the amount of tickers sold… to the  people who understand the distances to stars in football fields.

The Cat


This came from one of the Quarter Notes newsletters, not from the Get Better Sound book. 

It was from a guest article, very clearly attributed to its author, Charles Hansen.

Posted by Jim Smith on 09-14-2009
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 BWO wrote:
Unfortunately, there is in my opinion also loads of snake oil and vodoo.


Thank you for your opinion.

Posted by Amir on 09-15-2009
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Dear Jim
I wanted to Thanks you and send a email to you for your good and very useful book.

I think some audiophiles in this forum like to post radical and in some ways un-logical ideas.
it seems romy approach and his radical views had this effect on other audiophiles in this forum.

other members should know romy is a different guy and his huge experience cause some radical ideas but we should not use same approach without enough experience.

I think Get better sound Book is very useful book, I have F.Alton everest book and it has no relation to Jim book.
comparing these two books is so wrong because thay are different lines.

Amir

Posted by Romy the Cat on 09-15-2009
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Amir, let I just I say it once.

Try engaging the not the people who express the ideas, unless the characteristics of the people are emblematic and demonstrable for the idea. It is not a first time you feel a need to pass annoyingly-positive comments about me and I do not like it. I made very clear about it before:

http://www.romythecat.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=4884

and I hope we will not return to this conversation.  If you do not cease it I will revoke your posting privileges.

The Cat

Posted by Amir on 09-16-2009
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BWO
Excuse me for my post.
I had no bad intention

Romy
I try to post just about the the subject.
I have no interest to leave positive comment about you (there is no need ?!!), If i wrote about it i wanted to clarify my idea about that subject and no more.
I was not familiar with your sensitivity and i try to do not it again

Amir



Posted by zanon on 12-19-2009
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I liked this book.

He talks about tone, dynamics, emotion.

Focuses on room placement, integration, focus on midrange, etc.

There is some crazy stuff there, but it is marked as "superstition"

Posted by Romy the Cat on 10-07-2011
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Yes, Canada & Mexico add US $200, but Alaskans might pay by salmon and childhood pictures of Sarah Palin.  With all joke aside here is an interesting gisheft that Jim Smith offers nowadays.

http://getbettersound.com/roomplay.html

Particularly  interesting the “user comments” in this section:

http://www.getbettersound.com/consultation.html

After the room play session on audiophile paid his delinquent taxes for last 5 year and another recognized that he was a gay. For sure it was too much to ask from Calibrated Microphone and Marking Labels.  Do not make my mocking attitude as a sign of negativism.  I do feel that 99% of audio Morons out there might be greatly benefited by Jim visit.  Hey, no longer then last Tuesdays I was visiting one my local audio guy who was playing his right and left speakers in opposing polarity and complained that he with his new cartridge has no good center image. I fixed this “center image” and as the barter, instead of salmon I got a leather sofa from his house for my Opera Room….

The caT

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