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12-21-2024 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,186
Joined on 05-28-2004

Post #: 1
Post ID: 27778
Reply to: 27778
High-end audio: Absolute Sound vs Naturality vs Expressivity




PeterA writing: https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/natural-sound.32867


"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
12-22-2024 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Amir
Iran Tehran
Posts 362
Joined on 02-11-2009

Post #: 2
Post ID: 27780
Reply to: 27778
Natural Sound
Thank you for the video, it is very interesting to see Romy’s audio activity .I have read some pages of the topic started by Peter (Natural Sound) and also talked to David about his audio thinking .I do not try to translate the term of “Natural Sound” but what I understand is I like David’s idea about the sound.
The intersting thing is non-expert audiophiles have less common grounds in comparison by expert audiophiles. Expert audiophiles have much more common grounds in different audio subjects.




www.amiraudio.com, www.hifi.ir
12-22-2024 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
PeterA
Posts 2
Joined on 04-29-2021

Post #: 3
Post ID: 27781
Reply to: 27778
Video with three approaches
Hello Romy,
Great video and I appreciate the description and discussion of the three approaches.  Your 3rd way is one that seems more active.  One where you can shape/tailor your listening experience for maximizing emotion, and if I understand you, this is based on recording, the music, and your mood.  I respect that.
I actually met you once about three years ago when I drove David Karmeli to you.  You made us lunch and then played Bruckner symphonies on your system in the back room.  This was your old house in Massachusetts.  David was visiting me to fine tune the new system I bought from him.  His family was staying with you also.  Anyway, I invite you to visit any time if you want to hear the system for your self in person.  Bring your records.


American Sound AS2000; Lamm LP1, LL1.1 Sig, ML2; Vitavox CN-191
DIY signal cables, rack, Ching Cheng power cords
System link: https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/natural-sound.32867/
12-22-2024 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Paul S
San Diego, California, USA
Posts 2,674
Joined on 10-12-2006

Post #: 4
Post ID: 27782
Reply to: 27781
Musical Potency

Somehow, mention of “Musical Potency” has gotten buried in thread after thread, even those that started with the idea of laying it out for discussion in simple terms. The basics of “the Third Way” include the idea of “getting at” Music by listening with self-developed, targeted hi-fi systems, and there is a lot more to the idea than maximizing emotion, although that is no small consideration. Among the breadcrumbs Romy recently dropped is a fact that ought to be highlighted, IMO, namely that success in getting to a targeted part of the Music often leads to success in getting to “other areas” as well. An example might be getting greater “macro dynamics” from Bruckner then finding it “opens up” other Music, leading to greater Musical insight and enjoyment than one initially aimed for. There are a host of examples I might put down here, but I also want to re-mention the part about system topology, which comes and goes as a central theme here. Going back to Bruckner (though one might say, Mahler), one simply needs adequate headroom to “get to it”, if to get much from it. Sure, there is more than one approach, but some topologies just aren’t going to do it, whatever else they might do. For those who care about tonality and timbre, more headroom must include tonality and timbre, and now we begin to separate the audio wheat from the chaff. As everyone knows, no one gets everything, and every step on the audio path represents a compromise. What we settle for on balance is our own personal expression, even if we had someone else do it for us. The third way is simply a way to take the audio bull by the horns.


Paul S

12-22-2024 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
steverino
Posts 368
Joined on 05-23-2009

Post #: 5
Post ID: 27783
Reply to: 27782
Max headroom
 Paul S wrote:

Somehow, mention of “Musical Potency” has gotten buried in thread after thread, even those that started with the idea of laying it out for discussion in  Going back to Bruckner (though one might say, Mahler), one simply needs adequate headroom to “get to it”, if to get much from it. Sure, there is more than one approach, but some topologies just aren’t going to do it, whatever else they might do. For those who care about tonality and timbre, more headroom must include tonality and timbre, and now we begin to separate the audio wheat from the chaff. As everyone knows, no one gets everything, and every step on the audio path represents a compromise. What we settle for on balance is our own personal expression, even if we had someone else do it for us. The third way is simply a way to take the audio bull by the horns.


Paul S


The question is what different types of music are you listening to on your home audio? If it is only Bruckner/Mahler than yes volume headroom becomes an issue. But of course it is only one kind of headroom since the microphones and recording and mixing  have already chopped off all kinds of transient energy and added compression besides. That's why the expanded audio headroom sounds like hifi rather than the much more uncompressed concert hall. But if the record collection also has chamber music, Baroque music, etc than other considerations become more important.
12-22-2024 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Paul S
San Diego, California, USA
Posts 2,674
Joined on 10-12-2006

Post #: 6
Post ID: 27784
Reply to: 27783
Can Do
Sure, Steve, we spend a lot of time coming up with strategies for dealing with recording issues, so we aren't stuck with just a few "audiophile" recordings. Paul Klipsch made some interesting observations on the subject, showing the surprising amount of power required for even simple sounds, and I think this is germane here. I am just saying that if the topology won't do it, then it's not an option. When there is "enough headroom" the sound is less compressed or "distilled", and one can retain density even when "space" is also rendered. Again, not everyone has the option to play loud Music, and naturally they have to come up with alternate approaches.

Best regards,
Paul S
12-23-2024 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,186
Joined on 05-28-2004

Post #: 7
Post ID: 27785
Reply to: 27781
It was VERY funny event... two month later....
 PeterA wrote:
Hello Romy,
Great video and I appreciate the description and discussion of the three approaches.  Your 3rd way is one that seems more active.  One where you can shape/tailor your listening experience for maximizing emotion, and if I understand you, this is based on recording, the music, and your mood.  I respect that.
I actually met you once about three years ago when I drove David Karmeli to you.  You made us lunch and then played Bruckner symphonies on your system in the back room.  This was your old house in Massachusetts.  David was visiting me to fine tune the new system I bought from him.  His family was staying with you also.  Anyway, I invite you to visit any time if you want to hear the system for your self in person.  Bring your records.

Yes, the third way is always something that fascinates me. I always was hooked on recognizing how personal objectives in listening could be converted into practice. It is not as straightforward and where high-end is starting for me.
 
Yes, I remember your visit. The most memorable thing about that visit was that despite my super confidence that my analog playback should be fine it sounded like shit. My digital was good if the signal came from TT and phono stage it was monumentally wrong. I know my system intimately and I was confident that nothing should be wrong. Even though I did not listen to my analog for a few months there should be nothing wrong there and I am quite good at finding bugs. After David left, I spent some time checking everything, which was perfect. Exactly like it was 20 years ago. I surmised that my cartridge instantly died, even though I never heard about a data set like this. I pretty much trashed my cartridge and gave it to a friend of mine to play with and my friend brought it back and said that it sounds spectacular. I'll put the cartridge back and I was literally for a few weeks doing circles in my listening room trying to guess what else might be. I have discovered the answer in a month or so. I was trying to change some kind of cable behind my equipment rock, and I suddenly saw that the end of my 3012 tonearms had a few lines of spader net to my phono cables. The phone cables were vintage Dominos, huge like hell, and the back of the arm was not truly visible, I was laughing like crazy. As I cleaned the spider net I got my LP sound back. A truly remarkable story that just reinforces why I do not like LPs
 
I am interested to hear about your installation, you are somewhere in NE, right? You might be interested in listening to my Rebel ++. They are not very different from your Vitavox CN-191. Well, they are different, but they share the same problems (in my view) that CN-191s have and you might find it useful to see/experience how I deal with the problems.


"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
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