Eduard Broekman 10/31/2022 Brilliant video and well put together. Having followed your channel for a year and having worked towards a system with a live sound , the route 'audio' has taken now looks like a cult. In their defence.. there's an inertia in our hearing, so once we get used to something and have no real thing to compare it to, anything can perpetuate. MP3s, crappy headphone buds, digital sound all have probably altered what people thinks sound good. This could be similar to how propaganda can overwrite perception completely. That all aside, see, I never used to be a fanboy of any band or artist, but I'm getting that now because one difference is that with decent reproduction, I can feel so much of what was put into it, the spirit that animates it, the spirit or an era, and not just the tunes on the surface.. and that's aspiring, brings joy and it's just so nice to admire something. The Van Goghs, Cezannes of music :) Since you mentioned the shutting off when hearing distortion... I never realised but I have the same with phase... if it's not right it wears me out immensely.
Adrian AdrianP 10/13/2022 I agree for listening to real music you don't need or want an audio microscope. A good system should get the broad brushwork right and then build on this. The broad brush should include for me realistic tone, realistic dynamics and as fuller range as possible but in good balance, The more realistic and for me enjoyable the more I want to hear and feel the cues from a live performance and have more of the brushwork, better tonal representation, greater dynamic range, better instrument differentiation, less distortion. However I rarely need more 'detail', as this needs to be in balance and not lifted falsely to create a hard pencil sketch instead of a full colour oil painting (bad analogy)
Jaakan Shorter 10/13/2022 You just reminded me that I haven't listened to anything new from Bjork since Vespertine. Thanks for the warning. Yea you're right about her new stuff. My STAX based system is on that line of being too detailed. I can hear everything if I focus on listening for issues but also enjoy music for hours. Could this be the reason high-end reviewers limit themselves to a limited selection of music few people even listen to?
Fred Johnson 10/13/2022 Except for me playing guitar (not well), live music isn't really an option for me anymore. I get that with a high res system you can hear every little decision/ mistake in the recording, but just like when you are having a conversation in a noisy restaurant and you focus on your companion and ignore all the other voices, you can focus on the music and ignore the noise. And yes, sometimes it's fun to listen to and dissect the mistakes... Thanks for taking the time to make these videos.
James Derby 10/13/2022 I find a BorderPatrol DAC playing through a 15 watt TA2020 chip amp rescues poor recordings from the relentless scrutiny of "high end" audio resolution. These two components and my full range drivers reproduce very pleasant sounding music despite measuring at or near the bottom of the dreadful list. Likewise, why read a newspaper through a microscope?
Musings on sound samples on YouTube
It's 2022, and it has become a standard practice to gauge a system's sound through a YouTube sound sample. There are many hard-core old guard audiophiles who just absolutely refuse to record a demo sound sample as they find it's not sufficient to judge a system's quality. Will get you an impression, but whether that impression is accurate and APPLICABLE, is up for debate.
I have to admit that before 2020 I adamantly refused to listen to online sound samples as they come to us through so many biases that the message (how the system sounds) is truly and UTTERLY LOST in the process. You will get an impression, often a very strong impression, but it's POSSIBLY A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT impression from listening to that system. Why is that so? Let's see the reasons:
Microphone placement, microphone abilities, encoding mechanism WILL introduce vital changes to all aspects, as they define WHAT IS BEING CAPTURED. Analogy of a surgery: the outcome of a heart surgery performed by a seasoned heart surgeon will be quite stellar, while getting a curious yet motivated dilettant perform it will result in a nightmare in crimson... and that describes much of what we hear as sound snippets online.... ;
The PLAYBACK on your own system also is a serious MODIFYING FACTOR. The limitations of your system will DOMINATE how a sound sample is given back, and CAN and WILL seriously SKEW the perception.
Still, regardless of that, or rather, with keeping all of that in mind, I delved into devoting more attention to YT d samples, because it has become a standard practice, and audiophiles want to hear it, want to know about it.
So, I'm sharing feedback from my channel on this matter, and will dive into it on my YT channel as well.... 10/13/2022
Full Ranger 10/13/2022 I can only have one comment on this: ABSOLUTELY SUPERB! I could never imagine a live cabinet would sound so beautiful but also so real! In fact, coming from the other side of the game (strongly believing in the absence of ANY coloration, especially from the cabinet) I am absolutely stunned now! My experience with coloured loudspeakers is that sooner or later, they fail, because, what gives them an advantage with one piece of music may ruin another. My long experience says that whenever I took another tiny bit of coloration out of the way, music reproduction benefited as a whole, but there were times that memory favored a previous state, more colorfull presentation. What is a definite winner from color-free reproduction, is precise imaging, image depth and height, and a feeling of "being transported there", where the recording took place. On the other hand, more colored reproduction adds more volume and body to the sound (small amps are helped), also some "aggressive" moments and a feeling and satisfaction that you hear more than you were supposed to: Music sounds larger than life! For instance you would never hear all this if you just went into a music room, sitting 4 meters away from that guitar. But now you have the priviledge of hearing all that a close miking can pick, almost put your ear into the instrument! THIS IS ASTONISHINGLY GOOD AUDIO! THIS IS DEFINITELY, SUPER HI-END AUDIO. BUT, I'd like to listen to some more...
Full Ranger 10/13/2022 A second comment: I went and listened to the same piece on youtube and my observations are these: You can clearly hear it's an instrument thinner than a guitar (an arabic lute, actually). The experience is closer to how it sounds in a music room, at a mediocre distance from the listener. The harmonic beauty is there but a little more more "reserved". It sounds more "eatrhly" and natural. Now back to the SET/VoigtPipe-Single driver presentation: It's just a little "bloated" tonally, you can't really tell, is it a guitar,or something else? There is a harmonic enhancement that really sounds superb, as if music is "lit from within" and a closeness as if the performer is right there with you, playing for you only! It sounds more heavenly and surreal. Do I like it? Damn, YES! It FILLS my heart, but also tricks my brain... The youtube presentation also fills my heart, without tricking my brain. So, the main question remains for me: Honesty, or magic?