Seas Kits

[Richard]

I'm glad the demo was approved, all bow, must have been OK then

Greg, you miss my point which is that a hifi show should show any music to it's best regardless of taste or genre. I don't doubt most music is ephemeral, there wasn't any Beatles played either.

In case anyone think's those records are "my" music I hasten to say anything good is my stuff and yes they do excite me at the moment both on a technical and music level. On the other hand I've just been over to the rack and counted 12 Dire Straits/Mark Knoffler CDs . Karl Richter's early 64 recording of Toccata and Fugue was still there gathering dust on DG423 779-2. It has a lot of atmosphere if you like that sort of stuff - it's not really my thing - so I guess it was ephemeral in my world.

Rich

[Greg.]

Hi Richard,

I do take your point but my view is that it has little relevence if the people who patronise that type of music do not listen to it on audiophile equipement and don't want to even if it is available. I understand the arguement that a system, particularly current market equipment should 'cope', but it's a little unfare to argue poor reproduction/presentation in such a compromised listening environment. I suggest taking it to a good dealers listening room to test properly, or just continue to listen at home with a smug smile on your face. I think we all probably do that

Best wishes,

Greg

[Richard]

So the Beatles are OK but Coldplay are ****. Doesn't that really explain what's happening - a familar comfort zone without challenges.

Sorry, I was under the illusion it was a HI FI SHOW. What I heard was the same sound at home in my bedroom 30 years ago. Back then it was Thorens Ortofon MC20 Quad II's and those then-new Castle speakers er ring any bells? Good if you've not heard it before but yawn, been there, zipup me tartan booties and pour the cocoa

Rich

[Greg.]

Hi Richard,

Music is a personal choice. We all have different likes and dislikes

If a technology has more or less arrived and gone as far as it can go, what is the industry to do? You can't really move forward, so to stay in business, you con the punter by constantly reinventing the wheel. What are many here doing with their NOS valves? Trying different circuits etc. Is that really moving or just a variation on a theme?

You like Cold Play. I don't criticize your preferences even if I don't share them. As said before, I build my system in accordance with what I want to listen to. If I wanted to listen to your samples we tried in the WD room, I'd probably be listening to the likes of Linn, Naim, Exposure etc. Having said that, if your music choice into your old Pioneer 16 bit CD player into passive-pre into 5-20's into TL's works for you, good. You've achieved at your home what I've achieved in mine, and there probably aren't many commercial products out there that could match our systems for performance, and those that do, we can't afford

Best wishes,

Greg

[Richard]

You don't criticize my preferences? Someone must have your logon then

I do not like the music Richard requested, would never buy or stop to listen to it and my personal view is that it is superficial here today, gone and forgotten tomorrow ****. It is of no interest to me whether my kit can reproduce it or not. If I wanted that sort of sound, I'd not want to listen to a 45 year old record deck coupled to more ancient technology into aperiodic design speakers. If you do want to listen to this style of music (I use the word glibly), probably a hi-fi show is not the place for it. That might show some limitations of the industry, but that is of no concern to me and I suspect Peter is not looking to target those people anyway. Yes, probably most people in attendance were male and in middle life. Few of the punters in attendance would want to listen to Richard's music anyway.

[Greg.]

Come on Richard, that's not a criticism of your preference, is it? My view of the music is not disrespecting that you like it. See my previous post to this. In general we also all have many different tastes in music and equipement. You are the only person ever to have described my system as slow. I was almost insulted when you mistook the 300B PP for the 2A3PSE. How could you do that? Then there's your passive pre. At first it seemed to me to offer something, but in no time at all I started to identify the sound of a passive that I'm familiar with and don't like and which caused me to move to CF which I do like. You however did not hear it that way. So beit. We're all different which is a good thing because we'd end up with nothing to discuss here. Then we'd have to spend more time listening to the favorite music of our choice

Best wishes,

Greg

Hi Richard,
We seem to agree for once!
(Even though I find Coldplay wearily earnest and Green Day highly derivative).

Greg,
I was not trying to suggest that the WD room was over polite, I was questioning whether the whole show was stuck in a musical rut of AOR/Classical. Can vast swathes of music be dismissed and most modern music simply be viewed as **** which doesn't belong on a hi-fi? If so, what future for those in the hi-fi industry that believe this?

There is no point in reinventing the wheel if everyone and their musical taste isn't welcome onto the bus! I believe that the punter should choose what music they want to hear, and it would always be a good idea to casually display a wide range of albums to imply that the equipment on show is for all, not just for those of a like mind to those demonstrating.

[Richard]

Matt, we always agree and you make the point very succinctly here.

Greg, when we walked in I took one look at the 2a3pse on show between the speakers and thought "hell those speakers MUST be good!". As you say it turned out to be the 300Bp-p which was doing a fine job.

The passive/cathode pre comparison was very worthwhile and the most useful piece of info I got from the show. If you can bring something back it's not been a waste of time. In this case it demonstrated the loss of info with the cathode follower. You and Peter had balanced the system nicely with the cathode pre; I marginally preferred the CD and found the vinyl a little polite which I told Peter. When we put in the passive top and low ends increased in bandwidth and quantity. This made the CD fizz, far too toppy, but improved the vinyl which I then preferred. Bass however was then too much in both cases and was hopeless. You said it didn't "time" any more. I don't do timing but agreed it just sounded overblown/out of control.

This is very subtle stuff BTW compared to some rooms. Jonny was about to offer his socks to one poor guy to stuff in the chuffing ports of his megaliths

Rich

[petercom]

I was not trying to suggest that the WD room was over polite, I was questioning whether the whole show was stuck in a musical rut of AOR/Classical. Can vast swathes of music be dismissed and most modern music simply be viewed as **** which doesn't belong on a hi-fi? If so, what future for those in the hi-fi industry that believe this?

Gosh, I'm really enjoying reading this thread, but please don't let us all get too hot under the collar with regard to musical preferences.

I've spent the best part of my 54 years exploring music. I like music and hi-fi is a means of communicating it. When I'm designing I play a variety of music, (and a variety of equipment), and try to make sure it works with everything. In my view a speaker which sounds good on rock but not on classical is a flawed speaker.

As for modern versus older, AOR v rock v classical, there are plenty of quality recordings which display hi-fi equipment at its best because they are just 'quality recordings'. IMO this is what people want to hear when they come to hi-fi shows. Shows are oddities. People expect to hear something outstanding. Play a mediocre record and they quickly leave the room. Most of them know that we play good quality recordings - they've probably got them themselves.

It used to be the case that when someone produced a record from their carrier bag and asked me to play it at a show I would usually try and clear the room first or announce to everyone that what was coming might not be to their taste. In the past decade this hasn't happened - listeners at shows bring along their favourite 'audiophile' recordings, which shows that they've become educated as to what is a good recording.

That's not to say that at home they don't also play mediocre recordings just to enjoy the music that is on them. Of course they do. But they probably wouldn't use these recordings to demo to a friend how good their system is, and neither would I.

And I don't class age of recording as anything to do with how good a recording it is. One of the discs I used was recorded in 1968, another in 2003. There are good recordings of modern/pop/rock material, but they are as rare as good classical recordings - genre has very little to do with it.

If I cast my mind back to the 1970s when I was an avid prog rock fan the bands that made the grade - Yes, Genesis, King Crimson et al - had found excellent studio engineers and producers capable of handling their multi-track, varied instrumental demands and melding the type of sound they required. The bands worked with the engineer and producer to achieve a style that was a studio parallel to their live performances.

Richard brought a Green Day album into the demo at Bristol. I commented that I preferred their live recording which my daughter owns (she was at the concert). We now have the technology to record live performances and balance the sound for a very good recording.

This is at odds with what goes on in studios these days. Because, IMO, of digital we have bred a league of engineers who don't understand what makes a good recording and a bad one. Limiters, compression, digital EQ and DSP take care of any recording errors, so they think, so everything is plugged in, recorded at max, and mixed down later, often without the band being there at the mixdown. So now it is up to the producer, who usually is under commercial pressure, to finalise the sound. He isn't interested in quality, just whether it sells. He may often listen to the final mix on a mini system to make sure it will sound OK on the radio etc. Dynamics are usually compressed to within 1dB (no exaggeration - I've seen a mastering studio where the engineer proudly showed off a compressor that achieved 0.25dB dynamic range!) so that they sound good in the car, on the radio, on mp3 etc.

So it is little different now to when we had **** recordings coming out of Motown in the '60s. There are a few good recordings and many, many bad ones. I'll be interested in measuring the Coldplay disc as soon as I lay my hands on it to see what the dynamics are like -but I don't hold out much hope. I'm pleased Richard likes his system so much, and I wouldn't want to persuade him to like mine, and I still maintain his system is closely matched to his room which is as far removed from the Bristol hotel room as it possibly could be.

[Scottmoose]

I thought I was the only fan of progressive rock left! King Crimson's recording quality is still very good, and their HDCD remsters (the first CDs were dreadful) are stunning.

PJ Harvey is one of the few modern rock artists I know of who a) actually knows how to rock, and b) seems to bother with the technical side. They're not always very refined -it depends what sort of sound she's aiming for. But oh boy, does she know what dynamics means! It's hardly everyone's taste of course, but listen to the Steve Albini engineered 'Rid of Me' -legend has it the NME reviewer shunted her car when she first listened to it, she was so shocked at the rush of guitars coming in from nowhere. I believe it too.