One cool thing about the 2007 CES is that no matter how big TV screens get, how small portable devices become, or how compressed the bitstream is, there are those who only want the best sound for their music. Here are some nice setups that I wish I could afford to put in my house. The above device is a tube-driven (even the timing circuit!) CD player from PrimaLuna.
It’s nice to see that the art of making speakers hasn’t fallen by the wayside in the iPod era. There were Electrostatics from companies like Quad (#11) and King’s Audio (#6), traditional designs from firms like RBH (#7, with me) and Usher (#9), and more exotic offerings by companies such as German Physiks (#4) and MBL (#2).
On the component side you had things like a money-is-almost-no-object audio/video receiver from McIntosh (#1), massive turntables from ClearAudio (# 4 & 5), tube amplifiers, and even a battery-powered phono (No line noise) head amp from Sutherland Engineering (the one with the batteries in it, duh). A company called MSB unveiled a tweaked “audiophile” iPod interface (#2) called iLink that modifies the iPod to allow digital audio to be sent to the iLink and output via toslink optical, coaxial, or balanced AES/EBU format. Pioneer even had a demo (#8) showing high-end gear being driven by one of their Optical Digital Reference car units to demonstrate their new sound calibration technology.
#30, Lauren, I’ve been following you up until this point, but this is where you went from an intelligent discussion to the absurd.
So what? ‘What’ is: I have many years of deep involvement with music which you don’t. I play genuine, live, acoustic music and I know intimately what it sounds like. You don’t. I am a recording engineer who also has many years of experience that you don’t have in knowing what it takes to capture and preserve that music. You are not. I am an audiophile.
Right, SO WHAT ???
I played professionally when I was younger and produced a couple of albums out of our own pocket. I know what I enjoy and no one can tell me what I enjoy should sound like.
SO WHAT ???
I am now in my 50s. I don’t know of any musician over 25 who has hearing worth a shit. Every single one has experienced significant hearing loss.
SO WHAT ???
That doesn’t mean none of can hear or appreciate what we hear. What it does mean is that NONE of us can differentiate the subtleties you allude to. You know, those little subtleties lost in the compression / decompression.
SO WHAT ???
Buying these ultra high end audio systems are stupid. They aren’t the standard. They are the extreme. The difference may only be measured electronically, not audibly. It is the same as buying a $600,000 Bughatti or Ferrari. Very pretty to look at, even fun to drive. And more fun to boast about. But unless you have the requisite skill to drive one to the max and a place to do it, they are just wasted money.
At best your experience as a recording engineer qualifies you to discuss recording equipment and studios. It doesn’t qualify you to suggest what something should sound like. That, my friend, is the taste of the artist and producer, not the engineer.
” It is the same as buying a $600,000 Bughatti or Ferrari. ”
My point exactly.
Far from telling anyone else that my sonic preferences should be the benchmark for everyone else, you, Fusion, and my dear friend Brian miss the point completely.
BTW, the Bugatti Veyron is currently $1.4 megadollars US.
“There is no denying that…however, above a certain point, there is just no audible difference.”
Wrong, wrong, wrong, boyo. As I done tole ya, YOU think YOU are superior to everyone else. Since YOU can’t hear the difference, and since you are the center of the Universe, therefore there IS no difference. That, friends, is an example of egocentrism.
I once worked in a liquor store. Now, personally, I can’t discern the difference between a $20 bottle of wine and a $200 bottle. I am intelligent enough to know that other people, who have a far greater experience and knowledge of fine wines than do I, can taste the difference. Unlike you guys, I don’t take it as an affront to my ego: “You think you can taste something I can’t, so you must be crazy, ’cause if I can’t taste the difference, there IS no difference!” Piaget has taught us that, normally, children pass through the egocentric stage at around 9 or 10 years. Unfortunately, in some people, the attitude remains: “Everything in the world is determined by what I think.” So it is with Brian and Fusion.
“People who point to specs and try to use them as proof have no idea.”
Thank you, oh great one, for sharing that flash bulletin with us. Unfortunately, the war between the fools who mistakenly declare that “specs are everything” and their equally foolish counterparts who declare that “specs are totally irelevant to sound quality” started long before you were a twinkle in your respective daddies’ eyes. Been there, done that, got the T, &c, &c…
Audio is, like it or not, an imprecise mix of subjective judgments and objective measurements. I can consistently tell the difference between the sound of a Krell amp driving Wilson WATT/Puppys A/Bed with a Pass Labs amp. And I don’t really give a shit if you can or not. But when you project YOUR inability to tell the difference on ME, who has one Hell of a lot more time spent LEARNING to tell the difference, you’re full of shit.
“The human ear runs out of range a hell of a lot sooner than what can be measured.”
Another dopey assertion of untruth. Any psychoacoustician or audiologist could dispel that myth for you. Over the last 40 or so years, the industry has repeated encountered audible effects from equipment that they had no way to detect or measure. TIM, or transient intermodulation distortion, was an anomaly. Nobody could figure out why two amps with 0.0001% steady-state IM could sound so different, because everyone KNEW that that level of IM was undetectable by the human ears. People like you said the exact same thing you’re parroting now: “You can’t hear any differnce, the distortion is far below what the ear can detect.” That led to claims like “You can’t hear any difference between a Phase Linear amp and an Audio Research amp.” But when Matti Ottola of Philips Labs discovered TIM, the explanation was forthcoming, and the naysayers shut up.
Wise men learned from that, and many other such revelations that there are still things we can hear that we don’t yet know how to measure. You, however, are not experienced or wise. Your arguments were blown away decades ago. All the designers of fine high end gear use spectrum analyzers – AND their ears. And they, like myself, happen to know a little bit more about audio than you two.
“What it does mean is that NONE of us can differentiate the subtleties you allude to. You know, those little subtleties lost in the compression / decompression.”
There we are again. “>>I>I>I>I
My most abject and humble apologies, dear friends, for shipping off that last comment whilst omitting the thrilling conclusion, which follows hereinafter:
.
.
There we are again. “>>I>I>I>I
oooops…
“]]I[[can’t hear any difference, so it doesn’t exist. I can’t design an amplifier, but every single state-of-the-art amp designer is wrong and an idiot, because >>I>I>I
damn those pesky tags! HERE:
“]]I[[can’t hear any difference, so it doesn’t exist. I can’t design an amplifier, but every single state-of-the-art amp designer is wrong and an idiot, because ]]I[[ say so. How can anyone possibly be able to do something ]]I[[ can’t???”
Bad news, amigo. It’s been conclusively proven to be audible, and a long, long time ago, at that. Plenty of people, not just ‘golden ears,’ can hear the artifacts of compression/decompression, it’s generally referrred to as ‘pumping,’ and if you can’t hear it in a typical 128k MP3 compared to the original PCM, then your hearing IS shot.
“Buying these ultra high end audio systems are stupid. They aren’t the standard. They are the extreme. The difference may only be measured electronically, not audibly.”
Stupid. Ya. I say that MREs taste as good as filet mignon, and if you claim you can taste the difference, you’re kidding yourself, because I can’t, so you must be stupid for not realizing what is obvious to me, that they taste the same.
The differences are audible. They’re simply too subtle for you to discern.
Me, I can’t tell the diff between van den Hul Magnum speaker cables and Music Hose – but, unlike you, I’m not the center of the Universe, so I don’t state that there’s no difference in the sound. Maybe there IS no diff in the sound. ]]I[[ don’t know. And neither do you.
And finally (at long last, eh?):
” It is the same as buying a $600,000 Bughatti or Ferrari. Very pretty to look at, even fun to drive. And more fun to boast about. But unless you have the requisite skill to drive one to the max and a place to do it, they are just wasted money.”
More than ‘fun to drive,’ a supercar is an emotional and visceral experience that, like they say about Harleys, “If I had to explain it to you, you wouldn’t understand.”
You don’t have to “have a place to do it” in order to appreciate the luxury, the hand-crafted appointments or the feel. There’s a lot more to things like Burmesters, Bugattis, Breguets and Bordeaux than the average person with average experience and average tastes can appreciate. There’s exclusivity and excellence. Some people have a deep philosophically-based ability to understand what it is to enjoy superlative things. If you don’t, then fine. But proclaiming those connoisseurs to be stupid, because you lack the requisite taste (and $) to enter that elite world only demonstrates who the stupid one really is.
Can you say “sour grapes?” I knew you could.
You don’t have to “have a place to do it” in order to appreciate the luxury, the hand-crafted appointments or the feel. There’s a lot more to things like Burmesters, Bugattis, Breguets and Bordeaux than the average person with average experience and average tastes can appreciate. There’s exclusivity and excellence.
That isn’t excellence or quality. Its snobbery. There is no noticeable difference, hence no difference. There comes a limit to the number of decimal places to can put after a number.
Most homes have too much ambient noise to be effective at sound reproductions. Even the blood pumping through your ears can cancel out “high end” audio. And don’t even get me started about automotive audio systems.
The problem with most of these supercars is that their “exclusivity” is skin deep. Most of them have low build cost and are not built to standards commensurate with the price.
The same is true of most high dollar stereo equipment. Thiel, Sonus Faber and Vandersteen speakers use drivers which are built just like ones sold theough Madisound to hobbyists. Tube units like ARC and VTL use PCB construction and transformers of far lesser quality to classic Peerless, UTC and Freed units. Solid state amplifiers such as Jeff Rowland-a graduate of a vo-tech school, DeVry-and failed sex manual author Mark Levinson are made with beautiful (but, in this age of CNC machining relatively cheap)pseudo-billet construction and cheap consumer semiconductors, common PCB materials and designs largely cribbed from semiconductor device manuals.