For the longest time I would get so confused when I read someone posting that, say, the sound of Boulder solid-state amps had more detail than Edge solid-state amps, which I totally disagreed with [this was back when I believed everybody who posted about how something sounded had actually heard the darn thing. How innocent we all were about the side-effects of anonymity on the web in those good-old days].

I finally figured out that they were talking about the the ‘leading edge’ of the notes, combined with, in this case, less continuousness which made the notes ’stand out’.

If we think about the sound as composed of many notes, and each of those notes having texture [dynamics of things happening inside the note] and harmonics, we can compare sounds to, say, sand on a beach.

You got your fine sand, you got your larger grains, which when large enough are ‘pebbles’. You got [depending on the beach] larger pebbles that eventually get so be as to be rocks [boulders, boulders would be like the cannon shots in the William Tell Overture]. Each one of these grains is a different shape, with bumps and different colors all over them.

OK.

The Edge amps have lots of finely grained sand detail [which we now call finesse - to get around the problem that people do not agree on just what detail *is*.] and the Boulder has pebbly detail.

The music has some of both [usually], large and small, and we can think of the sand->pebbles->rocks being dynamics and the color of their facets being harmonics/tone.

Solid-state equipment tends to reduce the beach to black and white and tube amps turn up the color saturation a bit. Solid-state equipment also shines a light on the beach like high-noon in death valley [the edges of the pebbles appear sharp, the find sand disappears into the background of white glare], tube equipment like, like, … ambient sunshine on a beach right after a rain just when rainbows are starting to come out [makes you think I like tubes better than solid-state, huh ].

[So far, we have only modeled sound and its harmonics and dynamics by comparing it to the visual appearance of a beach. We can also think about the experience of *listening* to sound with that of walking on the beach… some people want a nice soft sandy walk, some want a rougher, firmer walk. Some don’t care and are only getting exercise or going for a swim.]

We can think of playing music, then, as taking a yardstick and scraping it across the sand, larger pebbles being more dynamic than smaller, the colors of the pebbles representing different tones.

So, using these models…. we can [try to!] define:

Dynamic Resolution: Numbers of different sizes of sand that a system is capable of rendering - higher resolution systems are able to make a particulate of sand sound different than a slightly larger one, which would sound the same on a lower-resolution system. Note that this is often a function of the size of the grain: i.e. two boulders, one inch different in size may sound the same, but two pebbles, one inch different in size would sound different. The best systems are linear… if the pebbles, boulders are more than, say, 1% different in size, we can hear them.

Fractal Dynamic Resolution: The smallest size of a facets on a reference sized particulate of sand that a system is capable of rendering. We want linearity similar to that described above. This indicates the dynamic resolving capability of the system while it is already reproducing another dynamic. Very few systems can do this at all.

Harmonic Resolution and Fractal Harmonic Resolution: Similar to the above, but for tone [frequencies] instead of dynamics. The Lamm ML3 has really good Fractal Harmonic Resolution - it can render not only the colors of fine sand, but of their facets as well.

Dynamic Detail [ability to change direction]: the cleanliness of the beach [i.e. how much mud ]. Is that yardstick we are using make some good THWACK sounds as we hit things, or does it kind of slide up and over them. Again we want this to be linear - to behave the same for larger rocks and tiny particles of sand. Otherwise certain dynamics [horns anybody?] and frequencies [tipped up midrange anybody?] are over / under-emphasized. [We, Neli esp. usually calls this ‘light on its feet’. Most people referring to detail are talking about only the leading edge this very small set of dynamic changes somewhere between micro-dynamics and macro-dynamics - i..e kind of small sized next to slightly but noticeably larger pebbles. Not sand, and not rocks].

Dynamic Control [accuracy]: the ability to accurately trace the edges of the sand/pebble/boulder [what we usually call the note envelope]. That yardstick traces the pebbles up and over, without going too high, without pushing the pebble down into the sound … AND without jumping down too quick and missing tracing all the detail on the other side.

Fractal Detail and Fractal Control. Same as the above two, but for facets. The Audio Note Kegon Balanced amps are great at Fractal Dynamic Control.

Harmonic Detail and Harmonic Control: and Harmonic Fractal Detail and Harmonic Fractal Control: same as above, but for tone [frequencies].

See, we all knew that the reproduction of music was a beach..

Looking at the the rooms that sounded good at this years 2008 CES show, one might wonder, if one has the time to wonder about things, if there are any commonalities between the rooms that sounded musical [by which we mean a system that is engaging and has an audiophile performance commensurate with the price].

But, looking at the rooms…

We CAN say that a lot of old wives tales [just who WERE those old wives, anyway?] and rules of thumb are not really rules that people should be paying a whole lot of attention to.

For example:

* Always use small speakers in a small room, and big speakers in a big room.

But the huge Evolution Acoustics speakers sounded just fine thank you in a tiny room, and the Classic Audio Productions horn speakers sounded darn good in the Atma-sphere room, and similarly the Hansens [though this year they did bring a somewhat smaller speaker]. Now, mind you, they didn’t try and turn the systems all The WAy UP - not while I was there - and I am sure they could overload the room just fine. But that capability can also be a real plus when you think about certain genres of music that can use a little volume. On the other hand, the Cessaro speakers in the Zanden room did feel a little too large - that the room was impacting too much on the music.

It seems much more true that small speakers in a large room do not fill the room satisfactorily - though the little Magicos can do well [you just need to drive the poop out of them] and many small speakers in the best of show rooms filled their side of the room quite nicely indeed.

OK, what other rules can we throw away

* It costs a lot of money to make a great sounding system

This one is easy. It takes a lot of money to make a great PERFORMING system, one that is at the leading edge of humanity’s ability to reproduce music, one that has all of the audiophile attributes associated with the ‘high-end’. But if someone just wants to enjoy listening to music on a system that sounds good - that is not embarrassingly offensive - that was not built by people just trying to put out product without any thought to the performance that CAN be achieved at their asking price - then this is possible at all price points.

————————————-

And then there are rules that do seem to always apply [it is so like life to have some rules that work and some that are more flaky].

* Its hard to make a system sound good when the source equipment is severely compromised with respect to the rest of the equipment.

Many rooms had problems associated with source equipment that was almost an insult to the listeners - almost a ‘no one cares about how it is going to sound’ attitude. They used everything from DVD players to CD carousel players to iPods to laptops with cheap soundcards. EEEEwwwwww!!! They sounded… how shall we put it…. severely compromised.

This rule really is: Source components won’t Make a system, but they Can break it.

* Things like cables, equipment racks, power cords, etc. rarely make or break a system.

These are really ways to refine a system and get the most out of it as one can. But at a show - this level of attention to detail is appreciated, but systems can sound good at shows with cables and racks that we would not be caught dead using here.

* It is the amp / speaker combo that determines in large part what the system will sound like. This is what Makes a system.

If this ain’t right - well, might as well go home. Luckily a lot of combinations do work.

Sure would be nice though for some exhibitors to realize that their combo does Not work and try something different one of these years.

—————————–

Shows are one great laboratory where one has a lot of experiments running at once - about 233+ of them.

OK, I’ll add to this list if we come up with some more lessons learned. A lot of the lessons have to do with training the ear - learning how things sound… low efficiency speakers, different kinds of solid-state amps, different kinds of speaker cabinets, different kinds of cables and… on and on.

The thing, for me, at this years show was being able to tell if the exhibitors paid attention to the details of system configuration. No, I probably couldn’t do this blind, but with the help of looking at a system, I think I can now hear how there are fewer problems in some systems, that they played with things enough, optimized things to a point where a lot of the things wrong with other people’s systems - things that one just accepts at a show like room problems, vibration-induced congestion, etc. were reduced quite a bit if the exhibitors spent some time on system setup.

Again, this didn’t Make or Break the system, perhaps, not going to turn a sleeper system into a Standout, but it did make the systems more enjoyable - and more likely to get on the Best of Show list when perhaps otherwise they would otherwise just be mediocre and kind of annoying.

Thinking about vibration and the effect is has on electronics, and cartridges, a question came up.

If vibrations from the sound of the system affects the sound of the system, negatively, as we all know it does [vibrations cause the wires in electronic equipment to move, and since they are often in some kind of magnetic field(s), these vibrations generate electric current in the wires that has nothing to do with the sound. Egro: noise]….

…then what about other vibrations?

Especially second story vibrations:

1. Here, we have wind that vibrates the house a lot
2. People walking or kids playing
3. Vibrations from the refrigerator motors
4. Vibrations from other people and elevators when in an apartment building.

And even ground floor vibrations:

1. Passing traffic, especially when the listening room location is near a busy road.
2. Some people have big freezers and furnaces down stairs, and sometimes the vibrations of these are transmitted though the foundation.

Anyway, our main listening room is upstairs, and I wonder how much higher a noise floor we have hear because of environmental vibrations.

Hard to test, because when it is really windy, and the house is shaking - it is also very noisy just from the noise of the wind.

Similarly with large trucks, that might be a mile away, but we can hear them [it is quiet up here] and once in a while feel them, especially when they use their exhaust brake [which is illegal up here, but if you gotta slow down, ya gotta slow down….]

So, there are indeed probably deleterious effects from environmental vibrations, causing a raising of the noise floor, but the noise from the things causing the environmental vibrations raises the noise floor itself, and even higher than that caused by the vibrations it causes, so it is probably not worth worrying about [i.e. if kids are running around, pounding the floor with their little feet, they are probably screaming too ].

Not worth worrying about? Whew! OK, good. Neli! We can go on with our lives now. Such as they are….

There are a lot of pieces and parts of the show report - kind of sprinkled in amongst almost 2000 photos - and even I forget where I said what.

But one of the themes this year was influenced by a ‘Cranky Geeks’ episode (online or special TiVo download) that crystallized, for me, the problem with most reviews in our industry. Although Cranky Geeks was talking about the software industry - it applied equally well to ours [and the Washington Press Core as well, but let’s not go there].

That is that the press is serving as the Public Relations arm of the Industry. The corporations. They take press releases [well, in high-end audio, we don’t need no stinking press releases - so our reviewers have to do more work], massage it, and spit it back out as a review.

Thinking about this off and on during the last few weeks as I do the kind of laborious task of juggling CES photos, I think that there are telltale signs of reviews that are really just PR - that really just server as pages for the industry to link to, to serve as an incentive for the industry to donate free equipment to get more of, a safe place to advertise on.

And those signs are that it reads like PR.

PR, like your prototypical salesperson, never, ever, ever say anything bad about what they are selling. Nothing that can even be *slightly* construed as negative about the piece of equipment.

Now reviewers are famous for putting in clues that seem like they maybe might be a hint at what they really think about the component.

But, think about it. All components have a sound and have issues. .

So most reviews are like describing a car crash by saying over and over again how great the car was - and about what songs were playing in the car at the time of the crash.

Anyway, I grew up respecting the press as being honorable, reporting what was really happening, very often DIFFERENT from what the official spin was about the events. Now it is all in support of making more money. Not making waves.

And the only reviewer who I have any confidence in that they actually write real reviews is Mike Fremer.

Sure, he ignores his prejudices, and ignores how badly his poor sad room affects the sound, and ignores the fact that much of his system equipment is flawed and affects what his results are going to be. So he ain’t perfect [and he has some anger management issues - or at least, he should learn to count to ten before posting. I know. I know. Many people want me to count to a billion before posting]. But I think he is the best we got. [Which is saying a lot about the state of the press industry here, huh?]. And I think he has been getting better.

HP hasn’t written a real review for years and years. Art Dudly, Srajan are runners up - and they may be just as good as Mike, but I just don’t read enough of their reviews, especially of equipment that I am familiar with that have easily agreed-upon issues.

As far as the other reviewers go, as far as I have time to read their copy - uh, well, there is really no reason for me to go farther.

I haven’t met Mr. Fremer, nor Art Dudley and have no specific desire to do so [I emailed once or twice with Fremer about 6 years ago]. I have met Srajan at shows when he used to go to shows here in the U.S. [and he is the only member of the press that acknowledges we exist - all the others try hard to ignore us because we encroach on their (abandoned, as this post testifies) domain] but he doesn’t review stuff I am familiar with - and I instead mostly end up reading his editorials.

Anyway, to wrap this up - it is not like reviewers, in general, are any more a**holes than the rest of us - in fact, of the few I see at shows, most of them are just like the rest of us. It is just that I see the responsibilities of being a reporter differently than they do.

… Well, you will have to wait until AFTER the show starts.

Sorry.

According to the CES pamphlets this year - this is what the show is all about:

and

Funny how they focus on home audio when it is treated like such a distant cousin to PCs and Cell Phones and Cameras and even Car Audio and, oh yeah, video.

Face it, we lack glamor. Josh over at SonicFlare.com is trying to help, comparing equipment to sports cars.

Let’s see, what can we do?

Neli’s too busy to read this post, so how about:

The Sophia Loren of amplifiers. The Rachel Welch of speakers…?

McIntosh can get Brittney Spears…

No? The approach too libelous?

How about… No, can’t use gemstones: the platinum version of things this day is way too tired of a adjective .. or is it metaphor?

Endorsements would be cool…

These speakers are endorsed by Arnold as true Kick Alien Butt class loudspeakers. Spok says these amps are ‘The logical choice’.

Still gonna get us sued.

Well, we know how motorcycles and alcohol do it. But any nudity in Stereophile seems to bring out the church brigade. [I wonder what percentage of us WANTS high-end audio to stay a niche hobby.?]

One way is obvious, have the print media not dumb down their offerings to the ‘buyer guide for everyman’ state. Such a cop-out. Magazines in Japan have glorious audio porn and present the ultra high-end in a very desirable, Wish You Had These kind of style. You go to the magazine stand in THIS country, and look at the car mags… 1 in 20 is a buyers guide - the rest are high-end specialty car mags. Somebody has a clue over in THAT aisle.

Well, so now you know where we stand, and where this blog stands. And where we are headed.

I know, a lot of posts in a row - but you will be rid of me for a few days… next time you hear from this blog will be from smoky, sexy, crowded Las Vegas!

Anybody else use this expression?

As in “I think Joe has ears”. Or “So many reviewers don’t have ears”.

We use it to characterize the ability to ‘hear’ the differences, the subtleties, in music reproduction.

Perhaps people without ears can hear, but can’t tell which is better or worse when given two different sounds?

Kind of feel sorry for dealers without ears - but they can always fall back on their sales techniques and what the ‘reviews’ say.

Kind of feel reviewers without ears are being dishonest and should go get a real job.

Kind of feel people without ears are lucky - they can be happy with a Bose clock radio.

Kind of feel that people with ears and don’t know it got it the worst - the vast majority of them aren’t enjoying the music and don’t know why.

Personally, I feel that if people cared more, they ALL could ‘have ears’. Even reviewers and dealers.

They just gotta put some effort and quiet time in. Treat the discipline with some respect. And let themselves do some introspection.

We think we have ears. Most people we meet up here do. Some have really good ears - and some are just faking it

[this is all similar to mathematical ability. Everybody has it, but most people don’t respect it as something worthwhile. I consider myself pretty good at math - my dad being a math professor didn’t hurt. But there are people I have met who are so good at it that I wonder if they are human… or Vulcan.

This is all to say that there is a gradient, a continuum of people skill with ‘having ears’ - but it is one of the most disrespected disciplines ever, even lower on the totem than mathematics ]

SixMoons.com is usually a safe stop for me - it doesn’t drive me crazy with angst reading their stuff.

I liked the Hong Kong Show Report. Is it just me or do they know how to do high-end like nobody’s business? The new $200K Transroter turntable, the new, what, $140K?, Burmester CD player …

There was also the Jeff Day piece on Musicality at 6moons.

I guess I agree with his general thesis, which we would put as “Don’t overemphasize Realness (transparency, accuracy) and Impressiveness (slam, detail) at the expense of Enjoyability”.

But it was hard to tell if he was going too far, and saying: “Enjoyability versus Realness and Impressiveness are fundamentally incompatible with each other”.

The other point he was implicitly making, and you just know the type of people who will pounce on this, is that not only should products, rather than systems, be chosen on the basis of their Enjoyability (which he calls Musicality) but that cheap products are inherently more musical than expensive ones. For example, car radios, Leben CS600 pre and the Harbeth Super HL5 speakers. [I am not familiar with the Leben, but the $4795 Harbeth ……? How about the Acoustic Zen Adagio, the Quad, the Odyssey Lorali, Sonus Faber Amatuer I, or used Extrema, etc. etc.]

But assuming these do sound good to somebody - they buy them, take them home, plug them in to a system with cables that distort the harmonics and muffle small transients even more, a system with amps that are guaranteed for 20 years exaggerating the attack of every note [not to mention truncating the duration, that most beautiful thing, the ’sigh’ of each note] so now George and Ringo seem like THEY ARE REALLY ANGRY all the time.

Hey, uneven dynamics and a relaxed attitude to the things like, oh, voices and musical instruments don’t bother everybody.

OK, in my stupid opinion, most equipment over-emphasizes something; it is just plain hard to make something perfectly balanced. But hardly any of it is unusable, if care is paid to system matching.

But is a lot more difficult, it seems to me, to correct for something being too comprised in the attempt for musicality. That if that something has too little of a property of sound, it is worse than too much. If something, in trying to archive “musicality” so badly that dynamics or responsiveness or finesse are removed, there is just no way to get that information back. But if something is too detailed, throw a tube at it [crude but effective]. If something has to much transparency? The soundstage is too realistic? Imaging too spot-on?

Sorry, the article would have been more to the point to talk about components with near perfect balance, and ignore the “audiophiles going down the wrong path” lecture. Audiophiles are all over the place. They don’t need to be steered away from transparency, imaging and the like [we KNOW it is not the end all and be all, that it is not the sole criteria for quality, but it is certainly ONE set of criteria], off into low-fi land.

[I know I exaggerate, but this buyers guide approach bores me. People need to know their options at each price point and the performance trade-offs of these options, using some kind of categorization scheme, [NOT 1 thru 5 stars, A thru D, 1 thru 4 notes, etc.] that can handle the bewilderingly large number of characteristics of each product’s performance as it relates to other product’s performance. We try to do that here, with perhaps some success, though our focus is primarily on the ultra tippity tip of the high-end.]

One of our first posts was about climbing the mountain of fewer and fewer compromises to the ultimate system sitting at the top, which we speculated, most people would agree was the best. And how there is path up the mountain along which systems exist that have compromises but mimic the ultimate system that sits at the top of the mountain . But the compromises are things like frequency extension, macro dynamics, bass. Not details. Not transparency. Not imaging. I would argue that those things are part and parcel of music, and stereo reproduction. They leave the midrange alone. They leave most musical instruments and voices alone. Compromise somewhere else.

As for building a balanced Enjoyable (musical) system.

Just buying cheap gear is not the answer. Just buying old gear is not the answer. Just buying expensive gear is not the answer. Just buying the latest upgrade is not the answer. Just buying things that get great reviews in the magazines or on the forums is not the answer.

The answer? Ugh. W-e-l-l-l-l-l-l-l…

The easiest answer is to listen to lots of things, hear a system you like, and get that system lock, stock and barrel. [I apologize to our non-U.S.readership - I have been overflowing with these old-fashioned ways of putting things lately].

Another method is to grow your system: take your best guess as to what to get next, paying close attention to not only what people say it does well “Great bass on kettle drums, man” but what it is weakest in “I have been noticing a lot of musicians play instruments that need to be tuned”.

Then strive for balance as you add / change components: if you already have something that is very detailed in your system - don’t add something else to your system that is extremely detailed if you want a balance, if you want Enjoyability (Musicality), no matter how ‘cool’ it is or how excited the people are who talk about it.

[But if you do want the Most Detailed System Ever - then… go for it. Have fun. Don’t let anybody tell you that your system has to be enjoyable / musical, it is YOUR system. [Just don’t expect your spouse to hang out with you a whole lot when you are playing it ]]

OK. Glad someone is talking a little about music and how humans process it… but this “High-End Audio is All Messed Up Because Of:

[fill in the blank:

1) too much realism, [Jeff Day]
2) too little realism, [J. Gorden Holt]
3) too commercial,
4) too many charlatans,
5) nobody takes it seriously enough
6) missing real dynamics
7) the manufacturers suck, the trade rags sucks, the forums suck
8) the musicians suck
9) the musicians suck after 1750 A.D.
10) kids and their downloads
11) greedy and/ or impressively stupid recording industry
12) things are too expensive
13) China
14) the value of the dollar is dropping like a heavy stone right smack on our little toe [us ]
15) the media format (pick one, or pick several: MP3, redbook, SACD, DVD audio, Blu-ray, HDDVD, digital recorders)
16) the media format wars [pick one]
17) home theater
18) too many products
19) shrinking demographics
20) and not the last, but… The Internet

], whiny stuff is for the therapists couch. [Boy, look at how long that extemporaneously written list is… this hobby sure has a lot of whining going on. ]

People always ask us “What the heck are you guys? Dealers? Distributors? A Magazine? An Online Guide? A Blog? Hobbyists? A Charity? Therapists? Nuts?”

Finally figured it out and in a way that is buzzword compliant and, AND!, fits on a bumper sticker.

We are Professional Audiophiles.

Everything we do as Audio Federation, the corporation, the magazine, the show reports, the extreme quality of the toys [uh, I mean, equipment], the ….whatever, revolves around us being Professional Audiophiles.

That’s it.

Simple huh?

[Enough with the long posts for awhile. We’ll let this one be readable.]

First, if you have a problem with show reporting, email us, don’t call.

Neli provides our customers and people interested in our store what is no doubt the most friendly, sales-pressure-free, and helpful advice people can find anywhere for their high-end audio systems. She is not a show report complaint department. That is my job If you are really mad, email me directly at mike at audiofederation.com.

Not that anyone is really mad. Actually, 99.99% of the people really love the report this show - seems like we successfully walked that knife edge between saying nothing, glibly providing marketing copy, and blasting people for every sour note and incorrectly dampened and cabled doohickey. Whew! That blade is sharp…

But people are still finding us for the first time. And people see our report and then see all these others popping up that seem to have, uh, motivations that are different than ours.

Look, providing advertising copy “This system was to die for” in exchange for advertising revenues or semi-permanent equipment loans ain’t going to go away. At least not anytime we would call ’soon’. People have to earn a living. Fine. [Of course, the reports that diss equipment as a threat or punishment because no equipment has been or is likely to be loaned to them is just a wee bit slimy]

[And the major magazines (like Stereophile, TAS, HiFi+) and the top webzines make enough money and do not HAVE to do this, and most of these don’t, AFAICT.]

But people see our report and they go wha? Where’s the ads? Where’s the ‘Pending Reviews’?

Oh, they are a dealer, so they must just diss all the rooms that do not have equipment that they sell.

A lot of people just deactivate their brains at this point. But if they accidentally leave them in the ON position, they will see that

1) we are an equal opportunity trash talker, and

2) if it sounded good we are likely to want to carry it so we can sell it and make money and that is a lot harder if there is a online report that says we think it sucked [hello? and even if a local dealer currently carries it, how long does it usually take before they decide to drop a product line? 1 year? 2? 5? If its good, we will wait and snarf it up if becomes available and we have the bandwidth to fully support another line.], and

3) we sell outrageously great (and sometimes expensive ) stuff that one might expect to actually end up in some good sounding rooms once in a while. And they do. Once in a while.

Shows are unpredictable, and don’t we all know it [we have an advantage at RMAF, we don’t have to SHIP stuff. Shipped stuff gets broken. Especially for shows. It is some kind of ’shippers revenge part II’ or something to do with shows and expensive electronics and frustrated Terminators. Or not.].

So, leave those brains on, eyes open and ears wide people!

And when we do say something that does not absolutely thrill an exhibitor’s marketing department - look, they can either

* explain why it sounded like that,

One report, and it was awhile ago, I talked about a certain hardness in an otherwise very open and dynamic Cain & Cain setup. They respond, “yes, that is true, when [now it was a long time ago so don’t quote me] it is turned up really loud in a room that small, that is what happens.”. This gave me, and readers, so much more confidence in their honesty, their ability to hear what was going on, and in their depth of knowledge about their speaker’s performance envelope.

Another was about Almarro and how the sound went from pretty good one day to not so good the next. They later emailed about how they didn’t think it was perfect along the long wall and so they tried the short wall, and oh boy was that a mistake [I’m adding the American colloquialisms here, they are from Japan], but they were stuck with it during one of the days at the show. Fine, I put it into the report. People learn that even exhibitors have to fish around for good speaker positions [let’s here it for small speakers! hip hip hurray!].

or

* they can deny it sounded like that, could ever sound like that, and only perfect sound erupts from any of their rooms. If they can’t hear the problems, or they lie about them, if they can’t provide a logical reason why I heard what I heard, then that is an additional interesting factoid about the designers or dealers that people may find useful.

Look, they can always admit that they go for sound X, with compromises Y because their customer base is willing to sacrifice Y to get X at the price their product is going for. Great! Just don’t get upset when I talk about X and compromises Y so that our readers can decide if they want to buy it without having to negotiate the rapids between the shills and charlatans and honest fans who don’t know they are sacrificing Y and wouldn’t care even if they did know and all the other internet hazards along the way to finding out something about anything out there.

Some exhibitors can’t afford decent equipment so they should just be upfront about it and say that they think people can still hear the quality of their gear on the compromised system and that X, Y and Z are going to review it. etc.

People, honesty is the best policy. Yeah, dishonest people do make sales, and maybe more sales than honest people in the short term, but over time they could make more sales and sell for higher prices if they were honest and the products they are selling are of a decent quality.

At least, this is what we tell ourselves. Every show report I have to cruise the forums, answering questions, posting links. Checking out other reports. The shills, the duplicity, the dishonesty, the politics, it gets us down. I probably shouldn’t even talk to Neli about this stuff - you know women, they think we men have messed up the world BAD - and this just adds lots of proof to the pudding.

But you know, the naivety out there, people liking things that we all think are severely compromised, naivety that a lot of people complain about, doesn’t bother me. Compared to audiophiles in a hundred years down the road, we are all idiots and know nothing [nothing!]. Let people enjoy the discovery process - it is one of the most fun parts of this professional hobby.

Another long winded post. Hopefully we can reuse this periodically, during show report seasons, to remind our new visitors who we are.

The process is to model how to value, how to score, a system and then let the brain to the math.

For example:

* How much to I want to take this system home and Live With It for a long time? [Is it fun to listen to, but it is too much of a good thing and would sour quickly? Or does it feel like something you have wanted your whole life but did not know it?]

* What emotions does this system instill in me across several types of music? [Uncomfortable? Anxious? Got a headache? Looking around for a vomit bag? Or, perhaps, falling in love with each musician played, and oh how to break it to the spouse?]

* How does this system make me feel about the state of humanity? [Is there hope, or are we doomed with perhaps only days or hours before the end?]

* How does this system make me feel about the skill of the designer? the fabricator? [Is this contraption before your the apex of 10,000 years of civilization, that all the sweat and tears finally culminated in something worthwhile? Or perhaps, scopping back a little from the system because the speakers look like they might fall on you at any moment - and thank goodness for a remote because… are those sparks?!]

* How does this system make me feel about the musicians? [Are they real people? Are they supremely skilled? Are they filled with the emotion appropriate to the song they are singing? Are they just making a buck? Can you even tell? Sometimes this just says something about the musician, not the system. Frank Sinatra, in his later years, came across as bored out of his mind when he sang many songs - really turned me off to his music until I heard him sing when he still had the old fire in the belly]

This system is orthogonal, independent of yet works within the system of the categories of sonic preferences: Real, Impressive, Sweet, Emotive, Magical. It helps us answer: How Impressive? How Sweet?

It does require some introspection of the listener’s part. But the idea of mapping a quantitative question like How Real? to a emotional question, and letting the brains massive computational capability figure out how it ‘feels’ about the question, can help us put in relative terms measurements that we do not know how to measure yet.