Cross product of maturity of audiophile and hi-fi system design
I was thinking about all the different stereo systems at RMAF. Thinking about how each system seems to attract at least some people. Thinking about how bizarre this seemed to us, being that some of the systems were really quite poor sounding. Thinking about how Best Buy also does manage to sell some of their hi-fi systems from time to time. And thinking about how to sell things to those mystical members of the often talked about but rarely seen… General Public.
There seems to be a discrete set of stages, or levels, a person goes through when discovering just how some systems really don’t suck.
These stages of discovery are more or less these:
0. This sucker goes LOUD!
1. Whoa! big bass!
2. Hmmm… big bass and it can do soft delicate sound too
3. Oh my, resolution. I can hear things that I never heard before
4. Weird, I can ‘see’ the instruments and musicians! Imaging!
5. Coolness, some instruments and musicians appear to be close, and some way, way back beyond the front wall; soundstaging
6. Why do some systems make be want to tap my toe or dance? PRAT
7. Wow! Why doesn’t the (harmonica, brass, violins, etc.) on this system hurt my ears like all those other systems?
8. Discovery of ones own personal preference
9. *swoon* … engagement, soulfulness
10. Discovery of other’s personal preferences
11. Naturalness, organic sound, basic levels of believably, how some hi-fis do not have to sound like a hi-fi
13. Inner detail, texture, micro-dynamics. Cocaine.
14. Realistic resolution and resolution linearity. Deeper kinds of believably.
15. Reproduced note envelopes can really be like real notes? Wow.
16. Harmonic / timbrel linearity. Deeper, ever deeper believably.
17. Separation. No more mashed potatoes. Hear every instrument using your mental spyglasses.
18. Dynamic integrity / linearity. Deep, so deep believably
19. Inner harmonic detail. 12+14+16+18 = heroin.
20. Real-life harmonics. Recognizing the almost universal lack of such.
21. Real-life dynamics. Recognizing the almost universal lack of such.
……
1000. Forget it all, where’s the bliss?
Probably forgot a few. I keep swapping 8, 9, 10 and 11, and as far as the rest of the ordering goes, YMMV.
OK. Here are some weird observations.
The Wilson demo at RMAF was designed for people between level 1 and 2 [you can watch the video of the presentation on YouTube]. The demo was largely successful among the people who type things on blogs, forums and online magazines. But not so successful among people who call us looking for expensive speakers.
Our rooms at RMAF had been designed for people around stages 15 and 16. This was fairly successful among the people who call us looking for expensive speakers. This received quite a bit less public fanfare, however, than the Wilson room. Lamm rooms typically seem designed for people around stages 9 and 10 (same Wilson speakers, more or less, as above).
Audio Note tries to convince people they should just skip to level 1000. They have some success with the general public with this idea. They also have some success with people all along the way at the other levels because of their basic approach, innate quality and the ability of some of us to create hybrid systems with the gear.
Wilson also has some success with people all along the way at the other levels because of their basic approach, innate quality and the ability of some of us to create hybrid systems with the gear.
At shows, you can find systems targeting audiophiles at all stages of maturity, just like you can find audiophiles at all stages of maturity.
Here on the blog, we like rooms where the stage of the system, as a function of the price, makes it either a good deal [like Acoustic Zen speaker-based systems, or, lately it seems, like the Magico S1 speaker-based systems] or where the stage of the system is very high, unfortunately often commensurate with its very high price.
I like all the in-between stages, not just level 1000, because I think they are really fun and entertaining in ways that just plain great music is just… not.
And I would be willing to argue that from just experiencing some of these stages one learns how to reach deeper and deeper into reality and discovers several secrets about what it means to be alive and how to better enjoy existence. Certainly more so than the vast majority of things that people do for fun in their spare time. 🙂
Anyway, the choices exhibitors make when it comes to what stage of audiophiles to design their systems for is interesting and has many consequences, many of which are not at all clear.
Added discovery of one’s own personal preferences and later, discovery that other’s have personal preferences and the start of trying to map their preferences into some sort of reasonable order (Impressive, Sweet, Real, Natural, BoyToy, etc.)
Very interesting list. Thank you very much.
Question if you don’t mind Mike: Resolution, timbre and dynamics are easy to understand. But what is resolution, timbrel and dynamic linearity? For example, dynamic linearity the ability to handle both explosive and subtle dynamics at the same time? Also, how is timbrel and dynamic linearity related to resolution linearity? And how is separation related to the three?
Elaboration would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Hi Andrew.
Thanks for your [good] questions. I did write about this several years ago – but who can find anything on a blog like this. Not me. If I do find it I will link the above list to it.
Let’s get the easy question out of the way. Handling “both explosive and subtle dynamics at the same time” is good separation, along with handling multiple explosive notes at the same time. Many pieces of equipment – from the source to the speakers and even cables – have a hard time when a lot of things are going on in the music at once. This is why many audiophiles like to play 4-piece jazz or two-piece jazz plus female vocal. Hardly any notes happening at the same time. So good separation is when lots of stuff is happening, lots of instruments and sounds are happening, at one time – and you can mentally focus on and hear each one as a separate instrument. … just like in real life!
More later….
Take care,
-Mike
Hi again, Andrew.
“what is resolution, timbrel and dynamic linearity?”
Although one could talk about the linearity of the resolution, timbre and dynamics at all different volumes of the sound (e.g. the resolution doesn’t increase or decrease as you increase volume) I think it is typically more of a problem as frequencies change [although as many experience, low efficiency speakers have audibly better dynamic response the louder they are played, showing a classic non-linearity, even though they may have a flat frequency response]
Asa quick example of non-linear resolution, just think how hard it is for there to be resolution below about 100Hz to be anything like that of the midrange. Some speakers / systems do this better than others, so it is possible!, but no one comes close to perfect.
An example of non-linear timbre some speakers [usually under-damped] that favor the harmonic tone of wood instruments and others, like those with the old Esotar tweeter, which favor female vocals.
In practical day-to-day life, when listening to music on a system, one can hear a MORE LINEAR system right away as not making / encouraging one to focus more on a specific part of the music and less to others. ALL the instruments sound equally ‘good’ or ‘real’. All the vocals sound equally good.
On a NON-LINEAR system, however, you will think to yourself, ‘wow that guitar sounds great!’ but that violin… kind of thin and reedy, so not so much. Or ‘listen to that bass slam!’ but not think much of the impact of the aggressive pluck of a guitar string, or of shout of a voice against a black background, etc.
Make sense? Hope this helps!
Take care,
-Mike
Hi, Mike. I have observed the different degrees of linearity you talk about, but could never articulate what it is that I’ve been hearing. Thank you for taking the time to put them in such understandable terms. Much appreciated! 🙂