by Michael

Another way to visualize the sonic signature of a system

We have guests here for ‘multi-day auditions’ every so often where we listen to a ton of stuff over the course of a few days – kind of like a sequence of shootouts but with a goal in mind – the goal usually being to get the best sound possible for a particular guest.

Last week we had a great time at one of these auditions, and our guest came up with a very nice intuitive way to quickly draw the overall balance of a particular system. I am not all that sure this particular guest wants to accept the blame for these drawings 🙂 – and his hand drawn ones were certainly nicer than my mouse-drawn ones – but I liked them enough to think it worthwhile to share here on the blog.


The width of the “Hershey’s Kiss'” is the characteristic energy/information of the system at a given frequency. The system diagrammed here has a lot of bass energy but little midrange energy and almost no treble energy.

This is typically [over the course of many discussions with people we meet] what people Do Not want.

The red part of the curve would be an alternative sound that did not have a ‘bite’.(?)


This is a nice, full sounding system. This is what people in general DO want.

These next drawings are originally drawn by me, expanding on the idea of the 2 above.


The system diagrammed here might represent your typical inexpensive tube amp: nice midrange but weak on bass and a little rolled off on top.


The system diagrammed here might represent your typical inexpensive speaker system that has problems in the crossover frequencies.


This might be the perfect system(?) – we can certainly define it to be so, since we are the ones making all this up :-). It represents perfect top-to-bottom quantities of energy/information.

We should really have several of these drawings for a single system, one drawing each for:

1) harmonic information/energy
2) micro dynamics
3) midi-dynamics
4) separation (ability to handle complexity)
…

in High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Philosophy 0 comments
 by Michael

Exhibiting at a Show: What Associated Equipment To Choose?

The typical question is that you have a great component you want to impress people with at a show. How do you do that? The answers to this question will help explain why we see some rooms setup the way we do, and conversely why some great products do not get the show accolades they deserve.

The answers are different depending on the type of component if the component is a:

AMP: you want speakers and sources that do not detract from the fact that the amp is the most important piece in the system [i.e. not too hyped or visibly impressive]. You want well known components, that people already know the sound of so that they can attribute all of the above and beyond extraordinary goodness of the system to your amp [i.e. the other components are plain jane well known components that everyone knows the sound of]. DON’T put your amp on speakers that the amp can’t drive [please please please. But so many do anyway]. DON’T use amp stands that rob your amp of much of its goodness.

CD PLAYER: You want a state-of-the-art, GREAT sounding system and to play the CD player all the time. People then attribute the fact that the system sound does not suck to the fact that the CD player must really be pretty darn decent. Putting your CD Player in a mediocre or bad sounding system is only a slight negative – unless the turntable ‘fixes’ many of the problems with the system due to its warmth or whatever sonic characteristics – then they will think that digital sucks, especially your CD Player.

CABLES: Well, you can either do the Nordost thing, with wonderfully explanatory presentations that let you hear the sound of the cables, or you can have a static display like Kimber Kable, or you can have a mixed static display and demo system like Gutwire. DON’T put your cables into a bad sounding system with great components – especially not with signs all over the place indicating that the cables responsible for this sound are yours.

SPEAKERS: You want as good a sounding system as you can get with components that are as generic as possible [but even with famous or hyped components – they speakers will still get most of the credit for the sound].

in CES 2011 / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Philosophy / Show Reports 0 comments
 by Michael

CES is still fun

[I am preparing another blast of photos. But because these photo posts will be so long, I am letting these smaller posts simmer here for awhile.]

It seems to me that many of the people writing about CES are bored. They are tired of it. They do not enjoy it. They wish they didn’t have to go each year.

We, however, love it more than ever. It is a blast.

Why are they bored? Maybe because they are getting paid to attend? Maybe because this is just their job, not their adventure?

Why do we enjoy it so much? The people. The music. The learning process and testing what we have learned here against 100s of other systems. The excitement of entering each room hoping and anticipating something potentially GREAT: great sound, great music, great friends. It is like a giant building (a hotel) full of toy stores, and your friends are there and there are hundreds of parties going on.

What is not to like?

in CES 2011 / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Philosophy / Show Reports 0 comments