by Michael

CAS 2017: Best System Performance and Ultimate Cost No Object Design

CAS 2017: Best System Performance and Ultimate Cost No Object Design was just awarded to our California Audio Show 2017 room by Richard Austen on his final Dagogo show report.

I will say that CD sounded better here than anywhere else beating other rooms with vinyl or computer audio playback

I know, right? For many turntables and nearly all which are not setup perfectly [like at a show] this Audio Note U.K. digital is just better. Kind of awesome – convenience AND sounds good [less calories, more alcohol. Something like that]

Richard (aka RGA) got a chance to play his non-audiophile-approved CDs while the rest of us were not paying any attention, trying to figure out if Pink Floyd was the best rock-and-roll band ever and if so for which Albums and years [yes,  and from 66 [relics] to 73 [dsotm] or 77 [animals], depending on mood. Many people hate the animals LP but they are wrong-headed 🙂 as were the majority in the room who disagreed and voted no :-)], and other monumental decisions music-lovers have to debate whenever they first meet [ok, yeah, it only took 1 minute to debate this, but this set the tone for the rest of the 4 hours. you readers know what I mean].

So Richard got to hear the system well over the course of many hours, both Saturday [and Sunday, I might add, us not wanting to pack up for several hours – getting out of there, on our 3rd and final trip home that night, at 11:59 sharp before the ‘deadline’ at midnight].

Frankly, these [Acapella Cellini High speakers] were rather easily the best sound at this show. It took a couple of tracks to begin to appreciate what these speakers are capable of doing. And unfortunately show-goers tend to try and cover as many rooms as possible over stopping to smell the roses

I know, right? And there were quite a few good speakers at this show.

We were so happy that we got to spend time listening after hours with many different people – it has been awhile since a show felt like ‘home’, and the people and the music were just awesome this year.

Thank you, Richard 🙂

in Acapella / Audio Note / HRS 0 comments
 by Michael

The Joy of “Different”

Image above of the sea, copyright CSG Ltd., cheapsurfgear.com

The Joy of “Different”. The absolute joy of hearing an often very, VERY familiar song with a different sound than what we are used to.

This drives so much of the commerce in our industry as well as providing so much of the pleasure [for me anyway] but it is not talked about much.

Yes, it is related to ‘upgrading’ and certainly ‘better quality sound’ is one of the ‘differences’ that are very enjoyable. And, of course, a different pressing, a remastering, a different technology, these also provide these wonderful experiences.

But there are also lots of differences that are just slight improvements and sometimes more just changes in ‘flavor’ – and these are also quite enjoyable and should not be ignored or disparaged. They are healthy and help us both understand music and our preferences as well as just plain fun. And many of them do not cost a lot of money. A change of cables or powercords. Using better isolation feet. Putting spikes under the speakers. Moving the speakers a little. Moving the rack from between the speakers. Cleaning the CDs or LPs better. Cleaning the ends of the cables. Etc.

And, of course,these changes in ‘flavor’ can cost some serious coin, like swapping one $11K powercord for another $11K powercord. Yikes. But, wow, whatever the price point, this can be soooo much fun. 😀

[And even downgrades can be enjoyable. For example listening to a lower-end system at a friends house, or changing out a speaker for a less-expensive but higher efficiency one, or less-expensive but higher resolution one, or whatever – these can be so much fun and invigorating.]

Some of these ideas are disparaged by some people as not being pure. “There is a right way something is supposed to sound”, and any variance from pursuing that precisely defined [in their minds] sound makes you a ‘lesser audiophile’ or something. Then again, just look at what system these people have and when we stop feeling sorry for them and the bad decisions they made we can go back to having fun. Yes, there is a Path, but as long as we stay near the Path, to the best of our pocketbooks capability and to some degree luck, then we are OK, in my opinion.

A long, long time ago, we talked about The Path. The path from whatever modest system we start with, near the bottom of the mountain, to the Ultimate System on top of whatever mountain peak we can afford which suits our basic preferences. The idea of that post was to talk about how some systems were close to the Path and others were not so much [that these others were sometimes found cul-de-sacs, which required backing out of quickly, or we risk getting disenchanted and leaving the hobby – or worse, pissing off our house partners :-)].

But once you reach your mountain peak, or even before then as we make our way up the Path, a fun way to pass the days, and years, is to try something different every so often and wake up our ears and our soul again – to shock it into listening deeply with the attentive mind and open heart again.

 

 

in Sounding Off 4 comments
 by Michael

Stupid Audiophile Troll Tricks and Why am I posting these?

Stupid Audiophile Troll Tricks and Why am I posting these? (you might ask. Well, Neli did 🙂 ).

Neli doesn’t read comments when she is out-and-about on the Internet. But I do. Sometimes. And on YouTube, Stereophile, and many other places, sometimes over half of the comments have some very aggressive troll-like anti-audiophile sentiment.

The average person, a member of the general public, reading these, must think WTF? These angry nuts are so passionate with their attacks – can they be right?

Considering how often people believe ridiculous things these days just because the messenger is outrageously aggressive, this is a real worry if one has hopes, like we do, that more of the general public should join our hobby.

Some people [for example Michael Fremer and Myles Astor], counter this by publicly responding to the trolls – replying to their comments using either common sense or the troll’s own expletive-laden language.

Their responses help but the energy required to do this, by me anyway, would be difficult to sustain over time.

I am trying to weaken the trolls in a different way here by helping dispel any doubts about whether these trolls have a clue [they do not], and make sure that the readers of these Stupid Audiophile Troll Tricks posts know exactly why what the trolls are saying is ridiculous and nothing but trolling.

Another purpose here is that when an audiophile reads these, it is upsetting. Here we are just grooving to the beat with as much fidelity we can afford, checking in what our friends are doing, seeing what’s new out there, and these angry haters show up?

One way to deal with this upset is to have seen these troll’s attacks before – and seen it dealt with in a calm, reasonable, logical, factual manner. Then, when we see these trolls, we can think “oh yeah, THAT one. Not just jerks but unimaginative ones at that”.

I am hoping these posts here on the Blog help do just that, but examining each of these class of troll attacks in the light of day and putting them to rest.

Perhaps we should go one step beyond and list copy-and-paste audiophile-approved pre-written responses that, if enough of us automatically post these as comments to the troll’s attack comments, might actually tire them out and make them go away.

Who are they? I think half of the trolls are just envious[who isn’t? we all want all the goodies, right? :-)] and the other half are dysfunctional men (or boys) who see another group they can bully.

[Personally, I also consider extremely negative anti-cable, anti-tube, anti-solidstate, anti-analog, anti-digital etc. comments as evidence that there is a troll about. There is overwhelming evidence that each of these technologies have a great deal to offer, albeit each with their drawbacks, that a reasonable person with adequate funds might indeed be making the exact right decision purchasing them. enuf said].

in Audiophile 101 / Sounding Off 0 comments