> And we all have our little obsessions. I wasn't really much in high-fidelity
> since I wasn't ever exposed to it, till two years ago, when I decided to look
> into an audio show. Yes, there was a lot of unicorn farts and other nonsense,
> but I was completely blown away by what a good stereo system could sound
> like. Nico, who doesn't care for these things, was also in awe (and we
> happily agreed on what we would like to get if we discover a pot of gold).
Back in the '90s, I worked supply side to the broadcast and recording
industries. Prior to this particular job, I was impressed by the
unicorn farts and knew they made everything sound better. Especially
speaker wires that were soldered in unicorn fart air at precisely the
altitude of 843 meters. (anti-clockwise wound for left speakers,
clockwise wound for right speakers. Oh, except in the USA, you MUST
MUST MUST use counter-clockwise wound for left speakers as the
anti-clockwise only work correctly in the UK).
It was a rude awakening when I started working around all these
engineers that invented and created the REAL stuff for REAL use. Of
course, we had REAL calibrated test gear at our disposal.
Of course, back in those days, the arguments over digital vs. analog
were still alive and well. (analog IS better, as long as noise is
under control). We discussed the fine points of audio engineering and
pretty much came down to the facts that certain types of technology
will be inherently superior for certain types of use (music styles,
volume, size of room, etc.). This is most dramatically played out with
speakers and amplifiers. We all loved electrostatic membrane style
speakers. We were also involved in some incredible technologies and
speaker technologies that were so far out there as to be impossible to
manufacture for various reasons. But there were certainly broad stroke
items that you could reliably go by to get a superior sound:
1. Amplifiers. Tube amps ARE better sounding than Solid State amps
most of the time. I didn't say "more accurate", though. Tube amps have
a distinctly linear distortion which is always present but gives a
rounding to the sound which SS doesn't do. When pushed hard, they get
progressively more distorted, but since they do so in a linear
fashion, you don't notice it. SS, on the other hand, is able to
provide a more pure sound longer, but once it starts falling over the
edge, they sound horrible. Granted, in the past 10 years, we've got
some new SS designs which essentially never fall over the edge, so at
this point I wouldn't hesitate to go either way, as long as the amp is
properly matched to the speakers.
2. Speakers. There are two types of speakers. Those that are intended
to be expensive furniture and those that are intended to sound right.
Pick one or the other, because until you spend a LOT of money, you're
not getting both. I personally prefer ones that sound right and live
with the ugly black industrial enclosures. (Fernando's is both)
3. Processing. As little as possible. The room, speakers and
amplifiers should be as closely matched as possible to avoid any
equalization adjustments. For speakers, this means that size usually
matters. For the room, this means that there should be no nasty modes.
For the amplifier, it needs to be able to push/resist the speaker
correctly to avoid distortion.
4. Everything else should just be as transparent as possible and
shouldn't be colorizing the sound or changing the tone. Again, do as
little as possible and keep the audio chain as short as possible. As
mentioned earlier, 10% investment gets you 90% of the way there. It
takes really good ears to hear the difference between 90% and 95%, but
you just spent the cost of a luxury car getting there.
While I was product manager for the studio products, I was approached
by this guy who had built a "phase coherent equalizer" which he was
selling to the unicorn crowd. I talked with our engineers and we all
got a good howl out of it because it really is impossible to make
tonal adjustments without it affecting the phase. He provided us all
sorts of white papers on his technology. Out of entertainment, we
brought him in (his dime, of course) and subjected his equipment to
our test gear as well as waveform analysis on a digital editor so he
could actually see what his EQ was doing. He left before noon and we
didn't even get a free lunch out of him.
Most audio nuts will howl at my own choice of Bose speakers. The same
old tired phrase of "No Highs, No Lows, must be Bose" echos through
the room. While I agree on a pure technical front, there is no denying
that they sound good most of the time and they sound even better to
everybody in the room, instead of great to just one person. The
problem they have, and why they don't go all the way, is that they
require ungodly amounts of equalization to sound right. To make up for
that, it required tons more amplifier to push past the
equalization-induced losses and for some reason, Bose and tube
amplifiers don't seem to be a good match, so you need an even bigger
solid state amplifier to get them to sing right.
--
Ken Norton
ken@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.zone-10.com
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