Introduction and Listening Biases

spazmatron said:

you would need thousands of speakers for this and thousands of amps..

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I believe Illusonic have been experimenting with 18 channels, all actively powered, speakers at front, rear and sides, and also height channels firing downwards.
I am going to start with five, and then add some smaller height channels later.
Keith.

Before I take a deep breath and start my two cents, I would like to express my thanks, appreciation and admiration for Ron's project and above all for the so very thoughtful and beautifully written way he has presented his concept to us.
Ron, like myself, loves stators. I have been weaned on them as well as on tubed gear as far back as I can think and although my preferred kinds of music seem to differ from Ron's, I will probably very much like and take to his reviews to come.
We all carry a "Gestalt" in us, how music should sound to our ears (Ron has very concisely in one of his posts on this thread broken down this concept into its constituent parts, so there is no point to explain it further) and according to "gestalt" and our experience with it, we come to our conclusions.
I have been equally intreaged by the so varied replies and comments which Ron's thread has evoked. What I find fascinating here is above all, how we all stand on and comment from, what I like to call, different points of a scale, which to my mind I imagine to be spread out between the extremes auf "audiophile" on one end, where music is merely put in service of the gear, whereas on the other end, which I call "music lover", gear is merely deemed important if it serves the music. Of course these are extremes, but for myself, I find this differentiation in understanding different points of views both concerning gear and music more helpful than for example that split between objectivist and subjectivist views, because both camps equally serve the audiophile as well as the music lover. (I like John Atkinson just for that very reason) Of course I feel, that as in most conflicting views, one should strive to hold middle ground, in the case of "audiophile' versus "music lover" I tend heavily to the latter side of the two. Of course I care about the gear as long as it serves MY gestalt of the music and I'll do anything possible to advance my quest. And quest it is, since I am a lover of big orchestral classical music from Monteverdi to Cage and Schnittke. Quest it will remain, because the more than 60 year of my "career" have taught me, to be fully aware of the fact, even in my best moments before the rig, that I am merely listening to an attempt of a facsimile of an attempt of another facsimile of the real thing. The quest then consists in narrowing this huge gap by perhaps one tiny increment after another, even if the gap left in my wallet after one such step will be much less tiny after all. Lovers of female and, less so, male voices, of solo instruments or of small ensembles, lead, I think, an easier life in trying to create the illusion of a real event in their listening space. With a fifty or more piece of orchestra this is impossible.

With all this in mind, let me please pose one question, which perhaps is naive:

How, if I cared to, can I assemble or tweak a system to be faithful to a master tape? How can I know how the producer of just this tape has intended it to sound, by placing for example which microphones in what number in what venue in which places and how were the feeds mixed down to be finally put on this very tape? And even if I did know, there is a good chance that I won't like the mix, which more often than not is the case of those multi miked horrors of an otherwise perhaps musically interesting performance. In fact I will in such cases tend to fiddle with my x-over to lessen the grating sound of the violin section or the muffled, prolonged burp of the contra-bases slurping in, all faithfully put on the master tape by a producer with either tin ears or the idea in his head that we all listen to clock radios.

I confess, that for many years, long gone now, I was an adherent of Harry Pearson's idea of the "absolute sound", as heard in a live performance in a concert hall. I am grateful for the man. bless him, because he and JGH taught us the language to describe what we hear and in which to this day we converse in, but on the other hand he cost me a lot of money, running after what later maturing taught me is an illusion. In spite of all this often triste and saddening maturity, I still read reviews and look forward to read yours Ron. Why?
Well, there is always this hope, though it has become feeble with the years, that this piece of gear, this tweak or this idea of doing things might breathe new life in the audiophile part of this music lover. The scale of the two extremes mentioned, is a gliding one, even slippery sometime and when I get too emotional about a bad recording or about an enticing write up of apiece of gear, I must first ascertain, where between those two poles I am standing at the moment, before I smash my gear and listen to the same cd on my car radio where I have no expectations for good sound, or if I spend a lot of money for something which later I might only regret. One should try it sometimes, to find out where one is standing and wait until rationality sets in again. Sometimes it helps, I find

Purite Audio said:

I believe Illusonic have been experimenting with 18 channels, all actively powered, speakers at front, rear and sides, and also height channels firing downwards.
I am going to start with five, and then add some smaller height channels later.
Keith.

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We, a group of equally crazies and myself, tried a faintly similar thing once, in putting together 8 pairs of Quad 62s plus subs in one room with their amplification, fed by one master pre with a tt, feeding auxiliary pres, feeding their amps. The sound was truly impressive, but nothing like the real thing and wasn't there someone in the UK who had an entire wall filled with even more Quads? Sadly i don't remember who it was. He was well known in the industry,

Ron Resnick said:

PHILOSOPHY

I believe there are three primary alternative objectives of high-end audio:

1) recreate the sound of an original musical event,

2) reproduce exactly what is on the master tape, and

3) create a sound subjectively pleasing to the audiophile.​

I subscribe to the first philosophy. I want my audio system to recreate as realistically and as believably as possible the sound of an original musical event. Several conclusions immediately follow from this particular philosophy.

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Well-written post Ron, and interesting thread. #1 is nirvana and impossible to achieve (at the very least, it assumes there are recordings to capture the original event as is). #2 is all we have (the recordings). Therefore, I personally subscribe to the second philosophy: I want to be able to reproduce exactly what's in the recording as best as possible, and if that recording happens to be a facsimile of the live event, then one big parameter down. As such, I am willing to listen to what the recordings capture, not how I experience a live event from my favorite seat, and strive to build a system with as little editorialization as possible ("transparent to sources" as Valid says).

Ron Resnick said:

Does the philosophical objective we adopt drive our selection of the components we choose?

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It does for me. I'm a (2) and I'm doing something about it.

Ron Resnick said:

Here is an interesting question . . .

Does the philosophical objective we adopt drive our selection of the components we choose?

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It should and certainly does for me. My objectives have nothing in common with your objectives. I am all about fun or entertaining. I gave up (unfortunately not soon enough) chasing after your number (1), and number (2) was never my objective.

As a result, I have opted for multiples speakers, multiple subs, the best surround processor I can afford, amps that get the job done, and room treatment that would complement my objectives. And once my new surround processor shows up, I am good to go. Had my objectives been to attain either of your first two objectives using 2 channels, I would own none of what I have purchased.

But even if my objectives matched either of yours but, for example, the vast majority of my music listening was jazz and female vocals, I would have selected planer speakers. Had my listening been focused primarily on rock, I would have gone in another direction. So I think the question you have posed an excellent one.

Have fun on your journey!

Ron Resnick said:

Here is an interesting question . . .

Does the philosophical objective we adopt drive our selection of the components we choose?

For example, does Ack's philosophy of "reproduce exactly what's in the recording as best as possible" and "transparency to sources" drive his selection of Spectral electronics (which, I believe, are very wide bandwith, very "clean" sounding, with no editorializing)?

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Spectrals are not only clean, they are superbly fast, and produce the best slam and orchestral dynamics of any amp I have heard.

Ron Resnick said:

Here is an interesting question . . .

Does the philosophical objective we adopt drive our selection of the components we choose?

For example, does Ack's philosophy of "reproduce exactly what's in the recording as best as possible" and "transparency to sources" drive his selection of Spectral electronics (which, I believe, are very wide bandwith, very "clean" sounding, with no editorializing)?

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The quest for #2 definitely drove my decisions. Now? My monitors are a couple of generations behind. Does that call for an upgrade? No. I've even dropped the idea of buying the Linkwitz Minis. I enjoy listening to my system, it's revealing of differences in recordings. I've decided to just listen to them.

Tim

Ron Resnick said:

Here is an interesting question . . .

Does the philosophical objective we adopt drive our selection of the components we choose?

For example, does Ack's philosophy of "reproduce exactly what's in the recording as best as possible" and "transparency to sources" drive his selection of Spectral electronics (which, I believe, are very wide bandwith, very "clean" sounding, with no editorializing)?

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In my case, the choice of equipment was indeed driven by my core objectives; and at the core of it is linearity and speed (from the A90 all the way to electrostatics). Along the way, and to add to what bonzo said afterwards, I also get explosive dynamics and true dynamic expression (relative dynamic contrasts between different instruments remain intact). I have been on the same path for virtually 20 years, and I have to assume most people's choices are driven by their philosophical beliefs and objectives.

Might it also be worth pointing out that (2) is the only option that leaves the door entirely open to 'surprise'. If we pursue (1) and especially (3) we are pre-loading our system with (what we think are) our own preferences. The owner of a (2) system never knows what unexpected delights will emerge from a recording.

Groucho said:

Might it also be worth pointing out that (2) is the only option that leaves the door entirely open to 'surprise'. If we pursue (1) and especially (3) we are pre-loading our system with (what we think are) our own preferences. The owner of a (2) system never knows what unexpected delights will emerge from a recording.

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See also:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?14986-Neutrality-of-tone-and-width-of-timbral-palette

Groucho said:

Might it also be worth pointing out that (2) is the only option that leaves the door entirely open to 'surprise'. If we pursue (1) and especially (3) we are pre-loading our system with (what we think are) our own preferences. The owner of a (2) system never knows what unexpected delights will emerge from a recording.

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Precisely; and that's why on such #2 systems bad recordings sound bad and good ones good.

Detlof said:

We, a group of equally crazies and myself, tried a faintly similar thing once, in putting together 8 pairs of Quad 62s plus subs in one room with their amplification, fed by one master pre with a tt, feeding auxiliary pres, feeding their amps. The sound was truly impressive, but nothing like the real thing and wasn't there someone in the UK who had an entire wall filled with even more Quads? Sadly i don't remember who it was. He was well known in the industry,

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Quoted from http://www.quadesl.com/articles/quad_stacking.html

SME founder Alastair Robertson-Aikman, began with just one pair of Electrostatics, then used a stacked pair, and somewhere along the line used eight pairs per side, arranged in a continuous symmetrical arc. Mr Robertson-Airman's system now uses two pairs of Quad ESL-63s, again with one pair facing forward while the other pair are positioned outside these and facing across, facing across the room. The '63s have been modified to give better structural rigidity.

BTW, I never tried more than 2 pairs in an L array. I can not imagine 8 pairs!

Al M. said:

See also:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?14986-Neutrality-of-tone-and-width-of-timbral-palette

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Thanks. Very apposite.

bonzo75 said:

Spectrals are not only clean, they are superbly fast, and produce the best slam and orchestral dynamics of any amp I have heard.

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I agree. I had their full complement for a while but let them go. They apealed more to the audiophile in me, but as time went on, less to the music lover in me, as I was used to live music. I found them too clean, almost stale but I admit, I was fascinated by them for quite a while for the reasons you mention.

Ron Resnick said:

Dear Graham,

Thank you for writing. I think you raise several very fair questions. I will give you my initial views. Ultimately I think most of these questions do not have clear right or wrong answers.

1) definition of review versus impressions: I agree that a review of a single component in circumstances in which I assimilate that single component into my existing well-known audio system is very different than a review in which I listen to a largely unfamiliar system for only a few hours. I would never say that defining the former as a "review" and defining the latter as "impressions" is wrong. But it is a matter of definition. With the disclaimers and caveats I have been careful to write I do consider my write-ups to be "reviews."

It is not clear to me that spending multiples more time with a component will necessarily yield a different conclusion than initial conclusions. In fact, and I will leave this to the people who understand the intersection of acoustics and psychology, I think that such immersion might give rise to other issues and misleading tendencies such as "assimilation bias," which is my term for tending to like that with which we get accustomed.

We do not know what the graph of listening time versus observational accuracy looks like. Does doubling the listening time increase the accuracy by 50% or by 5%?

Your view assumes a correlation between time spent with a component and accuracy of analysis, and I am just not sure what that correlation is. I, personally, do not believe that the observations I report would change if I listened to the systems for multiples of time longer.

2) an unfamiliar component in an unfamiliar system: I totally agree this is a big concern. We know that unless a new component is inserted into one's own, home reference system -- unless you change only one component at a time -- the value of the review is highly questionable because it is impossible to know which unfamiliar component is the driver of a particular sonic attribute I am hearing and attempting to describe.

I try to mitigate these issues by evaluating, thus far, only planar speakers with which I feel am familiar and comfortable. (I very deliberately did not write a review of the Rockport Altair or Arrakis.) Also, I try to be very circumspect about certain thoughts, and I explicitly describe certain impressions as "guesses."

Even with your valid concerns in mind I nonetheless believe the reviews in the format in which I have been conducting them have real value. Even though I am auditioning unfamiliar speakers in an unfamiliar system I only write descriptions and comments when I intuitively believe them to be truly correct. I can only do my best, which I always promise to do.

I try to be circumspect about attributing sonic attributes to the speakers or, perhaps, for example, to the amplifiers. At Avantgarde we listened to three different amplifiers on the Trios with Basshorns. Although unfamiliar with each component, I feel I could make very valid comparative observations about the relative characteristics of each of the amplifiers we auditioned.

I believe my observations, even based on only a few hours of listening, are valid. People familiar with planar speakers and, in many case more familiar with the speakers I have reviewed than I am, have seconded many of my observations.

3) wider variety of audition music: the one thing I can keep constant are my audition tracks. I audition with music I love and have played dozens and hundreds of times. Different people might come to different conclusions with different music. I help readers to calibrate their views against mine by reporting the tracks I used for audition, and disclaiming that my main interest is vocals and not classical or jazz or house, etc.

4) no "bests": I believe that by remaining comparative (relative) and not absolute the reviews retain their subjective observational value. I would never make the patently illogical mistake Peter Breuninger made in his review of the Kronos turntable in which, after comparing the Kronos to only two other turntables, he declared the Kronos the best turntable in the world. By keeping the reviews comparative to what I am auditioning and to other components with which I have long familiarity, I think I can keep the reviews legitimate and accurate. At most, I will say merely "the best I have ever heard."

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Hi Ron,

Very much as you say the real value of what you are doing is not caught up in whether what you write qualifies as an impression, a report or a review and that this is as Microstrip says more of a case of semantics. I do feel that greater depth of understanding comes through time but that might just be about me and my relatively slow rate of comprehension.

Your sharing of your listening experiences is ultimately what counts and is a valuable contribution to the forum. I'd always rather read about people's actual experiences rather than a million arguments and theories on audio design which is an experience about as tasty as reading a cook book... more tantalising than fulfilling. Praxis (knowledge with experience) is the takeaway that is forever the more satisfying morsel. Consume on and share more.

Detlof said:

I agree. I had their full complement for a while but let them go. They apealed more to the audiophile in me, but as time went on, less to the music lover in me, as I was used to live music. I found them too clean, almost stale but I admit, I was fascinated by them for quite a while for the reasons you mention.

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Detlof, I too am used to live music. Average a concert a week. Going to Bruckner 9 tomorrow, and on Friday trying to gatecrash to a sold out Cecilia Bartoli (though she requires less Spectral and more Jadis on Quads).

The Spectral, like you say, can sound stale at times, as I found with them on Wilsons (compared to Reimyo) and Rockports. Marty uses a VTL pre with his Spectral on Pipedreams, and it works incredibly well. Of all systems I have heard, only two startled me with jumps, speed, transients and slams - his and the trio with bass horns. Main reason for that could be because he uses JL subs crossovered with the Spectral, but then I compared the Spectral with the MBL amp on MBLs and I heard a familiar speed and jump. I have heard slow amps, but most high powered good amps sound equally fast, with not much to give or take on that count. The Spectral just surges ahead. I am mainly a valve guy, but if there is one SS amp I would go for it will be this. I am itching to do a shootout between a good hybrid like Lamm/Ypsilon/Thrax and Spectral to test myself.

bonzo75 said:

Detlof, I too am used to live music. Average a concert a week. Going to Bruckner 9 tomorrow, and on Friday trying to gatecrash to a sold out Cecilia Bartoli (though she requires less Spectral and more Jadis on Quads).

The Spectral, like you say, can sound stale at times, as I found with them on Wilsons (compared to Reimyo) and Rockports. Marty uses a VTL pre with his Spectral on Pipedreams, and it works incredibly well. Of all systems I have heard, only two startled me with jumps, speed, transients and slams - his and the trio with bass horns. Main reason for that could be because he uses JL subs crossovered with the Spectral, but then I compared the Spectral with the MBL amp on MBLs and I heard a familiar speed and jump. I have heard slow amps, but most high powered good amps sound equally fast, with not much to give or take on that count. The Spectral just surges ahead. I am mainly a valve guy, but if there is one SS amp I would go for it will be this. I am itching to do a shootout between a good hybrid like Lamm/Ypsilon/Thrax and Spectral to test myself.

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I truly envy you. There are so many possibilities in London to go to fine concerts. The Spectral 360s with good passive subs should indeed sound spectacular, however I'd rather stick with valves for my top end.