What is Your Test for Comparing Two Audio Components?

[bonzo75]

Allow me to suggest another moment for learning for you. Just accept that you overstated a position.

No I didn’t. You are talking BS if you are using these examples as reference for amplified classical. There is no amplified classical in RAH. You google something and post it. There is nothing to learn from someone so intellectually dishonest and inexperienced

 

[pk_LA]

No I didn’t. You are talking BS if you are using these examples as reference for amplified classical. There is no amplified classical in RAH. You google something and post it. There is nothing to learn from someone so intellectually dishonest and inexperienced

My apology. You are always balanced and righteous in your commentary.

 

[bonzo75]

My apology. You are always balanced and righteous in your commentary.

Blocked, won’t be reading

 

[PYP]

Concert hall sound is VERY lively compared to what - lively home system sound?


Never happened







The halls you go to form an acoustical.memory template. No one tries to replicate the sound of a particular hall. If you read a designer or reviewer saying wow, I realized I was hearing the sound of Carnegie or Vienna, he is doing that for drama. It just tells you what is acceptable and what is not. Like if you knew Italian food like an Italian, you would avoid Olive Garden, and you would know what works for your palate as genuine, even though it might not be exactly cooked like your mum/grandmum did.

The new Carnegie was VERY lively compared to the old Carnegie.

Did happen. Had to be there.

Real Italian food depends upon the region in Italy, as we know. And if it is seafood, where your restaurant is located is essential. Besides, when your grandma pulls some garlic from her own garden, there isn't going to be anything like that in any restaurant.

 

[bonzo75]

Besides, when your grandma pulls some garlic from her own garden, there isn't going to be anything like that in any restaurant.

Point is you are not trying to replicate that grandma cooking, just use your palate developed on that cooking to tell you what is good and what to avoid like olive garden

 

[PYP]

as for Carnegie per ChatGPT 5: The Hall's natural reverb and sound projection qualities can become "weaknesses" when amplified music, especially loud bass and drums, is introduced.

So? Are you old codgers still thinking that any hall using amplification are 'not what they used to be'

Perhaps ChatGPT 5 isn't hallucinating this time. Makes sense to me. When they re-designed it, the sound projection was too much for me. Adding amplified music would be worse.

Hey, who you calling an old codger (said the old codger)? Our ears aren't what they used to be either.

I'm not sure what the obsession with finding realistic sound in the concert hall. You know real music when encountered in a mall, or restaurant, or parking lot or subway station. Now you know what real music sounds like and you know it cannot be attained at home.

 

[PYP]

Point is you are not trying to replicate that grandma cooking, just use your palate developed on that cooking to tell you what is good and what to avoid like olive garden

Hey, we finally agree on something!

 

[Elliot G.]

The new Carnegie was VERY lively compared to the old Carnegie.

Did happen. Had to be there.

Real Italian food depends upon the region in Italy, as we know. And if it is seafood, where your restaurant is located is essential. Besides, when your grandma pulls some garlic from her own garden, there isn't going to be anything like that in any restaurant.

The "new" Carnegie got lots of negative press and opinions when it reopened

 

[PYP]

The "new" Carnegie got lots of negative press and opinions when it reopened

and then did people start to get used to it? No option, I suppose. Still is Carnegie hall, after all. Some of it is just the vibe.

And everyone knows how to get there...

 

[PYP]

It’s very much like raising a bonsai tree: small enough to keep indoors, yet when you look closely, it still resembles the real thing up to each and every detail.

and it needs a lot of upkeep? Just like our setups?

 

[microstrip]

IMO listening to live music should be looked as a tool, not as a reference.

The live experience is much more complete and rich that sound reproduction, we learn there things that otherwise would be ignored and never taken care in sound reproduction - particular things that will make our listening more enjoyable if we manage to recreate them in our systems.

 

[PeterA]

If only the music mattered and not the sound, then why would you have a preference for analog, tubes and horns?


On the contrary, sound is extremely important. Some setups get closer to live music than others, and in those cases, you—or anyone who loves music—feel more engaged and emotionally connected. That’s why the sound of an audio system is crucial: it directly determines the level of enjoyment.

And it doesn’t have to sound exactly like real music—just the closer it gets, the better it sounds.

I completely agree. But we all know the power of music because we can be engaged by the right song over a car radio. The sound is the stones on which you walk along the path to get to the destination of music.

 

[hopkins]

Nothing to accept. Your home system is not a reference, the concert hall sound is. The fact that you have got used to your colourations at home, and your acoustic memory is defined by what you listen regularly, makes you think the concert hall sound is etched in comparison.

You assume people don’t have intimate knowledge of « unamplified acoustic instruments » unless they have a yearly subscription to their local symphonic orchestra and brag about it on a forum or on their personal website?

On the other hand, do you really believe that all people who do have intimate knowledge of music performances (for example, musicians, music critics, etc…) will necessarily share your opinions about which systems best reproduce such performances?

Even worse, do you think anyone with extensive experience is going to watch your YouTube channel and reach the conclusion that any of the systems you record provide an accurate representation of a live event?

If you do, you need to get your head examined

 

[microstrip]

(...) On the contrary, sound is extremely important. Some setups get closer to live music than others, and in those cases, you—or anyone who loves music—feel more engaged and emotionally connected. That’s why the sound of an audio system is crucial: it directly determines the level of enjoyment. (...)

You are addressing the fundamental issues - the emotional connection and the enjoyment. But there is no evidence anywhere that a system "closer to live music" gives us more enjoyment.

And it doesn’t have to sound exactly like real music—just the closer it gets, the better it sounds.

Not IMO. It is known that sound reproduction does not aim at creating a physical facsimile of the real experience.

 

[the sound of Tao]

We are referring to classical here. The Max Richter concert you referred to, he was playing electric guitar?

Contemporary classical can be amplified but is not a reference

A pre concert meal at Olive garden would be great food match for an amplified classical concert… err yum not.

 

[Tuckers]

...and the bonsai, a highly curated version of reality. Probably our hifi rooms fit that concept as well. A stylized version of reality.

I like this metaphor, I'm going to start using it

 

[bonzo75]

But there is no evidence anywhere that a system "closer to live music" gives us more enjoyment.

lol how was this “no evidence” established? Do you have the methodology of the randomised trial and the profile of people involved in the control groups?

 

[mtemur]

But there is no evidence anywhere that a system "closer to live music" gives us more enjoyment.

Opposite is also true. There is no evidence that a system “closer to live music” doesn’t give us more enjoyment.

Not IMO. It is known that sound reproduction does not aim at creating a physical facsimile of the real experience.

Known by who? I believe sound reproduction aims reproducing a facsimile of the live experience, actually that is for most of us and probably for most of the manufacturers.

 

[bonzo75]

Known by who?

By micro and the experts he talks to and reads on Google. Since long. Unless you take the opposite side when he will quote the opposite

 

[andromedaaudio]

Lets narrow the 2 component discussion down to a TT versus a digital source device ... get the fire works going again on WBF