Audiophiles mostly aren’t music fans

[tima]

Avowed Michael Fremer groupie is very different from saying I really respect his analog reviews.

Okay. And you also said

I read all Fremer articles in detail.

That sounds like a groupie.

But it isn't about him - that's deflection. Mr.Fremer is serving as an example of a knowledgeable person who shares some of microstrip's speaker ownership preferences and publishes commentary about Wilson speakers. You seem to imply that people who review Wison speakers lack knowledge and experience because they do not hear driver 'disparity' or do not write about it and in fact find just the opposite. Perhaps you (absent ownership) do hear that, but that has zero bearing on what others hear and their knowledgeability.

Going from the MAXX 3 ($68,000/pair in 2009) to the much larger, far more costly Alexandria XLF ($210,000/pair) brought with it high expectations, all of which were met. The Alexandria was an improvement in every way—especially on top, where it sounded airier, sweeter, more relaxed, and yet more detailed. Most impressive was that such a tall stack of drivers could produce a 100% coherent, three-dimensional picture from less than 8' away, while managing to sound small or grand, depending on the recording.

Time alignment of the drivers' outputs is not the end-all and be-all of speaker design, but in my experience, once you've grown accustomed to the sort of minimal-baffle, time-aligned driver arrays produced by Wilson and Vandersteen Audio, when you then hear a flat slab speaker, you hear a flat slab, especially in nearfield listening environments like mine.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/wilson-audio-specialties-alexx-loudspeaker

 

[microstrip]

People who agree with you aren't necessarily knowledgeable.

They might prefer the sound. But inability to hear the disparity is simply a lack of knowledge/experience with more coherent speakers

No it is not. It is perhaps lack of imagination or simply we listened in appropriate systems that do not show this disparity. Or even the systems have so many good things and so coherent that this "disparity" you feel does not evidence in normal listening.

By knowledgeable people I refer to people who have great traceable experience, not those who agree with me. When addressing the XLF's I refer to people who reviewed or owned them, such as M.Fremer , J. Heilbrunn or M. Mickelson.

 

[the sound of Tao]

With all the talk about picking out drivers etc. I would like briefly point out the number of ways we can listen to music. Humans have the ability to focus their attention, which gives us a lot of flexibility and variation.
We can focus on single instruments, perhaps piano, or drums or saxophone and pretty much ignore everything else. This is the type of listening we use when playing air guitar for example
We can focus on the quality of sound, using our memory to compare sounds...for example trying to answer the question, does this trumpet, guitar or whatever sound lifelike?
We can focus on the rhythmic interplay of instruments, typically following the main rhythm highlighted by a few instruments pulling each other along.
Or we can suspend all conscious thought and focus on the entire musical composition....typically what we do when attending a live concert

However this ability does mean that I could sit through an entire concert and focus my attention on the contribution of the hall...listening for echoes and reflections if i so chose.
Similarly I could find my attention wandering and actually hear very little of the music, instead being focused on extraneous thoughts.

The same is true for hi-fi. I can focus on a great many different attributes.....tonal quality, timing, PRaT, individual drivers etc.

So here I would say is the biggest difference between music lovers and gear heads (notice I didn’t say audiophiles as I believe the posts above are enough proof that an audiophile can be both). Music lovers listen to the music....the composition, the beautiful timing, the interplay of instruments, the note shaping of great musicians....while gear heads listen to and appreciate things like sound stage, frequency extremes, PRaT, venue acoustics, recorded detail, system integration, musicality, naturalness, dynamics, silence between notes, air around instruments, tonal colour etc.

For me, the success or failure of a system lies in its ability to pull me in and engage me fully with the music, suspending conscious thought, without artefacts to break the spell and remind me that I’m listening to something synthetic. If a system can pull off that stunt, album after album, night after night I’m probably going to be a supporter. In my experience, its takes true system synergy to achieve this level of involvement and believability.....without synergy faults gradually appear and register on the conscious. True synergy is defined by the lack of a system identity, other than maybe a signature of speed, dynamics, accuracy and purity, typically qualities that don’t pall over time

I’d agree on the notion of going with a system that pulls you into the music and a lack of system identity as being the goals.

But not about constantly using our capacity to consciously focus on any part. Music, art, architecture and landscape design are more about us following to where we are led. Our part in this is more about what we sign on to listen to.

Composition in art, architecture and music is about arrangement and direction. In our engagement of the work of others we are participants and not the directors of experience. We are listeners. The best we can be is good open listeners.

So as previous experiences will alter our perceptions and modify our experience so perhaps our best role is not to focus but just to clear our minds and allow ourselves to experience the music or art or design and to fully share in the perspective of another.

Unless of course the music itself is boring in which case admiring the sound of your system or how neatly the cables are organised is actually a handy plan B.

Sometimes good recordings of poor music can clearly just lead us to focus on sound. Much like the music that many seem to play at hifi shows or when you catch up with other audiophiles who are besotted with their system sonics and intent on showcasing this when you visit.

So perhaps a good system just allows the music to come through with a lack of the disconnects that cause us to focus or be aware of the system at all... even the admiration of how beautiful, or near real or natural the system is sounding is a disconnect from the music. So music selection is critical and that is indeed the thing that is really up to us.

So if the composers and artists and architects are driving music, art and design what is driving them. I’d humbly suggest life, the physical environment, human experience and the geometry of the cosmos. We seem to imagine the system is egocentric when in truth it is ecocentric. We just ride the dragon but we certainly don’t drive it. Music is the sound of the flow of life, art is its shape and musicians and artists and architects are just filters and the storytellers and interpreters of the every thing and of the no thing.

 

[cjfrbw]

I'm so old I remember when MAXX's went on sale for $28,000 and Alexandrias cost $120,000 a pair new.

 

[Al M.]

I’d agree on the notion of going with a system that pulls you into the music and a lack of system identity as being the goals.

But not about constantly using our capacity to consciously focus on any part. Music, art, architecture and landscape design are more about us following to where we are led. Our part in this is more about what we sign on to listen to.

Composition in art, architecture and music is about arrangement and direction. In our engagement of the work of others we are participants and not the directors of experience. We are listeners. The best we can be is good open listeners.

So as previous experiences will alter our perceptions and modify our experience so perhaps our best role is not to focus but just to clear our minds and allow ourselves to experience the music or art or design and to fully share in the perspective of another.

Unless of course the music itself is boring in which case admiring the sound of your system or how neatly the cables are organised is actually a handy plan B.

Sometimes good recordings of poor music can clearly just lead us to focus on sound. Much like the music that many seem to play at hifi shows or when you catch up with other audiophiles who are besotted with their system sonics and intent on showcasing this when you visit.

So perhaps a good system just allows the music to come through with a lack of the disconnects that cause us to focus or be aware of the system at all... even the admiration of how beautiful, or near real or natural the system is sounding is a disconnect from the music. So music selection is critical and that is indeed the thing that is really up to us.

So if the composers and artists and architects are driving music, art and design what is driving them. I’d humbly suggest life, the physical environment, human experience and the geometry of the cosmos. We seem to imagine the system is egocentric when in truth it is ecocentric. We just ride the dragon but we certainly don’t drive it. Music is the sound of the flow of life, art is its shape and musicians and artists and architects are just filters and the storytellers and interpreters of the every thing and of the no thing.

Great post. I agree that as listeners we are followers, not directors of our experience, and we should clear our mind in order to prepare it to follow the music.

However, I can only follow the unfolding of a musical composition by actively and consciously focusing on it, from moment to moment, and in my mind trying to bind those moments together into an overarching experience.

Passively letting it soak in only gets you so far. The way I try to appreciate a composition, not far enough.

 

[tima]

even the admiration of how beautiful, or near real or natural the system is sounding is a disconnect from the music.

Yes, in one respect - one could say the 'pure' connection, a kind of raw limbic giving oneself to it is the only 'non-disconnect'. I think there are others. Appreciation of technique, enjoyment of the 'being there' context. it is hard to stop being an audiophile when our tendency here is toward the analytic. One could say gear-headedness is just a variety of the analytic mindset. But it's okay, it's who we are - there are many ways to enjoy music with scant mutual exclusion. The thread title is a trap to snare one into putting us in boxes.

 

[the sound of Tao]

Yes, in one respect - one could say the 'pure' connection, a kind of raw limbic giving oneself to it is the only 'non-disconnect'. I think there are others. Appreciation of technique, enjoyment of the 'being there' context. it is hard to stop being an audiophile when our tendency here is toward the analytic. One could say gear-headedness is just a variety of the analytic mindset. But it's okay, it's who we are - there are many ways to enjoy music with scant mutual exclusion. The thread title is a trap to snare one into putting us in boxes.

Ah yes, the thread title is indeed a trap to put us into boxes... beautifully observed Tim.

 

[the sound of Tao]

Great post. I agree that as listeners we are followers, not directors of our experience, and we should clear our mind in order to prepare it to follow the music.

However, I can only follow the unfolding of a musical composition by actively and consciously focusing on it, from moment to moment, and in my mind trying to bind those moments together into an overarching experience.

Passively letting it soak in only gets you so far. The way I try to appreciate a composition, not far enough.

Al yes, and I figure that is where the composition points us to awareness in a considered and sequenced way. In functional analysis of an architectural concept you can map the journey as a series of lines of desire. You direct focus to create a journey and then you map the pathways to marry to the sight lines of features and so the features and destinations and the unfolding of the experience is essentially programmed.

Where the experience is more contextualised in its nature and depth is by the personalised nature of the previous experiences that through recall can then give richer and more layered meaning to current experiences. So the music that evokes grief is given more power to people who have experienced unforgettably great grief. The elevation of the sense of joy in an uplifting passage of music can also become even more keen and heightened for those who are coming from a recent place of darkness. The fact that we are essentially feeling creatures means that we can share through music. Reasoning tends not always to lead to sharing... sometimes quite the opposite. So where we have been and where we anticipate we are going and how that makes us feel can also impact in the experience.

 

[bonzo75]

Okay. And you also said


That sounds like a groupie.

But it isn't about him - that's deflection. Mr.Fremer is serving as an example of a knowledgeable person who shares some of microstrip's speaker ownership preferences and publishes commentary about Wilson speakers. You seem to imply that people who review Wison speakers lack knowledge and experience because they do not hear driver 'disparity' or do not write about it and in fact find just the opposite. Perhaps you (absent ownership) do hear that, but that has zero bearing on what others hear and their knowledgeability.



https://www.stereophile.com/content/wilson-audio-specialties-alexx-loudspeaker

Perhaps you because of ownership twisted my words to make those comments not worth responding to. Let's move on

 

[tima]

The fact that we are essentially feeling creatures means that we can share through music. Reasoning tends not always to lead to sharing... sometimes quite the opposite. So where we have been and where we anticipate we are going and how that makes us feel can also impact in the experience.

Well said post. I enjoy when you write about architecture and landscape.

Share through music is insight. Reasoning may not always lead to sharing yet the apparent fact(?) that we can have reasoned and reasonable communication is representation of both a shared ability to reason and our efforts to share. Despite music being ineffable, or our individual experiences/feelings of it poorly communicable, we want to communicate about it through the use of our minds/words. I don't think (ha!) we are essentially feeling creatures, but both feeling and rational - the range of each being quite broad. ;-> Empty percepts, blind concepts, etc.

 

[morricab]

Yes the midrange is inverted. I presume you're talking about phase coherence. What about time coherence?

In his Alexia series 2 review, I don't recall Atkinson saying anything about strange sounds or blunted transients. While I don't go for all the awards that magazines offer, the A2 was Stereophiles product of the year.

Time coherence is not possible with the mid inverted unless one uses DSP.
I was referring to my and my friend's contemporaneous assessment of what we heard, not JAs observations.

 

[morricab]

Okay. And you also said


That sounds like a groupie.

But it isn't about him - that's deflection. Mr.Fremer is serving as an example of a knowledgeable person who shares some of microstrip's speaker ownership preferences and publishes commentary about Wilson speakers. You seem to imply that people who review Wison speakers lack knowledge and experience because they do not hear driver 'disparity' or do not write about it and in fact find just the opposite. Perhaps you (absent ownership) do hear that, but that has zero bearing on what others hear and their knowledgeability.



https://www.stereophile.com/content/wilson-audio-specialties-alexx-loudspeaker

The funny thing about this statement from MF is that while Vandersteens are time coherent, Wilsons are most definitely not. So, while i agree it is difficult to backtrack from time coherence, it Wilsons are not something to go to if one wants time coherence.

 

[the sound of Tao]

Well said post. I enjoy when you write about architecture and landscape.

Share through music is insight. Reasoning may not always lead to sharing yet the apparent fact(?) that we can have reasoned and reasonable communication is representation of both a shared ability to reason and our efforts to share. Despite music being ineffable, or our individual experiences/feelings of it poorly communicable, we want to communicate about it through the use of our minds/words. I don't think (ha!) we are essentially feeling creatures, but both feeling and rational - the range of each being quite broad. ;-> Empty percepts, blind concepts, etc.

Tim yes, some of us are greatly rational and I always very much appreciate reasonable discussion and love that this happens here and that this usually seems to come more from those with a greater appreciation of perspective. Words do seem also to then create easier distinctions. The more things are defined through words the greater the identification of possible differentiations and the greater creation of notions of separateness.

I’ll admit that after a life spent chasing enlightenment that I am more than ever less enthralled by the ultimate effectiveness of awareness. I believe it’s just the turning point. I would put compassion as the greater value well beyond enlightenment. I do believe that feelings can also be the higher consciousness once we finally manage to let go of fear and the urge to separateness. Nirvana may just be as simple as a fuzzy big group hug that determines we are going to finally stop being unkind to each other and making fun of each other’s gear choices

If at initiation we start to separate outwards to discover ourselves, we name things to first create distinctions so we can see ourselves... then in the finding of who we are we then develop even greater perspective and realise that there are less and less distinctions and then ultimately we grow to dissolve into a complete perspective of an understanding of all things that then negates all ideas of separateness. I would consider music to be at the very end of all things, the highest form of communication and at the point of immersion and dissolution beyond any separation. Perhaps one day we will all just stop debating and arguing and just start to sing something truly wonderful... much as the whales have learned to. PS am I having a hippy moment. Back to the music lol. Tonight it’s jazz.

 

[audioarcher]

"Audiophiles are in love with sound. Music fans are in love with music.

It’s not the same. Not even close.

And I am a music fan. Hands down. And proud.

for years I’ve had a pair of large advents, a marantz 2240b, a gold ring turntable, and adcom 555.

And it’s been great. Maybe cost me 1500 bucks in all.

I decided to step up and got a set of mordaunt short high end speakers, a classe amp, halo parasound phono preamp, and an avid turntable. TOTALLY broke the bank for me. Used it was a 10k investment.


And it was a huge mistake.

The good stuff sounds AMAZING. BUT, the average stuff sounds awful. Zero middle ground. That’s just dumb. Made me listening to only certain music. And I became searching for what didn’t sound like crap. The opposite of what I hoped.

I was so disappointed. I am selling all the new high end stuff and going right back with my old set up. A setup that makes 95% of my albums just kick ass. The high end stuff made like 15% of my collection listenable.

Apparently I am not an audiophile despite having played professional guitar all over the world. And recording in the best studios in the USA. And being a tone junky.

Eye opener."

Well, you could just have both systems. If you have room for them. You don't have to choose one or the other, unless money and or space is an issue. Which of course it is for most.

Resolving gear is going to uncover the warts of the recordings. Unfortunately most music was not recorded well for a number of reasons. That said some gear can sound resolving but really just has a tipped up high frequency response. Which can be fatiquing. There is so much different sounding gear out there. You can recreate whatever sound that pleases you. If you have the money, time, and patience. Or you can take the blue pill and forget about all this nonsense.

 

[tima]

Time coherence is not possible with the mid inverted unless one uses DSP.
I was referring to my and my friend's contemporaneous assessment of what we heard, not JAs observations.

Maybe I misunderstood - I thought you were saying the Stereophile review was confirming what you and your friend heard.

Generally I don't try to explain what I hear as a direct function of a component's physical characteristics. Others may - okay; I think Atkinson does and Fremer does not though sometimes they will play on what the other said as an explanation of their own comments. Electrical and phase characteristics are not my basis for evaluating a speaker's ability wrt its sound playing music, rather I evaluate by what I hear - the sound of music as it arrives to my ears. Maybe its a matter of where one wants to place emphasis. Listening to music with modern Wilson speakers does not cause me to hear driver disparity unless I specifically focus on listening to what frequencies come from which driver - often by moving closer to one speaker - at which point I'm no longer listening to music.

Edit: Wilson generally avoids talking about time and phase relative to coherence. Dave Wilson talked in terms of synchronicity. "The placement of the drivers relative to each other affects the synchronicity of the alignment of the leading edge of the transient." I take this as talking about where the frequencies are when they arrive at the ear relative to time. I take that as transit time, differences of microseconds.

 

[Folsom]

Don't worry Tima, time coherence isn't important or even really real. The reality is that phase changes all over the place as a driver moves and plays different volumes, so it's impossible to have "time coherence" when each driver is a moving target to the next.

 

[morricab]

Maybe I misunderstood - I thought you were saying the Stereophile review was confirming what you and your friend heard.

Generally I don't try to explain what I hear as a direct function of a component's physical characteristics. Others may - okay; I think Atkinson does and Fremer does not though sometimes they will play on what the other said as an explanation of their own comments. Electrical and phase characteristics are not my basis for evaluating a speaker's ability wrt its sound playing music, rather I evaluate by what I hear - the sound of music as it arrives to my ears. Maybe its a matter of where one wants to place emphasis. Listening to music with modern Wilson speakers does not cause me to hear driver disparity unless I specifically focus on listening to what frequencies come from which driver - often by moving closer to one speaker - at which point I'm no longer listening to music.

Edit: Wilson generally avoids talking about time and phase relative to coherence. Dave Wilson talked in terms of synchronicity. "The placement of the drivers relative to each other affects the synchronicity of the alignment of the leading edge of the transient." I take this as talking about where the frequencies are when they arrive at the ear relative to time. I take that as transit time, differences of microseconds.

I was saying that we heard what I later learned was a fact about the midrange. I was also responding to your putting Wilson in the same sentence as Vandesteen wrt. time coherence.

After spending a long time with full-range stats and other time coherent speakers I am sensitive to hearing disparate drivers not blending perfectly. I have heard some demos that have also convinced me of the improvement that can be had from making a speaker coherent; both at shows/showrooms and at home (with digital alignment).

Wilson can use whatever blah blah they want...it doesn’t make their speakers time coherent (or coincident as you might also see it called). For that matter Tannnoys are not either despite being physically coincident.

 

[morricab]

D

Don't worry Tima, time coherence isn't important or even really real. The reality is that phase changes all over the place as a driver moves and plays different volumes, so it's impossible to have "time coherence" when each driver is a moving target to the next.

Disagree and have done enough experiments and heard other convincing demos that showed all else being equal the time coherence brought big benefits in imaging, soundstage, palpability and realistic sound transients.

 

[Folsom]

D

Disagree and have done enough experiments and heard other convincing demos that showed all else being equal the time coherence brought big benefits in imaging, soundstage, palpability and realistic sound transients.

I'm not saying you haven't heard something but was it time coherence? Meh. If you wanted true time coherence you'd have to incorporate all the phase data for each driver from the same relative spot, and then you'd have to have DSP to adjust the entire spectrum to fit perfect phase. Then the DSP would have to floating calculate changes in volume to changes in phase, making a little bit of lag in the source to speeakers.

 

[morricab]

I'm not saying you haven't heard something but was it time coherence? Meh. If you wanted true time coherence you'd have to incorporate all the phase data for each driver from the same relative spot, and then you'd have to have DSP to adjust the entire spectrum to fit perfect phase. Then the DSP would have to floating calculate changes in volume to changes in phase, making a little bit of lag in the source to speeakers.

Have you ever seen an impulse response and/or a step response? If you can make the step response look like a right triangle then you have time coherence well to within what a human can perceive (a few microseconds). You don't need to go to the extreme you are suggesting; however, I heard a demo once with a pair of B&W N800s (or 802s...not sure), which are most definitely not phase or time coherent. They first played a piece of music with the speaker as is. Then they corrected the phase time response of the speaker digitally by altering the recording to the inverse of the phase shifts in the speaker and adjusting for driver offset to a specific listening spot. It was gobsmacking the difference.

Another demo was with a Dali Euphonia speaker and the TACT RCS, which corrects for frequency and/or phase/time. Corrected only for phase/time there was still a very audible improvement over the stock speaker. Now, these systems are correcting the response with a few Hz resolution so it is taking into account the kinds of things you are mentioning.

I personally have done time correction with a Behringer DCX 2496 using measurement software (Sound easy) to look at the impulse response of the whole system. You can see clearly when the drivers are time aligned as the impulse response of the speaker gets significantly shorter and the sound improvement is obvious. Frequency response was not altered. The little differences the driver itself might create are not really relevant unless you have some huge resonances. This is an empirical way to get the sound waves actually created by the drivers (regardless of their electrical properties) to arrive at a given location at the same time. Of course the better the drivers the less resonances, breakup and ringing will occur and the sound will improve accordingly. I would still design with the best drivers I could for a given price point as it doesn't save bad drivers or bad box designs. As I said, all things being equal (they have to be equal though or other factors might dominate) the time coherent version of two otherwise equal designs will sound significantly better, IMO.