Those of you who have followed my previous two threads probably have a pretty good idea where I am coming from with respect to the relationship of hi fi to music. I want a high-end audio system to suspend my belief that I am only listening to hi fi and help me achieve a closer connection to music. After spending some time reading responses from WBF, including some of those in response to the threads I’ve posted, I believe that there are quite a few audiophiles out there who are pursuing the hobby for the same reasons I have made it my career. It’s also true that some are putting a sound system together for the purpose of hearing very specific sonic qualities that are not particularly related to a live music listening experience. There are also others who like music, but are just as thrilled by experimentation with equipment and measurements. Others like the idea of building their own. Whatever the reason, all are welcome. I just want to find ways to make the hobby more welcoming to more people, including the people in our own households.
My second thread discussed the power of acoustic music to establish a gold standard for listening evaluations. The thread went “crickets” after I posted the photograph of the fundamental frequencies of all the instruments in the orchestra. Does it mean the chart is simply true and not worth further noting within the context of a hi fi, or does it indicate that at least some readers basically don’t think this information is very germane to their specific interests?
Whatever the reason, I will press on . . .
Ninety-percent of the people in the world love music. Most listen to it an average of 32.1 hours per week! At least half of the world’s music lovers are women. Why aren’t more women interested in audiophile-quality home music systems?
There are of course the usual assortment of cultural impediments to consider such as many women juggle multiple family and career responsibilities and consequently do not have the luxury of the extra time required to pursue sonic perfection as a hobby. Also, more than a few women do not have the financial independence or resources to pursue such an expensive hobby.
These cultural, economic, and societal barriers have fallen away to a limited extent over the past four decades, and I now see more women interested in hi fi on their own, and today, more audiophiles share their interests in hi fi with their significant others. We still have a long way to go. In 1993, I wrote a chapter about the reasons I thought women are not that interested in hi fi as a hobby in The Search for Musical Ecstasy by the legendary Harvey “Gizmo” Rosenberg. Harvey was one of the greatest high-end audio spiritual advisors I have ever known. Marty astutely quoted Harvey in his post on my last thread: “For the first time in the history of mankind, we now live in an era where music reproduction can achieve a reasonable facsimile of the real thing.”
Even if a woman is able to overcome today’s lingering cultural and financial impediments, how likely is it that a woman would be interested in taking up the hobby? Most women have never been exposed to audiophile-quality home music systems, so they don’t know what they’re missing, and of those who have been exposed, I think it’s highly possible that they think that audiophilia is really not worth pursuing because what they hear is so far removed from what they know music sounds like.
In 1990, I said: “I would really rather listen to a decent table radio than many high-end audio systems.”
Not much has changed since then, but I now know more about what contributes to this schism between hi fi as a hobby and music as an experience. We also have far more component choices that are capable of suspending our belief that we are only listening to a hi fi. Harvey wanted me to “inspire men to come out of their ‘hardware closet’ and start having some fun expressing their feelings about their art form.” I have taken his words to heart.
SOME ADVICE
I think that choosing a system of components and playing the system at volume levels that fit the acoustic properties and limitations of the listening environment is a good place to start. Where and how one plans to set up a system has more to do with its capacity to provide compellingly musical sound than the choice of the components themselves. Most untreated rooms do not handle high and low frequencies particularly well. The question becomes, then, of all the frequencies a group of musicians is capable of producing, which frequency ranges within that span are most essential for music reproduction enjoyment? Check out the red outlined rectangle on the frequency range of instruments in the attached new chart which came from an instructional website for mixing engineers. The rectangle encompasses approximately 100 Hz – 1000 Hz — the range where a sound system needs to be the most musically dense to be convincing. (Yes, a good table radio does an OK job in that range, but a well-balanced, home high-end audio system is certainly able to do a better job than a table radio.)
According to this chart, Ron R is correct. The densest part of the music occurs from the mid bass up through the midrange. You probably all know by now that I think that many high-end audio systems are not as musically dense as is necessary to achieve a musically compelling listening experience.
Bell Labs had critical frequency ranges figured out years ago. Their noteworthy engineer Henry Ott said in his book Noise Reduction Techniques in Electronic Systems that a system’s bandwidth should be limited to its application to reduce noise; i.e., unwanted frequencies. Peter A said in a post that “We can even identify someone who’s on the other end of a phone call.” That is primarily due to the fact that Bell Labs figured out that phone frequency band transmission needed to be limited in order to make voices intelligible.
Likewise, a home music system needs to have frequency band transmission that concentrates the music’s critical energy in a manner and at volumes that the listening room can support. Most systems are set up in average sized living spaces with draperies (if any), rugs, and furnishings doing at least some of the job of absorbing spurious high frequency information. Typical rooms are not large enough to support low frequencies, and the walls, floors, and ceilings are not stiff and rigid enough to prevent some low frequencies from escaping the space all together and for others to become amplified by room resonance. It is very achievable, however, to do a pretty good job reproducing 100 Hz – 1000 Hz in typical home listening spaces. With a little attention to room treatment one can even reduce spurious high frequency reflections above 1000 Hz to achieve a spatial presentation of music on its stage on quite a convincing level.
If one is careful with room set up, and one also has control over the volume of frequencies reproduced below 100 Hz, one can also achieve a semblance of low frequency response in a typical living space that could enhance the illusion that one is listening to live music. Large, floor-standing, full-range speakers and powerful amplifiers are usually not a good fit in most living spaces if having a music experience is a priority. Out-of-control low frequencies cloud the rest of the music, and because most of the music sounds clouded with out-of-control lower frequencies, achieving “you-are-there” details often means listening at volume levels that are louder than the listening space can really support.
As discussed previously, the pursuit of details has an insidious way of taking over as a musical priority in h fi circles. Perhaps this is because hi fi does not provide the visual cues one experiences when listening to music live. There seems to be a natural tendency to want to hear more spatial details in a hi fi than one would normally hear in a live music setting. By nature of the composite sonic weight that emanates from an instrumental ensemble and the fact that the critical 100 – 1000 Hz frequencies are relatively large and slow sound waves, details in live music are more a part of the whole musical fabric. By seeking “detail” information on a level beyond what is actually present on the recorded source or on a level that is beyond what the listening room can support, we lose sight of the music’s message.
CONCLUSIONS
If the system doesn’t play music on a convincing level, then is it any wonder that some people have a hard time seeing the point to high-end audio? I believe that this is about a lot more than the notion that spouses don’t want to look at an ugly assortment of hi fi gear in living spaces. The larger reason they often send their hi-fi-loving partners packing to the basement with all their gear has more to do with the fact that they don’t really like the way the systems sound.
If hunkering in a basement cave fiddling with equipment is what it’s all about for you, carry on and enjoy. If you would like your hobby to become more inclusive, then I think the best option is to find a knowledgeable specialty audio dealer who has years of experience putting together good sounding and good looking hi fi systems in real-life listening environments. A good specialty retailer will work with you and your significant other to make a plan that takes into account musical interests, budget, and the physical realities of the listening space. Even if overnight you can’t afford the time and money to transform your current system into a dream system that the whole family will enjoy, you can eventually get there with a good plan.
I want to know more about the progress we have made or not made to make hi fi a more inclusive hobby with the important people in our lives. Tell us about your experiences, please.
My second thread discussed the power of acoustic music to establish a gold standard for listening evaluations. The thread went “crickets” after I posted the photograph of the fundamental frequencies of all the instruments in the orchestra. Does it mean the chart is simply true and not worth further noting within the context of a hi fi, or does it indicate that at least some readers basically don’t think this information is very germane to their specific interests?
Whatever the reason, I will press on . . .
Ninety-percent of the people in the world love music. Most listen to it an average of 32.1 hours per week! At least half of the world’s music lovers are women. Why aren’t more women interested in audiophile-quality home music systems?
There are of course the usual assortment of cultural impediments to consider such as many women juggle multiple family and career responsibilities and consequently do not have the luxury of the extra time required to pursue sonic perfection as a hobby. Also, more than a few women do not have the financial independence or resources to pursue such an expensive hobby.
These cultural, economic, and societal barriers have fallen away to a limited extent over the past four decades, and I now see more women interested in hi fi on their own, and today, more audiophiles share their interests in hi fi with their significant others. We still have a long way to go. In 1993, I wrote a chapter about the reasons I thought women are not that interested in hi fi as a hobby in The Search for Musical Ecstasy by the legendary Harvey “Gizmo” Rosenberg. Harvey was one of the greatest high-end audio spiritual advisors I have ever known. Marty astutely quoted Harvey in his post on my last thread: “For the first time in the history of mankind, we now live in an era where music reproduction can achieve a reasonable facsimile of the real thing.”
Even if a woman is able to overcome today’s lingering cultural and financial impediments, how likely is it that a woman would be interested in taking up the hobby? Most women have never been exposed to audiophile-quality home music systems, so they don’t know what they’re missing, and of those who have been exposed, I think it’s highly possible that they think that audiophilia is really not worth pursuing because what they hear is so far removed from what they know music sounds like.
In 1990, I said: “I would really rather listen to a decent table radio than many high-end audio systems.”
Not much has changed since then, but I now know more about what contributes to this schism between hi fi as a hobby and music as an experience. We also have far more component choices that are capable of suspending our belief that we are only listening to a hi fi. Harvey wanted me to “inspire men to come out of their ‘hardware closet’ and start having some fun expressing their feelings about their art form.” I have taken his words to heart.
SOME ADVICE
I think that choosing a system of components and playing the system at volume levels that fit the acoustic properties and limitations of the listening environment is a good place to start. Where and how one plans to set up a system has more to do with its capacity to provide compellingly musical sound than the choice of the components themselves. Most untreated rooms do not handle high and low frequencies particularly well. The question becomes, then, of all the frequencies a group of musicians is capable of producing, which frequency ranges within that span are most essential for music reproduction enjoyment? Check out the red outlined rectangle on the frequency range of instruments in the attached new chart which came from an instructional website for mixing engineers. The rectangle encompasses approximately 100 Hz – 1000 Hz — the range where a sound system needs to be the most musically dense to be convincing. (Yes, a good table radio does an OK job in that range, but a well-balanced, home high-end audio system is certainly able to do a better job than a table radio.)
According to this chart, Ron R is correct. The densest part of the music occurs from the mid bass up through the midrange. You probably all know by now that I think that many high-end audio systems are not as musically dense as is necessary to achieve a musically compelling listening experience.
Bell Labs had critical frequency ranges figured out years ago. Their noteworthy engineer Henry Ott said in his book Noise Reduction Techniques in Electronic Systems that a system’s bandwidth should be limited to its application to reduce noise; i.e., unwanted frequencies. Peter A said in a post that “We can even identify someone who’s on the other end of a phone call.” That is primarily due to the fact that Bell Labs figured out that phone frequency band transmission needed to be limited in order to make voices intelligible.
Likewise, a home music system needs to have frequency band transmission that concentrates the music’s critical energy in a manner and at volumes that the listening room can support. Most systems are set up in average sized living spaces with draperies (if any), rugs, and furnishings doing at least some of the job of absorbing spurious high frequency information. Typical rooms are not large enough to support low frequencies, and the walls, floors, and ceilings are not stiff and rigid enough to prevent some low frequencies from escaping the space all together and for others to become amplified by room resonance. It is very achievable, however, to do a pretty good job reproducing 100 Hz – 1000 Hz in typical home listening spaces. With a little attention to room treatment one can even reduce spurious high frequency reflections above 1000 Hz to achieve a spatial presentation of music on its stage on quite a convincing level.
If one is careful with room set up, and one also has control over the volume of frequencies reproduced below 100 Hz, one can also achieve a semblance of low frequency response in a typical living space that could enhance the illusion that one is listening to live music. Large, floor-standing, full-range speakers and powerful amplifiers are usually not a good fit in most living spaces if having a music experience is a priority. Out-of-control low frequencies cloud the rest of the music, and because most of the music sounds clouded with out-of-control lower frequencies, achieving “you-are-there” details often means listening at volume levels that are louder than the listening space can really support.
As discussed previously, the pursuit of details has an insidious way of taking over as a musical priority in h fi circles. Perhaps this is because hi fi does not provide the visual cues one experiences when listening to music live. There seems to be a natural tendency to want to hear more spatial details in a hi fi than one would normally hear in a live music setting. By nature of the composite sonic weight that emanates from an instrumental ensemble and the fact that the critical 100 – 1000 Hz frequencies are relatively large and slow sound waves, details in live music are more a part of the whole musical fabric. By seeking “detail” information on a level beyond what is actually present on the recorded source or on a level that is beyond what the listening room can support, we lose sight of the music’s message.
CONCLUSIONS
If the system doesn’t play music on a convincing level, then is it any wonder that some people have a hard time seeing the point to high-end audio? I believe that this is about a lot more than the notion that spouses don’t want to look at an ugly assortment of hi fi gear in living spaces. The larger reason they often send their hi-fi-loving partners packing to the basement with all their gear has more to do with the fact that they don’t really like the way the systems sound.
If hunkering in a basement cave fiddling with equipment is what it’s all about for you, carry on and enjoy. If you would like your hobby to become more inclusive, then I think the best option is to find a knowledgeable specialty audio dealer who has years of experience putting together good sounding and good looking hi fi systems in real-life listening environments. A good specialty retailer will work with you and your significant other to make a plan that takes into account musical interests, budget, and the physical realities of the listening space. Even if overnight you can’t afford the time and money to transform your current system into a dream system that the whole family will enjoy, you can eventually get there with a good plan.
I want to know more about the progress we have made or not made to make hi fi a more inclusive hobby with the important people in our lives. Tell us about your experiences, please.
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