The Japanese amp/high end amp demo was set up by a group of skeptical objectivists, and was written up at the time, I think in the JAES but it's been a while so I am not sure of that, I could probably find out for sure. And jeez, what in the world would make anyone think a high end amp maker would do something like this? As for differences, I tell you that even the hardest core believers out there would be astounded by how many "huge" differences disappear in even a sighted level matched test, let alone in a single or double blind test. Which leaves you with the question, if these differences can disappear with simple level matching.....I remember doing a test back when the little company Audio Alchemy was hot. They had this inexpensive DAC (DAC In The Box) that got good reviews as being far better than any mass market CD players internal DAC, though of course not as good as this or that exotic DAC. I set up a test, and damned if it didn't sound a bit better, or at least different, than three mass market items, a Sony DAT, Denon, and Philips. When I went about level matching, I noticed the DITB was about 0.4 dB hotter than the others. When leveled, the difference went away even sighted. The human ear does not hear small loudness differences as differences in volume, rather it perceives them as differences in tone, imaging, etc. I believe this was a deliberate design choice by the DITB manufacturer. And I don't blame them, a business exists to survive and make money, and hopefully to deliver a good product. The little DAC was well made, and a good value for what it was, regardless of whether an external DAC made any sense from a performance perspective. Also, never assume that a high end product is competently designed. Some do indeed sound different because they have rather horrendous response aberrations resulting from poor design. A particular YBA CD player sticks out in this regard, yet some people raved about it.
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Jeff Rowland did something similar when he got criticized for using ICEpower in his amps.
Biggest problem I see in all this is the quality of the media.
Unless you have certain recording labels, its all a waste of time and money.
I can play certain albums in a BS5/BL5 combo and get completely blown away. On other albums, its just "uuh!".
Not sure how any cable, isolation pad, wooden stylii or valve would be able to polish the turd that is a poor recording. (And I fear with compressed music, portable play systems and little white earphones...they are the majority now of all recordings.
Absolutely.
Most music today is mastered to complete rubbish.
My wife often asks me why (when I'm "actively" listening) so often listen to the same music... Well of my music collection of around 700 CD's I reckon about 5% is of really good mastering and audio quality.
The problem with compressed music is referred as "Brickwalling", slamming the levels as close to 0 dB as possible. It certainly fits some undergenres of modern techno, but not rock music.
Hi!
The word audiophile was actually invented at the publication of the French review "L'Audiophile" in 1977. The noun was duly registered by Edouard Pastor, the publisher, a member of Jean Hiraga's team. These guys were among the first back then in 1977 to show that components may have their own "soundprint" and also to question the influence of cables. They also wrote articles about the influence of the listening room, phonic isolation... It was very influential here in France and beyond!
As for me I used to be an audiophile, believing in all this blindfoldly, just because of my reading this review (until its demise in 1995) for so long, not to mention trips to the Maison de L'Audiophile in Paris, a place where you could actually listen to their DIY equipment and buy the components to build it! Mr Hiraga being of Japanese origin, this often meant special Japanese components unavailable anywhere else. And you could meet the Man Himself!
It had me build speakers, valve equipment, etc. There always was, beyond theoretical articles, a clear DIY aspect to the review. I learnt a lot.
B&O was refered to from time to time. The Beolab 5000 is an example.
Now I enjoy the music more than the equipment of course, and I do believe snake oil has made businessmen richer and credulous buyers poorer, even though some of them have certainly made technology progress.
Non-audiophile brands like Philips, the real inventors at component level, brought a lot to the community. B&O, at a higher level, did the same.
It's ironic that, after being given the best medium to date for delivery of music to the end user, CD, with flat power response, outstanding bass, channel separation, and dynamic range, that the music industry would use that to deliver overly compressed crap that wouldn't stress the reproducing ability of a 78 rpm record.
Good CDs, done by engineers that care, are amazing things, most music, not so much.
Chartz, what you describe is what has come to be called, at least here in the US, as the "ultra-fi" community. It is usually recognized by the use of very niche technologies, many of which are for the most part based on now obsolete ideas, single ended tube amps, single driver speakers, etc. At least for you and most who follow this there is a significant amount of DIY stuff, which leads to individual craftsmanship and pride, and a fair amount of learning about electronics. I can respect that a lot more than the boutique audiophile who buys whatever the flavor of the month is, passive vs. active hobby so to speak.
I know a fair number of these folks, a friend of mine uses a very obscure Italian SE triode amp and Japanese backhorns, large things, with a very tweaky Fostex 8 inch full range. Pricey stuff, very cool looking, sounds pretty good but IMO my B&O sounds better and is certainly easier to use.
You make a very astute observation regarding the contributions by the large companies like Philips, Sony, etc. who have the money and engineering staffs capable of working on the chip level to bring us better A/D and D/A's, digital processing chips and algorithms, etc. Some niche market guru winding single ended transformer coils or such will not contribute as much to the advancement of sound quality. But, as we see with modern recordings, advancement of sound quality is often at odds with what the musicians and recording engineers actually do with it sadly.
Yes Jeff, CD done properly will return amazing results. It is a crying shame that so many recordings are made so badly today, with lots of compression and equalization, when the signal should be kept pure. Such people claim artistic creation (you know, c rap "music") but that's another subject.
I have old LPs from 1959-1964 which still sound amazing, and I wonder what those great engineers would have achieved with today's techniques.
There are of course great sound technicians today, but they seem to work more in the classical and jazz business anyway.
I didn't know the "ultra-fi" term, here they are just audiophiles, directly descending from the aforementioned review trend initiated more than 30 years ago.
"Popular" music has traditionally suffered from poor studio work, and tailoring to sound good on boomboxes, radios, and cheap car systems ala the use of the old Horrortones (Auratones) to test the mix on. Some artists are exceptions, Steely Dan being one, and lately a lot of remasters of older rock have come out that are quite good, including Steely Dan, ZZ Top and of course the re-release of the Beatles works, which are amazingly good.
I think if anything what passes for pop music today is recorded worse than it ever has been, though as you say jazz and classical still strive for good standards. In the past, there were labels which did audiophile recordings, very well mastered and recorded music, often though of artists of dubious talent. There's a long history of audiophile records that are wonderfully recorded of music no one would want to listen to! But there too fortunately a number of these labels have actually gotten better and better artists. I seem to see a lot of good jazz recorded on small labels.
Back in the day, the old Columbia classical recordings were and remain legendary. I recall reading about the recording engineers using reverb rooms to add life to the recordings, since back then anything like digital hall effects were about 50 years out. They used various rooms, each had an Altec 402 coax speaker in one end, and a microphone at the other, and each room had different acoustic treatments. Some were hard finished and live, some had various types of padding, even to the point of some being pressurized with nitrogen or partially evacuated if I recall. They used these to add reverb to the recordings, hall effects, etc. and they were finally torn down sadly. It would have been interesting to characterize these using digital techniques so they could be captured for posterity.
I've got some of the ultra-fi geekness myself, it's how I indulge the hobbiest part since my main system is stable. I have a small 6L6 based SE amp, and am looking into a pair of back horn speakers from Tang Band. I have a small pair of speakers using 3 inch full range TB's, with bamboo cone fiber woofers. Sound pretty decent for what they are. I want to build a Dada Darling amp but have to wait till I get more time and my bench cleared of other projects (trying to restore a Citation 11 preamp, fix my old McIntosh preamp, etc.).
For those who can read French...
link 1977-88
http://www.asrr.org/biblioteca/Revue%20Audiophile/index2.html 1988-95
I have a lot of those Columbia classical records from the late 50 and early 60's I even have a Columbia Stereo effects test record from that era.
Another great set of recordings from that era were the RCA "Living Stereo" Lp's. I just love the sound they produce.
I also have the original master CD set for the Beatles that came out back in 86 or so. They did a good job on that digital remastering as well.
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