erin wrote:
Aleg,
it’s interesting discussion to have.
The problems I see with listing your gear is:
• Other people might not have heard your gear. Therefore can have no point of reference
• People have incorrectly preconceived ideas about your gear.
• Published reviews of your gear are inconsistent with your own personal findings.
• What if your gear is DIY? – Nobody else has heard it.
• What if your gear is modified?
• What if you gear cost $5?
• What if your gear cost $300,000? What does the cost matter really? Will people judge because of the cost?
• So many possible combinations of gear, no one can possibly know what component X sounds when driving speaker Y, fed with source Z
• How big is your room?
• Please list the room modes?
• Anyone got a trace of their room?
• Equalised or non-equalised?
• Passive or active crossover?
At the end of the day, we are all discussing sound – our own perception of it from our own different systems. When someone writes on a forum that they can hear no difference between X and Y, which are different, then I make my own judgement regarding their hearing and their system. This is for all of us to do privately.
With regard to anything to do with my audio system, if I change something or anything, I can usually hear a difference, and these days try to qualify my own observations by going back to previously used gear, or software, or cables or whatever to gain some perspective. To gain perspective is very important! Are other people going back and trying older versions of MQN JLP etc?
Sometimes things do sound a little different. It is very important for the individual to decide if this difference is an important difference, or an unimportant difference.
If someone says something sounds better, it is up to them to say why. If they are able to say “ I hear more microdetails and vibrations” or whatever, then that is a good way of expressing an observation. If someone says “bass is stronger and deeper” using MQN vs JLP, then this is a good observation. They have begun to qualify their statement.
We must have some faith that people know what they are talking about. If not, there is nothing wrong with politely asking for more information, but ultimately we must have good faith that a person is telling the truth as they hear it.
Most people on this forum are really good helpful interesting people. I enjoy it here very much.
If I was to throw an idea out there:
Perhaps it’s better to say what sort of sound you prefer. Or what sort of sound offends you?
I’ve met people who have told me that they don’t like big bass sounds – it hurts their ears. Also some people don’t like too much treble for the same reason.
I'm not sure I like the question "How resolving is your system ?" because there is no such thing as the perfect audio component. Even amongst the "most resolving" equipment, in my experience, the presentation of the sound changes, but all good gear is clear, dynamic, and satisfying to listen to when matched properly.
I think the short answer is that people build sound systems. People choose equipment based on various factors, and price is one of them.
If we all ask ourselves if we had unlimited money what system would we buy?
If we say we will keep just one component we presently own and use, then we know we own at least one good component.
Perhaps an appropriate answer is "my system is resolving enough to hear differences between MQN and JLP"
Hi Erin
Thank you for your thoughtful posting. I love reading your posting which express a lot of serious thinking.
On the one hand I agree with you that one cannot ever know all gear and combinations of gear and also there is a pitfall of peoples' opinions being 'judged' according to the price level of their gear. That is all true and in the end there is only one thing that matters, and that is "do
you like what
you hear on
your gear".
But (I love 'but's ;-)) I also like to know a bit about the context in which they experience things. Sound quality is never absolute, but always relative and subjective. I find that I also would like to know what people prefer as a type of sound (I try to express that in my feedback by telling what I find lacking or what I find improved between versions) and I think that type of preferred sound also expresses itself to a certain degree in the type of gear people use. One must be care not to judge peoples's opinions on their gear alone, but it does give a bit of sense of their context. And when I don't know a brand I can just ignore that aspect and for other brands / combinations I know "ah that has a character such and so, so than I expect it to sound a bit xyz". When I hear certain things differently than others, I'm also curious as to why and whether I'm missing something or not able to hear something or people preferring different qualities to sound or a certain character of sound.
I know that on the forum of Steve Hoffman the mastering engineer, they also do ask to publish your gear list just to put remarks about recordings into some kind of context, because not everything sounds equal, and not to be judgmental about opinions.
I agree with your suggestion that it is worthwhile to know peoples' preferred sound qualities, because that shows what they aim for and gives a reference point which shows their preferred progression from their remarks.
But for Gordon as developer, what is it he should aim for? Peoples' feedback give their preferred sound characteristics, which he and we ourselves (by tweaks) are able to change. Is it possible for him to have some 'absolute' reference point for him to focus on?
I notice I have strong preferrences for MQn because of certain sound characteristics it shows, which JLP can not (yet). I think a majority on this forum prefers the qualities of MQn over those of JLP, so IMO he should aim for MQn-quality, but I believe he himself has a different opinion and preference.
So is there an objective goal of what a software player should sound/behave like in different systems?
Should it be as transparent and as detailed as possible, so as not to 'impose' a certain character and let the character and details come from the music, the hifi-gear and the computer itself (that's my opinion). Or should it be made to sound nice on the gear used by the developer or by a majority of users?
I also like this forum very much and feel we should be (and normally are) empathetic towards each others opinions and each others choice of gear. Which sometimes can be like walking on a knife's edge if one wants to express a strong opinion {Guilty as charged ;-)) on a subject as well.
Cheers
Aleg