The Listening Rooms of Stereophile & TAS

[Mallette]

Alrighty, then, gents. I've had all I can stands, and I cannot stands no more...[:@]

I've been quite tolerant of all the various fetishes here as always, but with Sir Martin of Thebes barb the line has been crossed and I shall run up the jolly roger and return fire...though, with reluctance and even then only into the rigging.

All of us have our particular variation of audiophilia and almost nothing else in common. The degree of peace that generally prevails here is amazing.

In my case, my roots are in audio engineering. Why it should be such a shock that I consider source material and engineering the root of all that follows should not be a big f'ing surprise. Further, I have always been financially challenged in pursuit of my audio objectives and it shows in everything I do.

Now, now my friend you are off topic.

Again.

[bs] My dear chap, please review the topic header. The question here is clearly the qualifications of these pontificating peckerwoods who claim to spout TRVTH whilst spewing nonsense. As you will recall...as I believe you participated...I drew my sword and confronted them several years ago with a blind challenge of one of my own homebrew piano recordings made using a rig whose total cost didn't approach that of thier magical interconnects alone and broke even within these pages and my peers/superiors. I might even claim to have won, but I'll not go back and count. Win, lose, or draw the very fact I was able to walk away from an encounter with the Gods is, IMHO, commendable.

As to room treatments, never having had the bucks to throw at such either for recording or for playback, I learned, in both cases, to work around it. I have made what many consider far better than average recordings in locations that would send a "real" engineer away screaming. I have set up listening areas in places where, let's just say the conditions were less than optimum. In both cases, I learned over the years to eliminate the space to a significant degree...sometimes entirely. Do I believe in the value of room treatement? ABSOLUTELY! But there is no way it will help a crappy recording become accurate. In fact, as with first class equipment, it will just make same even worse.

As to equipment, my ears only hear it when it is malfunctioning or REALLY cruddy. However, I ALWAYS hear the qualities of the source material as that, for me, is the point. I do not listen to equipment, I listen to music. In the case of Klipschorns a marginal recording that is tolerable on one's car audio system can be simply intolerable when subjected to near perfect transparency of these legends. Please forgive me if I forget that others like to listen to rooms, tubes, wires, pebbles, or whatever. I have always not only tolerated, but supported those who revel in such things and defended their God given right to do so. I still do.

Whether music is subjective or not I will not address. But the judgment of engineering is entirely objective. One may not care for the microphone placement but if said placement yields a recording accurate to the ears placed in that same position it is a question of aesthetics, not engineering. To the extent it differs it is a question of engineering and entirely objective.

So there. Rant over. Say hi to the twins...

Carry on.

Dave

[George O.]

I'm concerned about the spatial orientation of the Beanie Babies. And surely in the wintertime with the fire burning, the hi-fi is going to get overly hot.

You have done a great service posting these pics, artto.

[artto]

Gentlemen, I submit as I always have. There are three major factors in audio:

1. The source

2. The source,

and most importantly,

3. The source.

The equipment, room treatment, and magic pebbles play their roles, but without the Source the magic will not happen.

I'd rather listen to a fine source recording on Bose in a Basement than Krap on Klipsch in a Kathedral...

And that's all I've got to say about that.

Dave

As you probably know, I only half agree with this statement. From my point of view BOTH the source AND room are equally important.

And as evidence, let me submit Mike's (Dr. Who) own observation. He brought a recording (Nightwish "Century Child) over to my place when he first visited here (about 8 years ago now?). He was extremely disappointed in how this favorite recording of his sounded on my system. I gathered that it sounded satisfactory (maybe even "awesome") on his system at home. Yet other music which he was familiar with such as "A Life" (a Mark Levinson recording) apparently was astounding and gave hime the impression of being transported to the place (of the recording) (which by the way, happens to be a "Kathedral").

After the source and room being of the highest order, then of course one needs reproducers (transducers ~ speakers) capable of producing an acoustic wave front that is capable of fooling the ear. The electronics in between are a distant last.

Furthermore, the issue with "speakers" is that regardless of type or size, they are interacting with the room boundaries as well as what is in the room. This becomes increasingly problematic as we reduce the size of the space from "concert hall" to "living room".

And as the frequencies get lower and lower, the more the room affects the sound from the speakers. Furthermore, even though we "live in the midrange" if you define the musical audio range as 8, 9 or 10 octaves, about one-half of that is in the bass range.

On the other hand, even though "nothing's perfect" in audio reproduction, the "up side" of all of this is that it doesn't have to be. The ear is actually very forgiving, and our brains along with psychoacoustics tends to fill in the rest, depending on your preferences, experience and imagination. For if things needed to be that perfect for us to recognize anything from moment to moment, we in fact never would. Sort of like Dr. Jacob Bronowski's "range of certainty".

So, back to my original point. What's the point in listening to $100,000+ systems in a room that is not capable of revealing what these systems (or the recording/source) are supposedly capable of producing? The chain is only as strong as the weakest link. The fact of the matter is that Stereophile and TAS have some very weak links indeed.

Let me expand on this a little more.

First of all, I think we can all agree, that "ultimately", it's the musical performance that takes priority. In other words, I'd rather listen to a great performance on a 78rpm shellac or Edison cylinder than a crappy crap performance recorded with a terrific source and played back on the best equipment in an acoustically perfect room.

But, thats not what this particular post is a about.

As far as the importance of the source or the room goes, I guess, my preference is like this. Here's an analogy. A friend of mine who is a cycling enthusiast was at a professional race and had the opportunity to speak with one of the riders. He asked, "Do you prefer to spin lower gears, or push bigger gears?" The cyclist paused for a moment and then said "I prefer to spin big gears".

I guess that's kind of how I feel. To me, the source and the room are equally important as they both affect how everything else in between "sounds" more so than the other way around.

[dtel]

Is it really necessary to have an acoustically perfect environment in which to judge the sound of an amp costing $500?

I would think not ?

I stopped reading those magazines years ago because of all the fluff words which mean nothing really, and the mostly over priced equipment being tested, I just assumed they had a slightly better room set up than that pictured, considering the way they carried on deep into the audiopile explanations, my mistake.

I know the room can make almost as much difference as the speakers and equipment, that's why we keep a special chair on the left side of the room almost halfway front to back. This special chair is purposely piled up with clean dry clothes waiting to be folded. There is a slight difference if it's sox, towels or general clothes. Personialy I think the generial clothes gives the most pleasing sound, more "air" and slightly more bass. [:|]...............[bs] But the chair being full of clothes most days is very true. [8-)]

[Chris A]

...that's why we keep a special chair on the left side of the room almost halfway front to back. This special chair is purposely piled up with clean dry clothes waiting to be folded. There is a slight difference if it's sox, towels or general clothes. Personally I think the general clothes gives the most pleasing sound, more "air" and slightly more bass. ... But the chair being full of clothes most days is very true.

Now I don't feel embarrassed about revealing that I at times put a fuzzy quilt over the center Belle front and acoustic tiles temporarily in front of the TV when playing two channel recordings.

The effect? It improves the focus and vertical position of the stereo image - by a bunch.

Chris

[Quiet_Hollow]

If I had actually listened to the professional reviewers when I was a kid, reading those Stereophile and S&V periodicals in the public library...I wouldn't be a Klipsch Heritage owner.

"No bass, honky, horny, cupped-sounding, nails, razor blades, harsh, shouty....."

For R-E-A-L?! [^o)]

More like:

"No EQ, bad room, bad room, poor placement, bad source, bad room, bad source, poor placement....etc."

[Marvel]

...that's why we keep a special chair on the left side of the room almost halfway front to back. This special chair is purposely piled up with clean dry clothes waiting to be folded. There is a slight difference if it's sox, towels or general clothes. Personally I think the general clothes gives the most pleasing sound, more "air" and slightly more bass. ... But the chair being full of clothes most days is very true.

Now I don't feel embarrassed about revealing that I at times put a fuzzy quilt over the center Belle front and acoustic tiles temporarily in front of the TV when playing two channel recordings.

The effect? It improves the focus and vertical position of the stereo image - by a bunch.

Chris

I don't see a problem with this at all... In fact, I think it echoes Dr. Who in syaing the majority of listeners don't have rooms that are set up ONLY for audiophile listening. I listen in my living room. The room is currently set up where we sit off center. There are times when I bring an arm chair in and sit in the correct spot, but not too often. Do I still enjoy listening to the system? Absolutely!

Bruce

[dtel]

I listen in my living room. The room is currently set up where we sit off center. There are times when I bring an arm chair in and sit in the correct spot, but not too often. Do I still enjoy listening to the system? Absolutely!

All that matters is the music. [Y]

I listen almost every day, I hardly ever go sit and listen, occasionally something will just get me to want to go sit, and just listen.

Certain music and the mood I happen to be in, I don't know what else it could be? [:S] It could also explain why some days it just doesn't come together as well, and other days I can't get enough and it sounds unbelievable ?

I am NOT one who is in it for the equipment, speakers or tinkering, almost nothing has changed since it was all wired together the first time. [] But it has many many hours playing, it's all I really care about anyway, the end result. [8] It's a huge glorified jukebox, that's all.

[garyeanderson]

...that's why we keep a special chair on the left side of the room almost halfway front to back. This special chair is purposely piled up with clean dry clothes waiting to be folded. There is a slight difference if it's sox, towels or general clothes. Personally I think the general clothes gives the most pleasing sound, more "air" and slightly more bass. ... But the chair being full of clothes most days is very true.

Now I don't feel embarrassed about revealing that I at times put a fuzzy quilt over the center Belle front and acoustic tiles temporarily in front of the TV when playing two channel recordings.

The effect? It improves the focus and vertical position of the stereo image - by a bunch.

Chris

I don't see a problem with this at all... In fact, I think it echoes Dr. Who in syaing the majority of listeners don't have rooms that are set up ONLY for audiophile listening. I listen in my living room. The room is currently set up where we sit off center. There are times when I bring an arm chair in and sit in the correct spot, but not too often. Do I still enjoy listening to the system? Absolutely!

Bruce

I think most listening areas double up as dual use today.
Sometimes space is at a premium and I like to use that space to its best
advantage. This picture is not folding laundry or using the dining room table
set up with a jigsaw puzzle (although some folks give me that look). I like to
think of it as diffraction (smile).

[ZAKO]

Ahhhh home,, A place to kick off your brakeshoes...

[dtel]

Ahhhh home,, A place to kick off your brakeshoes...

Funny [Y]

[dtel]

I think most listening areas double up as dual use today.
Sometimes space is at a premium and I like to use that space to its best
advantage

Nice, want to trade for a nice chair with laundry ? [] That looks much more interesting and fun, and alot more money.

Is that what they are thinking when they say industrial style decorating ?

[thebes]

Alrighty, then, gents. I've had all I can stands, and I cannot stands no more...

I've been quite tolerant of all the various fetishes here as always, but with Sir Martin of Thebes barb the line has been crossed and I shall run up the jolly roger and return fire...though, with reluctance and even then only into the rigging.

All of us have our particular variation of audiophilia and almost nothing else in common. The degree of peace that generally prevails here is amazing.

In my case, my roots are in audio engineering. Why it should be such a shock that I consider source material and engineering the root of all that follows should not be a big f'ing surprise. Further, I have always been financially challenged in pursuit of my audio objectives and it shows in everything I do.

As to equipment, my ears only hear it when it is malfunctioning or REALLY cruddy. I have always not only tolerated, but supported those who revel in such things and defended their God given right to do so. I still do.

Carry on.

Dave

Bravissimo, mon ami. a most earnest and reasoned rant which somehow seems to have blithely ignored one or two quibbles you've encountered on your own journey to audio nirvosa. You reached a mite too far when you state that people should listen to the music not their equipment. Only partially true, since when one is building, or improving upon, or just deciding whether their labors have borne auditory fruit, one must spend at least a moment or two listening to the equipment. At least to identify and correct such glaring errors as sibilance, distortion , noise and other such artifacts and their effect upon the audio stream.

Let's face it, Sterophile and other review mags and blogs fill a need, and that's for perceived, repeat, perceived professional rendering of opinions regarding equipment that amounts to a large outlay of cash for almost anyone spending up to or beyound their audio budget. It's yet another example of faith broken in the realm of audio. Were it not for Kliipsch and a few other honest vendors, I'd be inclined to melt down my record collection before allowing it to fall in the hands of these parvenus.

Oh, since the source is everything. I'm sure you'd be happy to send me your Frasiers in exchange for some nice Realistic floorstanders I've run across. []

[tube fanatic]

Let's face it, Sterophile and other review mags and blogs fill a need, and that's for perceived, repeat, perceived professional rendering of opinions regarding equipment that amounts to a large outlay of cash for almost anyone spending up to or beyound their audio budget. It's yet another example of faith broken in the realm of audio. Were it not for Kliipsch and a few other honest vendors, I'd be inclined to melt down my record collection before allowing it to fall in the hands of these parvenus.

Much to my surprise Art Dudley, in the September "As We See It" column in Stereophile, actually calls "bullshit" on expensive interconnects and equipment manufacturers who try to justify absurd prices by virtue of fancy cabinetry and not the contained electronics! I never thought I'd see the day that such a position would be put forth in that magazine. A similar sentiment is rendered by Markus Sauer in his review of the Munich High End Show in the same issue. Perhaps they're finally realizing that many people are not taken in by their hype.

[Mallette]

You reached a mite too far when you state that people should listen to the music not their equipment.

If I said that, my wordsmithing has deviated from my thinking. What would a Waterford wine glass be without wine? Does that mean, however, I cannot admire that wine glass even if it's empty or contains Ripple? That's my point. If I knew somebody with a Rockford turntable I would want to hear the Virgil Fox Stan Richter DDiscs played on it fer shure. I can say, however, without worrying over my words too much that if you actually hear your equipment something is wrong with it.

Let's face it, Sterophile and other review mags and blogs fill a need, and that's for perceived, repeat, perceived professional rendering of opinions regarding equipment that amounts to a large outlay of cash for almost anyone spending up to or beyound their audio budget.

Indeed they do. And I am a $tereophile subcriber of quite a few years along with a number of other audio journals. Like UFO shows, I occasionally actually learn something useful from them.

Oh, since the source is everything. I'm sure you'd be happy to send me your Frasiers in exchange for some nice Realistic floorstanders I've run across.

That statement tells me I still have a long way to go before I can claim any abilities in writing. What I have tried to get across is that I can tolerate far more inaccuracies in an equipment playback chain than in the source material itself, and a truly first rate recording can transcend all but the very most awful playback chain. However, the better the equipment gets the worse the experience of listening to a bad recording.

Frankly, I am at a loss as to why in these pages this would be a controversial statement.

Dave

[Colin]

At first I was shocked to see not only the modesty of some of the exalted reviewers humble abodes, but also the horrible speaker placements and conditions with which they have to cope! For Cardinals of the Golden Ear, their homes are NOT cathedrals of Audio Nirvana. Most of the tweaking audiophiles in my Suncoast Audiophile Society (SAS, Meetup.com), who host our monthly meetings, have superior arrangements. The listening room defines the sound of home movie and music reproduction systems. Yet, while a few of them have some foam panels, very few have more acoustic treatment than that (one doctor has a custom designed room).

[/P]

Unfortunately, the reviewers modest rooms are like mine. Not hardly ideal at all. In fact, most peoples homes do NOT have an ideal room for a purist audio system. I wonder why speaker manufacturers dont design loudspeakers for particularly difficult set-ups. Such as a bookshelf. How many times have you seen a perfectly decent speaker shoved so far back into a shelf that the walls are blinders to sight and sound?

[/CR]

Because most rooms arent ideal, I applaud Bose (gasp, Bose!) for incorporating an automatic EQ into some of their over-priced systems. They really do know how to get the most sound and consumer dollars out of as little of their investment as possible! Yet the impact is the same as EQ with actually good equipment; it helps make modest systems sound better, maybe as good as they can be.

[/P]

I hardly consider myself a self-anointed or pious expert. I consider myself a fellow consumer. I ask vendors a lot of stupid questions. I dont read electronics books in my spare time. I learn as I go. I report what I hear. I dont charge people for the sham. I charge for my labor. It is less than a days pay for a weeks work. So it is NOT employment for me normally, but I will admit it has helped buy groceries these past few years. I am NOT an emperor, but I still stand naked before my readers.

[/P]

Having auditioned several dozen units of equipment over the past decade, I can say with confidence, that I do indeed hear differences. I read how some reviewers describe those same differences. I am pleased that I have yet to get a unit wrong. I am very pleased that later Stereophile reviews only confirm what I heard and tried to describe previously. I certainly wish I did some simple measurements and I welcome suggestions in that regard.

[/P]

I do try to explain why somebody might purchase the unit I am reviewing and I rarely find units I just hate (often, the review gets killed anyway, threat of lawsuits, dont ya know).

[/P]

It is true that reviewers may NOT hear all the nuances of what they are writing about, since their rooms are indeed clearly saddled with issues. Their room acoustics do effect the response of the unit. Personally, I would hope that these missing features are nuances only and NOT major characteristics of the unit. I could be wrong. When Supravox came and pulled their loudspeakers further into the room than I ever would, the soundstage opened up like the Grand Ole Opry (http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/0112/supravox_carla.htm)! My review would have missed that. Therefore, I try to review each piece of equipment in another location. The SAS has been wonderful for that. I think other reviewers try the same thing, only NOT so formally; they try to review on different systems too.

[/P]

Do you need a good room to review a $500 piece of equipment? Perhaps NOT. Usually its flaws are obvious, but its capabilities might be hidden.

[/P]

Then do you need a good room to review a $50,000 piece of equipment? Definitely NOT! Its capabilities are obvious as a nose, but its flaws, such as performance with much higher end equipment, might be hidden. It is the removal of weaknesses, the elimination of flaws that drives up the capabilities and cost of equipment. Most of the equipment Ive reviewed sounds fairly goodto a certain extent. It is what IT CANT DO that limits them and defines their usefulness in the home movie and music reproduction system.

[/P]

Super expensive dream systems, can indeed make almost all music sound quite good. (http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/viewpoint/0902/deprecating.htm) Good recordings show off superior systems in ways that mediocre ones cannot. And vice versa. Poor recordings sound lifeless on even the best stereo. For that reason, I solicited, reviewed and continue to use what I believe are above average recordings: http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/music/0704/stereophile.htm, http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/music/0512/classical/test_track_4.htm

[/P]

I do NOT however think that the source material is the end all and be all of a great sounding system. Far too often in the SAS homes and even AXPONA, the system simply does NOT have the capability Dr. Floyd E. Toole, Vice President Acoustical Engineering, Harman International, espouses in his white papers. They do NOT have flatness and smoothness of high-resolution on-axis curves. http://www.harman.com/EN-US/OurCompany/Technologyleadership/Pages/WhitePapers.aspx

[/P]

I did mention the sound pressure levels before. I will get back to doing that.

[/P]

I have NOT heard slight differences with couches and other things effecting sound very often. I recently heard the effect made by a a Mexican serape placed over an unused-center speaker. The 3D image of the singer was distinct and strong. I kept thinking the system owner was driving the center channel. It diminished the distinct. He wasnt. Unintentionally, the passive center driver helped nail the illusory location of the singer in the wide room. The systems owner never realized the wonderful effect it created.

[/P]

If I had followed the advice of local stereo shops and high-end magazines, I probably would have a basic sounding solid-state receiver with cone loudspeakers, at a modest price. Instead I have a kick-*** system, that when properly tuned, comes awfully close to some very good high-end systems I have heard, at the same modest price. Thank you neighbor Ralph Karsten, of Atmo-Sphere OTL amplifiers, for my teenage enlightenment.

[Colin]

dup, can't edit or post formatted text?

[Colin]

nope, what is carriage return? CR? Nope, can it be Word 2010? Chrome?

[Mallette]

Chrome?

Likely. Format, cut and paste to IE or Firefox. I can never keep up with everything I run into, but I recall I tried Chrome and believe I had precisely the same issue.

Dave

[Marvel]

Colin,

If you are using a Mac, put in the appropriate line break or paragraph break in HTML...

Do it once and copy it, then paste as needed.

Bruce