The great myth of the XlR

Me too

This must be somkid of record in the chaning subject category .

What it all comes down to enjoy your music

regards and happy liestnining

The great myth thing was to grab atension.

Sorry i meant xlr not xir im danish and my english skills refects on it.

Well with my former system my lyngdorf cd 1 player into a lyngdorf tda2200 with roomperfect the difference between rca and balanced was huge.

The balanced was a Vertex aq moncayou the rca was a tara labs .

with the xlr the sound was just to bright with tha tara rca the sound was much more smooth the difference was very aparent and a blind test was not needed.

It could be the tara labs cables that just fitted that system better buy in my experince cables dont make such a large difference so it must be the rca thing i think.

I absolutly agree that the mind can play tricks on you.

I had a hydra 8 4 shunyata anaconda cables in my system and
i was absolutly sure the made the sound much better that was until i removed them all and the hydra and plucked every thing into the wall outlets.
i more then gladly sold all the shunyata stuff .

I cant remember where i read it but the conclusion i have made refelcts at least on reviewers oppinion.

thanks

Bigtee

Regarding cables you are spot on, only way to be sure is buy both a xlr and rca from same brand and then see what fits my system best and i happen to like the tara labs house sound.

The neutrality thing well each has his owen preferencen.

But i dont agree with you at all that if every thing sounds great then somthing is wrong.

I have a friend that owens linn klimax solos with carefull chosen components the are as transperent as it gets but i have listend to almost my intire cd collection on that system and not one sounded bad all where musical and fantastic sounding .

On my own tact millennium is just as transperane and just as detajled but in my system 25% of my cds sounds not good 10 % sounds horrible the rest sounds fantastic.

I dont beleive in total neutality at all thats for studios, live music really sounds horrible if you studi it.

What you are describing is the system screwing up the music and with some cds thise faults are better hidden, not the other way around.

As a musician i go for hifi which brings the emotion of the music to me the rest has no menning to me, and i have countless times found myself bored with much of the gear today and espicialy so called neutral speakers the tear the music apart.

If i whant the most detajld neutal detajld sound i can pick up my martin d45.

Im a sonus faber speaker lover and know that with carefull setup you can better the real thing.

I knew i was not the first to notice this.

Again i must state that with a truly balanced design like ayre using xlr is most duffently the way to go.

Now my tact amp is indeed a truly balnced design (if i read it right) but my slimdevices transporter is not.

I think il just have to try for my self.

Hi bigtee

Very interresting discussion we have here .

I agree that a bad recording should sound bad if a system is neutral, problem is many times its the system that destroys the pitch and timing in the music or just soound so over analytical that the music just happen to sound faulted where it really is the system thats doing crime.

I had the full lyngdorf audio roomperfect system with 2 tda2200 digital amps 4 speakers and roomperfect roomcorrection.
With that system only handfull cds sounded great rest sounded like crab lyngdorf audio will say its just because its neutral but its the other way around the system is digitaly colourd and some cds just dont show that tendeci that much.
When it got the top line millennium mk3 that is just simply a better amp then the tdas and everything sounded simply better and this amps is suppose to be eveen more neutral.

Speaking of neutral.
Most good systems sounds different with different cds because the dont colour the music.
MY frinds top notch linn klimax system takes this much futher here within the individuel track the sound changes.
You can listend to a track and then suddenly it changes pace or shifts down to a much much deeper frq or the soundstage widens if the music demands it its like there is no compression at all.
This must be what is called neutrality.

I agree that standing infront of a big stage and here Pink Floyd live with a cold one in you hand is in some ways the ultimat goal to reproduce.
But this can never happen i think and we can only mimic it to some extend.

What i mean when i say that you can exceed the real thing , is that with carefull setup and carefull selected components you can experince somthing different then live music a new preception of the music.

When i started out in hifi i listend to lost of different system wilson ,jamlab audioresearch, rotel and many others, and none excited me much it all sounded like a more detajled versions of my littel dennon system .
then one day i wheny into a shop and actuined the sonus faber cremona with linn chakra gear.
The room was around 40 sq meters and it was a very good acousticly speaking with tall seeling and hard wood floor and the speakers was set up just right.
Then i experincs a audio epiffany .
And that made me fall in love with this hoppy and sonus faber speakers.

it sure diddent sound like live music but it sounded like a dream where the speakers had a singing angle like voice.
There are really no words that can describe what i heard that day.
It was transending, and in my oppinion it was better then the real thing, or at least as good as hearing it live in person.

regards

Do a real violin hurt your ear when playd live ?

In many systems symbals can sound like torture, what people will say is thats how its sounds in reallity.

Well it dos not i have play rock musik for 15 years and i can asure you a symblal dos not sound like have it dos in many systems.

As i see it if you want absolut neutarlity buy a studio monitor, but that is made to studi sound if thats your thing.
Me i get bored after 5 minuts higeend or not.

A funny thing about speakers is the way the all sound different in have the presend the music itsself, so what is neutral really ? with hifi.

There is more to it then the tonal balance.

Its not just about being neutral thats the goal because nothing really is .

Speakers can be created so the have soul and hart in have the presend the music itsself sad that most manufactors with white coats and to many pensels in the suit dont see this as a goal.

If you listend purly to live recordings it would make a littel sence i ges.
What draws me to hifi is not to recreatd the real thing because it really sounds not that good unless you are there or are doing it yuour self.
But the emotinal easpect surtenly but its almost aways wiped away with a studio monitor like sound.

With hifi its possible to recreate a more intense emotinal experince then live.
Even better then then real thing so to speak

But hey we all have different goals with our system nothing is more right then wrong some likes it analytical some dont.

regards

My point is that you can never recreate the real thing, so why try to force hifi into somthing it can never be.

Most comapnys try to strive to what you are referreing to as neutal of high fidility but in reality the are missing the point.

I musy say that i have been amazed to find out that hifi popple many times have littel or no undersatnding about what creats good music and why its alsmost a divine part of the human life.

This is not amid at enyone in this treat but to my utterly amazedment many hifi people use music only as a messarment tool for how the hifi fidility are in the given system, completly overlooking the real importants.

i have a tact millennium mk3 that has been moddified to such a extend that the stock one sounds brok in comparison and i can asure you that its the closest you can get to recreating have a acoustic guitar or have a violin or a voice actually sounds, but in reality this has very littel to do with true musicality.

The most important thing in creating music is getting the pitch and timing right and every thing is in tune.
As a musicain i know this very well.
The better a system is to preserving this the more musical it will sound.
Very few components gets this right.

Its here we can talk about real neutrality .

A system that can preserve thise important musical clues will sound musical neutral, amd completly change nature with different genres or dynamic shifts
The tonal colur has ver very littel to do with this.

No matter how colourless or transperant a system is if it dossent get the pitch and timing right it will distord the music to a more or less extend and thats why some cds sound bad and some dont.

Some cds just show this faults more.

You say that the better a system is the worse a so called bad recording will sound , this is not my experince when systems that gets the pitch and timing right .
listnig to systems that are good at this can be a revelation with before bad sounding cds

I see your point.

However correct pitch and timnimg will always have a possitiv influence on how the playback is.

I have not heaard of a recording where the producer would intensionaly distord the timing and pitch in the music .
Or the musicians playing out of tune.
Playing music live is about getting this as correct as possible.

Its actually very hard to get every pitch and timing in the perfect order.

The best source at least the digital ones are the ones that are most precise in this matter.
The nova physics memory player is on of them , the linn sondek cd 12 is also a great excemple.

Regarding speaker corssovers the sonus faber cremona uses a 1 order design , of the simpelst layout.
The moddify the drivers to sound have the want the too so the can design the corssover this way.

Its the most musical speaker i have heard yet right or wrong.

Regarding speakers discussing wich one is the best makes as much sence to me as argumenting on what is best a blond girlfriend or a brunet.

We agree on that recordings can be very faulted but the aswer to why some recordings sound bad or unmusical is a more complexted matter.

Getting to the bottom of what neutrality is.
You described that you have not heard a system that can reproduce the sax in a beleiveble matter.
This infact has very littel to do with pitch and timing isue its in audioble noise and glare.
The less noise and glare the more you hear the detaljs and there for the instrument.

What got me into thise fully digital tact amps was it was the most detajld amps you i could buy.
The are basicly a dac with power the will only accept a digital signal from a transport and the signal stays digital until the speaker terminals.

Jean yves kerbrat is one man that searces for the truth and if you vissit his hompage you will see 5 tact 2150 amps fully moddified replacing cary triods driving a five way hornsystem using the digital crossovers .

He takes getting rid of audioble noise to the extreme having his own powerplant for pure audio and people working on his amps reguarly.

His goal is purly to reproduce have a instrument sounds in real life.

My tact millennium is the reference amp in the tact audio family and it has been moddified to the limit .
It is in another league then eny of jean yves amps.
Feet it with a equal kvality source and it will take you all the way down the rabbit hole.
Its the only amp i have heard that can reproduce the timbres of a acoustic guitar in a beleiveble matter.

Stock it was very detajled but after the mod what happent was the noise and glare where audioble gone making it even more detajld but at the same time more smoth.

What that did was making every thing sound real , scary real .

This is one type of neutrality you can athive where all glare and noise is gone leaving only pure sound enhancing the hifi parameter like soundstage seperation and detajl extraction.
But this has nothing to do with neutral musicality

There are much more to it then that.

Pitch and timing has nothing to do with noise or glare , infact hearing it done better or worse might not even be heard with a solo instrument.

But when the music startes and all the littel rytmic changes , basslines instruments , different frq all have to fit in as perfect order as possible it will become very clear how important this is.

This is the other kind of neutral
if a system distords thise musical clues its not neutral no matter have noiseless and transperant the sound may be.

The best gear or precerving this is i have heard is linn klimax gear,
It just gets the bass and rythme right , its also the most mucial neutral hifi i have heard it simpley gets out of the way of the music or in other words destord it to a lesser extend .
It really needs to be heard to be understood, I sure did not until i got exposed to it.
Linn fanatics swear to the this and treassure it namly because of the pitch and timing correctness, and there ingeneeres feel very strongly about this matter.

Regarding sources im am a beleiver in the source first theory.
The speaker can only reproduce the signal its feet.

The company that moddified my millennium also specilizes in being on the forthfront of digital sources having esoteric ,wadia , dcs , and the likes in there hall of fame latly its a northstar heavily moddified and a slimdevices also moddified on the top of the list.
every thing gets decussed to great lenght on there forum.

The real next level of digital playback will ironicly not be from the cd but from a hardisk.
Because music played back as a file can be in bitperfect kvality where a cd drive playing music in real time simply dont get everything right.
however the most importenat part still lies in where the digital signal is converted into analog signal

The nova physics memory player that uses this tech is said to be the best transport today.
What reviewers and people say above all is have musical it is.

I have a slimdevices transporter that uses the same basic technology but it also has a great dac in it.
In the add the say that the soundkvality will supass that of even the most excotic cd player , the say this because it has a bit perfect audio circuit and also xtremly accurate in pitch and timing.
In reality it really dossent mostly becaus perfect timing and bit perfect siganl goes right out the window when you have noise and glare fron the powersupplyes.

Mine dos not have the glare or glassyness
the lyngdorf cd-1 it replaced had just as big soundstage and just as much detajl but then the compariosn ends the transporter has a ease and musicality that makes the cd-1 sound like a machine instaed of a music.
Its just as detajld if not more but its all in perfect order and nothing stick out using a simplyfied term.

Hifi as a hoppy is a journy and i sure havent seen the best yet but i do know now that musicality lies in the pitch and timing.

There is not rights or wrong some like it analytical some romantic but pitch and timeing done right will never be a bad thing , if it was then the person dont like music pure and simple.

thanks