My impression is that my equipment is much more "holographic" than what I hear in live music (jazz, chamber), and live music is much more dynamic than what I can get out of my system.
On the "holography" side I find that good SS (Pass XA30.5 for example) is very good on locating the instruments within the soundstage with depth and stable localization, but that tubes make the individual instruments sound more 3D as a source, the instruments themselves seem more 3D within the soundstage to me with tubes than SS. I don't know which is a more "distorted" signal, but that has been my experience pretty consistently with the same speakers and room placement. |
How many folks out there own the H-CAT? I've never heard it, but if it is half as good as Tbg says it is I'm surprised there would not be more owners. I would love to have an SS pre that puts my tubes pres to shame, in every way. |
TBG, you have a beautiful looking system, which I'm sure sounds wonderful - would love to hear it cuz I too have never been "fooled" into thinking a recorded performance sounds live (live-like yes), but if you system makes you feel that way, more power to you. Enjoy. |
Does holography (I can't believe I just said that) come at a cost? That is, does a system designed for maximum spatial attibutes suffer, generally, in some other area of performance - like timbral accuracy? Is H mutually exclusive with some other area of performance? |
Norm, even with a temporary suspension of disbelief, reproduced music never sounds live to me; which doesn't mean it can't be very enjoyable and wonderful on it's own terms, but I'm never really fooled into thinking it is real no matter what equipment I've heard it on - but that is ok with me, I accept it. I think Duke's quote on "why" the musicians are on stage really captures the end game for what a great system can do for you - you get what the musicians are doing, what they are trying to say; even if it is not an exact replica of the live experience. |
What I don't understand is why H-CAT doesn't have the audiophile community beating a path to its door (not that it isn't a great piece of gear, I don't know, I have never heard it). I don't have any idea what Ralph measures or doesn't measure, but I do know that his gear is bought by many, that most owners love them and are extremely brand loyal, and that he has been successfully running his business for many years, which makes me think that he's on to something. I will, however go listen to the H-CAT if it is at RMAF and couldn't care less what is being measured or not, I'll just listen. I don't think "theory" marketing makes for long term success in the audio market, though it might get you a surge of interest that might or might not be sustained once enough people of have owned and expreienced the equipment -- then it better sound good no matter what your theory is. |
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09-15-08: Pubul57
My impression is that my equipment is much more "holographic" than what I hear in live music (jazz, chamber), and live music is much more dynamic than what I can get out of my system. |
Will the Hcat be at RMAF? Would be nice to hear it and we could meet an argue there. |
I've been working on the assumption for a long time that the "Absolute Sound" was the goal of this hobby, but I sometimes wonder why that should necessarily be, isn't it just possible that equipment might convey music in a way that might be even more enjoyable and communicative and not really by being an exact replica of live, just different and working on its own terms? I suppose the problem is that you loose the benchmark which grounds the subjective approach to a standard, and without it you really fall into mere opinion and preference - but I do suspect that many enjoy equipment that may fail by the AS reference, but succeed wonderfully on their own terms - especially in terms of imaging, soundstaging, etc - though I doubt you would want to veer too far from accurate timbre and timing. |
I'll take timbral accuracy, dynamics and timing over holography/soundstaging any day - if I want to know what the musicians are saying (why they are on the stage). Ralph, is there any reason why the two may be mutually exclusive - that is, does the most accurate equipment in terms of one mean a lessening of the other? |
Duke, I agree with you and what seems strange to me is the value we (me too) place on "holographic" effects in our stereos when they don't seem to be part of the live experience to my ears. I suspect the reason is that in live music you can see the performers, you don't need auditory clues for localization, you simply see it - we may be trying to make up for that. |
Ralph, impact and authority as you describe it is a very good way to describe what I mean by dynamics and related it to that is what I call microdynamics (there might be a better word) which is the ability to resolve small changes in volume and small changes in pitch that can sometimes be obscured - and that too might be related to distortion and/or poor S/N. These two aspects of reproduction are very important to me. I also enjoy the "holographic" trick as long as it doesn;t effect these; whether the holography reflects "live" or not. |
You think great DACs are realtively immune to the transport use? And if so, is that a recent development? Seems like a while back, the transport was viewed as being just as important. In a review of my Accustic Arts DAC, the reviewer found that whatever source he used with it seem to have little effect - he was sure the compoany did not want to hear as they sell a fairly expensive transport as well (that I happen to own). I always naively[?] felt thgat a good DAC should be able to deal with whatever jitter the source might present; maybe we are there. |
Let's hope the market recovers as well as this thread. |
I use to really get drawn into the music with my Thorens TT, NAD 3020, and JBL19s when I was in college...hmmm. |
There must have been a great deal of satisfaction of building your own amp, truly yours. I'd be afraid of starting a fire, but the idea has alot of appeal - talk about pride of ownership. |
