Powered speakers show audiophiles are confused

Why can't you repair class D amps? You can't fix them just replace the components that have failed. I have no experience working class D amps. 

@mijostyn Thank you for the note on line arrays.

If an engineer can build an amplifier specifically designed for the components of a particular speaker and the way they react to each other electronically the engineer can design the amplifier so that it matches the needs of its drivers and crossover networks, without an amp / speaker unit the engineer is only guessing. Using some random amplifier will never give you the exact needs of your specific speaker unless the speaker and amp are made as a unit. 

I have a Dolby Atmos system and a home theater system in the same room, they are set up separately from each other, of course the home theater and stereo sounds much better but the Genelec mixing system sounds more accurate. 

You don't have to be much of an audiophile or even a professional audio engineer to be offered vibration dampening systems of all types, to mount under speakers on stands, as equipment racks, under equipment feet, in the internal frame of components, under speaker cable and AC cables, vibration is big business. When the speaker is in the same enclosure as the amp how in the world can you take out vibration if it mattered all powered speakers would sound awful. 

With only a few exceptions high end audiophile systems don't design amps and preamps for particular speakers, why because audiophiles like to tinker and argue about how the sound changes when the speaker cables are to close to the floor. Someday the powered speaker will be be the audiophile speakers of the future as they are now in concert systems with networked audio (connectors don't matter). Or perhaps audiophiles don't care about sound and only care about audiophile community, maybe that's ok, I'm one also.

edgyhassle 30 years ago at an AES convention I got to talk to John Meyer about this question, he thought there was no way to design the most accurate sound reproduction system without the speaker being designed for the amp and visa versa isn't even worth a conversation.

The problem is culture, greed, and physics. I have a wonderful 2 channel system that somehow sounds wonderful magical and I'm honestly sad that I don't really want to fix it or make improvements, I love to tweak I love to look forward to a new purchase but I don't need to, I'm happy with my stereo. Greed comes in when the niche shops and companies lure rich guys who were nerds in high school to fit into a very expensive community just like supercars (I have one of those too). Physics enters the equation in a very practical sense, I recorded movie sound for many decades and have been in some of the top recording studios in the world. I know the words that describe the level of quality in an audiophile speaker ad are not the same level that the dialogue was recorded on the set of a huge movie or a world class music recording. Audiophile equipment can't make the original product better, until we get to the point when artificial intelligence can fill in the cracks in the quality of the sound, that time hasn't come yet. 
 

Fun is a good reason to be an audiophile but be careful it's not arrogance because you feel you have listening attributes that are metaphysical, if this is the case you are fooling yourself which happens to be an audiophile speciality and an entire branch of study called psychoacoustics.

I love Genelec speakers (I spent 200k +) but they are only the example of a speaker with the design concept of making an amplifier with a speaker in mind. Meyer Sound is probably the best example of this, Meyer Sound is more of a concert speaker but they sound great. A perfect amplifier only amplifies the weak original signal, it shouldn’t have a sound at all but since the very complex load the speaker gives to the amp the pathway to simple amplitude multiplication is impossible to do unless that amplifier is designed to understand the particular speakers impedance loads and the unique ways that speaker deals with frequency and how fast all this can happen among other things. I’m sure Genelec didn’t make my "The Ones" speakers with perfect amps because they of course have to keep their prices down like everyone else.

The point is that everyone knows curated speaker and amplifier design is proper but very few are doing it because the community of audiophiles are really out to lunch (I am one) we worry about very esoteric things where there are huge design concept that make great difference in proper sound.

m-db I'm going to make a movie and do the picture editing and sound myself so I bought the equipment, the studio is in my house, the room looks over a beautiful lake but it's not for public consumption. I live in Eagle Idaho, I'm a political refugee from Southern California like everyone else in Idaho.

I have matched Genelec 8351B's with a Genelec sub in a Dolby Atmos configuration with Protools, an Avid Matrix, and s4 control surface. This system is boring it doesn't sound amazing it's simply accurate. If the original recording is great it sounds great. Audiophile systems that are jaw dropping are not accurate they're extra flavored and sound amazing but I needed the most accurate system I could get, money was not a problem, these speakers were perfect for my size of room and acoustics. 

My stereo and home theater are in the same room 90 degrees from the studio system, it has much larger speakers mono block hybrid tube amps and big subwoofers it sounds much better than my studio system but it's not accurate. 

clustrocasual I'm not talking about receivers or integrated audio equipment I'm talking about a concept that everyone knows is proper, that being, designing the entire system for each component, along with the room acoustics. But that is very expensive and any audio company would be stupid to come to the audiophile market and say toss your entire system you've spent years refining to buy ours, this company wouldn't even get a start economically. Imagine how comfortable your car seat would be if it was designed for you.

kenjit Genelec speakers are not disco speakers they are made in Finland for studios not really for the home stereo market.
 

kenjit
You asked about how an amp can be designed toward a particular speakers driver. As I'm sure you know impedance changes due to frequency, a very low frequency signal at a loud volume creates a low impedance. Not all amps are designed to be a one size fits all answer. Sub amps have dozens of signal filters to try to match the signal to the amplifier, a compromise of the music, and low frequency amps are the easiest to design because they only have to deal with a very small frequency range. The reason why every sound system needs a sub is because amps can't be all things to all speakers but an amp designed for low impedance loads can do a better job than and amp designed for 10Khz. The perfect speaker would have an amp for every frequency but 15 thousand amps in our living rooms is a little much. Matching a curve is very hard and if music was a sign wave it would be easier but music is very complex and impedance and many other factors in a music signal reproduction show themselves to amps at the same time which makes amplifying those signals a compromise when heard on the speaker. Amps that are at least designed to amplify the best guesses of the complex signals created by recordings in a narrow frequency band are better than brute force amps that are huge and can handle a .5 ohm load created by a synth but can't at the same time reproduce the triangle. This is why no matter how expensive the speaker and amplifier it never sounds like a real instrument. 

Once I was mixing an orchestra at a church and the conductor asked a violinist with a Stradivarius to come and play for me at the mixing console, well she did and tears came to my eyes the sound was so beautiful, I've never heard a recording half that good.

Audiophile 12 step program part 7 principle.
If your speaker are sponsored by F1 cars, they don't go fast or thunder down straightaways like F1 cars, if you buy F1 speakers it does not mean you are cool like F1 drivers. 

Audiophiles, get out of bed and drop a $10 thousand dollar AC cable in the trash, one step at time. Do we trust big companies with huge marketing budgets, no, these companies only want to make money, we can't blame them we just can't enable them when we know that AC field around the AC cable are not going to change if we insert a 2 meter piece of silver. 

jerryg123 your post reminds me of a continual conversation with a friend who worked at a vintage guitar store. This guy knows practically every guitar setup for every band you can imagine, he sells rare guitars to very rich musicians all the time. I would always argue with him saying how do you justify selling a 100k guitar to someone then run it through some raunchy guitar amp and still live with yourself. He would say it’s rock n roll man. I knew what he meant but that answer doesn’t square with buying a 100k vintage guitar for its amazing sound. That’s where super cool 2 channel systems in our world are the same they are not accurate but they sound super cool.

lonemountain and ghasley great examples. Here's what we need to consider, we all know designing amps for specific speakers and visa versa is probably the best leap forward in sound quality. 

But:
We need to understand psychoacoustics and the huge placebo effect that we experience in the audiophile community.
We need to understand known quantities like the near elimination of speaker cables that are inherent in active speakers are real. We know that preamps are between the source and the amp so they are filters wether we think so or not, filters are distortion. We need to be able to justify active speakers and vibration dampening in the amplifier, we know there is active incoherent logic that is so obvious in that illustration.

kota1
I suspect you know a lot about psychoacoustics and audio placebo effects. I started in acoustics, went to live sound then movie sound in my career all the while studying physics. I can't imaging people spending hundreds of thousands on sound equipment that don't know anything about the psychological effects of sound. Just google it. 

I've seen how musicians listen back to their vocals and obsess about things that aren't there I've apologized to directors about how bad the sound was and they had no Idea what I was talking about one director told me the sound was great he told me he just told a producer  "this is a fabulous recording it's going on the album for the movie". I also set up sound for Milli Vanilli, I didn't know it was all fake the sound system was real. One of the singers twisted his ankle and ran off stage where I was there was panic everywhere and the singer (I don't remember which one) wen't back on stage and just didn't jump around as much. No one could tell they were faking it, but when you see their performances today it is obvious they were. 
 

kota1
On my 2 channel and home theater system I us the Paradigm 9hs. I was so disappointed with their bass output, I have PS Audio BHK 300 Mono amps that are part tube and part mosfet. I had to add 2 subs to make the speakers sound better. Ironic but the 9Hs have a fairly big low frequency amp built into the cabinets and to me the low frequency is sickly, the high and mid frequencies are wonderful so now I'm more than happy with my 2ch system, it was very difficult to time align the extra subs because of the electronics in the 9hs.

I'll post a picture of my stereo room and my film mixing studio tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving.

kota1

Sorry for the dumb question but how do I set up my "virtual system" on Audiogon? I have some pictures of my room also. 

m-db
California is beautiful and I love it, I grew up in the Sierra Nevada mountains then ended up in LA doing sound. Idaho is very conservative and nearly everyone here is from California.

Having an audio mentor is so powerful, I had to make every mistake imaginable and learn what not to do myself. I’ve got to work on some big movies ie. Titanic, Pearl Harbor, and do many years of TV like CSI, Scorpion etc. I’ve been to the Oscars and Emmys multiple times and won.

listenig to odd monitors or headphones that aren’t the pinnacle of quality doesn’t matter in recording, your brain knows what a great voice like Anthony Hopkins sounds like on your system your mind will always compensate. There is no getting around using the best microphones possible though, monitors don’t matter but microphones do. I’m sure I’ve spent millions on sound equipment through the years but most of my equipment money went tor microphones.

kota1

Ok my room is in, hope you like it. I love sound but I'm not the most experienced audiophile. Working on it.

Thanks
Have a great Thanksgiving!

kota1

I have a fireplace where the cc tweeter should be and because that stupid stand was almost $1000 I had to use it. I did aim the tweeter to hit me at my listening position, I was very careful with the measurements very good note. If you do a recording with microphones at the tweeters of each speaker you can see the exact time alignment difference for each speaker, of course you have to do this with the equipment on to test latency also, this is the only way I know to know for sure to test what the time alignment is on each speaker.

Thanks for the nice comment about my room.

tkhill
I’m not sure if you were talking about me but I’ll answer. The reason I started this post was because it seems like many of the people on Audiogon are searching for magical sessions with music. As technology gets better the closer we’ll get to musicians being in our listening rooms, It’s not even close now not by a long shot. Apple has created convenient music that sounds bad but young people now prefer it. I mentioned powered speakers (speakers and amps designed for each other) that no one here should have 1 seconds hesitation as to the fact that is a much better way to get to high sound quality. Then I mentioned the irrational cult like beliefs many audiophiles have toward sound like vibration dampening and hugely expensive AC cables. I spoke to one of the top people at Apple about how his company was causing the quality of music and all the ancillary industries around music to have the quality sucked out of them, he seemed surprisingly interested about what I had to say I hope it made a difference. Audiophiles are about the only group that can make a difference in the sound industry by demanding better sound quality but not snake oil. You should see the presser on sound engineers to do a crapy job the pressure isn’t to make great recordings it’s usually do it faster and cheeper.

Communities can make a difference and we have lots of money that can definitely make a difference.

steakster

Ok I did overreact I shouldn't have taken your note so personal.

I apologize for my reaction.

kota1

I've worked with wireless mics in film for many years, the cost of a single transmitter and receiver is about $4000 for the best units (Zaxcom). Knowing this price range means that there is no way KEF can put a state of the art wireless system in 2x $7000 speakers. Wireless speakers have a long way to go, it's the FCC fault really they don't allow enough frequency bandwidth to support high fidelity consumer wireless products yet and probably never will.

Very nice.

brianlucey Thanks for the article I really enjoyed it. As I was reading your equipment list I thought wow how can you time align all those eclectic parts then you mentioned the Trinnov, very good choice. Interesting to hear you are combining tube amps in your system. My question is are you making your system sound flat or sound good?

I would like to hear your thoughts this question, my system is as simple as possible Protools, S4, HDX, MTRX Studio and the powered Genelecs I did this because anyone even me can mix on it and there are no surprises everything is industry standard, I understand your clients can take in the cool equipment and speakers but are you adding extra flavor to your system that is dangerous in a mastering studio. Real question I really don't want to sound mean or put anyone down that is the last thing I want to do, honest question. Also in my time in the movie industry I did have some very special equipment that was eye and ear candy and made producers appreciate my rig it definitely helped my career, do you feel the same way?

@brianlucey

Super cool you worked with Pink Floyd, so much creative engineering on those albums. I really didn’t mean to brag about budget I just meant I didn’t worry about the money and I could have gotten more expensive monitors but my room is not really that big and larger monitors were not needed. I didn’t actually like hearing Genelec monitors in the past I made my decision to buy them because of the design philosophy of Genelec and the physical point source design of the speakers. Originally my mixing room was going to be in a smaller space that sounded awful, the acoustic changes that I would have had to make were more expensive than simply moving buildings. I thought well I love my room at home so why not. I was never a fan of Tannoy and Uri when they had their concentric tweeter and midrange drivers but when I heard these Genelecs I knew they got it right. It’s very interesting to listen to the mixing system then the home theater system there is no comparison as to which one sounds better the home theater is a different world but it’s super flavored ice cream and as you know through Pink Floyd the technology changes over the years. It is best to mix flat and accurately without the loudness button pushed because that may be the flavor of the listening public of the day.

The drawings that you provided are turning out to be changing, I have my Atmos system in my listening room 90 degrees from my music system this was really strange acoustically but it worked surprising well (I actually have some more dialing in to finish) but originally I bought all the hardware to put the speakers in the exact proper positions and angles then I read a few cutting edge articles and decided to put the speakers up in a non symmetric configuration because my head position can’t tell the difference between a front surround or a rear surround coming at the same opposite angle on the same side. The problem with this philosophy is that it’s not flat and may not be reproducible in other mixing rooms which is the original reason why I bought a flat system in the first place. Love to hear some stories about mixing Pink Floyd.

@brianlucey 

Oops I guess you didn't work with Pink Floyd I misread your post. Their team to me may be some of the greatest music mixers ever. 

You definitely need lots of speaker to mix Dolby Atmos you can do 5.1 but 7.1.4 is probably best. It is only a matter of time before 2 channel systems are changed to surround systems for music, it's already happening. At an AES convention a few years ago there was a vendor with software that let you use however many speakers you wanted in a surround configuration there was no limit because the outcome is object based and speakers equal resolution In that case. In real life all sounds are point sources but we hear nearly as much information from the first reflections as the original point source this is why acoustic is more important than most people think. 

moonwatcher

Well, I guess a good engineer could put drivers and an amp inside a concrete block that weighs about 300 pounds. Doubt it would sell very well. And Vibration dampening systems ARE important under turntables at the very least, regardless of what you are playing said turntable through.

If and audiophile spends 50k on his turntable that weighs 300lb we could probably guess that this same audiophile will have some massive subs that would be equally impressive in putting out bass, why doesn’t all that bass energy affect the fidelity of the needle in the record groves? Sorry if this is a dumb question I don’t have much experience with turntables.

Oddioboy
You seem very interesting, that was a more insightful post than you may realize.

LA is about keeping your job and making your clients happy, eclectic mastering labs are great if you can hold up your end and put out great work. But mastering labs are not where you make the sound of the record, that’s done in recording and mixing mastering needs to be done so the original vision of the musician, producer, and the record company are all happy while not forgetting to be very exact on all the specs you have to keep up with. I had a nice career and got a great rate for my equipment because I did a good job and stood behind the people who hired me, but it always brought a smile to the producers face when my equipment did things others couldn’t, that is key in LA. I have worked for people who were very successful and couldn’t mix there way out of a paper bag but had a good personality. Being successful doesn’t alway mean you really know what your doing in LA.

Kota1
Ok I really don't want to be blunt but I will be. As you probably already know I think tube amps, and microphones, sound better more musical and all that just not in a accurate way but in an effect way because of the natural characteristics of the tubes. We both know that tube amps start to degrade from the first moment you put in new tubes, I've have my BHK 300s and BHK Preamp for about 4 years and have spent 1000s on tubes trying to get the super sexy ones that BHK didn't even have in mind when he designed the units (silly). But in a mastering studio you can't have the slow degradation of tubes to evaluate the recording and mixing of other engineers for the master. Doesn't that sort of put up a red flag? Perhaps I'm wrong. Maybe I'm to analytical and not cool enough. 

 

brianlucey
You are confused, it doesn’t matter how many records you have worked on. My position is not that I have great speakers in my Atmos system it's that they are accurate and industry standard I don’t want them to sound amazing as you have said. You are also confused in that I’m criticizing audiophiles in terms of my Genelec speakers audiophiles and Genelecs are all together different they don’t run in my 2 channel system.

As for now audiophiles don’t think multi speaker systems like Atmos are actually audiophile this will probably change in the future but not yet. You have a successful room but you are full of it, you don’t even have matched speakers you mix tube amps and SS then you have several AD transitions to Protools even though you say you are all analog, Impressive to a 25 year old producer who loves to see your super cool main speakers but has more money than technical chops. I know I’ve been there, I’ve done that and finished the game ahead, nothing wrong with it but don’t try to fool people who have already been around the block.

I was the Sound Mixer on the show Roadies produced by Cameron Crow. The show was about a stadium rock band and the roadies that helped make the show. I didn't do the first two episodes but when I came in I found out they made deals with the live sound companies to show their gear as advertisement. Wow did we have some nice gear, some of it was still in beta. The live sound guys would set up an entire stadium sound system in the stages at Manhattan Beach Studios or wherever we were shooting that episode. I was amazed how good a concert system could sound, when you get the very best equipment for concerts, Showco, Meyer, etc. the fidelity can be amazing. All the equipment was networked and active, I would say it sounded like a $millionbucks  but the systems were much more $ than that.

If you put a quarter in it the rack will wiggle.

 

fisher_400 The principle is the amplifier and speaker should match in a very intimate way. If the amplifier designer has no idea what speaker is eventually going to be used for the music I would say that designer is throwing darts. I don't think this is controversial at all, I would say that an amp doesn't have to be designed for the speaker inside the cabinet of the speaker its self but for the system to be it's best the speaker and amp must be designed for each other. Who could disagree with this idea if the speaker has 5 drivers 2 drivers and the crossovers are passive, active or hybrid the amplifier may not be able to be all that it needs to be for that speaker, amps designed for LF are different than amps designed for HF. I actually never got to my planned point in this discussion because so many people couldn't even understand the obvious premise of the starting point. It's been a little frustrating. Also Im not talking about cheap D amps stuffed into any old speaker I'm talking about best practices.

secretguy you say silly premise, I'm assuming that you're talking about my statement that audiophiles are confused. If you have read a few other posts don't you agree there is a lot of disagreement. Designing speakers with amps and driver frequencies in mind is basic it's the bedrock of logical electronic design. Many people here don't even agree, smart people, we aren't dealing with fact here were dealing with emotions and subjective bias. Do you agree?

mijostyn I'm surprised you said a good sound system can sound like a real musician in the room. Have you ever done that? Even in the best recording studios in the world the sound in the control room doesn't sound like the sound in the studio. I play saxophone in the same room I listen to music and it's really not even close, my system isn't great but my wife knows when I'm playing saxophone with a backing track (but I do kinda suck, even after 45 years of playing). I'm not talking about live sound through a PA but real musicians playing acoustic instruments? 

thespeakerdude Hear hear!
I can make objective remarks about the best practice for a speaker and an amp to sound best with regard to best practices is for them to be designed to work together in the same cabinet or apart. If someone doesn’t believe that they are not understanding the statement.

You can have the best amp in the world and connect it to a speaker that it is not designed for that amp and you will not get the performance potential that you could have if it were. Influences against this idea are not based on logic but religious dogma. What I’m saying here doesn’t have anything to do with how anything sounds it is apart from listening it is a purely a logical equation.

The fact that many on this discussion forum can’t understand this is a statement that audiophiles are confused, it was not a put down or rude just honest.

brianlucey Maybe no one is on your sound journey, maybe you use the greatest equipment in the world and we are all simply lucky to hear your musings on equipment. If you were half half the engineer you think you are you would understand that if a studio uses the greatest, warmest, most orgasmic equipment ever it's not a very good studio, Why because studios are not supposed to sound good they are supposed to mix music that will sound good on the most systems. You mentioned MS-10s bad speakers that are the industry standard, why because they sound not so great. One of the oldest tricks in the book is before the mix is finished you go out with the producer and put the track in your car that's where most people listen to music.

Audiophiles often have much better systems than studios, this is the audiophiles place in the sound world, not the studios.

I have been in sessions with perhaps the greatest mixer ever Al Schmidt at Capital records he used his own monitors that honestly didn't sound very good at all but it didn't matter he knew what to expect from them that's what counts. Your song and dance equipment wise doesn't hold any weight supporting your arrogance. Good luck.

brianlucey
I started in acoustics and physics then moved into movie sound about 35 years ago. I've been to many big studios but not for music but for movies. and I'm putting in my studio now for movies not music. Dolby Atmos was meant for movies not music. I have worded at music studios but didn't enjoy it as much as sound for movies. Sorry if that is beneath you.

Oscar for Titanic Oscar nomination for Pearl Harbor

Emmy for The Watcher

Emmy for CSI

Lots of Golden Reel dialog awards CSI Miami and others

brianlucey
Also 30 years of live mixing and mixing orchestras, also sound for plays, also sound for radio shows, also sound for commercial buildings, also setting up sound systems for concerts, also working on recording studio sound systems, also consulting for production sound recording manufactures, also consulting on movie post production sound systems. Also designing mathematic raytracing programs for JBL, also doing basic acoustic research for Crown. 

thespeakerdude Atmos object oriented mixing is a good bet for the future, systems will become smaller and more efficient in terms of efficiency and specificity in accurate imaging, it's all over the place now, even theaters can't keep up with properly holding the specs of the sound. Holographic glasses will show the artist in the metaverse and concerts will be wonderful.

thespeakerdude Just to be clear my OP was meant to mean in the best practice each driver should be designed for each amp and visa versa. If this isn't done the amp may be very expensive but it is shooting darts on matching the particular speaker most effectively. Think of the million dollar systems that aren't designed for each other that is willful confusion a picture of silliness. The amp doesn't have to be in the speaker cabinet but it does have to be designed for the speaker. 

Vibration affecting the fidelity of active speakers with the amps inside the cabinet and those benefits are opposed to each other. That's all I'm saying. 

brianlucey oops I spelled al Schmitts name wrong and Capitol Records wrong, sorry. Al Schmitt was very kind and he was incredibly humble and unassuming. He wanted to show me all around Capitol and the reverb rooms but I was a little star struck to be honest I didn't want to be a pain. He thought what I did was cool (movie sound) and I thought what he did was cool (music) . His speakers were Tannoy he told me they had a custom crossover made by Doug Sax, they sounded awful very very heavy midrange of course I said nothing. I was there because the artist knew I new how her voice should sound the producer was Don Was. I didn't say a word about the sound I knew she was in good hands. I say all that because you respect Al Schmitt and he used literally the worst sounding speakers I've ever heard in a studio, this goes to show it's not about how expensive or perfect the monitors must be they just have to be consistent then you can make decisions in reference to them. I worked with many actors who got 20M for the show we were working on Tom Cruse, Leonardo DiCaprio, Anthony Hopkins etc. and I had to get their voice right because I had to capture their performance, but many times we had to tell the Director to do another take because something went wrong, believe me Jim Cameron on Titanic didn't want to do any take again for sound but he usually gave in after screaming at me it takes a lot of confidence in your monitoring system to ask for another take at $3000 a minute. Thanks for answering me, you are arrogant but confident and it's nice you invited me to your room. Best

kota1, I'm not an expert in Dolby Atmos even though I've got a system, I just bought it to do a movie I was going to produce and pay for myself. I have a technical background, Physics and engineering in college and got to do some wonderful acoustics at the beginning of my career which helped all the way through. Live sound, music recording studio work, orchestras, did help me in production sound for films but my specialty is production sound (recording the actors and efx on set). It was nice when I could get into the post mixing stages because I was usually working on the next show. 

mijostyn Thank you for the piano recording notes, I'll listen to them with nothing else going on, the house quiet, my wife sleeping, my mind at ease, no caffeine and my tubes warmed up. 

How do you feel about my point about my piano making sound from the hammers hitting the strings and speakers using electricity and vibrating cones. This piano has changed my view of what Hi Fi is because it's real and when you hear real in a room that was designed for the instrument it's not like a recording. 

mijostyn I have a wonderful Steinway Grand piano it is a Spiro/r which means it uses a digital mechanical mechanism that will play the piano every key hits the strings with a resolution of 1000 levels of amplitude, the /r means it records also. I've recorded pianos for many decades even once for Elton John (he was a pain). This piano is the definition of hi fi it's the only perfect recording I know of. Pianos are really hard to record grand pianos sound better from farther away but then you are really depending on the room. I think pianos are the worst recorded instruments in all of music. Do you have a favorite piano recording?

kota1 This was one of the most expensive pieces of sound equipment I've ever purchased but wow, the sound is perfect, like you said no speakers no mics no transducers AD converters or anything. Often Steinway has a person do a concert and you can link the piano and see the featured musician play the piano on the TV and it's your piano playing in perfect sync, the ultimate Audiophile system. I've miked pianos hundreds of ways and they all are bad, this is the only way that a piano sounds proper unless you have a very talented piano player friend who will play for you 1000s of songs and videos that Steinway sends month to month. No sound system could produce the same sound as this piano does because it's created in a different physical way, the hammers hitting the strings is nothing like listening on speakers.

mijostyn Also, I've only done sound all my life and I've come across an interesting thing. People that are really good at it are into other things like your woodwork, many of my friends and the people that I look up to in the industry strangely enough cook, or do something else that is creative and practical. I don't have any other talents I try to play saxophone but I'm simply not as gifted as a real player.

Thank you for telling your story.

kota1 Ya know rooms are weird concerning acoustics, the best studios I've been in have sounded really strange definitely not the dark room with perfect RT-60 dissipation, smooth reverb. One of the very frustrating parts of acoustics to me is that acoustics are probably still more art than technology and computer algorithms, it's frustrating to me because I used to work in that industry using all the tech I could think of.

Here's how to set up a room with regard to acoustics, hire a person with a lot of time and experience in small room acoustics and let him/her walk around clap and  talk about the music you like while walking around for a while then do exactly what he says. it's very likely a computer program will not agree with the acousticians notes. 

Look at it this way my beloved Steinway "B" grand piano is the definition of a phase problem the lid bounces the sound from the hammers hitting the strings, you get the direct sound then the bounced sound later from the lid = phase problem. But no that's how pianos sound, unless you take off the lid. Acoustics is an art not a science. Flat rooms sound awful.

@kingharold great story, I’m sure there was a lot of frustration, so glad you hung in there over all that time.

@lonemountain great post and you are right it is important to keep the signal the same level as best you can, doing crossover work at speaker level is silly everyone knows it, reason # 847 why speakers and amps need to be made for each other. Funny how right you are no one mentioned the many reasons why working on the signal after the amplifier is definitely suboptimal.

Also I have what should be a very good headphone setup, Focal Stellia and a Naim amp designed for headphones. the headphones and amp were about $8k 

The headphones sound ok they have never really thrilled me. I thought having expensive headphones and a dedicated class A amp would change my life. It's good but nope.

So what’s the difference in my Protools / Genelec Dolby atmos system and my personal system, both cost just under $200k, are in the same room but 90 degrees apart. My personal system has all passive speakers except the subs 2x 3k W each and the hybrid low frequency part of the Paradigm 9hs that have a 1.4K W amp in each cabinet. The personal system has tube amps and a tube preamp which makes that system sound much more pleasing warm and gives the music or movie a much more pleasing tone, I realize I have a lot of bass but wow is it fun. The personal system is much noisier than the active system even though I’ve spent my share of money trying to find the best boutique tubes there are. The personal system has about $25k of AC power regeneration with 2x PS Audio P20s and new power circuits in my home but still there is a little noise between songs. All the speakers have beryllium high frequency and midrange drivers these from Paradigm were much less harsh than the Focal speakers I almost purchased, I’m exceptionally happy with the mid and high frequencies. The bass is finally ok with essentially 4 subs. The Genelec system sounds awful in comparison it’s not warm and fuzzy the Sub is 1.1k W I think, it’s odd looking in a round cabinet made by Genelec also. This system is not harsh in general except when music comes on that is recorded harshly this system is instantly dynamic and all over the place. The Genelec system feels like a teenager that is about to have a nervous breakdown on one song and then turn into Ella on the next song. These speakers reveal every mistake the engineer or musician made, they are more unforgiving than forgiving, They remind me of Mr. Barcus in high school english they are a very hard task master but if you work really hard they are rewarding friends. I would never want to show the distribution people my movie on this system because it would show all my shortcomings in experience and taste. When someone calls a system “revealing” that often means a justification for the expense of the system it doesn’t mean that system is exceptionally phase coherent and time aligned perfectly. Actually the more revealing a system is means the worse it sounds for a much higher percentage of music or movies that aren’t recorded or mixed to the highest standards. In other words revealing systems sound awful most often

@brianlucey That's exactly what I did Naim was supposed to be good and class A but I compare my headphone setup with my personal system and it sounds more like my Genelec system. I think the headphones are good what would be a suggestion for the amp/dac? I definitely think headphones need tube amps just on a guess, tubes sound much better to me and if I need to monitor for accuracy the ss system, but for fun the tube system. 

Also I understand your philosophy of sound but it is self refuting if you think about it, ultimately sound being recorded as accurately as possible rather than sounding better subjectively is best practice. Our brains just like sex are the most important organ in hearing and interpreting music but the standard is nature and real acoustic instruments along with natural sounds we hear everyday. Our brains will always hold real sounds as a base line. I remember the B&K omni measurement mic was considered the only accurate reference mic for many years by a government measurement group.