Should a high end system be flexible, or demanding?


This is a discussion we dance around here a lot. I want a system that is flexible. That lets me play music from Sister Rosetta Tharpe in the 1940s all the way up to today and enjoy it.  I simply can't expect mono recordings from then to sound the same on my system as they did to the recording engineers at the time, nor can I make a 1940's "reference system" work well for modern tracks.

Making a system that is too demanding that keeps you looking for audiophile approved recordings while ignoring music as culture for the past 100 years is a kink.
erik_squires

Showing 2 responses by douglas_schroeder

An audio system that cannot play all music, all recordings superbly, is not much of a high end system. There are fundamental weaknesses, shortcomings in a system that cannot sound terrific with all genres of music and all recordings.

The fact is that most audiophiles' systems are not nearly as good as they think. They blame the compressed music, the genre, when in fact it is their rig that lacks. 
cleeds, yes, I do have actual evidence of my claim. First, I have built hundreds of audio systems from extreme budget on the low end of a couple thousand dollars up to HiFi at the $100K mark. In reviewing I compare such systems continuously, and it becomes quite obvious what systems can and cannot do with all genres of music. The hard limitations of the genres of speakers and components becomes clear as day when many systems are built and assessed using a wide variety of musical genres.

It also becomes obvious that when people have middle to lower end systems and talk as though those systems are as good as those at shows, or they are close to SOTA, they have little understanding as to the actual performance spectrum for audio systems. Many people here make ridiculous performance claims for systems that are obviously incapable of what they are claiming. Their framework of reference is so narrow that they have no idea actually where their system is in absolute terms, and that is because they have built so few systems in their own room.

Secondly, all you have to do is look at the virtual systems here to know in a moment roughly where the performance level will be. There are precious few that can handle extreme music with aplomb. You can be assured that practically no system under $25K MSRP will be great with all genres of music, able to handle compressed music and extreme LF well. Eliminated are all smallish full range speakers, most dipole panels, almost the entirety of bookshelf speakers, all tower speakers with 8-10" woofers or smaller, etc. In other words, the vast majority of speakers alone, not even talking about quality of components, are physically incapable of handling some genres of music that are much more demanding. Playing these genres of music on such systems will sound like sh_t. Then, you have the people who don’t even consider cables important, so their system is automatically compromised, much less those who mix cables without any understanding of what they can do when used properly.

Factor in all the middle to low end electronics driving speakers and it is clear that most of those systems do not have premium sound regardless of what speakers they are driving. My point is not to disrespect budget audiophiles, but to point out that criticism of the genres of music is misplaced, and it is due in large part to people hearing it on seriously compromised systems.