Why, Tbag, what do you mean? |
Still waiting...
Anonymity is the Hobgobblin of small minds. |
Tbg, when you refer to me as "Ass" instead of Asa, is that a typo, or did you mean it to be added to calling me "stupid" and uneducated also?
In addition to a law degree, I have two masters from the London School of Economics, but I don't think formal education has anything to do with cognitive agility, perhaps the opposite. I also wrote for the absolute sound, and for ultimate audio magazines, concerning how consciousness percieves musical meaning, in addition to equipment reviews, so, given this context, I think I'm relatively educated enough in audio to engage you in at least a discussion.
Yes, my "no, no no" was provacative, but no more than that, and certainly did not need for you to call me stupid and then uneducated. So, why did I put bread on the water and say I was waiting? Because I took the time to look at a few of the other threads you have been on and noticed a distinct penchant and pattern on your behalf for engaging others with, how did you ypurself charaterize it in your very long H-Cat defense thread, "vitiolic"?
Therefore, doing a probability analysis, I do not think your similar attitude towards me, or anyone insinuating that the H-Cat SS rendition should not be everyone's cat's meow, is an anomaly.
When someone goes around, throwing around, personal insults on a thread, it is usually because they can hide behind the anonymous nature of the medium. In other words, the anonymity of the medium catalyzes borderline narcissistic remnants in their egoic structure, allowing them to express themselves in a way that the given person would never do if the in-person opinion of peers acted as a conformity brake to their behavior. I hope that you can understand that better now.
I don't like people going around calling other people names. I was a prosecutor for ten years and my experience has been is that when people do that they are usually bluffing, and are just bullies. To help you with this, here is what I'd like you to do: send me an email and I will send you back my personal phone number and you can then call me and we can have a talk. That should solve the anonymity thing, I would think.
So, your original response should have been either (1) requesting a clarification of no, no, no, or (2) indicating that, in the H-Cat, that SS's historical harmonic thinness et al, had been solved and that my opinion had been rendered moot and obsolete, backed by a cogent argument, or (3) perhaps a funny, yes! yes! yes! followed by a nice conversation between you and me where we treat each other with respect and then agree to disagree, assumably.
So, again, since you did not do that, I will respond as if you did. What I find lacking in SS designs - pre's or amps - is a failure to completely render the spatial envelope in which players exist from and, more importantly, from which they project from; sound projects from a source in a symmetrical, fluid manner, existentially speaking, and my experience has been that SS can not capture this relationship of source projection and the integral surrounding space to the degree that the best tube designs can, and that this has been a constant in the past until the present. Are SS designs getting better in this regard? Yes, but something even deeper, in my experience, still eludes them to a greater degree; namely, the ability to lend the impression, project the simulcrum, of a dimensional ground to the musical projection, i.e. that the space is not simply a spatial vessel for the sound projection, but that the dimensional ground which is space itself interpenetrates the sound source so that gound and source are not percieved in the deepest parts of the mind as separate. Yes, that existential reference is more bread on the water, and if anyone seems interested, I'll continue.
Now, tbg, how about that phone call? |
Answer ten years ago: No.
Answer five years ago: No.
Answer today: No. |
My God, "Tbag," deliberate? Never even entered my mind. What's a "tbag" supposed to mean? It wasn't purposeful, but, amusingly, I find it symptomatic that you would think so.
"Merely suggested"? For those of you who want to gauge the authenticity of that remark, I steer you to the H-Cat thread that Tbg has engaged in extensively since 2001, when the H-Cat, and all its subsequent iterations, was/is better than everything else then too. Tbg, do you think there might be a reason that that discussion turned "vitriolic," and so soon? Do you think that, perhaps, it has anything to do with you; as in, in the first thing you say, calling people "stupid"?
On you now taking refuge in the subjective, "IMHO" - which you have not on the H-Cat thread - yes, I'm sure the H-Cat does things that you have not heard before. I am glad to finally hear that delimiter (which we all share), and particularly in your tone.
Best SS linestage? That's a different argument. Maybe, could be.
No phone call? Well...
I apologise to Saxo, and everyone else, for temporarily hijacking this thread. I watched the H-Cat thread now and then, and others, and didn't say anything. It sticks in my craw to see smart guys with expensive equipment, and who should know better, fail to remember a few things - like manners. I like the provocative and the rambunctious as much as anyone, that's fine, its a thread for cryin' out loud, but I think we all know the line, or should. God knows I've said things on threads I regretted, so I look forwards to talking to tbag in the future here on audiogon, where I hope that I, and others, can have a mutually beneficial conversation with him. I mean that. Carry on. |
Tvad, really. Two fingers here. I think its inane to do that kind of stuff. Actually, I don't know what t-bagging is. You're right, though, I should have read it through to get that out of there. |
Tbg, you sound like my 18 yr old when he wants something and can't get it! I'm not looking for an apology from you. Why would I ask for something that I don't care about and you certainly would never offer? That would just be drama - but you know about that, right.... BTW, I don't think Tvad is questioning my manners. You might want to check with him first before you start enlisting allies. Anyone want to jump in the deep end with tbg? And, who said I can't afford what you've got? And who cares! Jeezz...
F1a, let me think about it, and when I have a bit more time. On Supratek, I sold mine. It was an early version and it was getting long in the tooth. I was really sorry to hear about Mick. I did that review really early when he just started distributing in the States and he was always a straight up guy. I'm mulling over Shindo on a pre. Not sure if I should go Masseto or just right to Giscours. Then, again, the Doshi Alaap MkII looks intriguing. I almost did a deal with Nick Doshi on a Lectron JH50 years back and he was a class act too, which is important to me. Then again, that Raven looks mighty sweet too. Ah, the obsession rears its ugly head! In transition, right now I'm listeing to my old Joule LA200, which I will never sell for sentimental reasons and because its a nice back up, but with a MkV phono stage that Jud just put out. As I noted in my review of the Joule line stage about eight thousand years ago, it has its limitations, but this phono stage is intoxicating, and I just bought a nice record collection and I am kind of having a hard time coming up for air - which is a good thing!
Hello Publul57. I hesitate to talk about passives because people are so divided on them. I have always maintained that in the best, well-balanced sytems, the preamp is the fulcrum of the whole. Everything is important at that level, but the pre seems especially so. In beginning systems, build out from speakers, but later, I have done best setting the speaker choice (because its so personal), then getting a pre, then filling in the gaps, carefully. There's more than one way, of course, to skin a cat (see how I resisted that!) so everyone has a different way. That has just worked for me. With a passive, it seems like you drop it in last, as if to balance out a lack of transparency. I remember when Steve Stone at Stereophile many years ago pushed passives. I would venture that it didn't go over for a reason. On the other hand, some guys out there love the AA Capitole direct into amps, and they seem to have good ears. Maybe the passive thing has gotten better since I listened. My experience has been that they lack a certain foundation to the music. Not a thinness per se, although that can happen, but a lack of, how do I put this, harmonic density. I'm open on the issue, but that's what I thought the last time I headed into those waters. I've also got a Air Tight 10W SET amp with an attenuator, and I've always preferred it with a pre - for whatever that is worth. And, you know, with the Shindo Augieres out there, I'd be hard pressed to advise anything else at that place. On the divide, given my experience, I would look at SS actives before I'd go passive, but that's just me. On resistor/transformer, I really don't have enough experience there to say. Sorry. BTW, what do you think about passives these days? I would be interested. |
Tbg, whose the one who can't stop chirping? No, no, no ain't "malice" - which was my original post, followed by your "stupid" comment. Which I don't think is malicious either, just rudeness. I tried to let it go for both of us, but...
I have a better idea. I'm sending you my info. Give me a ring. Maybe we can track each other down.
BTW, I can't quite remember or not from the H-Cat thread, but were you ever affiliated with H-Cat in any way, or was it just a good buddy thing, or only a satisfied customer?
On issue, tgb - and, yes, I'm still trying to get there - could you please address the issues I raised about SS limitations. How do you think that the H-Cat overcomes those limitations?
Tbg, on gregm's point, how do you think SS circuit design has improved, beyond better routing and isolation? I don't know the answer myself, necessarily, but would be interested in your answer. |
Tbg has good feedback as a seller. I sent him a concilliatory message asking him to call me. Seemed the best away around things over the long haul. |
I just talked to Tbg. Seems like a really sweet guy. Funny how that works. Another lesson in life for us both. We both agreed that, as stubborn people, we both got sucked in by the dreaded thread monster. The world is sunny again (or always was, and we just stopped paying attention for a while). Sorry, Mrtennis... |
Pubul57, really good info. Well, it sounds like you've been through a lot, and with fair comparisons. I have no necessary attachment to any technology, SS or tubes, pres or passives - its all just matter rearranged by Homo sapiens into different forms on this end - but I do have a marked desire, intuition, to simplify, so passives attract me from that vantage. I think its interesting that you would still go passive with an MP-1 sitting next to it, which as I recall, is a pretty luxurious creature. If they've come up with a passive for $135 that'll smack an MP-1, I'm all in!
I hear what you are saying about bloom, if you mean fluid, continuous projection, not a euphonic halo around the source of the projection. I guess I'm sensitive to its lack, and that's where I find the problems; its an existential, deeply buried, discontinuity that I hear. Not simply in the space or the source themselves, which, I think, individually, SS is getting much better at, but in the intra-relationship of source and space as the sound "moves."
My question is, how well does a component catalyze in the listener's mind the experience of sound, and or sound projecting, and of sound projecting in space, and of sound projecting integrally within the space around it, and of sound, at once being separate from space but also, at once, not separate, and, finally, and this has not been discussed by HP or Valin, as sound existing within a dimension. Which is what we do, being conscious and corporeal (Kant had some a priori things to say on this).
It is my position that each of these levels of perception is experienced, validated subjectively, in a progressively "deeper" part of the listening mind. If you listen at one level, then you know that level and all from where you came, and ususally deny the existence (and even, illogically, the possibility) of deeper perceptive levels. Its like being in a plane: at one height, the coast appears as a jagged line. Higher it appears smoother, but it has never been anything but the same coast during the entire ascent. The lower flier only knows one altitude; the higher flier knws that sight of the shore and all below.
And, let's be clear, its not about the mechanism, the ear. It is the mind that is listening. In this sense, the ability to hear deeper is determined by the will to do so. Most of the things we do are by action; as humans, we get somewhere by walking, cutting a tool, talking. And this is the rub with listening deeper, because listening deeper is not a function of cognicizing your way there, but of letting go of the attachment to cognicize your environment and sound, which I call, cognitive fading.
And I can prove it to you, empirically: as you begin to listen, observe your own mind. Note that as you fall deeper into the musical experience, you let go of thinking about that experience.
This is why people have different sounding stereos and why an older man like tbg can listen deeply even though his ears, as a mechanism, may be older. Same with HP, etc. It is the will to let go of one's evolutionary attachment to the action of the mind that is determinant on the depth of listening experience. So we are sure, this is not elitist; everyone is equal in their ability, it is only the will that varies.
Second point that has not been brought up by the magazine writers, and this is a bit more out there. Namely, that as you go deeper, what you are able to hear changes, i.e. knowledge perceived is depth-dependent. If you are attached to your mind's thinking, your mind is more objectively attached and looks to the world as series of objects. This level of perception produces a stereo system where objects are favored over space, which is relegated, many times to a void (stereo as statues in a void of space). At deeper levels, since the mind is at a different symmetry of perception, what is disclosed at that next level changes.
I think this may explain a phenomenon with SET's; namely, that when you first start listeing, yes, dynamics are objectively lacking. As I first sit down and look at the aural sources, being objective in my initial focus, I see this. But as I go deeper, this concern seems to fade at the same rate as the fading of my desire to cognify my experience. Dynamics do not seem insufficient onto the purpose of catalyzing my mind deeper and other variables that I did not objectively notice when I first started listening come to the fore. It is at these next levels that harmonic density and complexity, or their lack, is noticed. And then the next level, when harmonics are sufficiently accurate and natural, space comes into play. And so we search for that next piece of equipment, our stereos an instrument we are creating to catalyze progressively deeper symmetries of listening experience.
And this is also why, if you look at how are stereo language has progressed, it has moved to visual-orientated language descriptors (the objectifying mind wants to see its environment) to descriptors that describe movement (Valin's orb-action) to describing emotion in relationship to object, to (well, if they want to know, they'll have to hire me, at a greatly inflated salary to reflect the monstrous hassle of reviewing...).
And this is the next thing: we don't at first experience what is there when listeing at a new, deeper level, but rather what is not. This is why each new level is more difficult to describe, and particularly at first; because language is cognitively bounded and the more cognition is let go of, the more difficult it is later, when one is not listening and is describing, to bound the progressively deeper experience in language. Hence, the difficulty HP and others are having developing progressive lexicons of language to describe deeper experienced levels.
At the level where the lack of dimension is experienced, the experience almost becomes ineffable to the cognicizing faculties. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. You live in dimension, so why shouldn't you want your stereo to replicate, catalyze your mind's experience of it, also?
F1a, I not sure that is what you wanted. Maybe you were just kidding! Sorry for the length - its hard to cut down.
Now, that should give everyone enough targets to shoot at! |
Pinkus, that's funny! I understand what you are saying, though. If I saw something like that I might say to myself, what a boviating blowhard! I mean, how can I possibly listen when I'm talking so damn much? Not sure, though, that a stereo is only a sound machine, if that is what you also meant. Stereo is an art to me - the opportunity to use technology to produce an emotive, even meditative-like experience, in addition to good background music while cooking pasta.
Basicallty,I took a chance; more bread on the water. |
F1a: thanks.
On the system, how much BIG COLD HARD CASH do you have?! Just kidding...
Actually, that's a lot to ask and I don't know if I could guarantee that for anyone. I have a system that gets me there, but its older, relatively esoteric and made up of some stuff that might be pretty hard to unload. More than that, there's plenty of other guys here on the 'Gon that are much more up to date that me. What is your room dimensions and characteristics? What is your evolution in equipment to this point? What do you like to listen to, at what preferable volume, if any, etc.?
But, because I'm hoping to start a whole new discussion where I can be thoroughly lambbasted (spelling?), I'll give it a shot...assuming a reasonable sized, live room (as in, good live...)...and if cash was no option, I'd just have to go...Shindo pre, Wavac or Kondo amps, Kondo speaker wire, IC through experimentaion (critical, you know...could be anything. I use a mix of Kondo and NBS Pro original, which most think is over-priced junk but has worked for me), Raven TT with Triplanar or Copperhead, cartridge du jour to match whatever arm you want (your choice - Myabi, Universe, Allaerts, etc.), tbg's latest vibration boxes (yes, tbg, I'm lusting!), SRA OHIO-level amp platforms...and for speakers...Maybe the Shindo Latours, because I think that field coils are going to make a big splash down the road. For me though - and this is just from where I've been - I would also love to have, just to have them, the latest ESP Concert Grands.
Of course, there's lots to do at all $ points. How about a Mactone or Montille amp paired with Living Voice IBX or OBX speakers (the new ones with the Kondo wire inside)? Or, some Audio Note speakers, the one's Dudley goo's over this month in S-phile, paired with some Fi or Shindo gear, or...well, I'm letting my biases show and there's lots of ways to get there (you know, the one about infinite paths up a mountain?)
Anyway, should be pretty fun talking about it! |
F1a, very nice system. But, yes, the B&W's look a bit out of place. I see that you like pure, dynamic sound and I would guess that you are hearing the limits of the B&W's in terms of what you are looking for now. The problem I see is moving you too far into the lush speaker category; because your system is very pure in terms of space, but can err towards too clean in the upper mids, in a very subtle kind of way that takes a while to hear (and which I assume is why you are rolling Mullards, etc. in there). I think the Ref Veenas may be the way to go. So you know, I have not heard this speaker, so you should ask around with others, but I do know the sound of the company, and would guess, based on what HP said in the context of your system, that this might be a good speaker to go to next. The Wytechs could drive them, not too big, good designer and company known for speakers that play music not just sound-machines. And, if you don't like them, I don't think you'll get too hurt on resale, etc. (Living Voice is tougher to resell).
But if you really want my opinion, and you think - as in, know this about yourself - that you are looking for a speaker for the very long haul, then I would look at scamming a pair of ESP Concert Grands (Esoteric Speaker Products) here on the 'Gon. They are big, esoteric, and hard to sell/ship, but they exactly fit what you want - they play gorgeous on classical and particularly do mid to low volume well, in addition to high spl's if that is your itch that day (I would then unload the REL, so you'd gain that space). I say, big, but also they have, from the front view, a narrow baffle profile. Its an end-point purchase. The new ones are $36K, but I saw one hanging around here for $20, and you could probably get them down to $17K. The big dealers won't carry them because they musically embarrass other more costly speakers and Sean McGaughan, the designer, doesn't care about playing the hi-end mag game and so won't poney up a big ad buy to get the big NY/CA dealer's attention to make it worth for them, financially speaking. He's another Mick Maloney.
Now, here's the additional rub: you'll need at least 50W to run them - which brings in consideration of your Wytechs, which would have to go at 17W...
And since, given your system (the Wytechs and Supra pre have similiar signatures and, I would assume, mate well), I don't think you want to move the Wytechs from where they are at. Hence, my original recommendation of the Veenas or Dudley's Audio Notes...
So, if it were me, I'd find some guys around you who have some Audio Notes and Veenas and go listen to them, and listen to see if their designer is hearing what you hear. I personally would go for the Audio Notes, but speakers are a very individual choice and I think you might very well prefer the Veenas given your preferences and coming off the B&W's (and the Veenas are nicer looking to boot, IMHO). In any event, I'm not sure either speaker will cuddle up to the REL, hard to say. Might be OK with the Veenas, but I would be surprised if the Audio Notes took a shine to a sub.
Let us know what you end up doing. You have good ears and a nice system and I'd really be interested in which way you go and what you think when you get there. Good luck!! |
Mapman, maybe you too, afer reading your comments on your system. I would seriously think about a Shindo Augieres pre with an Auditorium trannie into the Denon cartridge. Really, your Walsh's would love it. |
