The closest approach...really

Hi Detlof, Although my post had no one person in mind other than myself and my musings, your post reminds me of things I should have said even though they might appear redundant to yours and Mr T's.

I gained most of my appreciation of live music in the first five rows of Orchestra Hall near center because I perferred the balance of sound there BUT mainly because I could hear instruments with great specificity, minimal halls sounds other than bass reinforcement.

What has impressed me was what is natural vs what is artificial. Natural is tight/crisp sound with correct timbre, little affected by room acoustics. That it is not artificially bright, something that so often occurs in audiophile speakers, electronics, or associated stuff, when the manufacturers are trying to replicate the natural clarity of the live performance by 'inhancing the apparent detail' in a recording and/or audio equipment.

So my quest in audio has always been for a 'natural' clarity. As you say, and Mr T sez as well (although I can't understand how he can differentiate timbre so well in the back of the hall with all of the acoustic sounds of the room intruding - I guess he just has finer ears than mine) learing to appreciate the sounds of live music.

That pursuit of clarity put me at odds with the some of the valued audiophile goals, perhaps as suggested by HP and others, which when followed seemed to produce sounds with unrealistic high refquency response more often than not. Seemed as if I was always troubled with attenuating/smoothing the mid's and highs and occasionally reinforcing some upper bass warmth present in the symphony halls I most often visited. Perhaps my ignorance was a barrier to understanding Harry's POV and observations. But that was my life with a crown of thorns if you will. Nothing seemed balanced and natural as I wanted it to be.

NOW the plug (for my hole)! Last fall I purchased some Silverline Boleros based on a couple of professional reviews, some user reports, as well as an in-store and subsequently in home audition. The reviews all seemed to conclude that the speakers had a mid-range dip which made the speakers a bit polite which was suggestive of many British speakers. Just not the reviewers admitted cup of tea, but recommended for folks who wanted to get past audiophillia and focus on music, or folks who had a bright room.

In any event whereas I was expectiing a 'dullish' speaker this was no dullish piece of work whatsoever. No rolled high end at all. A SOTA tweeter, without FR enhancement to impress, maintained the crispness of tone that made the midrange crisp and the bass tight, natural attributes of the live sound. Don't get me wrong, this is not a SOTA speaker but it's the best I have ever heard, certainly in my house, and for the very first time ever, I feel that I have a window opened wide for the assessment of the performance of electronic's and ancillaries, not to mention recordings. I've spent the last year re-visiting all of the stuff I have in the house/attic and I'm amazed at the value in some of these old electonic bombs and wantabees which I had previously discounted/discarded.

The really funny part of my reaction to these speakers is that contrary to every other speaker I have owned which set off a buying frenzie focused on better electronics etc this time I'm so happy with the results of three set's of electronics I've set up to drive them that I fail to see the need of finding perfect delivery in one electronics system. I know in advance what music I want to listen to and what kind of delivery I want and I use the appropriate component combinations connected alternatively by three sets of cables and banana plugs.

Now, for me, audio AND music is FUN! Not just an expensive and frustrating persuit!! No more unquenchable thirst for the next best component to come down the pike. I really like what I have and am contented. Now, if that is not the opposite of the typical 'audiophile' attitude, which to me is represented by the endless pursuit of minute sonic detail thinking that that next cable etc will be the last, I don't know what could be. I was an 'audiophile'. No more - now I'm really back to being a music lover. Maybe I never was an audiophile, just a long nightmare, and one day I woke up, ala JD on Dallas. :-)

Perhaps I'm just dreaming now.........................

Hello Newbee,
Your lines, which follow below have warmed my heart, because they are so close to what I have learned in my early years:

"I gained most of my appreciation of live music in the first five rows of Orchestra Hall near center because I perferred the balance of sound there BUT mainly because I could hear instruments with great specificity, minimal halls sounds other than bass reinforcement."

And:

"What has impressed me was what is natural vs what is artificial. Natural is tight/crisp sound with correct timbre, little affected by room acoustics. That it is not artificially bright, something that so often occurs in audiophile speakers, electronics, or associated stuff, when the manufacturers are trying to replicate the natural clarity of the live performance by 'inhancing the apparent detail' in a recording and/or audio equipment."

I've suffered through practically similar problems as you did until through TAS I tried the Jadis electronics with my ELS and was happy for a very long time, let my Abo for TAS run out, but wanted more dynamics than my beloved Quads were able to afford. I then went wild, experimenting with a whole array of stators, got better dynamics, but screwed up all staging of course. Then my fortunes changed and I sold it all. It was a relief and I kept on going to concerts. When fortunes changed again I finally knew what I wanted and how to get it. I chose carefully and no longer convulsively and I solicited the ears of what Mr.T called my committee, friends, musicians, afficionadoes and like you, I am happy now. So looking back, that hiatus which was so suddenly forced upon me was a stroke of luck. Perhaps, to paraphrase your words, it cured me of audiophilia and brought me back to where I belong in the first place, to music.

Thanks Newbee for your great post. In letting your lines sink in, I feel I must retract my previous statement: You are a music lover , whose dose of audiophilia is but a means to this end. I hope the same will be true for me until my ears turn deaf for good.

there is one "fly in the ointment". that is the recording.
recording quality varies. if one is trying to attain a semblance of natural timbre, one has to carefully select recordings, as benchmarks.

since the sound of recordings is unknown, the best one can do is listen to a bunch of recordings on many stereo systems and make a selection based upon the results of all of the listening sessions.

essentailly the stereo system and recording is evaluated, not just the stereo system. if one "tunes" one's stereo systems based upon a group of recordings, it is possible that one may not achieve the realism attained from the reference recordings when listening to "non" reference recordings.

Mrtennis
LOL, you are so right and there are many more flies in the ointment: Changes in humidity, temperature,the grid, your own well being just to mention a few fat ones.
Strangely enough though, and I wonder if Newbee would not agree with this, after your rig has reached that level of satisfaction, we spoke of above and after listening to a lot of various software (LP,CD,r2r,music server, whatever), the quality of a recording does not matter that much anymore. Having finally reached contentment with your set up you listen to music, not to the rig and if the rig suddenly draws your attention away from the music, generally something is wrong, either with you or with the rig which has to be addressed. I have never really consciously "tuned" my system to specific recordings, but tried to tune it to what my ears told me was more or less right with a lot of different software with all kinds of music and of course have found ways in time to compensate, with the choice of specific gear, just as Newbee seems to have done, for recording flaws, which I found irksome and which distracted from the performance.

>>there is one "fly in the ointment<<

You don't know how right you are.