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Dealers and exaggerated treble

I've been thinking about some negative experiences I've had at dealers over the past few years. I don't mean the dealer's were unpleasant, they were not. I mean that I heard bad sound.


In a lot of those cases, the treble was exaggerated, or harsh to me.


I'm wondering, have you ever heard really bad treble at a dealer, but then you hear the speakers elsewhere and they seem fine?
erik_squires
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,177 posts
 
8th note 1+    I think it is nice to see the extent of the market and at least be able to have a good look at the equipment particularly speakers to get an idea of how well they are built even if show conditions do not allow you to hear the equipment at its best. 
The best dealers have multiple showrooms set up to optimize certain equipment. Serious listening is always by appointment and it always helps if you drive up in a Porsche. A good shop owner will not try to sell anything but just answer questions and allow you to listen. This approach is usually limited to the best equipment. Once you get down to mid fi you will get more of the standard approach and the shop owner's assistant. My own motto is never let anybody sell you anything. Know what you want and evaluate equipment yourself in terms of sound and build quality. 
bigkidz
3,312 posts
 

Interesting enough all the comments.  Personally I have found that most demonstrations are using servers to access music.  I have not found that many that to my ears sounded as good as a good transport and DAC like a CEC, Metronome, Audiomeca transport.  I am trying to get there myself but nothing that really does what these transports do.  So to me that is one cause of the treble issue.


I recently heard a ProAc monitor and a Vandersteen monitor.  At first, the Vandersteen sounded slow and not to involving.  The ProAC seemed livelier, faster and more open.  The Vandersteen had a more musical sound with better decay of notes and to me hearing piano notes fade away is the correct sound.  It was more spacious sounding also.  But the jump factor with the ProACs was fun.  It was during this comparison that I remember thinking the ProAC tweeter was a little tilted up in the frequency offering the fun factor.  Exciting but maybe over time not correct and long term listening could be an issue.  I wanted to have both but that was not an option.

Living in the NYC area, I get to hear so many systems.  I am able to understand more of what causes the poor sound from these experiences.  I find the issue mostly is coming form the source than the speakers.  I usually bring a DHT DAC with me so that I can hear what it does in these systems.  Usually within the first 30 seconds everyone hears the differences for the better.

So to me it is not as much the speakers or the set-up as it is the source feeding the system the sound most of the time.

Happy Listening. 




rodman99999
5,983 posts
 
bigkidz (+1) Speaker systems, in general, are more accurate/transparent than in the past. That means; one’s more likely to be put on notice, of anything that’s strident/bright/screwed up(in any way) upstream(GIGO).
kalali's avatar
kalali
1,977 posts
 
I personally don’t think that the speakers in general are more accurate and transparent than the past but I do know that different speakers do sound different in the same exact (rest of the) system.
testpilot
895 posts
 
@kenjit wrote.... I recently went to an ultra high end store for a demo. It was by apointment so everything had been set up prior to my arrival by the store manager. In other words he must have surely sat down and checked the sound even if briefly.
When i arrived, i immediately heard and pointed out that the speakers were wired out of phase.
He then corrected the mistake. I was shocked at how this could have happened.

Either deliberate, or a mistake. Either way its deplorable.
Perhaps one of the upstream components inverted phase.  One speaker wired out of phase WILL impact the sound, whereas, both speakers wire out of phase will have very little impact as you have a 50/50 chance that the source material was recorded with the correct phase.


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