How do you know when a stereo sounds good?

When I press PLAY and sound comes out of the speakers!

Difficult one...

First when everything sounds better than before.  Totally absorbing and one doesn't want it to be interrupted by anything.  Musicians are in the room.  

Second thoughts....doubt creeps in, is it really doing what I paid all that money for.   What about all those reviews.  Wish I could hear the reviewers system to know if its all BS. Is it my ears?

Comparisons with friends systems help, but in the end I think it could be only experienced reviewers who are able to listen to many systems in their own room that could reach a state of objectivity here.

Ted, would be very interested to hear your views.

“How do you conclusively prove to yourself that your system sounds good to you?” The proof is in the pudding. 

 

wturkey

402 posts

11-28-2021 7:04am

“How do you conclusively prove to yourself that your system sounds good to you?” The proof is in the pudding. 

+1

Actually a pretty good question.

When I opened my shop in 1973 I asked the same questions.  SO, luckily, I had a shop full of gear from high-end manufacturers (and some middle-range and some used high-end stuff).

SO, I brought in my trumpet and my guitars.  FIRST, I hooked up a basic system and swapped out speakers one pair at a time.  Took me almost a month. I never had to pick up an instrument during this phase.  It was pretty obvious that my favs from college--stacked Advents--were, to be kind, not that good.  Nothing against Mr. Kloss--he was clearly a genius and his speakers were terrific for the time.  BUT, next to other stuff they showed their weaknesses easily, as did many others that we carried.

Rather than bore you with the whole journey, what I learned was that different designers had different price points, thus compromised as you would expect.  This ain't a charity--this stuff was made to be SOLD for MONEY.  No money, no stuff.

Following an extended listening process, I was lucky enough to sell Audio Research and Magnepan products.  We also had Marantz and McIntosh for a while--long story.

In the end, there was no doubt--the Audio Research stuff on the Maggies were a revelation in reproduced sound IF the source material was solid.

Now, this combo did NOT sound as good in some customer's rooms for whatever reason, but we had lots of good stuff for them as well.  Given the better rooms, that combo was clearly the most accurate and remains so today.

Cheers, and happy listening.