Let's Call The Whole Thing Off, Pt. III? BAlabo BC-1 Mk-II Control Amplifier and BP-1 Mk-II Power Amplifier
When I went to Tokyo this past spring I met a number of Japanese high-end audio designers. Alas, Fumio Ohashi, chief designer at Bridge Audio Labs (BAlabo), was not one of them. That’s a pity because I would’ve enjoyed talking to him about his $60k BC-1 Mk-II linestage preamplifier and $78k 500Wpc BP-1 Mk-II stereo power amplifier, both of which are superb. Indeed, they’re so good that two members of my informal listening panel think the BAlabo amp and preamp (in combination with the Audio Research Reference 2 phonostage, the Magico M5 loudspeakers, and MIT’s Oracle MA-X interconnect and Oracle MA speaker cable) are the best electronics they’ve heard in my system—and for the past ten years or so, they’ve heard everything I’ve had in my system.
What makes their opinions especially interesting is that, unlike the more equipment-oriented listeners in my little panel (who lean toward Soulution and/or ARC), both of these guys are first and foremost music lovers. Both are avid concertgoers and record collectors; for them music, live and recorded, comes well ahead of gear (although each owns a very fine stereo system). Indeed, when I pointed out to one of them, in my best Absolute Sound manner, that the Soulution 700 monoblock amps and 720 preamp were more dead neutral than the slightly darker, altogether more beautiful-sounding BAlabo BP-1 and BC-1, he said: “So what? No stereo is ever going to recreate the real thing, so why not make the music beautiful?”
Why not, indeed?
I addressed the question of what recorded music should sound like in my blog called “Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off” (see www.avguide.com/blog/lets-call-the-whole-thing). You may recall that in that blog I said that the Soulution 700 amplifier and 720 preamplifier made recorded music sound more like what it was—voices and instruments recorded on tape and then mastered for reproduction on disc—while the Audio Research Reference 610-T made recorded voices and instruments sound more like actual voices and instruments in an actual hall. Each presentation was distinctly different, and yet each presentation was also very “realistic.” This raised the interesting question of exactly what it is that we are trying to recreate on our stereos: a facsimile of what was recorded (the faithful to mastertapes or to mike-feed school of high fidelity) or a facsimile of what the instruments that were recorded sound like in life rather than through microphones and editing consoles (the faithful to the sound of the real thing school of high fidelity). Now comes a third paradigm: What might be called the “as you like it” school of high fidelity, a facsimile of the way we idealize or remember the sound of instruments and vocalists, based on life experience and recordings.
In many ways, this last has always been the most popular choice. It is the least prescriptive and the most immediately appealing, for it really amounts to saying: “Go with what pleases you most; go with what sounds best to you.”
Although it may not be TAS-like to say it, I myself am drawn to this last option. One listen to the BAlabo gear could tell you why. It’s so damn beautiful and easy and pleasurable to hear. I don’t mean it’s just beautiful and easy and pleasurable, BTW, although I’m not sure there would be anything wrong with that. It also sounds very much like the real thing and very much like the recorded thing. In other words, it is very true to life and very transparent to sources. It is every bit as clear and detailed as Soulution (maybe, more); it has better grip and definition and beauty in the low end than any amp I’ve yet heard with the M5s; it is startlngly fast and dynamic. But it is adding something that neither the Soulution or the ARC gear is adding (or adding as much of)—a voluptuous richness of timbre and texture that is simply ravishing. (It is also softening and sweetening the treble a bit, which may explain BAlabo's slight overall “darkness.”)
One could write all this off as “euphonic coloration,” but why write off something that is so pleasing to the ear—so much the way we would like music to sound (and so often remember it sounding at its best)? If instruments still sound like themselves but altogether gorgeous (like themselves in a dream); if musical lines are so clear—and they are—that you can hear the contribution of every instrument, foreground, middle ground, and background, even (or especially) when they are playing different dynamics, if what usually becomes confused when played loud remains as utterly clear and coherent as it does when it is played soft, if you hear not just new details but what amounts to a new gestalt (a more complete, transparent, comprehensive, and comprehensible “whole”) with each listening, then why, indeed, write it off?
There are—or may be—good technical reasons for the unique way that BAlabo sounds. (Its astonishing way of “holding things together” even at loud levels—of maintaining both the beauty and resolution of parts and wholes—may be attributable to BAlabo’s remarkable grounding scheme, about which I will have more to say when I review the BC-1 Mk-II preamp and BP-1 Mk-II amp). But for the time being let’s just say that BAlabo is perhaps the best example I’ve heard of electronics that sound gorgeous and real and recorded.
Comments
OH JV......you're the luckiest guy i know.......it really is a beautiful time to be a top notch audio reviewer. Enjoy
It is literally a beautiful time to be a reviewer when you've got the system I've currently got in house. You know we tend to downrate stuff that "sounds good" as if it weren't also capable of "sounding real." Here is a classic example of components that do both--and "sound real" in both the transparent-to-sources and faithful to the real thing sense of the words. They are like the Fujichrome 50 of ultra-high-end audio gear.
Are you going to RMAF, zead?
Hey JV, really interesting posts.
This is something I've thought about a lot. I've certainly been one of those who've argued for fidelity to whatever the tape heads/digital recorder heard in the past, before sliding toward a version of fidelity to the "real thing" and then, well, I'll come to that in a moment. I realised the problem with all this was that I was never hearing the real thing, nor what the tape heads got. What we hear at home is not, and can never be, "the real thing". When we hear a live concert, we hear it through one set of 'transducers' - our ears. But when listening at home - for arguments sake, let's say the same concert we've just attended - we're hearing via the mechanism of a recording chain/playback chain with a number of different transducers. Let's again, for argument's sake, say we've bought the vinyl copy of the concert, recorded directly to two-track analogue tape and got a first edition pressing from the mastering lab. (Maybe we happen to be wealthy patrons of the concert hall and the mastering engineer owes us big time from the last round of poker.) So how many transducers do we have? Firstly, the microphone, converting sound into an electrical signal; then the tape head converting electrical energy into magnetic fluctuations; with no need to mix the tracks we'd be able to go straight from the playback heads (another transducer there) to the stylus on the mastering lathe (another), and convert that energy into grooves on some nice, virgin, 180gm vinyl. Then of course, we need to play it back, so we employ our cartridge of choice (another transducer) to convert motion in to electrical energy and then have that converted via our amps and loudspeakers (another one) into sound waves for our ears to hear. That's six transducers required to get the concert we attended from the concert hall to our living room. That these are wholly necessary to record and reproduce the same concert won't be news to anyone - but that's in an extremely rare and almost non-real-world example. Most times we've bought a vinyl copy made not from the mastering lathe but rather a pressing (maybe second generation), made from a master tape that itself was made from tapes of the mix that came from the original master. How many more transducers there?
So what the hell does this all have to do with what "sounds good" versus what "sounds real"? What it did for me, at least, was help me to realise that I was never going to be hearing the mic feed, and certainly not "the real thing". The best I could ever do, assuming I was lucky enough to ever be in the above (highly improbably) situation, was hear the sound of, at a minimum, six, arguably varyingly-neutral transducers. (Bet you never hear that at your local audiophile hang out, "Yeah, with my system I strive to recreate what the four non-neutral transducers caught on the day...") So why strive then? And for what? If it's impossible to recreate the "real thing" - and there really can not be an argument for saying we can given what's required to actually play back any format for private listening - what can we do?
Let me digress for a second. I like wine. I've said it before, and as problematic an analogy as it is, I still think it's useful. It is a mixture of ecology and environment and science and time and artistry that continually fascinates me. I think there are some goddamn legends in the field of oenology, but let's get serious - for all the science and marketing and "best-of" lists and bullshit - I just like drinking it. And when it comes to music - i just like listening to it. Sure, I want it served up as naturally and organically and neutrally and without artifice as possible. But who am I kidding. I've been fortunate to hear and own some amazing gear (and some piss-poor stuff, it must be said), and nearly all of it was enjoyable in one way or another. Whoa! Did I just say the "e-word"? "Heretic! Zealot! You're causing a fissure in the fabric of the universe!"
Look, I like the Mars Volta. I like Massive Attack. I like Mingus. I like Medtner. I like Marianne Faithfull. I like Marian McPartland. I like Meshuggah and Mouse on Mars and Mastodon and Mendelsohn and John Mayer and Paul Motian and Branford Marsalis and Madvillian and Man or Astroman. But not the Manic Street Preachers or Dave Matthews. (Sorry.) And what I want is neither fidelity to the master tapes (or to the mike-feed school of high fidelity) or fidelity to the sound of the real thing school of high fidelity. If I want the former, I has better set up camp at Avatar Studios and just hope that some of my favourite artists happen to pop in (while listening through their ProAc's, Lipinski's or Genelec's - damn those transducer things!). If the latter, then I should go see them in concert. I can't see any other way to do it.
Unless, like I think you're suggesting, there's a third way. And I think there is. I call it Enjoyment. Let's imagine I have an unlimited budget. What will I be going for? Transparency? Harmonic richness? Timbral accuracy? Lack of phase anomalies? Pin point imaging? "Razor-sharp" bass or any other hi-fi paradoxicalism you care to mention? Maybe. If the budget is unlimited, then certainly some of those things. But not ever if it causes me to fail to cry when Emmy Lou sings or Johnny Cash runs out of breath at the end of "Hurt". Not if it reduces Coltrane's irreverent/reverent tones to become merely "accurately reproduced". I want to feel Emmy's grief. I want to feel Johnny's pain. I want to feel Coltrane's commitment. Can a hi-fi system ever really do that? Oh, yeah baby, can it ever. And I've had it on systems that cost less than a one-meter interconnect from the big boys. (Similarly, I've had evenings of bliss from bottles of wine costing not much more than a six-pack of Coke.)
Some of you will think my comments redundant. I mean, everyone knows that to reproduce the full spectrum of sound of a live symphony orchestra in all its weight, scale and presence requires kilo-buck and kilo-weight cables. Right? Cool. I get where you're coming from. But let's just for a second remind ourselves why most of us (I hope) are in this crazy game. Isn't it to enjoy the music that lines our shelves, rather than the gear which is its vehicle for delivery? And wasn't there once a time when putting the latest Rush album on the old 3-in-1 was more of a thrill than spending all weekend cable dressing and polishing our contacts? For the music lover, I believe this thrill never goes away. It certainly hasn't for me.
But let's not throw the baby out with the bath water here. I'm not arguing for a minute that high-end gear can't be a pathway to greater musical enjoyment and transcendency. The gear that I'd buy in a heartbeat should we ever win the lottery (a bit impossible since we don't buy the tickets) wouldn't be a Bose docking station and a Nano - I mean, how would I play my vinyl? I can guarantee though that it would be the gear that elicited the greatest emotional response from me and my family and made the original event - not the recording - "live" (that is, a mediated version of the artists, composers, and engineers intentions - its essence) in a way that communicated most directly to my heart, soul and spirit, without offending my intellect too much in the process. If possible, I'd like the Vox's to sound like Vox's and not Blackface-era Fenders, and the Bosendorfers to sound like Bosendorfers and not Steniways, and the Neumanns to sound like Neumanns and not a Shure SM57 - but only if they also manage to let Coltrane and Miles sound like Coltrane and Miles and not Kenny G and Chris Botti (sorry, again) and telegraph the finger prints of the artists/composers/engineers intentions without significant impairment, something I find can happen as much on the pricey stuff as much as the mid-fi stuff. (And yes, i further admit the gear I'd own would include vinyl and CD, and a bunch of tubes, and yes, relative to my own experience, they'd be pricey pieces too. But not necessarily the priciest, the flattest-measuring or the least distorted.) But those are my priorities, and I accept that they will not be shared by everyone. If the third way is a possibility though, a real possibility, a break away from the conventions of "mic-feed audiophilia" and the "live music" ideology, it gives more of us the opportunity to achieve enjoyment in the comfort of our own home, whatever our musical preferences and financial means.
niner,
Have you ever heard of a U.K. group Alpha, one of Massive Attacks fellow label mates?
JV,
BAlabo or Technical Brain or Digital DoMain or Maxonic — that is the question...
http://www.sibatech.co.jp/maxonic/amp.html
http://www.digital-do-main.com/product/index.html
Incidentally both Digital DoMain and Maxonic amps use the Class A "V-Fet" or "Static Induced Transistor" topology (originallly developed in the 70s by Yamaha) which they claimed to produce only even order distortions. Stereo Sound in Japan was head over heels with the Digital DoMain B1a variant.
Interesting times ahead...
It's too bad that Stereo Sound isn't translated into English. Hell, I'd even buy it if it were available in the US the way it is.
It's too bad that Stereo Sound isn't translated into English. Hell, I'd even buy it if it were available in the US the way it is.
Not sure JV.but if i do i'll definitely give you a hola! ....looking forward to your review of these Japanese beauties.....looks like you are primed for a christmas shootout buddy!
My son is standing outside wearing his favorite shirt. From previous experience, I know that the shirt is bright red, but between him and me there is a tinted pane of glass that makes the shirt look burnt orange.
I would like to take a picture of my son in his favorite shirt.
Would I prefer a to use a camera that will show the shirt’s color as burnt orange, which is the image that has now been presented to me, or would I prefer to use a camera that will make the shirt appear closer to bright red, as I know that, in reality, it is?
Instead of either of these, what if I suddenly prefer to use a camera that shows the shirt as having a different color entirely that is more pleasing to me? Is there something wrong with that?
What if the shirt is red in every picture, but in one of the pictures it is a deeper more saturated red? We're not talking about shifts from red to, oh, blue. We're talking about tone colors that are true to life in every instance but true to life in different ways (as they would be, for example, from different seats in the hall--front row center, middle of the orchestra, first row of the balcony).
"This raised the interesting question of exactly what it is that we are trying to recreate on our stereos: a facsimile of what was recorded (the faithful to mastertapes or to mike-feed school of high fidelity) or a facsimile of what the instruments that were recorded sound like in life rather than through microphones and editing consoles (the faithful to the sound of the real thing school of high fidelity). Now comes a third paradigm: What might be called the “as you like it” school of high fidelity, a facsimile of the way we idealize or remember the sound of instruments and vocalists, based on life experience and recordings."
Hi JV,
The problem with the first two is that to get as close to it as possible you would have had to have been there in the first place. The only difference being on which side of the sound lock you happened to be in. I have a recording and post production engineering background but it is in film and television which includes a lot of music but is not limited to it. When recording scores, dialog and sound effects we have very different set of monitoring tools from those we use for mixing. I can attest that listening to raw mic feeds or getting "as close to the source as possible" within this context is very overrated. A lone close mic feed is very dry. The seeds for bloom are there but it is brought to fruition after it has been properly placed within the stereo matrix. I believe RH can back me up on that one. Being in the recording space with the artists arranged for the microphones and not an audience on the other hand will give you all the verve but zero soundstaging. All stereo recordings have to be stitched together in one way or another including the minimalist techniques used on our favorite classical recordings from the golden age. Thus, it is inevitable that the mixing engineer or producer's imprint and not the source per se that gets on that master tape. Not a bad thing if it is say Wilma Fine's imprint but perhaps not a goal to pursue given the general state of the global catalog. I leave ultimate transparency to the source on sound I need to work on but not necessarily enjoy. Something easily attainable with a pair of powered Genelecs. The thing is the Genelecs will give you the all the trees and even their twigs and leaves but can easily make you miss the forest. While glimpses and therefor insight on the creator's intent is a bonus, I truly believe each composer or musicians true intent is the final emotional impression on his audience and not to highlight how he or she went about accomplishing that.
Reproducing how one might "imagine" hearing a piece live is to me a more realistic goal. All it takes is to get out there and attend as many concerts as one can just to keep one honest to himself and more importantly keep grounded. This acknowledgement of the need for subjectivity is in fact at the heart of every single controversy in audio. I have no qualms about going all out "the way you like it" but there, just as in everything in life, be a balance. To me music is to be shared and indeed I find best appreciated that way. Red Shirt, Orange Shirt. Black Dog, Brown Dog. It still has to be a shirt and it still has to be a dog. Guitar strings should be steel or nylon and there can be no confusing a violin for a viola yet if I were to err it would be on the slightly (big emphasis on the slightly there) beautified viola rather than err on the side of making it sound even poorer by highlighting or spotlighting it. In other words, I'd err on the dark side.
Since analogy with optics seems all the fashion these days and for good reason since studies show many cognitive parallels between sight and hearing I will leave you with a truism n photography. No amount of work will allow you to retrieve detail from an over exposed shot while in an underexposed shot there is a wealth of detail that can be mined.
Will there ever be a perfect component that find's that coveted balance? On the individual basis I would say definitely the collective balance however will forever be a moving target.
Cheers and thanks for a great preview on the BALabo combo.
M.D.
Sounds like "The Absolute Sound" has morphed into "The Whatever Floats Your Boat Sound"
I appreciate that you're stoked about the way this stuff manipulates the sound to make it pleasing, but I can't imagine that this has anything to do with The Absolute Sound. What's the point of writing this kind of stuff for a magazine that hangs its hat on a precise standard?
You're a fun read, JV, but I can't really make heads or tails out of your angle these days. Everything's the best in its own way, peace love and happiness, $800 amplifiers are as good as $80,000 amplifiers. Honestly, dude ... what the hell has happened to your frame of reference (or the magazine's)?
Dear Jon,
I feel lately that I am watching an episode of Scooby Doo and I am waiting for someone to rip off the mask of JV and there stands an imposter. I read the new issue of the magazine and I have no understanding of what you are trying to say by virtually not being able to differentiate the 995 amp with your reference at 120k. Then I read this. I don't really like being the one who always fights but this direction makes no sense. If the magazine is a popularity contest then please hire Paula Abdul, Randy Jackson and Simon Cowell and maybe we can get a laugh as well.
THe phones lines are now open......
Elliot,
Every time I review a cheap product, I am flooded by e-mails and inquiries about how it compares to the "good stuff." Yeah, it's great for the money, etc., but how does it do against the Big Boys? Well, this time I went directly to that comparison, in part because the Khartago was good enough that I could, in part for fun, and in part because, as I said, it's what a lot of readers want to know. That you could not figure out how the Khartago differs from the 700 on the basis of what I wrote doesn't surprise me at all.
JV
Well let me tell you that I am not the only one and sarcasism aside Jon it was far from your best work
Yeah, well, that's, like, your opinion, man.
It is some small comfort to me that I don't consider you the best judge of my best work.
Always have to be arrogant enough to put down the word of any discenting view. You will be happy to know that I think all of your recent stuff since the CLX review has really been , how can I say this, like you are in a hurry to write something and that you aren't willing to do the hard work to get it right. You just want to write and go on to the next "best" thing. You are certainly entitled to your opinion and your taste but what you have done lately it seems you don't have any idea what it is anymore.
<<I think all of your recent stuff since the CLX review has really been , how can I say this, like you are in a hurry to write something>>
H'mm. Could that be because the CLX is the only item I've reviewed that you actually sell (anymore)? I'm looking into my crystal ball and, yes, yes, I believe that you're going to like my Focal Diablo Utopia review. Just a wild surmise, of course.
BTW, what is a "discenting" view? Bad-smelling?
It kills me how you rail at other people like a nasty god who speaks in Ellglish and then throw up your hands in horror when they reply in kind. Take a look, buddy. You do it all the time. Not just with me. With everyone. It's become a joke around the industry campfire.
Industry Campfire?
I've spent a little bit of time around that same campfire ... and if I were you, I wouldn't be hurling stones.
Play nice.
Anonymously,
First of all, I didn't say that the $800 Odyssey Khartago was as good as the $115,000 Soulution 700; it is not. What I did say was that it came closer to the sound of the 700 than I would’ve thought possible in a bargain-basement amp. It is a very good deal—the best cheap-o amplifier I’ve auditioned.
Second, since I started writing for TAS sixteen years ago, my take on the absolute sound has remained consistent: The absolute sound (the sound of actual instruments playing music in an actual space) is primary. The question then becomes which instruments in which space playing what music heard by what person and, to a certain extent, at what time and from what vantage. It is these variables that make the answer to the question of which sound comes closest to the absolute—whether you’re comparing directly to the real thing, to the recorded thing, or to past experience—always and inevitably relative to the listener. To me the absolute sound is, inescapably, an idea—your idea—of what the real thing sounds like, concocted from your experiences with music, live and canned. It is your job as a listener and/or consumer to formulate that idea—to come to intellectual grips with precisely which aspects of the sound of the real thing are most important to you on the music you listen to most often and with the most pleasure.
No reviewer, regardless of standards of comparison, can do that job for a reader; we can only point him towards components that realize, wholly or in part, our idea of what the real thing sounds like with the music we like, although I, for one, try to make allowances for listeners whose musical and sonic priorities are different than mine. A person primarily into synth, techno-pop, drum-and-bass, or stadium rock played back at "lifelike" levels (or Mahler's largest symphonies or Bach’s preludes and fugues for organ, for that matter, played back at "lifelike" levels) is going to want slightly different things from an audio system than a person, like me, who is primarily into chamber music and acoustic folk/rock (although I listen to a lot of music). They won’t be completely different things, of course, but they will be different enough to make crucial differences in recommendations made and taken. Since I’m aware of this and since my musical taste, though primarily small-scale, is broad enough to allow me to appreciate how some equipment which might not be “perfect” for me would be tremendously appealing to others, I am fairly catholic about what I feel I can recommend enthusiastically to different listeners. I could easily live, for example, with the Soulution 700/720. But I could also easily live (and have) with the ARC Reference 610T/Reference 3. And I could also easily live with the BAlabo BC-1 Mk-II/BP-1 Mk-II. All three combos sound “realistic” in the key sense of conforming to aspects of my idea of the real thing. All three sound markedly different. Which one is right? I can ultimately answer that question for me—and will do so in time in TAS—but I am also keenly aware that, at this supreme level of excellence, what is ultimately “right” for me may not be ultimately right for others. Since my enthusiasm for all three combos is not a pretence and is based on the way each conforms to my idea of the absolute sound, at this point I feel I can recommend all three with equal confidence to different schools of listeners: the transparency-to-sources/mike-feed school, the purist/absolute-sound school, and the utterly-beautiful-but-also-transparent-and-lifelike school.
Saying that there is room for more than one absolute sound—or more than one product that conforms to the absolute sound—doesn't strike me as heretical, BTW; in fact, what is the magazine but a record of absolute sounds expressed from different points of view?
Third, I’ve saved “the best” for last. We are going through a period of innovation in the high end such as I’ve only seen once before, back in the early 70s. Components are getting better because noise floors are being substantially lowered. I’ve been lucky to hear several speakers in a row that I thought were standard-setters—the best two-way I’ve ever heard in the Mini II, the best ribbon-hybrid I’ve heard in the Symposium Acoustics Panoramas (which may have been improved, BTW, since the prototypes I auditioned), the best ‘stat I’ve heard in the MartinLogan CLX (a genuine model of transparency to sources), the best omni (by far) I’ve heard in the thrilling MBL 101 X-Treme, and now the best large multiway dynamic in the Magico M5. No one of these speakers is best in every sonic way, though the Magico M5 comes closest for me, and no one of these speakers is ideal for every listener on every kind of music. If you accept the (heretical) premise that even by reasonable and reasoned standards there is more than one answer to the enigma of the absolute sound—then how could one not recommend each of these speakers with equal enthusiasm for certain kinds of listeners? Each is best of its kind, or best of its kind I’ve heard. If you don’t like this multiplicity (or my catholic taste), then by all means read and rely on someone else.
Jon
"If you don’t like this multiplicity (or my catholic taste), then by all means read and rely on someone else."
Truth be told, I don't give a rat's ass about your taste, Jon. I care that you and the other reviewers have a standard to which you've been trained so that what you write, aside from being entertainment, is also useful. I'm the kind of guy that looks at things this way ... you, as a writer for TAS, are supposed to be a surrogate set of ears for me in a way. You and Cordesman and Harley and HP and the lot of you. That you guys differ so much from each other kills me - you're just floating around on your existential trip and, you especially, just writing away and not really reporting.
Anyways, i don't want to get into a pissing match. I'm just saying that all this soft, subjective, existential stuff confuses me. And if it confuses me, it confuses other people. And if other people get confused, they lose confidence in what the hell you're saying or what value it has, beyond your fantasies. My expectations are clearly unreasonable for you guys, because no matter how you flap around the idea of The Absolute Sound I don't trust that you actually have a handle on it, given your explanation. I trust that you have a handle on nice sound, on euphonic sound, on artful sound ... but as for The Absolute Sound, I think you're shortchanging us.
Sorry to put it that way - but when you get so freakin' verbose trying to defend your position on what's clearly a subjectivist's take on euphonia - I gots to call foul.
Where the f*ck is Harry Pearson, anyway? He's started this mess ... maybe we all have it wrong and there is no sound of live music. Maybe when you and I stand in front of a piano we hear two totally different pianos.
Maybe I need an iPod and some decent 'phones and need to stop spending all this cash on this crap, given that there's no real standards ... what's the point of the expense?
Anonymous wrote:
"He's started this mess ... maybe we all have it wrong and there is no sound of live music. Maybe when you and I stand in front of a piano we hear two totally different pianos."
JV has already answered this, but here's a question for you: When you stand in front of a Bosendorfer, do you hear a Bosendorfer of do you hear something that fails to sound like a Steinway? I ask, because there are a few people I know who live and die by the fact that Steinway, and more specifically, the sound of a Steinway Concert Grand Model D is "the" standard by which all other pianos should be judged. If you were one of them, and you and JV stood in front of a Bosendorfer, of a Fazioli, or a Bluthner, or a Yamaha, or a Bechstein, or a Kawai, would you hear a piano or something less than a Steinway? You would if a Steinway was your idea of what a piano should sound like, particularly if you had a standard to which you had been trained to evaluate and view all other things through. Or more pointedly, you would if you were an exceptionally close-minded, dogmatic, blinkered, myopic individual who had no time for remaining open-minded to the fact that in the real world, there are some people, who for what ever misguided reason they might have, might actually prefer the sound of something other than a Steinway.
Anonymous wrote:
"Maybe I need an iPod and some decent 'phones and need to stop spending all this cash on this crap, given that there's no real standards ... what's the point of the expense?"
I would have imagined it was for the purpose of listening to and enjoying music. That's certainly why I'm in it. I can't answer for you, of course, but it puzzles me you need to ask the question in the first place. The fact is, Anonymous, that the world is a big, complicated, multi-faceted, scary and sometimes - you're right - goddamn confusing sonofabitch to exist on. And, yes, as tiring and irksome as it is, sometimes it means letting go of the perceived wisdom of the past and remaining open to the potential that a new set of experiences may be around the corner that could shake it all up, doing irrepairable damage to our fragile little existence. I think it was John Maynard Keynes who said "When the facts change, I change my mind - what do you do, sir?" But if you really need to ask, in a world where standards are constantly revised and re-evaluated (we're way past post-modernism now, aren't we?), what the point is, then the only real answer to your question must be "There isn't one..."
Good luck out there.
Anonymous.
I don't want to get into a pissing match, either. But I guess I am saying that that piano we're both standing in front of does sound different to both of us depending on: a) where we're standing; b) whether we listening to the piano or a mike feed/recording of the sound of the piano; and c) whether we're listening to the piano or the music it is playing and the way the music is being played. I'm not saying that we shouldn't have standards or that the sound of live music isn't the best of these. What I am saying is that it ain't that simple. There are folks, lots of 'em, who think that what a component should reproduce is the sound "we" hear when we listen to the microphone feed (through monitors or headphones) in a recording studio. That they say is the absolute sound. Others say that a component should reproduce the sound we would hear if we were in the studio or the performance hall listening to a pianist play the piano from a seat in the audience (although which seat would clearly make a difference). That they say is the absolute sound. Still others say that a components shouldn't capture a facisimile of a mike feed or a facsimile of the real thing in a real space so much as what you might call music's "spirt"--its beauty, power, and expressiveness. That they say is the absolute sound. I'm not taking a position so much as allowing that each of these positions has its supporters and each is reasonable. I am also saying that, while you may not give a rat's ass about my taste (or HP's or RH's or you name it), there is no divorcing our taste (or listeners' biases) from what we report on. That has, clearly and openly, been part and parcel of this process from go. If you missed it--if you think that we can somehow divorce ourselves from the listening process (not make use of the "idea of the absolute sound" that is at the heart of judgment calls)--then you haven't been paying attention. This isn't objective criticism; it is observational criticism. Observational. Meaning someone with experience, judgment, and, yeah, taste is observing.
As for the expense...what you get for more money is, generally speaking, more of everything you like and want, no matter what standard you adhere to.
Jon
Hey Jon,
In the immortal words of Peter Gabriel and the layrnx of Kate Bush: "Don't give up...". There are still one or two of us around here who appreciate, hell, downright demand that observational criticism be given it's worth, and may be possibly one of the only meaningful forms of dialectic worth pursuing in this post-McCarthyist era.
Have you read "The Black Swan" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb? In it he questions the authority of experts. The "truth" behind science is limited to certain areas and methods, and in many areas having an academic degree and presenting oneself as a scientist (believing oneself to be "qualified") is irrelevant. He argues authority can actually stifle empirical experience, which, many times, has proven to have a sounder base for accuracy in reporting and estimation. Here's an excerpt from his blog:
"At the core of the expert problem is that people are suckers for charlatans who provide positive advice (what to do), instead of negative advice (what not to do), (tell them how to get rich, become thin in 42 days, be transformed into a better lover in ten steps, reach happiness, make new influential friends), particularly when the charlatan is invested with some institutional authority & the typical garb of the expert (say, tenured professorship). This is why my advice against measuring small probabilities fell on deaf ears: I was telling them to avoid Value-at-Risk and the incomputable rare event and they wanted ANOTHER measure, the idiots, as if there was one. Yet I keep seeing from the history of religions that survival and stability of belief systems correlates with the amount of negative advice and interdicts -- the ten commandments are almost all negative; the same with Islam. Do we need religions for the stickiness of the interdicts?Telling people NOT to smoke seems to be the greatest medical contribution of the last 60 years."
Personally, I think if more people put up there hands and said, "Hey, I'm no expert, I'm just some guy reporting on what I see/find/hear based on my own experience...", the world might just be a better place to live. Or at least, a more enjoyable one.
Cheers to you.
.
Double post. Sorry.
ANONYMOUS..............
i've been wanting to jump in but i hate having posters come from objective angles ANONYMOUSLY........so i'm going to call you OBJECTIVE for my post if you don't mind......in fact that's one of the things i love about ELLIOTT.you know you kmpw you're talking to..and that's the premise upon which objective (criticizing-constructively" has to exist.so that's why i'll call you "OBJECTIVE" HERE IS MY ISSUE
i was following you for a while and then i was left in mid-air when you said this "
"Where the f*ck is Harry Pearson, anyway? He's started this mess ... maybe we all have it wrong and there is no sound of live music. Maybe when you and I stand in front of a piano we hear two totally different pianos.
Maybe I need an iPod and some decent 'phones and need to stop spending all this cash on this crap, given that there's no real standards ... what's the point of the expense?"
I WAS LOST! so i had to back-up some and really do a double take obout what you "OBJECTIVE" were really saying.
Firstly, "OBJECTIVE" i
YES WE WILL BOTH LISTEN TO THE SAME PIANO AND HEAR SOME THINGS THE SAME WAY & SOME THINGS DIFFERENTLY......your auditory DE-emphasis maybe in HF".....therefore you are more bothered by neutral to dull treble...........hence, you most likely are going to love ribbons, etc..you get the point?
Has it ever occured to you that the REFERENCE SYSTEM that you have amassed might be considered "NON REFERENCE by some simply because its synergy is geared to reinforcing that "AUDIOTORY_EMPHASIS" that you are compensating for "AGAIN" your reference.not somebody elses.
Secondly:
ts not HP..its THE LATE GREAT "JGH" RIP that sets the paradigm..........you know what its composed off to a large extent it's a highly 'SUBJECTIVE" reviewing approach....over time a combination of OBJCTIVE & SUBJECTIVE REVIEWING evolved into the norm.
Well Guess What! You what are the best assets of that reviewing process? "COMPARISONS".......TO BOTH "THE REAL THING..which by the way is also subjective"....and other experiences of "HIGH FIDELITY" ..which is also inherently subjective
SO now take a look at all these parameters with their high quotient odf SUBJECTIVITY ...now see them randomly coalese to give you "OBJECTIVE" ,,,an audiotory experience...You know what applied science does to these two parameters.....it makes infinite combinations and permutatiions with these variables.and here-in is the problem..........it's end result will measure almost the same ...because that's science......but the experience...for you the listener.is hardly ever the same.
SO YES JV is experiencing heightened depictions of the REAL THING its just that its coming through different paths and different topologies and different designer philodophies...& materials that have low distortions which are allowing us to hear to noise floors that the REAL-THING cannot even give you with all the distortion in the VENUE ITSELF.....
and all of this APPLIED SCIECE & ANCIENT TECHNIQUES are all aiming to TAKE YOU THERE......that stuffs crazy.
SO HOW THE HELL YOU EXPECT SOME STATIC MAGAZINE with STATIC-CENTRIC REVIEWERS TO GIVE YOU THAT SHIT.....
Now i'm not saying an IPOD can't give you a musical experience but if you've spent all this money and your definition of MUSIC LISTENING is still LOW-FI then you're not even ready for JV............
What you spend your money for is : to bring you higher levels of that experience.....If at this point you can't identify the difference between reference quality sound and just sound........The you really need to spend some more because thatt means you havent finished paying your tuition yet. IT ain't graduation time "OBJECTIVE........this is not a problem for TAS...this is personal.
TAS IS A GUIDE........TO HELP YOU ENJOY YOUR MUSIC AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF TRANSPARENCY TO THE SOURCE.............and that transparency......is what makes a reviewer's job really hard. Because the more transparent the experience the more it conjurers up for him/her this live notion that he has inculcated as his reference of sound.......and guess what.....his own reference is now under assault....because SCIENCE & ENGINEERING is out-running him.........so where is the reference?...... as much you may not like it.......its being moved............so yes you have adequate reason to be concerned..about the reference of TAS....but what you have lost sight of is that in every other dimension of society TECHNOLOGY is making people reassess their reference points.......WHAT IS POSSIBLE is not STAGNANT FOR LONG.......and this means that before you turn around ...something is pushing the frontier.......what do you expect these guys to do....they're having some moments with transparent sources that are RAISING THEIR IDEA OF WHAT IS POSSIBLE IN THE HOME.......have you looked at a HI-DEF TV lately......I HAVE! That shit is STAGGERING AT ITS BEST.........Why not go out and listen to some of these pieces that are out there "YES" EVEN ELLIOT'S "GRAND UTOPIA"....which i've heard does have the ability to reconfigure your reference...that's how good it is. SO enjoy the ride .enjoy these reviewers enthusiasm,,,and feel lucky because what is happening is you the audiophile is getting more choices ultimately............its a greart time to be TAS.to be an audiophile..BUT ITS A PREETY BAD TIME TO BE A REVIEWER IF ALL YOUR READERS VALUE IS OBJECTIVE--STATIC --REFERENCES OF THE REFERENCE POINT.in an experience that is by-en-large A HIGHLY SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE..
AND YES...EVEN HP experiences that PARADIGM SHIFT that's ttaking place as science has unleashed its full potential on AUDIO>
FINALLY:
What you're asking of TAS is FUTILE and at the very least "Lacking Objectivity with regards to the subject matter itself........I won't argue with it anymore than this post..but what would be nice is if "OBJECTIVE" the next time you really want to carry the banner of objective conversation you observe our presence on the FORUM by DECLARING YOURSELF..MAN UP! that's how i like objective conversations...not ANONYMOUSLY.....
Love that my posts get deleted. Can't stand the heat JV?
Here's the deal ZEAD ... I knew a guy named ZEAD once. No I didn't. That's not a name. So don't talk to me about manning up, ZEAD. No one is named ZEAD. I looked in the phonebook. No ZEAD.
What you are saying is what allows guys like JV to write anything that suits his fancy so long as it happens to float his boat at the time. But that isn't journalism, that's creative writing. Without a standard, without a reason to trust that JV is not just slathering over everything that comes through the door because - subjectively speaking - everything must be THE BEST for someone out there, right?
Anyone can do JV's job. Maybe not with the same level of creative writing, the same turns of phrase, and on and on. But generally speaking, he's not bringing any particular skill set to the table that - given the subjective permissions - everyone else doesn't already have. So what's he doing reviewing? What is JV's opinion worth to anyone if the only constraint he has (or any of them, not just JV) is whether or not it gives him a woody when he listens to it?
So while you may want to pigeon hole what I'm saying into the OBJECTIVE class, no name ZEAD person, what I'm talking about is the portability of a standard that makes what any of these creative writers in TAS valuable to me as a reader. What's the point of reading this stuff if all it is is someone's feel-good happy-day love affair with a piece of gear? So what?
Can't you do that for yourself?
Or is this the audiophile version of a Dutch Rudder?
Try not to delete this one, OVERLORD MODERATORS AND PROTECTORS OF THE REVIEWING COUNCIL ... dissidents deserve airtime, too.
ZEAD-2
What are you talking about?
Uh...well said, Niner and Zead (1).
JV- To paraphrase the late great JGH - if what sounds most pleasing is our standard then we have truly lost our way.
I thought that THE ABSOLUTE SOUND on the masthead was "the standard" and it was one clearly annunciated and established by HP. Your replies lead me to believe that you reject that standard or that the TAS standard has now morphed into a confusing and jumbled collection of individual reviewers standards or into an amalgam of several based on divergent tastes. Is the standard now just a matter of taste?
The original post wasn't very hard to understand, but some people clearly misunderstood it anyway.
The Absolute Sound is defined as the sound of MUSIC, unamplified, occuring in real space. It is not defined as the sound of a RECORDING, played back with complete accuracy on a stereo system.
I bring bad news. Pick up your favorite recording of solo acoustic guitar. Hold it in your hand and realize that unless you were there in the room with the guitarist at the very moment the recording was made, you have no idea whatsoever how that actual guitar (made out of whatever wood it is made, and played in whatever fashion it was played) sounded in that particular room on that day. That is why "the absolute sound" is said to be a "philosophic" standard - 99.9% of the time we are judging the performance of our stereo systems against some Platonic ideal of what we think (for example) an acoustic guitar should sound like, and not what the actual guitar in question did, in fact, sound like at the time and place it was recorded.
Some stereo equipment lets you hear the RECORDING in a high degree of detail but it produces a sound further away from the sound of the MUSIC than equipment that less faithfully reproduces the RECORDING. This difference is at the core of many of the never ending arguments regarding the relative merits of stereo equipment including (but not just) the relative merits of solid state equipment versus tube equipment.
Some people are at their happiest when they hear details on their favorite recordings that they have never heard before, and they proceed to pronounce the more revealing equipment as superior. Others are captivated by equipment that correctly portrays the timbre of instruments, their attack and decay and the sense of acoustic space surrounding them regardless of whether or not this accuacy to the original performance is achieved by a less detailed reproduction of the recording.
I can't improve on this.
You know ... the Valin Apologetics tour is sickening, in a way. We've got several standards now by which a component under review must meet only one to be super-terrific bang-bang happy best. With this kind of floppy, wishy-washy standard it is possible (and reading a history of Valin reviews will shed light on this) to proclaim just about everything that comes through his den as whiz-bang super terrific.
I just don't get the point? Or maybe the point is that TAS provides a service to manufacturers and is simply entertainment for readers.
In fact - if we look closely enough at the evidence (read TAS reviews and count the number of high flyers), a very strong case can be made to support that theory. I'm not saying conspiracy, mind you - simply a matter of what seems to be TAS's mission statement to act as a promotional vehicle for the industry, while providing entertainment for its readers.
ZEAD-2
Great riposte, ZEAD 2, full of your usual wit and wisdom.
I'm just having trouble figuring out how you can like so many things so much without there either being no real standard against which to compare these otherwise really different things, or there being some other kind of mission statement for TAS such as the one I suggested.
Is this the case? Would you say that TAS provides a service for manufacturers as promotional media and entertainment for readers?
It reads this way, given the history.
I'm not a funny-guy, JV. Wit I have none of. Wisdom ... maybe not so much, either. But I'm awake enough to notice patterns. That at least qualifies me for a job at TAS.
Whoa- First disappearing JV review standards-then disappearing posts critical of JV review standards
What's next?
I did get to read it before it was booted and I have to agree with anonymous that some reviews read like JV's autobiography- a Paris Hilton like diary of fab audio experiences.
Chanel was wonderful today- Prada yesterday was the best- but wait till I tell you about Fendi in my next post and after that I travel to Europe with Nicole (Ritchie) and my furry friend to tour factories in Italy.
I'm not sure what you're referring to, Allis. This site is acting weird. I keep posting things and then getting a white screen, which says "SMTP Error: The following recipients failed..." And yet when I re-select avguide,com, the post is there. Is anyone else having this problem?
Er, yeah, I was. Seems it's sorted now. But could we have your one deleted to save our email addresses going public?
Thanks!
Okay, it's not sorted, just got the message too, but still ended up posting.
Allis,
Either I'm not making myself clear or some of you aren't reading what I wrote. The absolute sound has always been the standard. It is my standard. The question is: "What do we mean by the absolute sound?" Pearson said it was the sound of real acoustic instruments in a real space (without addressing the problem of how that sound may change with where you sit or stand). Others on this magazine have claimed it is the sound of mike feeds or mastertapes (which isn't the same thing or the same sound). In an earlier blog, I talked directly about this dilemma, using the Soulution electronics and the ARC electronics as exemplars. The solid-state Soulution electronics let you hear the engineering and mastering of a recording more clearly than any amps I've heard in my home (i.e., they let you peek over the recording and mastering engineers' shoulders). They seem to have no sound of their own (save perhaps for a little extra fullness in the bass). They are also astonishingly realistic sounding, depending on the quality of the source. The tube ARC electronics are not quite as dead-neutral as the Soulution gear nor quite as transparent to sources, and yet they too sound astonishingly realistic but bloomier, airier, more dimensional than Soulution. The question I asked was: "How can this be? Both sets of electronics sound like the real thing. And yet both sound different enough (though not in all ways) that you wouldn't mistake one for the other. Which is right?"
Now comes the BAlabo electronics and--and this is the point of the blog, actually--it too sounds astonishingly realistic and yet it doesn't sound like the other two sets of electronics, either. It is richer and more beautiful in tone color (rather like the TW Acustic turntable in this regard), quicker and better defined in the bottom octaves, a little soft and sweet on top, capable of extraordinarily fine resolution of individual parts at any volume level while simultaneously preserving the whole stage with an orderliness and clarity that are remarkable. Yeah, it's beautiful sounding, which is to say it has more personality of its own than the Soulution or the ARC, but--as I asked above--does that mean we should hold its beauty against it, even though that beauty amounts to such a realistic rendition of timbres that two genuine music lovers (one a nationally renowned music writer) thought the BAlabo sounded more like the real thing than other equipment he'd heard in my system. (I am not saying--and have not said--that I agree, BTW.) It is a quandary. And that is my point.
Jon
Jon,
The only horror I can think of is you and your "industry" sitting around a campfire. Is that how these review deals are made these days? I am sure any upcoming review by you will be "THE BEST" and I have comfort thinking about you and your buddies roasting marshmellows on birch ply sticks!
Marshmallows, Elliot. Not marshmellows (although I kinda like it).
As I recall, you liked those "birch-ply sticks" way back when. (A witty line, BTW!) But let's not tussle anymore.
Are you going to RMAF?
Jeez, you don't read a blog for 2 days look what you miss? I was stunned and slack-jawed reading this one. A 3 way pissing contest that's got to be tops for this blog, incoherent babble from somebody who appears more stoned than sober, mystery names, folks who love to scream by typing capital letters half the time, and all for what? For criticizing poor JV for expressing his opinion? Cut the guy some slack for goodness sake. Save the abuse for football season and direct it at your team's arch rival. JV is not the enemy here. I tune in to JVs blog to be informed and entertained (by JV as well as the replies!). But is it too much to ask readers to withhold cheap shots that serve no useful purpose and at the minimum, maintain some respect and post with some modest civility? You don't see this sort of abusive dialog in any Op Ed section of any decent newspaper, or on any panel with folks who have differing points of view whether is a Sun morning News show or Bill Maher. (At least, he's often funny even if his politics isn't my cup of tea!). Get a grip people!
Jon,
No I am not going to RMAF. I don't care to discuss that subject in a public forum and I am sure that you friend would also prefer it that way.
I am sorry that poor JV is taking some heat for his views Marty but last I looked this is a place for the exchange of ideas and we do have the right to express our opinions. I am sorry that some readers don't have history with the magazine, the founder and the mission statement of which we are discussing. It may be informative to you and them to go back and read some early issues and you might then understand our point and prospective.
I am sure that poor JV ( this is really funny) will survive. Jon do we need to run you a benefit? LMAO
I will see you however at CES and this year you are buying
Elliot, don't get me wrong. I have no problem if people want to give Jon grief. Lord knows you're a "regular" there and I enjoy your comments. I love it when you call Jon on the carpet for calling the last 5 things he's reviewed "the best". But I've always considered you to be a gentleman when making your point. Furthermore, your queries generally prompt thoughtful replies that I enjoy reading because I learn from them. That's not my issue. I only ask for politeness, some modicum of respect and avoidance of personal attacks. It's easy to be nasty. Much harder to be constructive, entertaining, and witty. As far as history, we're the same vintage. I was there, buddy, when HP first reviewed the Phase Linear 400 amplifier and gave it rave reviews in the early 70's. Was there any similtude to "the absolute sound" then? Still, I've learned a great deal from HP and TAS over the years, so I'm willing to allow some poetic license when referencing that phrase, and all it implies.
Jon, here's a bullet headed your way...
If I understand correctly, you've always been a big advocate of Tara's interconnects and speaker cables. Yet earlier in this blog, I noticed a huge endorsement for MITs networked cables which seem to now allow your system to reach its zenith. What's the story? I'm sure we would all welcome comparative comments.
I've been trying out MIT Oracle MA and Oracle MA-X cable/interconnect with the M5s because Alon Wolf recommended that I try out MIT cable/interconnect with the M5s and the Soulution gear (and because my friend and colleague, Robert, urged me to give MIT a listen). There is no question that this top-of-the-line MIT is world-class/class-leading wire--extraordinarily lifelike resolution, staging, imaging, transient response, and density of tone color from top to bottom--but so is Tara Labs Zero/Omega Gold. Both MIT and Tara have their sets of strengths (and areas of overlap). I will report on the MIT Oracles in an upcoming issue.
Would be interesting if you could find a pair of Odins to put in the same system. Similar pricing, different philosophy.
Marty.
Thanks and I am glad that you do understand. JV has his voice and his right to express his opinions and we have the right to question him. I personally do not like the path that has been followed recently and I would like to see it change. I don't think Jon gets the fact that my business has little to do with what Isay or what he says. I do not see much 2 channel business in my area but I do love music and I do explore and play for my own satisfaction. I don't find the reviews have much effect on sales these days either. I am a traditionalist in the way that I was brought up in audio and I would like to see the standard or standards be explained so that we all understand the information being published. If all the reviewers are writing using different criteria to make their decisions then it truely makes it hard to understand and follow the ongoing dialogue.
I certainly do not want to see the "it sounds good to me" adopted as a standard. Everyone has the right to choose whatever they want but IMHO The Absolute Sound has had a place of importance and been a source for quality information in the past and I wonder will it it still be one in the future.
Elliot Goldman wrote:
"I am a traditionalist in the way that I was brought up in audio and I would like to see the standard or standards be explained so that we all understand the information being published. If all the reviewers are writing using different criteria to make their decisions then it truely makes it hard to understand and follow the ongoing dialogue."
Cool. Nice to hear you take responsibility for your agenda. What you're saying - and if I'm correct, what you've been saying in every other post you make - is basically:
"I chose to adopt a paradigm for understanding how a certain publication evaluates hi-fi gear. I used that paradigm in the creation of a business that relies on that paradigm's "truth" to sell hi-fi gear to customers who've also since chosen to adpot that paradigm too. Now you're telling me that that paradigm has shifted - not in a manner that undermines the assumed truth, but illustrates more fully how complex the truth actually is. Because this shift is more complex than I would like, I am now forced to have to re-evalute my long-held beliefs about what it is I do and have encouraged, in particular, my customers to do in like. Frankly, I am not wanting to have to re-evaluate my long-held beliefs because it may make me look stupid, and the complexity of a multiplicity of "thruths" serving a larger "truth" is simply too much for me to handle. I am terrified of looking stupid, which is why I respond in such a defensive and vitriolic manner, attacking the person rather than attempting to understand the nature of the dialogue. Please make it all simple again so I can go back to looking enlightend and "right".
Don't worry Elliot. From this thread and others it looks like you'll have the company of plenty of other "traditionalists" with whom to rile against the world in the not-too-distant future.
Fellas,
I can stand a little heat.
Look, I'm not recommending a "sounds good" paradigm--that is a deliberately perverse misreading of what I wrote. I said I was and always have been "drawn to" the idea that beautiful-sounding gear shouldn't be dismissed out of hand, simply because it is beautiful sounding. I also said that, in this case, the BAlabo wasn't just "beautiful" but quite persuasively realistic and transparent (different recordings sound better and worse through it). I allow that it has more character of its own than the more neutral and audiophile-correct Soulution and ARC. And I have not expressed a preference for it over the Soulution and the ARC.
What I was really talking about--for the umpteenth time--was the standard that we use--the "absolute sound"--and how it has been interpreted and how those interpretations are reflected in the sound of worthy gear.I am NOT extolling one standard ahead of another (yet).
Jion
Gentlemen - what a fun - and silly - thread. Let me upset everyonbe by starting with this. There is no Absolute Sound! That's only the name of a magazine.
Two people sitting side-by-side at a concert will hear two different sounds. The 'sound systems' inside their heads are distinctly different, from the tympanium in each ear to the synapses firing in their brains. And moments after each vibration is received, their memories of what they heard are distinctly different. Our personal 'sound systems' also change with time. So if we could go back 10 years in time and hear the same exact performance again, both our physical reception and our psychological perception of it would be different.
If we add the variables of different listening positions, different venues, different performances, different performers, etc. etc. etc. how can we then know what is "accurate"? One cannot even begin to discuss the Absolute Sound if they did not attend the live event. And the live event sounds different to every individual. As usual... there is no 'Absolute".
Let's move from the concert hall to the living room and listen to a recording. Now we have the entire recording chain in the way of even our personal memory of the live event, and the gear used to copy & produce the media, and the inherent limitations of the media itself. Look how far we've come from the 'real sound of acoustic intstruments in a live space'! How can we ever get back there? Simply... we can't!
So we are unvaoidably compromised from the 'Absolute Sound' to trying to reproduce an approximation of what we remember a live performance to sound like...from an imperfect recording of an event we probably did not attend. And we haven't even mentioned the playback chain or listening room acoustics.
Bottom Line: A recording does not sound like a live event, and probably never will, no matter how well it was engineered and how incredible your system is. The closest you'll ever come to the 'Absolute Sound' is something good enough to fool you into evoking your memories of live music. And make no mistake; What sounds best - or 'most real' - to you will not do the same for all of your fellow listeners. There is no 'Absolute'.
"The Absolute Sound" is a concept and, as such, it does exist, but only in the realm of concepts.
Concepts can be useful though, and I believe that the concept of "The Absolute Sound" is, in fact, useful as a (likely unreachable) goal and standard. Reviewing equipment with this standard in mind, although far from perfect for some of the reasons you point out, is preferable to just having reviewers declare products "good" or "bad" in accordance with their own tastes and biases.
I had a friend who loved music, but he loved bass even more. Any system with low, rumbling, thumping bass he declared to be "good," and any system with moderate (albeit realistic) bass he declared to be "bad." His reviews were not given within any context of realism so, for me, as a reviewer he was useless.
I'm only defending the concept of The Absolute Sound - not its real world application. In reality, a reviewer has almost no option but to review a piece of equipment versus the reviewer's notion of the generic "-ness" of the sound of the instruments - i.e., whether the acoustic guitar was reproduced with a high degee of "guitarness" by the system (and not, for example, whether the guitar sounded like the Martin D-28 that the guitarist was playing that day, in that small recording studio as opposed to sounding like a Taylor GA8 played in an auditorium, since the reviewer may well not know the difference in the sounds of the various instruments and may not even know which particular instrument was actually played).
This type of reviewing doesn't so much address the issue of The "Absolute" Sound as it addresses the issue of The "Generic" Sound but, hey, at least it is something.
To your other point, while we all have different ears and brains, I think our shared sense of what a guitar sounds like, though not identical, is close enough to be useful as a standard (which is good, since I don't know of another way to go about it). Though only a small fraction of the untrained public could distinguish among various makes and models of guitars in a blind test, I think almost everyone could tell the difference between a guitar and a trumpet, and between a trumpet and a piano. Certainly I would expect all reviewers could (although given some of the reviews I have read over the years, from time to time I have had my doubts).
Sorry to be so long-winded, but there is one more thing...
While I have great respect for audio critics, like Jon, HP, RH, and the rest, I would NEVER let them make my decisions for me - and neither should you! None of them have YOUR ears & YOUR brain... much less your listening room, your 'associated equipment', or your individual taste.
What they DO have is a great deal of listening experience and the ability to audition gear in their homes that few of us have access to. And that is why their reviews, and their opinions DO count for something. But they should be used to encourage you to go have a listen yourself, not as a 'buying guide'.
Taking this approach, it's much easier to cut these gentlemen some slack. When you abdicate all personal responsibility to an audio critic, then complain about their opinions, you have only yourself to blame.
Jon, I do have my quibbles. Most of you guys toss around hyperbole, like "the best" or "sets a new standard" all too easily. That's what leads to the conmplaint that there seems to be a new "best" almost every issue. My personal pet-peeve is the constant headlines that ask meaningless questions, like "The Best CD Player Ever?" Just as there is no 'Absolute Sound', there is no 'best CD player'.
Happy Listening to all!
ok Jion!
I forgot to warn you about smoking the birch play sticks
Heh-heh!
JV have you had time to explore the BeoLab Pre-Amp on its own ....how does it compare to say the new AR REF? some inquisitive minds do wanna know
Zead,
I literally just got the Ref 5 and haven't listened to it at any length. Gimme a few days and I will chime in on the subject.
Jon
Dear Niner, I am sorry that you have drunk the cool-aid but please do not presume to know me or my business.
You are certainly allowed to have your opinion and express it but sir please speak for yourself. I spent many years of my life in the center of the HE audio business with all the founders of this Industry and was taught and mentored by H.P., Arnie Nudell, John Dahlquist, Mike Kay, Bill Johnson and others. I do not require your assistance for anything and certainly not to explain how I feel or think. You Sir make great assumptions for your own intellect.
By the way who died and made you King?
Elliot, you're right. I've never met you. But I've read plenty of your posts. And the copy on your website. If a picture's worth a thousand words, then let me say the several thousand you've written are more than enough to allow the picture to form itself pretty fully and legibly. And we get it, okay? You were there rubbing shoulders with a veritable cornucopia of high-end mavericks and mavens way back when. You guys had standards. What's more, you had the standard. And now those no-good meddling kids are writing reviews that make "no sense", where you "have no understanding" of the process, and what's worse, your "discenting view (sic)" is not taken seriously by culprits like JV who are no longer producing their "best work" (all your words). So my question to you is - what's your responsibility in all this?
I read quite a bit when I can, in the last couple of months books by Slavoj Zizek, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Paul Krugman, Alain Badiou, Malcolm Gladwell and Alain de Botton. To be honest, though I find them to be constantly enthralling and never less than informative, I admit I often find myself rereading passages in order to get the gist of what the hell they're on about. Is that their fault? Is it their fault I'm not a Hegelian philosopher, or Nobel-winning economist, or that there are some things beyond my immediate experience and knowledge? No. It's my problem. So therefore, it becomes my responsibility to accept my limitations and make a decision apropos whether I seek to understand the nature of the dialogue via further education on my part or accept defeat, close the book and post on some forum somewhere. But let's be really clear - it is not the responsibility of the publisher or writer to dumb it down simply because I may happen to represent a faction of society for whom the nature of the dialogue is more complex than I would like it to be. And, as if it needs to be said, it is pointless, utterly pointless, to ask them to change when the onus lies - and always will do - with the me, the reader.
Elliot, there are many who have tried and re-tried to illustrate the paradigm shift that has been the centre of this particular dialogue, on this thread and others. You have been a contributor to many of them, essentially saying the same things, pointing fingers and throwing accusations back and forth in a manner that appears to be little more than passive-aggressive defensiveness. I could be wrong. But like I say - we get it. It's all JV's fault. His poor, shoody pseudo-journalism and "if-it-sounds-good-it-is-good" ethos is destroying the credibility of the magazine you hold up to be a fixed and non-challengable standard. Again, my question to you is - what's your responsibility here? That you ask for change is commendable on one hand, but redundant on the other. That you don't need my assistance for anything is okay with me, since everyone else's attempts appear to have been fairly futile so far. Even the generous ones. Maybe, just maybe, there's a chance here for all of us to learn something new about the apparent paradigm shift occuring regarding state-of-the-art reproduction in the home and the nature of the dialogue attempting to articulate the gap between what we believe to be the truth and the truth as it reveals itself, with which we, TAS readers and subscribers, are all engaged.
And no one died. I mean, it's only hi-fi, right?
Elliot sounds like a has-been mid-fi dealer jealous of other people's toys.
Come on, some of us want to know how current, ultra high end equipment sound like, so stop bashing JV.
IMO If a system's reproduction of the music/vocals/instruments is so real it makes the hair on the back of your neck stand, then that is closer to the absolute sound than one that doesn't do it. If it sounds like the singer is in your room standing right in front of you, trust me, those hair will stand and you'd get a tingling sensation down your spine too. It did with my MBL101s and Spectral system on more than a few occasions.
Curious1
What you're asking for with a singer's vocals is probably one of the easiest things to accomplish in HiFI, which is why female vocal is the most often used kind of track in demo. Voices generally have moderate harmonic complexity, but nothing like piano, cymbals, brass instruments, etc. You might get a woody from your Holly Cole (or Keiko Lee, or Jennifer Warnes, etc.) tracks, but that's why the dealers love to demo them so much ... they're seductive enough to make most systems sound enthralling.
Studio tracks are also not really good for determining great sound because they are missing the acoustic cues and phase relationships of natural reflections that only live instruments recorded in an acoustically live room can provide. You can get GREAT bass out of studio tracks (Morph The Cat, anyone?), but it's not realistic - no accuracy factor to electric instruments, generally. I love that recording as I've been a Donald Fagen fan for a long time, but it's not something to judge a system by.
Get your system to survive a great acoustic recording of Daphnis et Chloe with 110dB peaks - now you're cooking with grease! Classic reissued a Mercury Living Presence of this back in the 90's - good stuff. Or a good recording of the World Saxophone Quartet (all those shimmering brass bells off those saxes). Or a great recording of Piano (M*A Recordings has some really well recorded and performed solo piano discs). Complex percussion is also key to helping understand the ability of a system to put the picture together, showing up dynamic contrasts, harmonics (tuned drum heads and cymbals are LOADED with harmonic info).
But as for female vocal demo, especially the female vocal with guitar or small jazz ensemble, these hurdles are not so very high.
I agree with this completely.
Anonymously wrote:
"Studio tracks are also not really good for determining great sound because they are missing the acoustic cues and phase relationships of natural reflections that only live instruments recorded in an acoustically live room can provide. You can get GREAT bass out of studio tracks (Morph The Cat, anyone?), but it's not realistic - no accuracy factor to electric instruments, generally. I love that recording as I've been a Donald Fagen fan for a long time, but it's not something to judge a system by."
Before we go too far down this path, let's get a little more specific. Some studio tracks are not really good for determining great sound because they are missing the acoustic cues and phase relationships of natural reflections that only live instruments recorded via one pair of microphones whose phase relationship is non-problematic in an acoustically consistent room where it is not adding it's own set of problematic phase relationships can provide. That could possibly be used an as arbiter for determining "great sound", but only when the variables are eliminated and all constituent parts of the equation are known. And while it may be true (to a degree) that, say, "Morph the Cat" can't be used to determine how a system lives up to the Absolute Sound because it consists of instrumentation other than purely acoustic instruments, it can certainly be used to determine how well a system delivers the artistic and sonic content of that disc in relation to how well or how poorly it's delivered via another system. Particularly if the listener is a music lover first and foremost and whose musical preferences stretched further afield than minimally-miked and mixed acoustic fare. For myself, if a system was spectacular at delivering "A Meeting By the River" by Ry Cooder and V. M. Bhatt but failed abysmally at delivering the artistic and sonic content of, I don't know, Nine Inch Nails, then that system would fail to be a contender no matter how much verisimilitude it had to a Platonic ideal of the Absolute Sound. (Step forward Magneplanars.) Why? Because I happen to be a music lover first and foremost.
Anonymously wrote:
"Get your system to survive a great acoustic recording of Daphnis et Chloe with 110dB peaks - now you're cooking with grease! Classic reissued a Mercury Living Presence of this back in the 90's - good stuff. Or a good recording of the World Saxophone Quartet (all those shimmering brass bells off those saxes). Or a great recording of Piano (M*A Recordings has some really well recorded and performed solo piano discs). Complex percussion is also key to helping understand the ability of a system to put the picture together, showing up dynamic contrasts, harmonics (tuned drum heads and cymbals are LOADED with harmonic info)."
Hang on. Any PA worth its salt can produce and sustain 110dB peaks. Sustained peak loudness may be one of the criteria used in determining a systems ability to qualify as a contender for the Absolute Sound, but to use it as an argument against using female vocals is equally problematic. And yes, any well-recorded minimally-miked recording of acoustic instruments whose dynamic range and harmonic content is greater than that of the human voice can certainly be useful for determining verisimilitude to the Absolute Sound, but neither dynamic range nor harmonic complexity are, by themselves, anywhere near sufficient for determining whether a system will result in anything other than a system that can play very loudly (and very softly) and keep the harmonic relationships intact. Personally, I think the convincing delivery of music requires far, far more than just that.
This I think is the crux of this dialogue. We've all experienced those demo situations where the customer's music is put to one side and the "audiophile-approved" direct-to-two-track discs come out. It seems to me there's been a reductionist agenda to eliminate music - real music, the stuff that gets on the radio sometimes, not just the "audiophile approved" stuff - from the hi-end for quite some time. And I tell you, it's a massive turn-off to music lovers. This mirrors the Platonic ideals elevated to god-like status by audiophiles who say, for instance, a system that sounds "beautiful" (step forward the BAlabo's) cannot then ever play music well because it has its own sound. But as I think JV is trying to say, he's come across three amplification chains that all qualify as contenders in their verisimilitude to the Absolute Sound, even as they sound different to one another. This is good news. Particularly for the music lover. I think maybe the thing that those like Elliot are trying to hold on to is a rigid and non-reflexive set of criteria that, by the very nature of that same criteria, dismiss components that sound like anything other than those components that supposedly possess verisimilitude to the Platonic ideal of the Absolute Sound. If it's the ARC 610's, then there we go - there's the Absolute Sound. Write it on stone tablets and let every other component by judged inferior. Fair enough. But what happens, then, in real life, when three components live up to that ideal and sound different from one another? Debates like this, I guess - a quandry, as JV put it. Indeed. But JV's point above in his first post was that for all the gear he's had through his place in the last 10 years, the BAlabo's are one of the few that his music-loving friends could really relate to. What does that say about our Platonic ideal? It says to me that maybe we've placed far too much emphasis on the wrong things, at the expense of allowing people the simple pleasure of the enjoyment of listening to music - all types of music (irrespective of recording process), in an industry that alienates far more people than is probably in its best interest to do so.
I have never heard anyone seriously argue that a system’s performance on (say) female vocals with acoustic backing (think “Famous Blue Raincoat”) is positively correlated perfectly with the performance of the same system on (say) hard rock (think Metallica). Said another way, a system may be absolutely stunning in its presentation of Jennifer Warnes, but the same system might fail epically in its presentation of Metallica (and vice versa). This, of course, suggests that while The Absolute Sound is interesting as a concept and as an ideal, it has limited relevance in the real world for most listeners.
If systems were reviewed solely with regard to how well they live up to the concept of “The Absolute Sound” then we would get no information about how components perform on rock, jazz, etc., which would render most reviews useless for me.
I have never heard anyone seriously argue that a system’s performance on (say) female vocals with acoustic backing (think “Famous Blue Raincoat”) is positively correlated perfectly with the performance of the same system on (say) hard rock (think Metallica). Said another way, a system may be absolutely stunning in its presentation of Jennifer Warnes, but the same system might fail epically in its presentation of Metallica (and vice versa). This, of course, suggests that while The Absolute Sound is interesting as a concept and as an ideal, it has limited relevance in the real world for most listeners.
If systems were reviewed solely with regard to how well they live up to the concept of “The Absolute Sound” then we would get no information about how components perform on rock, jazz, etc., which would render most reviews useless for me.
>these hurdles are not so very high<<
the hair at the back of your neck never stood up so cut it out.
I am now experimenting with a Rogue Hera Ref pre, Atmas-phere 60W OTL and KW750 combo for a 108dB experience, Can you say the same? And with WHAT?
Well I've got some 99dB sensitive speakers that will put out 115dB from 25 to ultrasonics, a 10w OTL that makes it all happen, and some really REALLY tasty records that not only make the hair on the back of my neck stand up ... the system obviates the need for viagra (and, sometimes, exlax)/
typical init? all dBs and no finesse. checked your hearing lately anon?
typical init? all dBs and no finesse. checked your hearing lately anon?
curious1 ... I think you sound very much like an amateur.
So - conversation over.
b'bye now.
anon. you and you ten watter is most professional, not.
curious1 ... I've got a 10w OTL, a 300w solid state, a 50w class A solid state, and a 90w solid state in the stable right now. The 10w OTL runs the 99dB speaks, the other amps run the other three sets of speaks (88dB, 92dB, 94dB). Two diff. phono stages, two arms on the table, a PC-1 on one arm, a Te Kaitura Rua on the other arm. About 1500 LPs in the room, another 3k in boxes.
Your horse don't look so high from here.
My dog's bigger than yours!
jonathan, i heard the soulutions and was also blown away. but i ultimately chose the top of the line vitus ss-101, which retails for $40,000. there's a monoblock that sits above this.
i urge you to add this to your shoot out. i'd love to hear the technical brain but i can tell you i chose vitus having compared it to fm acoustics, goldmund, and many other reference amps.
coupled to my loiminchay kandinsky (with TAD horn driver) einstein phono preamp, and spiral groove table, i've had a hard time leaving my listening room.
David,
thanks for returning the thread to audio.......did you hear the FM stateside...anywhere close to NY and could you describe its sound Vis-a-vis the VITUS..which i'm somewhat familar with
Hey JV. All the goods in this review can be had under one roof in......get this...... Hong Kong. Ask Alon where he's played with these combinations and I'll bet my left nut that that was where he did. Next time you might want to head there because a friend told me that there's a pair of Magico Ultimates strapped to a Lamm ML3 Signature amp. The BALabos are often paired by that dealer with M5s or VR-11s. Ref 610s with VR-9s, ML3s with Model 6s and Ultimates. I was told the combination of the teeny weeny 47 Labs Gaincard and the M2 was a fun combo too.
When my brother went you had M6s and ML3s on one end of the room and VR-9s and Ref 610s on the other. He almost passed out.
I thought the Magico dealer was no longer hooking up the 610T because he had lost the ARC dealership to the Sonus Faber dealer ?
Zowie!
Zowie indeed! That's 4 loudspeakers that will likely never be reviewed "in house" because of size and rarity. Probably worth the ticket to get half way across the world. Lucky me, it's a 1hr flight. If you decide to go, let me know. I'm there for the dimsum!
Mr. Valin,
I just read the Abosute Sound 2010 High-End buyers guide and noted that the BAlabo gear was not listed. Do you find that with the M5's the Soulution gear was "better"? From your blog I was under the impression that the BAlabo gear was giving you "both" of the features of the ARC, and Soulution gear. Just wondering. Also will you be "officially" reviewing the BAlabo gear?
The BAlabo gear didn't make it into this year's Buyers' Guide solely because I hadn't reviewed it yet. I do so in our next ish (#201). It will definitely be recommended in future Guides.