D
DEWAUDIO
Guest
After the other fiery debate on audio "skats" & "lables" I think I should shedd some light on my personal view of audio.
"Audio is like coffee"
Let?s just quickly make a sketch here of a ?virtual? situation:
Don drinks (good) instant coffee. On his 35 birthday he receives a ?coffee machine? with some roasted coffee from a friend. That evening he tries out the new machine. He and his family are delighted by the wonderful aromas that fill the home.
The machine is used daily and the fresh coffee is appreciated very much in the first week.
After about 25 days nobody notices the aroma of the coffee in the house anymore but friends who visit comments on these magical aromas. For Don and his family the coffee now tastes like ?normal? coffee and the hype is gone.
Later on he buys a dark roast coffee from a specialist store and their home is filled yet again with a wonderful coffee aroma ? because of a stronger brew.
They all drank coffee and lived happily ever after despite the rising fuel prices.
So this is my theory with audio equipment:
You buy a new set of speakers. They sound a bit edgy and bass is a tad too ?tight?. You play the speakers for two weeks without paying too much attention but you sit there listening to the units with a critical ear because you can?t justify why they don?t sound better than your 15 year old monitors (now at Cash Corruptors for ten times the price they bought them from you!).
Two weeks pass and you ?perceive? the speakers now sound less aggressive and bass improved.
This is where the funny part comes in.
If a speaker, cartridge or amplifiers sound change so drastically as to change their sonic character then there is something wrong with the components and design. A drift in audio frequency response (including timbre) is a sign of an unstable design ? not true? IE: An amplifiers sound will change noticeably when a capacitor, resistor or transistor/tube is starting to fail. Same goes for a cartridge when its suspension is starting to disintegrate.
So this is the thing: The speakers you bought still sounds the same as when you removed them from the packaging. Your ears simply ?acclimatized? to the specific sonic signature of the audio gear ? remember the story about the coffee aroma. Personally I have experienced it over and over again. One song is enough for me to make a sober judgment of a specific audio setup. Some systems make me smile from the first few notes played, other systems makes me want to run and hide.
That?s me.
D
DISCLAIMER: This is my personal opinion. You as the reader may agree/disagree on any of the above. No personal attacks were intended in this article. All characters appearing in this piece are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
"Audio is like coffee"
Let?s just quickly make a sketch here of a ?virtual? situation:
Don drinks (good) instant coffee. On his 35 birthday he receives a ?coffee machine? with some roasted coffee from a friend. That evening he tries out the new machine. He and his family are delighted by the wonderful aromas that fill the home.
The machine is used daily and the fresh coffee is appreciated very much in the first week.
After about 25 days nobody notices the aroma of the coffee in the house anymore but friends who visit comments on these magical aromas. For Don and his family the coffee now tastes like ?normal? coffee and the hype is gone.
Later on he buys a dark roast coffee from a specialist store and their home is filled yet again with a wonderful coffee aroma ? because of a stronger brew.
They all drank coffee and lived happily ever after despite the rising fuel prices.
So this is my theory with audio equipment:
You buy a new set of speakers. They sound a bit edgy and bass is a tad too ?tight?. You play the speakers for two weeks without paying too much attention but you sit there listening to the units with a critical ear because you can?t justify why they don?t sound better than your 15 year old monitors (now at Cash Corruptors for ten times the price they bought them from you!).
Two weeks pass and you ?perceive? the speakers now sound less aggressive and bass improved.
This is where the funny part comes in.
If a speaker, cartridge or amplifiers sound change so drastically as to change their sonic character then there is something wrong with the components and design. A drift in audio frequency response (including timbre) is a sign of an unstable design ? not true? IE: An amplifiers sound will change noticeably when a capacitor, resistor or transistor/tube is starting to fail. Same goes for a cartridge when its suspension is starting to disintegrate.
So this is the thing: The speakers you bought still sounds the same as when you removed them from the packaging. Your ears simply ?acclimatized? to the specific sonic signature of the audio gear ? remember the story about the coffee aroma. Personally I have experienced it over and over again. One song is enough for me to make a sober judgment of a specific audio setup. Some systems make me smile from the first few notes played, other systems makes me want to run and hide.
That?s me.
D
DISCLAIMER: This is my personal opinion. You as the reader may agree/disagree on any of the above. No personal attacks were intended in this article. All characters appearing in this piece are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
