Walk through the rooms of any high-end audio show and listen to the demonstration music that is used to exhibit a system’s bass capabilities, and you will - sooner or later but inevitably - bump into one of the two classics that have acquired a cult status over the years. Listeners are impressed how deep this or that a piece of gear can play, and exhibitors talk about the loudspeaker extension ‘down to 16Hz’. The problem is that such a bass tone is not present on these recordings.
Placing loudspeakers in a room is always the most challenging part of any audio setup. No matter whether your room is small or large, inevitably many room-related issues arise. Some of them can be handled by proper acoustic treatment, some not, as they are determined by the room dimensions and wall ratios, as well as by building materials. It is always a compromise. Like it or not, the loudspeakers are the only component that generates the sound and interacts with the room. And there is only one component receiving the sound - the pair of your ears. So, the placement of the speakers and your ears in the room is the most critical part of any setup procedure.
Everytime I come across a picture of the listening room that belongs to an audio reviewer, I save it into my archive. I have been doing this for years, and there is 43 pictures in the archive to date illustrating the listening spaces of guys from Stereophile, The Absolute Sound, HiFi News, Positive Feedback, HighFidelity, and many other known and less known magazines, review sites, and high-end blogs. There is one remarkable aspect to the pictures - no two rooms are identical.
Sales of CDs has been exponentially declining since its 2001 peak. The number of downloaded digital albums and songs grows but leaves open bleeding wounds in profit of labels due to unauthorized sharing and copying. High resolution discs like BlueRay Audio or SACD, despite superior sound quality, commercially failed. Is the vinyl resurgence a sustainable solution or just a hype?
In 1969 tube recording gear in Abbey Road studios was replaced by solid state devices. There were complaints of The Beatles recording team about how the sound altered for worse, for less natural. Fifty years later we still argue about the very same issue. Now lay down. Relax. Close your eyes...Try to imagine the world how it will look like in, say, 20 years from now. What technologies will we use? How far will we travel and how? What hi-fi devices will we have at our homes?
What is the optimum sound level for home playback? What does an audio reviewer mean by saying “I listened to the music at real levels”? Why is reaching the “real levels”at home impossible? And can you tell what are the actual loudness levels for a chamber quartet, rock group or a car that is driving on a highway?
Is XRCD mastering just another audiophile swindle? Can K2HD disc reissues add any value to the already many times remastered recordings? Is it possible to extract the music directly from mastering consoles in any better quality? Would you buy an SACD disc for 200 € or more? Is streaming the way to heaven?
When does music cease being music? Where is the point that by polishing our stereos brings us to the quality of reproduction that could not be experienced by artists themselves? The age of innocence has passed, we are up into the age of hyperreality and collapsing music experience.
Some audio fans often discuss threads like "The best loudspeakers for heavy metal". If you like to listen to CD recordings that are available in stores today, the good news is that you do not need any special type of equipment/loudspeakers - a car audio or a boombox from a supermarket will make the service well provided that they can play loud....
Bass frequencies are fundamental for good sound. Each of us strives to get them right yet a very few of us knows how. The excellent article of Bob Katz helps you integrate a subwoofer in your system without necessity to have any special instruments - the all you need is ears, test CDs and time.
The likeliness of having a pair of floorstanders that can play down to the lowest frequencies with smooth in-room response is equal to the likeliness of spotting Santa Claus in the sky during a winter night.
Imagine this scenario: you really love a song on the CD you have just purchased. Surprisingly, you can’t stand listening to it for very long and you’re not entirely sure why. Something urges you to skip to another track. Again, you like the music but the feeling of a discomfort is still there. Maybe you have just a bad day. More probably you are another victim of the recording industry.
Music is a form of art. Inheritly, the listening to music is a form of art too. I would even challenge the assumption that the artist is what matters the most – not at all as without listeners any work of art hardly ever comes to life.
There are numerous debates over the internet which part of an audio chain affects sound quality the most. Often the discussion ends up by arguing about the qualities of different speakers or amplifiers. Then someone says what about the quality of recordings? Good try. Well, even the best speakers, the best amplifier and the best recordings are good for nothing if we are not sure that the sound that we listen to is not altered through listening room interactions.
Some disputes never end – like the one about the best performing loudspeaker. Why our ears appreciate so much the loudspeakers like Wilson Audio despite un-stellar measurements? Why there is no sense in attaching incompetent measurements to an audio component review? And why one simply cannot decide on a speaker´s sound quality based on such the measurements?
