"The Truth in Audio" -- according to www.commonsenseaudio.com

[musicoverall]

That would be the ICK-150. I owned its decent sounding amp cousin, the D-150, about thirty years ago. The Crown dealer where I bought the amp mercifully talked me out of buying that preamp in favor of an H-K Citation 11. That was when I still believed in the value of total harmonic distortion specifications (where ironically it excelled) and the tooth fairy.


She wishes ! Michelle Kwan won that honor in the short program a little while ago. But, she and I both competed recreationally years ago. That's how we met.

rw

Yes, the IC-150! Ick... LOL! I remember the specs were perfect and the sound was perfectly awful. As for biases taking over, I had never heard of it and the guy that brought it over was (as a joke!) saying how awesome it was. I've only been involved in audio gear for about 15 years and Crown was not a name I recognized. To this day, I still have a picture he took of the look on my face as I was trying to figure out how to be polite! Picture yourself sucking a lemon and you'll have an idea. Suffice it to say that my system had never sounded so bad. That Crown was indeed the Magic Bullet, turning good sounding systems into PA's. A PA sound was how I described it to myself during audition.

Well, finishing behind Michelle Kwan is nothing to be ashamed of... people do it all the time! The point is your wife competed. Outstanding!

[woodman]

Hearing massed violins screech is not my idea of the "live" experience. But according to Woodman, it must be that I just have a bad attitude.
rw

Au contraire, mon frere ... I have never ever said that you had a "bad attitude". I have only stated that your "attitude(s)", coupled with your "beliefs" have a decisive effect on the sensory perceptions that you experience. And, that those ABEs of yours do not always serve your best interests in the final analysis.

[woodman]

I would have to say that attitudes, beliefs, prior knowledge, etc. have a profound effect on our ability to enjoy food.

There are obviously some chemicals or tastes that will taste bad regardless of how they are dressed up, but I think true taste testing would need to be blind so that only the sense of taste is working and not preconceived notions.

Although you and I are essentially "on the same page", I must disagree with the first part of this last paragraph. The contradiction to " ... some tastes will taste bad regardless" is refuted by what happens in a "stage hypnotist" performance when a hypnotized subject is handed a piece of chocolate and told that it's a piece of lemon - and probably the most bitter and tart lemon he's ever tasted. The subject will then put the chocolate in his mouth - his face will then contort into near terminal "puckering" - frowning and scowling - sometimes tears will even appear and roll down his cheeks! I've also seen it done the opposite way: the subject is handed a piece of lemon and told that it's the sweetest chocolate he's ever put into his mouth and guess what ... ? No puckering - no frowns - no tears - but a big smile from ear to ear. This phenomenon proved to me the validity of the fact that what goes on in our brains have everything to do with what our 5 senses "tell" us.

[E-Stat]

I've only been involved in audio gear for about 15 years and Crown was not a name I recognized.

Ironically for me it was the other way around. I knew well of the name and their high quality. I preferred their "no frills" appearance as opposed to the sexy blue Mac look. I was 17 and was replacing my AR integrated and wanted to move to good separates. Again, it was the Crown dealer who steered me away from the preamp. He also sold Audio Research and Magneplanar which had a profound effect on me later. Crown amps were a very different story. They were among the best sounding amps in that day ('74).

Well, finishing behind Michelle Kwan is nothing to be ashamed of... people do it all the time! The point is your wife competed.

That was many years ago and at a lower recreational level. I'll draw an analogy with audio. I still can land all the single jumps, do an axel on a good day, perform fast scratch spins, bauers, spread eagles, sit spins, and camels. My wife lands doubles and does flying camels as well. To the untrained viewer, what we do looks very impressive. On the other hand, these kids at Nationals perform on an altogether different level. The effort and skill required to land triples is significantly higher than for singles. My point is that the casual observer really doesn't appreciate the difference. I have been asked if I skated at the Olympics before. Similarly, there are lots of good audio components on the market. The number of truly superb ones, however, is much smaller and requires more listening experience to fully appreciate what they can do.

rw

[risabet]

The speakers have the biggest sonic signature - much more so than the source. It isn't that they're "more important" per se.

Let's take a look at your own system. I could score a Parasound for about $100 used but it would take much more than that to purchase your Martin Logans. Are you suggesting that if you bought a $5000 CD player and had $200 speakers that you're system would sound better? Surely not. What do you feel is lacking from your Parasound? If you feel that it's the "weak" point in your system, you could certainly spend more money and "improve" upon it, right? And remember, Ivor was talking about turntables, arms and cartridges - much more difficult to get right than CD players... if a CD player is ever "right", that is!

And I'm NOT knocking your system! In fact, I wanna come over and hear it! What's your beer preference?

No, no, no, I'm not suggesting that a $200 pr of speakers with a $5000 CD player will make a system sound better (though I would like to have the CD player), I'm suggesting that if you don't get the information into the system at the start you will never get another chance. No matter how good the speakers, if the information is not their, the speakers can't reproduce it.

The hierarchy is important, the signal travels (as we all know) from source through electronics, to speakers. Clearly, a fine speaker will let you hear all the flaws of a cheap CD player, a misaligned catridge,or what have you. An inexpensive speaker will allow you to hear a good CD player, a properly set-up TT or a master tape to the limit of the speakers resolution.

Re: the Parasound, it has a mild case of transistoritis that I'm hoping to tame with an outboard DAC (tubes maybe). Yes Ivor was referring to TT, arms and carts but the principle is the same, if the info is not put in to the system what you do to it afterwards matters not.

Speakers do have the biggest sonic impact, but only insofar as they are what we hear. Every part of a system bears an equal responsibility for the system's sound, I simply believe in the acronym GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out).

No offense was taken, this is a discussion group, right!

[musicoverall]

New name for an old familiar term! A most disagreeable phenomenon, to be sure!

I don't disagree that the source needs to pass all the information and the signal down the chain can only be made worse, etc. I'm just saying that the source components (as opposed to the source software) have less of a distance to travel to perfection than do the speakers. A lesser CD player will deliver most of the sonic goods while lesser speakers will mask what is upstream, no matter how good it is.

[risabet]

New name for an old familiar term! A most disagreeable phenomenon, to be sure!

I don't disagree that the source needs to pass all the information and the signal down the chain can only be made worse, etc. I'm just saying that the source components (as opposed to the source software) have less of a distance to travel to perfection than do the speakers. A lesser CD player will deliver most of the sonic goods while lesser speakers will mask what is upstream, no matter how good it is.

A marvelous technician and set-up man, he set up the LP-12 better than anyone I've known, unfortunately I've lost track of him, named Michael Frazier refers to SS as trans"piss"tors. I don't necessarily agree. But transistoritis is alive and well. I do agree that lesser speakers will mask what is upstream of them, thus my comment about resolution, this doesn't change the fact that you still need to get the info especially out of the LP or, less so, the CD.

I agree, speakers are the weak link to our ears, that is the nature of a transducer. Thus it is more difficult to get vinyl right (a damned sight more expensive also) than it is to get digital to sound okay.

[thepogue]

Mr Service techno wennie...

roflmao....

sorry could help meself brudda...lmao

whew...lol

sorry

Peace, Pogue (Fire-weenie) lol

That sir, places them into the realm of a preference as I already pointed out to Mr. musicoverall. The very idea that tubes are somehow able to do a "better job" at recreating sound has been proven to be nothing beyond a myth. That is why you'd be hard-pressed to find any professional audio equipment using vacuum tubes being employed in any recording studios, radio and TV broadcasting, commercial post-production houses, movie studios, or anywhere else where sound reproduction is dealt with "professionally".



I don't enjoy music by viewing THD graphs ... or, by "listening to" vacuum tubes, or by "listening to" solid state devices either. I enjoy listening to MUSIC that emanates from whatever equipment is doing the reproduction of it, if said gear is doing a reasonable job of recreating it.



Pure, unadulterated hogwash! The only thing that you can rely upon with any degree of certainty with tubed gear is the unreliability of the vacuum tubes themselves. They are inherently unreliable critters. They are prone to idiosyncrasies and all sorts of undesirable behaviors that their solid state counterparts are simply not inclined to exhibit ... ever. I confuse reliability with "wear"? Not hardly do I confuse any such thing. I was faced with the challenges presented to me by vacuum tubes, day in and day out for more than 30 years. Those challenges were not something caused by the tubes "wearing out" - not at all. They were often a case of a given tube simply not being capable of performing the job it was being asked to do. These tubes were not "worn out" or even performing poorly because of usage ... they were simply not up to the task. On the other hand, there were tubes that were functionally "usable", but didn't perform their jobs as well as they could have or should have, due to a plethora of reasons. Perhaps the most glaring difference between tubes and SS devices is the fact that from the day that it is put into service, a solid state device will perform its assigned task at an optimum and unvarying level until it finally dies, while a vacuum tube can (and will) exhibit a wide range of efficiency in dealing with the task it's asked to perform.



I'll thank you to not refer to me as a "repairman". I was an electronic servicing technician, who also saw duty as an electronic design engineer (without the qualifying "credentials"). The term repairman in this context is tantamount to calling an automobile mechanic a "grease monkey".

[A-Audiophile]

And here's the truth in audio:


--Gold plated interconnects from Radio Shack will give you sound as good as any expensive cable.



You know for the most part, this guy seems to nail it.

I have to admit....Gold plated RS Fusion cables beat out many exspensive IC's in my set-up....

[Classical Music Lives!]

Erukian has gotten it right on everything except it is debatable if the preamp trumps the power amp. It depends on how the power amp and speakers interact -OR- if the preamp is highly transparent or not. Neither lousy or excellent components matter much if speakers are not faithful reproducers. Try evaluating the electronics with poor speakers. Audio literarium is choking with 90+% objectivity distortion. Much with good intention but compounded from ignorance, the rest pure hucksterism. The big player is psychoacoustic experience. A good analogy is, did you notice how much better your car runs after a good washing and waxing? We tend to delude ourselves a bit when performing for our imagined audience, it seems to me. Maybe it's in our genes. These battered old ears and a room full of test equipment have taught me that listener's impressions are almost solely based on the loudspeaker. Mostly, I believe, due to improvements in high frequency drivers (tweeters), the younger generation with good high frequency hearing notice many of the subtle differences in recordings and the effects the various media add. Even with my old ears I find CD's to be lackluster in the high end and it surprises me when I hear something that really sparkles. And of course FM has always been somewhat disappointing with its limited bandwith and the detrimental effects of that added contrivence, stereo multiplex. Good thing most of us have mediocre hearing and just enjoy the programming. I still like listening to my vinyls.

[Chas Underhay]

You seem to have come to about the same conclusions as me.

Erukian has gotten it right on everything except it is debatable if the preamp trumps the power amp.

If he means a phono pre-amp then I agree with him, if he just means line stage then I don't.

QUOTE=Classical Music Lives!]And of course FM has always been somewhat disappointing with its limited bandwith and the detrimental effects of that added contrivence, stereo multiplex.[/QUOTE]

Maybe, but they sure have a lot of records that I don't have and I can hear them for free.

QUOTE=Classical Music Lives!]I still like listening to my vinyls.[/QUOTE]

Absolutely!