Log on to just about any HiFi forum and you'll see different camps of audiophiles in endless "debates" about which product or technology is the most accurate or sounds the most like live music, etc… So are the planar guys right that the enemy of sound is monkey coffins (boxes)? Are the SET lovers right that it’s all about the 1st watt? Are the TT lovers right that it’s all about the vinyl? What about the measurement guys? The Megawatt SS fans? The high resolution digital fans? The mini-monitor lovers with their pinpoint imaging? The multi-drivers traditional tower speaker fans with their foundation shaking bass?

Clearly all these different camps can’t all be right, can they?

IMO, yes they can…

I believe that despite various objective tests and comparisons between live and recorded music that all those debates really just comes down to subjective preferences…

Simple example: Two audiophiles listen to a live event, then hear it played back on 2 different systems, both persons think a different system sounds more like the live event: Person 1 is very sensitive to timbre (so a piano should sound exactly like a piano) and hence picks system A (a SET/ HE Speaker combo) which he feels best captures the sound of the piano. Person 2 is not bothered if timbre is slightly off as he doesn’t notice that in his regular listening sessions, but he is very sensitive to variations in frequency response. So he picks system B (mega watt SS with multi-driver towers) which has a dead flat frequency response, rather than system A which had obvious peaks in the treble and suck outs in the mid-bass. Person 1 is not bothered by variations in frequency response and can easily listen around them as long as timbre is right. Person 2 can ignore timbre being slightly off as long as the frequency response is flat.

So which person picked the system that sounded more like the live performance? In typical audiophile manner they go onto a forum and quarrel endlessly about who buys based only on specs, who loves the sound of harmonic distortion, who is tone-deaf, etc, etc… And they both miss the point that this hobby really comes down to listening preferences (realism triggers as the absolute sound refers to it). We buy systems based on our budgets (meaning that we have to accept compromises in certain areas of the sonic performance). As a result we buy systems that compromise the least on the things that are most important to us. Whether that is dynamic range, imaging, single point source, PRAT, frequency response, lack of background noise, surface noise, soundstage, cohesion etc etc etc will determine what we think sounds best within our budget... It's the reason why with a $5K budget one person will buy a small monitor with a 5" woofer, while another will buy a large 4 way tower and yet another will buy a planar.

But what do you think? Is there a right technology and everyone else just needs to hear it to be converted?