Recently I have gotten to know a local guy who is deep into this Audiophile hobby who until recently lived in the Northeast area. He visited my home for a dinner party and spent about an hour in my listening room enjoying my new statement speakers. He said very little while he was here but has reached out quite a bit since then.
Well, this past week I visited his place and got to see how he enjoys this hobby, which was interesting.
First, he has gone on and on about how digital audio is always a terrible compromise. He has a huge collection of digital music, mostly high resolution files, on a server playing through a streaming player. The streaming player has a custom power supply the size of a large power amp. Seriously. But, his love is vinyl audio and he has several thousand LPs in one of those square hole Ikea shelf systems. However, when I visited he was sans a turntable as he sold his and bought an upgrade when the manufacturer hasn't shipped, yet.
His other equipment consists of a BAT preamp with PS Audio power strips and ultrahigh-end power cables on everything. His amp is one of the classic massively huge Krell behemoths that generates more heat than electrical output, with a smallish Tripplite power regulator cleaning the power input.
The speakers, and these were impressive, were the classic SoundLab 6 foot tall electrostatics, the precursor to the A-3PX. Here's a photo of the speakers and amp from the listening position:
The room was a large front living room with a partially vaulted tall ceiling. He has placed some acoustic absorbing panels on the walls behind and beside the speakers, and his wife has built a few skyline style diffusors from wood which are mounted as you see plus one more above and behind the listening position. However, the vast majority of the room was untreated in any way.
Listening:
Music was certainly big and clear. The bass was shockingly deep and tight. The treble wasn't bright in any way, and the midrange was smooth. The scale was amazing, and at listening levels I prefer (which his wife found far too loud) the sense of scale was phenomenal. Huge electrostatics like these often exhibit amazing power and sound filling impact. In general, it was very pleasing.
All of that said, the clarity was surprisingly sub-par. Instruments like steel string acoustic guitar, brushes on snare drum, and lightly played piano had a sense of metallic shimmer which was often distracting. The speakers were not unnaturally bright, but sounds with strong harmonic content has a sort of buzzing sound what almost sounds like his speakers might be damaged in some way. I would love to measure the harmonic distortion on his speakers to see if what I hear is measurable.
The clarity also suffered from the resolution being very limited. Songs which have a dozens instruments playing sounded muddled and washed out and my ability to isolate instruments was hindered almost to the point of frustration. I knew what I was supposed to hear, but it simply could not be heard.
The dynamic range was incredible - like truly amazing, especially on a good recording. And that drew me to find familiar recordings in his library which were truly dynamic.
But the lack of resolution eventually grew painful and so damn annoying that I dropped out of critical listening mode and instead visited and discussed his approach to the hobby.
Audiophile to a tee
He is a very nice guy and loves this hobby dearly. It was fun to hear him talk about how he complied with all of the stereotypes of the hobby - expensive tweaks like the right cone tips on his equipment stand feet, swapping expensive cables, setting everything up exactly as the manufacturer or Stereophile recommends, etc. In fact, I asked about how he arrived at the speaker placement and listening position placement for his rig, and he straight up quoted the advice from the manufacturer. I found that when I moved around a bit, the most ideal stereo listening clarity listening point was about one foot to the right and two feet forward of his choice for the listening seat. When he saw me sorta twisting around to get my ears at that spot while critically listening, he asked what I was doing and I explained it sounded better from there. He didn't try it himself when I offered and quoted the Stereophile review which said those speakers "require 14 feet" listening distance. Thus, my preference was two feet short of that hard requirement he had been told. Basically, and this was reinforced in other conversations, he doesn't make many decisions based on his own listening experience but on the advice or guidance of others.
Of course, his system sounds great, so the expense of a high end and fat digital audio cable to connect his streaming player to a DAC isn't ruining things. But I question whether he would ever hear a single fraction of a difference if I replaced his cable with one made from RG-6 coax and Radio Shack RCA connectors. So, while I am convinced about half of his investment in the system he is using was a waste of his money, the results are not terrible. But, when he was waxing on about his 9 month journey to find the perfect long XLR interconnect between his BAT preamp and the Krell power amp, I was just smiling and nodding until he finished his story.
It is a fascinating thing, this hobby, and the minds of those who learned all about it from audiophile magazines and websites are quite fun to get to know.
Well, this past week I visited his place and got to see how he enjoys this hobby, which was interesting.
First, he has gone on and on about how digital audio is always a terrible compromise. He has a huge collection of digital music, mostly high resolution files, on a server playing through a streaming player. The streaming player has a custom power supply the size of a large power amp. Seriously. But, his love is vinyl audio and he has several thousand LPs in one of those square hole Ikea shelf systems. However, when I visited he was sans a turntable as he sold his and bought an upgrade when the manufacturer hasn't shipped, yet.
His other equipment consists of a BAT preamp with PS Audio power strips and ultrahigh-end power cables on everything. His amp is one of the classic massively huge Krell behemoths that generates more heat than electrical output, with a smallish Tripplite power regulator cleaning the power input.
The speakers, and these were impressive, were the classic SoundLab 6 foot tall electrostatics, the precursor to the A-3PX. Here's a photo of the speakers and amp from the listening position:
The room was a large front living room with a partially vaulted tall ceiling. He has placed some acoustic absorbing panels on the walls behind and beside the speakers, and his wife has built a few skyline style diffusors from wood which are mounted as you see plus one more above and behind the listening position. However, the vast majority of the room was untreated in any way.
Listening:
Music was certainly big and clear. The bass was shockingly deep and tight. The treble wasn't bright in any way, and the midrange was smooth. The scale was amazing, and at listening levels I prefer (which his wife found far too loud) the sense of scale was phenomenal. Huge electrostatics like these often exhibit amazing power and sound filling impact. In general, it was very pleasing.
All of that said, the clarity was surprisingly sub-par. Instruments like steel string acoustic guitar, brushes on snare drum, and lightly played piano had a sense of metallic shimmer which was often distracting. The speakers were not unnaturally bright, but sounds with strong harmonic content has a sort of buzzing sound what almost sounds like his speakers might be damaged in some way. I would love to measure the harmonic distortion on his speakers to see if what I hear is measurable.
The clarity also suffered from the resolution being very limited. Songs which have a dozens instruments playing sounded muddled and washed out and my ability to isolate instruments was hindered almost to the point of frustration. I knew what I was supposed to hear, but it simply could not be heard.
The dynamic range was incredible - like truly amazing, especially on a good recording. And that drew me to find familiar recordings in his library which were truly dynamic.
But the lack of resolution eventually grew painful and so damn annoying that I dropped out of critical listening mode and instead visited and discussed his approach to the hobby.
Audiophile to a tee
He is a very nice guy and loves this hobby dearly. It was fun to hear him talk about how he complied with all of the stereotypes of the hobby - expensive tweaks like the right cone tips on his equipment stand feet, swapping expensive cables, setting everything up exactly as the manufacturer or Stereophile recommends, etc. In fact, I asked about how he arrived at the speaker placement and listening position placement for his rig, and he straight up quoted the advice from the manufacturer. I found that when I moved around a bit, the most ideal stereo listening clarity listening point was about one foot to the right and two feet forward of his choice for the listening seat. When he saw me sorta twisting around to get my ears at that spot while critically listening, he asked what I was doing and I explained it sounded better from there. He didn't try it himself when I offered and quoted the Stereophile review which said those speakers "require 14 feet" listening distance. Thus, my preference was two feet short of that hard requirement he had been told. Basically, and this was reinforced in other conversations, he doesn't make many decisions based on his own listening experience but on the advice or guidance of others.
Of course, his system sounds great, so the expense of a high end and fat digital audio cable to connect his streaming player to a DAC isn't ruining things. But I question whether he would ever hear a single fraction of a difference if I replaced his cable with one made from RG-6 coax and Radio Shack RCA connectors. So, while I am convinced about half of his investment in the system he is using was a waste of his money, the results are not terrible. But, when he was waxing on about his 9 month journey to find the perfect long XLR interconnect between his BAT preamp and the Krell power amp, I was just smiling and nodding until he finished his story.
It is a fascinating thing, this hobby, and the minds of those who learned all about it from audiophile magazines and websites are quite fun to get to know.
