That makes sense..
Returning to Mid-fi After Owning High End Gear (on purpose)
- Thread starter blownsi
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blownsi
Super Member
To my ears it does indeed sound better on a lower revealing setup.
One song that always sounds very different to me on different levels of systems is Clapton's Wonderful Tonight. On a poorly resolving system the decay of the percussion is smeared to the point of not knowing it's there. On a better setup you can hear the attack and decay which is a shocking experience the first time you hear it. It's been there all the time but it was not revealed. On a really high resolution setup, this attack and decay just sounds off as if the sound engineer has falsely emphasized it.
Carraway
Well-Known Member
I also have found poorly recorded and especially over-processed music sounds worse on a more revealing system. For instance, if I can hear the effects of a compressor kicking in I start listening more to the compressor than the performance. I also have an aversion to any processing that shifts pitches, such as autotune and especially chorus effects, so being able to clearly hear them has me stop playback rather quickly.
As for the original question I didn't really go from high end to "mid fi" ownership, but I'd often go from high end to far more modest listening back in my mastering engineer days. Much of that was due to finances at the time, and it did occasionally bother me to go from hearing equipment that could resolve very fine details to a Marantz 2216B and small Tannoy bookshelves. But I also told myself that, no matter how much I'd spend, no audio system was fully capable of capturing all the details of live music.
So I feel I'm a pretty bad audiophile, or maybe not an audiophile at all. I like hearing and in some cases owning fine audio equipment, and now I can afford the things I once dreamed of someday owning. Thus far, however, every time I've nearly convinced myself to part with a good sum of money to buy an amplifier, speakers, etc., I compare the cost to that of musical instruments and rethink it. Usually I wind up buying a musical instrument instead.
I'm currently doing that. I could really use better amplification and am tempted by certain integrateds in the $1K-$2K range, and thinking a better pair of speakers in the same price range should go with that, but I'd also really like a recently-introduced digital piano that's $1,800. At least I don't currently have the room for a baby grand.
As for the original question I didn't really go from high end to "mid fi" ownership, but I'd often go from high end to far more modest listening back in my mastering engineer days. Much of that was due to finances at the time, and it did occasionally bother me to go from hearing equipment that could resolve very fine details to a Marantz 2216B and small Tannoy bookshelves. But I also told myself that, no matter how much I'd spend, no audio system was fully capable of capturing all the details of live music.
So I feel I'm a pretty bad audiophile, or maybe not an audiophile at all. I like hearing and in some cases owning fine audio equipment, and now I can afford the things I once dreamed of someday owning. Thus far, however, every time I've nearly convinced myself to part with a good sum of money to buy an amplifier, speakers, etc., I compare the cost to that of musical instruments and rethink it. Usually I wind up buying a musical instrument instead.
I'm currently doing that. I could really use better amplification and am tempted by certain integrateds in the $1K-$2K range, and thinking a better pair of speakers in the same price range should go with that, but I'd also really like a recently-introduced digital piano that's $1,800. At least I don't currently have the room for a baby grand.
When moving from a house to an apartment several years ago, I discovered that there are useful features for low-volume listening to be found in "regular" gear that is missing in most higher end products. Specifically, the Naim, conrad-johnson, and Linn amplification I have owned had no loudness contour features or even tone controls. When required to listen to music at average volume levels of 45-52 dB, with occasional peaks around 60 dB, even a Bose wave table radio, which has a non-switchable and nonadjustable loudness feature built in to its response, would let me hear more of what was going on in the music, with a richer, fuller tonality, than my higher-priced but less featured gear was able to provide. I picked up a Marantz PM5004 integrated amplifier, and its loudness switch was a big help with low-volume listening; in addition, when it came to getting more intelligible speech from poorly recorded old-time radio broadcasts, its aggressive tone controls came to the rescue nicely.
Jayrosc
Super Member
Just offering this sobering thought: When I was a kid growing up in the Burb's of NYC much of my listening was of 77 WABC on the AM dial (Ron Lundy lived down the street!) on a hand held transistor radio made by Panasonic, much like the one pictured. That's how I heard Sly Stone doing "Dance to the Music" and the other hits of the day. I now listen to those same songs on better gear, which I consider Hi Fi, and it sure does sound better by a mile or two, but I gotta say the satisfaction and excitement I feel now in my listening room at 58 is about the same as what I felt out on the street corner when I was 10. Point is Lo Fi can do the trick.
I don't know that it's a matter of lesser equipment, but perhaps equipment, and ears, need to be attuned to different criteria. For the past several years, I've enjoyed Jeff Day's "music lovers" reviews at 6 Moons, and in them he is rather disparaging of the commonly accepted audiophile emphasis on "sonic artifacts" like soundstaging, transparency, imaging and extreme detail recovery. This list mirrors the emphasis I see so often when equipment is compared or reviewed, whether in forums or in audiophile-oriented magazines. Day concluded that an emphasis on those criteria can make less than stellar recordings an unsatisfying experience and actually detracts from the system's ability to deliver the musical message. He wrote, "The focus on exaggerating the non-musical artifacts of the recording process over the years has resulted in a lot of very expensive equipment that can sound spectacular and exciting during short-term auditions but ironically doesn't play music very well. . . Music lovers want to hear the musical message get through regardless of how well that music was recorded because there's lots of great music not recorded that well." The gear he reviews and recommends also tends to be high end, but what he's looking for is ". . . a natural presentation of the beat, rhythm, melody and mood." http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/shindo3/shindo.html
Reviewer Art Dudley made a similar distinction a few years ago, writing, "As a person who writes about musical reproduction and how audio equipment performs that task, it’s really a question of forgetting all this [expletive deleted] about imaging and coloration. Setting all those things aside, at least for a while, and just relaxing and listening the way a child would listen: Is this thing playing the tune properly? Is it getting the beat? Is it really fun to listen to? Is it conveying the emotion that’s on the disc or in the groove? That’s the thing for me. . . Notes and beats, that’s what I consider important to getting the music right. Everything else is just sound.” http://www.soundsgoodtome.us/2011/01/06/noted-audio-critics-fess-up/
I believe that the better the equipment, the more you can get from your records, and that it's possible to choose great equipment to build systems that emphasize musical rather than purely sonic criteria, systems that will maximize the pleasure to be found even in music that is poorly recorded. But I also believe that it doesn't require high end equipment to enjoy music, and I've listened for hours at a time, totally engaged and enthralled, using a humble Rega RP3 with M97xE cartridge at one end of the audio chain and some Bose 301's at the other, the notes and beats still coming through in a compelling way.
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dwaller131
Well-Known Member
I grew up in Bethpage and did much the same thing as you, except you'd have to replace that Panasonic with a radio Shack Flavor-Radio (I had a blue one)!
graywolf
Sonically Challenged
You guys make me glad, I have such a lofi system (comparatively). Half the music I have sounds okay on it and only a couple sound awful. The interesting thing is almost none of my actual acquaintances have something better.
But then I still think good stereo recordings of the group as a whole are the best recordings of all. After all do the guys in the control room know more about music than the musicians? They seem to think they do.
But then I still think good stereo recordings of the group as a whole are the best recordings of all. After all do the guys in the control room know more about music than the musicians? They seem to think they do.
musichal
poet emeritus
I think you both deserve it, so just post your addresses, and watch for the truck!
Funky54
Super Member
Funky54
88db Big Dreamer street
Xanadu, Hawaii
I set the lawn chair in the front yard with a bottle of my cheapest whiskey!
JoeESP9
ESL's & tubes since 83
Funky54
Super Member
This thread has been good for me in that it shares a lot of what I have thought for some time. At the end of the day, if a fella has the means and enjoys the really high end, I say more power to ya. If you feel it compromises some of your lessor stellar quality recordings I think its logical and practical to just have a work around.
For me (and I wouldn't say I even have High end Hi-if) it's by using two tables and switching between them depending on the recording. For me its the best of both worlds. For others It might be a digital EQ stored that can be put into the equation for some recordings, an additional system or an additional source. I just dont think its that hard to have a work around.
In the world of a minimalist who's goal is keeping a true path and a true source with super high end gear so that you experience zero color... Well fine but most of your gear probably has a second set of "Out"s or a second set of "In"'s somewhere.... a little EQ, or a cart swap. Maybe even redirect signal to separate set of speakers.
For me (and I wouldn't say I even have High end Hi-if) it's by using two tables and switching between them depending on the recording. For me its the best of both worlds. For others It might be a digital EQ stored that can be put into the equation for some recordings, an additional system or an additional source. I just dont think its that hard to have a work around.
In the world of a minimalist who's goal is keeping a true path and a true source with super high end gear so that you experience zero color... Well fine but most of your gear probably has a second set of "Out"s or a second set of "In"'s somewhere.... a little EQ, or a cart swap. Maybe even redirect signal to separate set of speakers.
musichal
poet emeritus
Forget "big brown". I'll pick up. That way I save you on shipping charges.
...'cause you jus' that kinda guy, I know. Nothin' here you'd want, though...
and I do like cheap whiskey.
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sqlsavior
Lunatic Member
I really like this post because it pretty much sums up how I feel about the subject.
My thoughts are converging on an alternate cartridge or two for my workaround.
Happy listening!
That was my upgrade path--I pared down a lot of questionable stuff and nearly two dozen components (including video), but I have instead to a very simple, high-end system. Vinyl, digital player, preamp, power amp, speakers. Won't trade it for anything. I've worked too hard, suffered to much and waited too long in life that I am not going to deny myself the reward of listening to music at this level. The higher I've reached, the less I've desired upgrades. I only have a couple of steps left before I am done. I don't buy into the endless upgrading/tweaking. That's just less I can spend on music. And women.
I still have some of my old gear, but will be using it for an eventual "man cave" system that won't be for serious listening. The rest I'm selling off, once things settle down here at Casa Wildcat.
PAGS
Super Member
Thanks for the links! I love the quote below and see the same type of thing on here every single day.
"“Much of the writing can be an enormous turn-off to the average person. It can possibly do more harm than good. Years ago I would give people copies of the magazine I wrote for, thinking I would turn someone on to high-end audio and they would call back saying, ‘What is this shit? What is this guy doing, going off about caramel colorations? I don’t care about caramel colorations.’ Then recently I read another example of this audiophile perverseness which proclaimed a pair of speakers under review were so revealing, according to the reviewer, that ‘not only can you hear the subway trains running under the recording venue, but you can tell what direction they’re going in.’” Dudley laments, “That’s the sort of shit that keeps music lovers away from high-end audio because the average music lover doesn’t care about the subway trains and carmel colorations, they care about the music."
Well I just about read every post and to address going backwards on system building is a choice. However I wouldn't make that choice, I have plenty of opportunity to listen to crappy play back most the day, so why would I want to do it when I'm home in front of my main system.
Others try to say a low grade system will make the bad recorded media, or really just bad media better. I got news for you not all records and or media is the same, I could have six same titles on old records and maybe they all sound bad, maybe one out of the lot sound far better. If I add in the all the new records for that same title I could have another three to choose from and one of those can beat out the other 8 records.
I personally think a lot of members here do not put the same attention in the media they buy as they do with equipment.
When I reached a level of gear that starts to do better than my space will allow, well it was time to focus one the media and my music library and and the quality of it.
Others try to say a low grade system will make the bad recorded media, or really just bad media better. I got news for you not all records and or media is the same, I could have six same titles on old records and maybe they all sound bad, maybe one out of the lot sound far better. If I add in the all the new records for that same title I could have another three to choose from and one of those can beat out the other 8 records.
I personally think a lot of members here do not put the same attention in the media they buy as they do with equipment.
When I reached a level of gear that starts to do better than my space will allow, well it was time to focus one the media and my music library and and the quality of it.
My youngest is a senior in high school now, so I'm considering setting her up with a system. She does a lot of earbud listening. Small as her room is at her mom's, I don't know how much room she would have for a system.
I do agree that less is more. I used to have all sorts of outboard toys, including an "impulse noise remover," a dbx dynamic range expander, equalizer, room correction, etc. And only after wasting money on those did I realize how much each and every one of those polluted the sound. The components I have now are about as simple as it gets--simple circuitry, purer sound. I'm actually enjoying music a lot more now than I used to, and because I'm not on the upgrade wagon all the time, my money goes into the media.
I just need new furniture now...
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