Accurate or musical

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SteveTheShadow
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Re: Accurate or musical

Unread post by SteveTheShadow »

Dr Bunsen Honeydew wrote: Thu Dec 07, 2017 11:15 am ...In both case I KNOW when something is right because I feel it. You are all capable of the same just some people are blocked. I have said over and over again all you need is an open mind and an ability to feel, call it soul, call it perception, call it what you want.
I think that's bang on the money Richard.
I spent 39 years and 11 months looking for bass, treble, detail, midrange, tone, PRaT. A month ago I changed focus to feel, soul, musical communication, ability of the system to keep my attention in the Now of the experience.

That sorted it!

You can neither quantify or explain any of this...but you know when you have it.
Last edited by SteveTheShadow on Thu Dec 07, 2017 11:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Lotus Seven S
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Re: Accurate or musical

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I draw the comparison again between my work with qigong and taiji and hi-fi / music. For me they are based on the same principles in terms of trying to communicate the reality.
I would suggest that qigong, taiji, and you approach to hifi/music have "power" or "energy" as common denominators. You are interested in their flow and in expediting their flow.

I am enjoying the fruits of your labour - but you are not "communicating the reality". You are expediting the flow of the flow. This is process and not substance. No communication, only movement, which can appear as real (if you wish) but it is "only" the movement of mind.

S.
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Lurcher300b
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Re: Accurate or musical

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Is there any shared understanding of accuracy to be had Nick?
Maybe not, but just adding a new word with no less of a problem with its meaning (Musical) will not in any way improve that. To me, the use of Musical is in fact just a marketing trick possibly intended to create an "other" or strawman that can be compared to and found wanting. if a system that is said to be accurate doesn't sound real, then its clearly not accurate, the use of the word is the problem, doesn’t need creating another one, just use the one we have properly.

My point is "accurate" does have a meaning, its application to a HiFi is not without problems, but at least we have a word that does have a definition in other areas. I don’t think musical has any such area where there is a clear understanding of its meaning (other than a play with songs which doesn’t help much, or circular meanings such as "relating to music" or "having a pleasant sound; melodious or tuneful" ).

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Re: Accurate or musical

Unread post by Lurcher300b »

But for you they are "just" words - which therefore means there is something more important. But Where?
I would not say more important, but there are things that do not require words to convey, Pi for example, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its radius in a flat plain will be the same for all races, species, languages and number systems.

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Re: Accurate or musical

Unread post by karatestu »

SteveTheShadow wrote: Thu Dec 07, 2017 11:37 am
Dr Bunsen Honeydew wrote: Thu Dec 07, 2017 11:15 am ...In both case I KNOW when something is right because I feel it. You are all capable of the same just some people are blocked. I have said over and over again all you need is an open mind and an ability to feel, call it soul, call it perception, call it what you want.
I think that's bang on the money Richard.
I spent 39 years and 11 months looking for bass, treble, detail, midrange, tone, PRaT. A month ago I changed focus to feel, soul, musical communication, ability of the system to keep my attention in the Now of the experience.

That sorted it!

You can neither quantify or explain any of this...but you know when you have it.
I agree with this too. It is how we feel that matters. We have to use words to communicate with each other about music and hifi. These words can be misunderstood by others so we need another system of evaluating what we think about hifi.

At bake off's we need a machine which can measure the differing levels of pleasure we get. These things already exist- a head band which can pick up changes in brain activity :geek: . They are used on people who test computer games and athletes (to increase their performance). Only thing is it would have to be music you like played on every piece of equipment.

I often wonder how many actually enjoy the sound coming from their hifi with music they like. There is a lot of saving face going on and people who just will not admit that they have made a wrong decision, spent lots of money on something they do not enjoy or will not break from the pack of wolves who all believe in the same thing. Naim springs to mind here. Can being faithful to a brand for the sake of it, doing what others tell you to, peer pressure, manufacturer and magazine test results, chasing what ever accuracy is, buying what ever is fashionable on forums prevent you from taking a course which would result in much higher levels of pleasure form music ?

I am with Steve with this one. I could not give a toss about where I am going (or how I am getting there) with my journey to achieve increased pleasure from recorded music - as long as that is what happens, increased enjoyment. I also don't care that much (within reason) what it looks as listening with the eyes just makes no sense to me at all.

I started this thread because of my fairly recent discovery of all things NVA and semi Omni speakers. My levels of pleasure when listening to music have gone off the scale at every little addition or tweak to my system (some of it DIY). I now understand what it is all about after years of being in the wilderness with product I thought I was happy with.
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Dr Bunsen Honeydew
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Re: Accurate or musical

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Lotus Seven S wrote: Thu Dec 07, 2017 11:39 am
I draw the comparison again between my work with qigong and taiji and hi-fi / music. For me they are based on the same principles in terms of trying to communicate the reality.
I would suggest that qigong, taiji, and you approach to hifi/music have "power" or "energy" as common denominators. You are interested in their flow and in expediting their flow.

I am enjoying the fruits of your labour - *but you are not "communicating the reality". You are expediting the flow of the flow. This is process and not substance. No communication, only movement, which can appear as real (if you wish) but it is "only" the movement of mind.
S.
*That is crap, just my opinion or more to the point my feeling. It is not a moment it is life. Again you don't understand because you haven't felt. BUT if we don't want more problems with each other we should stay away from discussing the energetic arts, stick to music and hi-fi.

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SteveTheShadow
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Re: Accurate or musical

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karatestu wrote: Thu Dec 07, 2017 12:08 pm ....I am with Steve with this one. I could not give a toss about where I am going (or how I am getting there) with my journey to achieve increased pleasure from recorded music - as long as that is what happens, increased enjoyment....
Yes, to me that is what is important. After a lot of years doing this and 11 years of building my own gear, I have to conclude that you can design for hi-fi attributes and not get anything like enjoyable results. There is obviously "something else" going on that needs to be dealt with if you want enjoyable listening and boredom/fatigue not to set in.
I started this thread because of my fairly recent discovery of all things NVA and semi Omni speakers. My levels of pleasure when listening to music have gone off the scale at every little addition or tweak to my system (some of it DIY). I now understand what it is all about after years of being in the wilderness with product I thought I was happy with.
The NVA thing is interesting, because in my case, it gave me such a wake-up call about the ablity or not of my own designs to produce a musically involving performance.
When I designed my "Groovy Pink SET" low power, direct heated, single-ended triode amplifier it was going to have to be held to a very high standard, far higher than anything else I'd ever built if it was to get even so much as a look in. The NVA A20 provided an impeccable frame of reference for my own eforts to be measured against.

The semi-omni approach to speakers is a hard one to get right and there were a number of problems I had to overcome to get to where I am now, but I can say with confidence, that at no time was the music compromised, even when the speakers were not quite there. As they developed, more of the music came out.

The musical quality of these speakers did cause some pretty serious problems and outright xconfrontation, for me, as there I was singing their musical praises and there was a hardcore cabal, completely underwhelmed and complaining of missing or faulty hi-fi attributes and dismissing them as elevator music.

In the end, I got them right as you did with yours by looking for feel, soul, and their ability keep me listening into the wee small hours.
For me, subjectively, the system now "accurately" conveys, feel, soul, emotion. BUT....that's not everyone's definition of accuracy and so we go round and round and round.

Pirsig's fictional Phaedrus went insane grappling with the definition of Quality. Accuracy in the context of hi-fi, is probably one of those words Phaedrus would have gone equally insane over.
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Lotus Seven S
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Re: Accurate or musical

Unread post by Lotus Seven S »

there are things that do not require words to convey, Pi for example,
3.14159265359
the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its radius in a flat plain
And once again you have used words....
will be the same for all races, species, languages and number systems.
And you think you have found a universal. But you haven't. You have invented a platonic ideal in a closed system (Euclidean geometry).

Nor do we know if number systems vary throughout the universe.

I know that what you are saying makes sense to you (and what I am saying is close to being silly or even deranged), but I can not think of a more important acknowledgement than what I am trying to convey: The world does not have an essence and we can only talk about the world.

I know - "you reject it thus..." (and rub your foot afterwards).

But it is a shame cos my epistemology cures a lot of ills perhaps most importantly all forms of authoritarianisms.

Kindly & Sadly

S.
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Lotus Seven S
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Re: Accurate or musical

Unread post by Lotus Seven S »

That is crap, just my opinion or more to the point my feeling
You have your feelings and I have my thoughts.

I would never call your feelings crap and I would never acknowledge my thoughts as being crap.

S.
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Dr Bunsen Honeydew
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Re: Accurate or musical

Unread post by Dr Bunsen Honeydew »

You don't understand do you, that is why you will continue to have problems with me. YOU are TELLING ME what I am saying - I say crap as I am not saying that and you obviously know feck all about it, so leave it out or we will have problems again.

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