If Your System Always Sounds 'Nice', Is There Something Wrong With It?

[southall-1998]

Do some gardening!

Tried it, didn't work! Impulsive buying is better for me

S.

[walpurgis]

Tried it, didn't work! Impulsive buying is better for me

S.

I know the feeling. I used to be just the same.

[julesd68]

I couldn't agree with you more Geoff, but sometimes you don't know what you are missing out on until it's revealed to you by making changes to your system.
Also your ears get used to hearing music a certain way.

What set me on the path to discovering a more transparent and accurate sound was spending time tube rolling my phono stage. It was a revelation and took me a little while to acclimatise to the new 'honesty' of the system but once I did I realised I could never go back to what I had before. With my 'nice' system all recordings sounded pretty good but with my latest system the best recordings sound hugely better and the weaker ones show their limitations.

[walpurgis]

with my latest system the best recordings sound hugely better and the weaker ones show their limitations.

This is what I want from a system Julian. No benevolent treatment of inadequate source material. That's just wrong. All the information should come through so it can be judged on its merits (or lack of).

I like your term "honesty". That is the key.

[Macca]

This is what I want from a system Julian. No benevolent treatment of inadequate source material. That's just wrong. All the information should come through so it can be judged on its merits (or lack of).

.

On the other hand the recording gets blamed far too often when it is actually the system that sounds dog rough. Bland but well recorded and produced recordings get a little bit of artificial edge that makes them sound a little more 'live', average recordings sound hard and bad recordings are unlistenable. But because the system enhances the bland it is considered to be 'showing up' poor recordings, so accomplished is it. If I had a quid for every time I heard 'I never realised how many bad recordings are out there until I upgraded to XXX' I could afford to buy Audio Note and Harbeth. New.

[southall-1998]

Then others like having a ''phoney'' sounding system

S.

[danilo]

Finally learned, after decades of striving for a genuinely revealing/precise playback setup.. That particular idol does have Clay feet
Revealing is exactly that .
V good recordings are sublime.. truly.
Average ones are tolerable and the bulk (half of my collection actually sounds like Shite)
Poorly recorded /mastered ? whatever the reason it sucks.
I've reverted/taken a step back to mid fi CD playback and Cheapy AT carts. Now 3/4's of my recordings are merely V nice... and many are V good.

Care in what one aspires to

[Macca]

You've got to go there before you can come back

[jandl100]

How does one know if a 'revealing' system isn't exaggerating one thing over something else? I don't mean to bait, but so many stereo's I've heard in my time seem to major on the owners preferences

... you don't know what you are missing out on until it's revealed to you by making changes to your system.

... or hearing a familiar recording in someone else's system and thinking "wtf "

[jandl100]

Of course no bit of equipment is totally transparent so personal taste in terms of colouration is always going to matter to some degree. But I dislike systems that are tailored to sound 'exciting' or, at the opposite end of the spectrum, those that are tailored to sound 'beautiful' since they favour some types of music and recordings over others and begin to dictate your listening choices for you.

Every system I have heard does that to a significant extent.

We all base our system choices on our own musical and subjective preferences.