Linear vs Switched mode PSU

[Barry]

I think a lot of people have suffered from the 'loudness wars' where there has been massive compression in music and even worse deliberate clipping has been added. So in turn many people have become 'tuned' to the idea that 'great' music is compressed/clipped so I'm not surprised when they spend big bucks and chase after such sound.

I've lost count of the times I walked into a room at a hifi show and walked straight out. Lovely expensive noise. How some folks can mangle a perfectly good track is astonishing.

And usually it's those demonstrating the most expensive equipment that sound the worse! One wonders if they have ever attended a live concert.

There are exceptions of course, but they are rare.

[Edward]

I imagine it must take some care, attention and dedication to make good kit sound awful. I don't have the patience, I just pick up what hopefully are bargains and cross my fingers.

Mind you I would love to have some MBL or TAD speakers.

[Arkless Electronics]

I'm not so sure about the relevance of everyone hearing things differently myself... We all have continuous reference to real life sound with which to compare recorded sound and decide if it seems the same or not, the human voice being the most easy to compare I guess as we hear real people speak and sometimes singing on a daily basis.

Lets say I hear sounds around 3KHz louder than you do. That's going to happen whether live or recorded so I'd still be equally able to compare the two.

[walpurgis]

Nice argument Jez. I like that and agree.

[Firebottle]

^ me too, good one Jez.

[Haselsh1]

A person's Hi-Fi should reproduce music in a way that gives pleasure to the owner/listener otherwise as already said, why bother...? If this were the case there would simply be no point. If the closest approach to the original sound is what it is all about for you then so be it, for me it is only about hearing the music in a way that gives me satisfaction and therefore pleasure. Technically my sound system is classed as Hi-Fi but I very much doubt it is truly accurate in the way a live acoustic set would be, I do not though listen to acoustic music so where then does the term accurate come in...?

[Marco]

A person's Hi-Fi should reproduce music in a way that gives pleasure to the owner/listener otherwise as already said, why bother...? If this were the case there would simply be no point. If the closest approach to the original sound is what it is all about for you then so be it, for me it is only about hearing the music in a way that gives me satisfaction and therefore pleasure. Technically my sound system is classed as Hi-Fi but I very much doubt it is truly accurate in the way a live acoustic set would be, I do not though listen to acoustic music so where then does the term accurate come in...?

Good point. If you listen mostly to artificially created (electronic) music, for instance, then the traditional notion of 'accurate' goes out of the window, so how can one then use it as an arbiter for such?

For me, it's dead simple: the better my hi-fi system reproduces the real sound of instruments and voices (as perceived by my ears), the more I enjoy listening to recorded music featuring such. Ultimately, it's all about experiencing my notion of musical realism, and therefore what's heard in that respect, can only ever be judged subjectively by me, or perhaps also by others whose notion of such is similar.

Therefore, the enjoyment I derive from my hi-fi system is directly proportional to how well it achieves the above. I'd imagine that it's the same for most people

Marco.

[fatmarley]

I've heard loads of accurate systems - They all sounded different to each other though...

[Marco]

'Accuracy' is an enviable goal, but realistically one that is never truly achieved by any hi-fi system, so the best one can hope for, when reproducing recorded music on our systems, is a convincing facsimile of such, based on our notion of what we consider as 'real'.

Marco.

[fatmarley]

For me and I'd imagine most people, the midrange Is the most Important part of the frequency range. I can enjoy listening to a portable radio If I like the music that's playing. The best mids I've heard were from Jerrys MBLs and some mega expensive horn speakers I heard at Scalford. It's the kind of thing you wouldn't understand unless you heard It for yourself. Vocals were eerily 3d like and hung In mid air between the speakers. Was It accurate? I don't know but It sounded good. And as a wise man once said "If It sounds good, It Is good".