The Vain Pursuit of Excellence - Discussion.

[Marco]

Hi Stan,

I think you might have misunderstood what I meant by ‘attending concerts’. I did in fact mean un-amplified acoustic performances, such as orchestral, chamber, choral or folk. I regard these as the only reference one can have to use to set up a ‘bench mark’ when building a system.

I agree that pop and rock concerts have the singers miked up as well as the guitar amplifiers and keyboards, and so the presentation is largely down to the skill of the sound engineer at the venue. This also applies to jazz concerts where there is often amplified support of the acoustic instruments.

And of course any studio recording of a performance comes to us ‘courtesy’ of the recording engineers who miked up the artist, made the original multi tracked tapes, which are then mixed down to the master tape. We have no idea what it sounded like to them – we just rely on them to do a good job. Some of Dave’s (DSJR) anecdotes from his friend who worked for Decca (?) are revealing, suggesting that the final ‘sound’ is subject to fashion and not at all absolute.

So for those who do not, or choose not to, attend live un-amplified concerts, there is no reference, although they may however play an instrument themselves or have friends or family that do. Without this reference no doubt they would put together a system that sounds ‘right’ or ‘good’ to them.

In this case the term high fidelity means having a high degree of faithfulness to the ‘spirit’ or ‘soul’ of the music, without necessarily being the last word in realism, since the conveyance of emotion is just as important as tonal accuracy, dynamics, frequency response and all the other things we worry about.

Hear, hear! I couldn't agree more, Barry - especially with the bits I've highlighted

Live un-amplified music is where it's at in terms of the true benchmark for any hi-fi system. Stan is also 100% correct with what he has written, by looking at the subject from another very valid angle.

Marco.

[REM]

Hence - please disregard my comments re 'compression' on Chinese Dmocracy and carry on with thread.

Ralph -if you now want to buy a record with no good tunes or hooks and that sounds like 'U2 plays G n R' (but is not compressed) please go ahead...

Martin

I think I'll still resist the temptation but thank you anyway, Martin.

[The Grand Wazoo]

I'd like to expand a little on what I've already said & also re-address some of the points in Dave's original post.

As posted by Dave: I'll open the discussion by stating that audio Nirvana does not exist. I have reached this conclusion, after reading many many postings on the subject on this forum.

I think the general consensus is with Dave on this one.

My premise is that the constant drive to upgrade is satiated temporarily by change rather than improvement.

I'd agree that in many cases, upgrades result in a change of flavour rather than a wholesale improvement and there is almost always some trade-off involved (whether you notice it at first or not).
Decisions that are made as to whether the change is a success or otherwise are so often influence by both what you are told will happen and the (understandable) need to mentally justify a purchase.
You should, if possible, go back to what you had before to check, but only after you have become fully acclimatised to the change – that way, you'll find out if it was a true improvement or not. The trouble is that more often than not, this is not done (often it's not possible), so you set off down another parallel track, thinking you have learnt something about system building when in fact, all you may have done is to close a door behind you on a path that was just as good or actually better than your new one.

Why haven't we yet reached Nirvana? - how many upgrades does it take? And in that time equipment manufacturers keep assuring us that this year's model is a significant improvement on anything available last year.

In my experience, this year's model usually incorporates changes made in order to make the same, or a very similar circuit cheaper to produce than last year's version. Cost cutting is rarely a route to higher quality results.

My recommendation, based on all of three or four months study, is to ignore the pursuit of excellence in the reproduction of recorded music and instead pursue the enjoyment in the reproduction of recorded music - not always the same thing.

You should always pursue the latter.
Don't ignore the pursuit of excellence because that is attainable.
You have (I suspect) rightly reasoned that Nirvana is only in the mind.

As originally posted by Me:
I've touched on this before when I asked if anyone agreed with my theory that those of us who spend as much or more time in the 'Musical' sections of AoS than the 'Gear' sections are those who are somehow more 'at peace' with their hi-fi.

I wasn't making the announcement that my gear is better than anyone else's or that I have found audio Nirvana, but I have reached the point of excellence for my purposes, with my taste in music, its presentation and in the environment it is used in. I have recognised Nirvana is not attainable and that I'm getting what I need from my gear. This doesn't mean I'll never make changes, but when I do they will be very measured and carefully considered choices – there is no rush for me any more. Neither does it mean that I consider others pursuit of Nirvana is somehow a waste of their time or money. As long as they enjoy the chase & stay away from debt, that's great – if they find Nirvana, I'm sure they'll tell us!! ………..but I'll be asking them a few months later if they still feel the same!

Of course, none of the above has any bearing on the fact that it's fun to play with new and different audio gear. I think most of us would love to be in Jerry's shoes (though, in my case, I'd have trouble doing what he does without the constancy of my main system – it would have to be an addition to, rather than a replacement for that). My activities playing with other gear happen in other rooms and I get a great deal of fun out of it.

The equally unattainable Nirvana that I'm currently more interested in seeking (and has been a lifelong obsession) is more related to finding and owning recordings of great music – and in my opinion this is a far more noble quest!!

[DaveK]

Hi Chris,
As usual, bang on the money and eloquently stated, to boot.
Cheers,

[Steve Toy]

Audio Nirvana does not exist for two reasons:

1) Human beings are never satisfied for long and strive constantly for improvement; we are never happy with our lot. Contentment is always having something to aim for.

2) No hi-fi system can 100% faithfully reproduce live acoustic music. Some get closer than others but none actually achieve total perfection.

Pursuit of excellence is achieving the best possible results within a given environment, working to certain constraints* and a given budget. Over time the budget is open-ended which is why those with what can be regarded as the very best systems have usually been at it for years or even decades. Over time we acquire both the knowledge and the resources to build a mind-blowingly satisfying system.

*Such constraints need to be reasonable impositions. The room layout often needs to work around the system, not the other way round.

Also, when building and improving a system you should never lose sight of the basics - the musical message should always come first with any other hi-fi artifacts being mere icing on the cake thereafter.

[Alex_UK]

Two great posts there that sum it all up perfectly IMO, thanks Chris & Steve, and to DaveK for starting it all off in the first place!

[Marco]

Excellent post, Chris (and Steve). I'd just like to expand on this bit because I think it's crucial and deserves to be looked at in more detail:

In my experience, this year's model usually incorporates changes made in order to make the same, or a very similar circuit cheaper to produce than last year's version. Cost cutting is rarely a route to higher quality results.

That is so utterly true. We need to get away from the conditioning of automatically believing that the 'newest or the latest is always best' because, quite frankly, in many cases it isn't! Key components in my own system are testament to that. I still maintain that the ultimate way to build a hi-fi system is to combine the best of old and new technologies.

With hi-fi, it's often the case of what you describe above, or quite superb (key) components (by this I mean internal electrical 'bits' such as DAC chips, etc) being discontinued by large international manufacturers (such as Philips or Pacific Microsonics, etc) due to cost-cutting or streamlining of their product ranges. These companies supply smaller hi-fi manufacturers with their 'core essentials', and so when these essential 'bits' are no longer available it forces hi-fi manufacturers to rethink their designs and either make changes or build something new.

The fact is these changes or new products are not always better than what preceded them simply because the new parts they've had to accommodate are often inferior to the 'bits' that were used before!

Now think about this..... Do you honestly believe that any manufacturer is going to come out and say 'sorry folks, but our new 'Wankfest Willy-Waver Special Edition Signature MK VII' CD player is no where near as good as the MK VI version, because we can't get the necessary parts anymore, but buy the MK VII anyway, which has got some spanking new but sadly inferior parts inside as that's all we could get'?

NO CHANCE!! So what do they do?

They spin a yarn, of course, and market their latest products as the best they've ever made, fooling the impressionable and gullible public in the process, and in turn flooding the market with so-so equipment, driving standards down, and ultimately creating a merry-go-round of dissatisfaction amongst those who buy these products because they fail to deliver what was promised. This in turn gets people on a never-ending upgrade spiral because instead of buying a product that's 'sorted' in the first place, they end up with a pale imitation of such, born from whatever parts are available and cheap, and then chasing the so-called 'nirvana' which when following this particular path of system building is completely unattainable...

Manufacturers also often use terms such as 'obsolete' or 'redundant' (Ashley James of AVI continually adopts this mantra) when referring to technology previously implemented in older products to infer some form of inferiority compared to their 'latest and greatest'. It's often only 'obsolete' or 'redundant' because key parts have been discontinued for a variety of commercial reasons, such as I've mentioned above, not because it's actually inferior in terms of audio performance. It's a vicious circle and an absolute minefield to the uninitiated!! It's not always like that, and some new products *are* genuinely very good, but this is becoming increasingly rare, in my experience, due to most equipment these days being built strictly to a price, and sold to an ever-shrinking target market, which was less the case in the heyday of hi-fi in the 70s, 80s, and early 90s.

The best way not to end up in the sorry state of continual box-swapping (unless you're a 'Jerry') is to think laterally and buy products which offer the highest sound-per-pound value from specialist, often smaller manufacturers, and forget about badge snobbery or 'prestige value'. Also, look to the classic arena and judiciously select the best vintage gear, whose core design and parts quality is often better than anything made today, modifying any ageing components therein (caps, resistors, etc) with the latest and best that are available; thereby getting the best of both worlds.

This is one of the few areas in audio where new technology 99% of the time outperforms old technology. I've learnt all this the hard way and so would like others with less experience not to succumb to the same pitfalls. Therefore, I would urge people to read this and let it sink in.

If I can help even just one person from making the sorts of mistakes I referred to earlier then rants such as this will have been well worthwhile

Marco.

[The Grand Wazoo]

Marco,
I was about to expand on this myself, but you have done so for me!

The only thing I would add for now, is this:

The fact is these changes or new products are not always better than what preceded them simply because the new parts they've had to accommodate are often inferior to the 'bits' that were used before!

To compound things further, the new part is shoe-horned into the old circuit that (perhaps) was optimised for the old set of parts. A complete redesign, taking into account the necessary changes is never on the cards due to the manufacturer's own set of cost restraints – square pegs & round holes.

[Alan Sircom]

I still think Chinese Democracy sounds compressed. But I'm willing to accept that's in-head compression. Something to do with my built in taste filter refusing to accept such utter widdly-wee 14 guitarists recorded over 12 years to play a single riff nonsense and closing down my hearing mechanism to protect me from such dreck.

The only parallel I can draw is when I had to review Good Cop Bad Cop starring Pamela Anderson. Despite the fact she gets them out a lot, despite the fact she gets mock-rogered at several times during the DVD, it was so unutterably bad that I couldn't just turn the thing off, I had to storm out of the house in disgust.

I've tried using Chinese Democracy as a coaster, but even wine glasses won't touch it. Charity Shops refuse it. Even the bin men won't take it.

If I had to sum the record up in one word it would have to be 'unflushable'.

Rant over.

[DanJennings]

<snip> 'Chinese Democracy' <snip>

Ralph -if you now want to buy a record with no good tunes or hooks and that sounds like 'U2 plays G n R' (but is not compressed) please go ahead...

Martin

Harsh... I really like the album... I think track-for-track it's better than the use your illusion albums.... I really think that there is a lot of filler on them, and they could easily have been cut down to a single album

I don't think there is too much compression on Chinese Democracy, I think it sounds pretty dynamic for a newish album. I think that a lot of people criticised the album purely because it had been in the making for 15 years, and it had been so overhyped that it could never be anything but a disappointment. I listened to it with an open mind, (admitted having heard quite a few of the songs live, and others at an incomplete state before the release) and I think it is a GOOD GNR album, and I would recommend it to anyone. Axl is in the best voice of his life, and sometimes is simply astonishing.