Is high fidelity gear designed for Classical Music?

[Addicted to music]

I'm still listening to Abba....

[D.M.M.]

On 15/11/2017 at 9:47 PM, bhobba said:

No - quality high end gear play any music accurately - that's the key - accurately.

 

Remember however that accuracy is subjective - what one person thinks is accurate another thinks is harsh, hyper detailed, cold, sibilant - I have sat with enough people litening to gear and have heard them all.

 

Just a couple of weeks ago a guy out my way invited me and others to hear his DEQX based system and say how it maybe could be improved.  It ran  D'Appolito PHL drivers - they are very very efficient - something like 105db connected that way.   It was loud, very detailed, and extremely dynamic - but to my ears unnaturally hard and hyper detailed to the point of fatigue.  He asked my view - I told him I think the big issue is the switching power supply in the DEQX and he should have external DAC's to isolate the conversion from that hash and feed them into low powered high quality valve gear eg:

http://www.decware.com/newsite/homepage.html

 

But the chances of listening to me - zero - and to be blunt why should he.   He likes the sound - that's all that matters.  We are all different.

 

Thanks

Bill

Really?? So all his equipment including sources, amps, cabling, isolation, speaker design etc and it was the deqx power supply?? and his deqx was tuned perfectly. I guess you checked... Your a magician!

[bhobba]

7 minutes ago, D.M.M. said:

Really?? So all his equipment including sources, amps, cabling, isolation, speaker design etc and it was the deqx power supply?? and his deqx was tuned perfectly. I guess you checked... Your a magician!

 

Yes I am aren't I.

 

Don't you think I would actually ask about that?

 

It was one of the first things I asked about and yes - it was set up correctly - or he claimed it was.

 

But point taken - its possible he did not set it up correctly despite using the supplied calibration kit.

 

The point though is this - he thought it great - me and others not so much.   He asked for an opinion on how to improve it - I told him mine - others had their say.   But I am not sure he was enamoured with any of those other views - and that was the point of the post - accuracy is subjective.

 

Thanks

Bill

Edited November 17, 2017 by bhobba

[mwhouston]

10 hours ago, Addicted to music said:

I'm still listening to Abba....

 A mate of mine, with whom I have had many musical afternoon, has hundreds and hundreds of LPs and is constantly buying more. He has ABBA, Boney M, Stylistics etc, on the top of his list. He also plays some classical but never jazz. 

 

I was never an ABBA fan. In my rock/pop days it was more Stones, Hendrix etc But each to their own.  

[Addicted to music]

48 minutes ago, mwhouston said:

 A mate of mine, with whom I have had many musical afternoon, has hundreds and hundreds of LPs and is constantly buying more. He has ABBA, Boney M, Stylistics etc, on the top of his list. He also plays some classical but never jazz. 

 

I was never an ABBA fan. In my rock/pop days it was more Stones, Hendrix etc But each to their own.  

I grew up with Abba,  Little River Band, Skyhooks,  Angels, AC/DC etc.  

 

and of course i had this thing for ONJ.       

 

The only way I'd like listening to classical is via 5.1 with a screen,  not to sure why?  Must be because I'd like to see every instrument played with the mucisians emotuons.   

[Addicted to music]

9 hours ago, D.M.M. said:

Really?? So all his equipment including sources, amps, cabling, isolation, speaker design etc and it was the deqx power supply?? and his deqx was tuned perfectly. I guess you checked... Your a magician!

We'll just have to get the boys from DEQX to change that psu.... 

[mwhouston]

I fellow Melbourne Audio Club member, who has bought five of my power amps and one of my preamps and DC blockers, has a pair of Harbeth 40.2s. These get outstanding write-ups at every reveiw. He only plays Classical and these days streams from Tidal through a $6K DAC. A pair of my T3 Class D monoblocks (Tuttu -150W) dive the Harbeths which I beleive are current hungry.

 

His system would have to be the best system I have ever heard to play classical. I've only been on the receiving end of this moderately priced but way over-performing system a few times but it is truely remarkable. I would say in big part due to the Harbeths, outstanding speakers and possibly the best for classical replay.

 

The owner is very decerning and has genuine Golden ears and has gone though a lot of gear to get this point. I have used his opinion a number of times to help sort my own gear in my home. I just hope he changes nothing until I get can back for another extended listen. A true Classical hifi system. 

[crisis]

18 hours ago, Noum said:

They say that choice of music is in part a reflection of where ya' nervous system is at, might be why we mostly move onto more mellow types as we get on in years.

 

Meh...

Yes I definitely moved on to light jazz when my hifi system started to reveal the quality of some of these recordings. My taste developed around this. As I have gotten older I have mellowed further into Opeth and NeObliviscaris..

 

 

12 hours ago, Addicted to music said:

I'm still listening to Abba....

The first step is to admit you are. Well done.

Edited November 17, 2017 by crisis

[bhobba]

6 hours ago, Addicted to music said:

We'll just have to get the boys from DEQX to change that psu.... 

 

Well they probably think it wont make much if any difference.

 

I know Steve Nugent from Empirical Audio thinks that - he supplies his state of the art Off-Ramp with a switching supply saying:

The high-speed switching supplies used by Empirical Audio are critical to the performance of our products. They respond much more quickly to current demands than Linear supplies. Our regulators and internal filtering do a good job of eliminating any RF from the switching regulator power.

 

His engineering qualifications are impeccable - you can look them up on his site if in doubt.

 

But anyway I was down at Gieseler Audio's workshop one day and had my Off-Ramp with me.  For the heck of it we put the supply on his scope - and it was horrid.   We both looked at one another - Clay said it first - that hash must travel down the cable and radiate inside the Off-Ramp.   I can build a much better supply than that.   I said go ahead.  

 

Anyway went down to pick it up - and we put it on the scope - dead flat - we kept on adjusting the scopes sensitivity - nothing - still dead flat.

 

Time for a listening session.   It was chalk and cheese - no contest - the linear supply was way better.   Clay even installed a switch to do something with the earthing arrangement - I forget what it was - but he thought it would sound best in one position or the other - the difference was subtle - but yes you could here a difference with the switch.

 

Since then, I don't care what qualifications the bloke that designed it has, and those involved with the DEQX are pretty good, I believe switching supplies are EVIL.  Clay now sells supplies as well as DAC's - they make such a diffference.

 

Added Later:

The latest news is they may have seen the light:

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/34894-your-power-supply-is-too-noisy/

As an example of this, the well considered DEQX DSP correction component came originally with SMPS; a keen audio enthusiast in my area went all the way with this unit, but found the quality lacking - ripped out the switching supplies, and installed "audiophile" linear supplies, himself. Was much happier, and prodded the manufacturer, a local company, frequently about this - I've heard this setup several times, and at its best got many things right. Anyway, the current DEQX products have ditched the switching supplies, and have been much better received, apparently.

 

Thanks

Bill

Edited November 18, 2017 by bhobba

[MusicOne]

On 11/16/2017 at 1:16 AM, darth vader said:

My system is designed to explicitly reject 3 types of music. Classical, and country and western.

 

I find if any classical music passes through my speaker cables, it takes a good 3 weeks to purge the damage it has done. I dont understand the nuances of how it can ruin the electrons path. But it does.

 

Yeah, I know, you probably think I like sweet white wine too. Each to their own. When I get really really old I might change my opininon

 

 

[MusicOne]

On 11/16/2017 at 1:16 AM, darth vader said:

 

Sorry double pissed  post.

 

Edited November 18, 2017 by MusicOne

[henning]

On 16/11/2017 at 12:47 AM, bhobba said:

I told him I think the big issue is the switching power supply in the DEQX and he should have external DAC's to isolate the conversion from that hash and feed them into low powered high quality valve gear eg:

I can't say I have heard any difference between the DEQX units with switch mode supplies or linear supplies. The designers certainly say they hear no difference. 

[aussievintage]

Going back to the title from the OP.  I am not sure if there is an implied 'only' or 'specifically'  in there.    To me, hifi design is agnostic of what is being played on it.  If it can only handle some types of music, it is not truly hifi.

 

As for liking different genres, the only thing that stopped me from listening to everything on the planet, in my early years, was peer pressure.  I have always secretly like it all

[catman]

G'day all, just a general observation I suspect that at one stage there may have been the perception that this new fangled 'rock n roll' wasn't worthy of high quality audio in terms of production and playback.  I do have some recordings that might confirm this perception.  Regards, Felix.

[crisis]

25 minutes ago, aussievintage said:

As for liking different genres, the only thing that stopped me from listening to everything on the planet, in my early years, was peer pressure.  I have always secretly like it all

Oddly peer pressure helped me listen to things that others may not have approved of.

12 minutes ago, catman said:

G'day all, just a general observation I suspect that at one stage there may have been the perception that this new fangled 'rock n roll' wasn't worthy of high quality audio in terms of production and playback.  I do have some recordings that might confirm this perception.  Regards, Felix.

Although my latest system might not qualify as "high quality" (it costs less than what some people spend on a single metre of interconnect) it has revealed shortcomings in various albums both CD and vinyl. Some of these shortcomings display a certain "charm" of their own while others manifest themselves in a way that makes playback almost unlistenable..

[Wimbo]

26 minutes ago, crisis said:

Oddly peer pressure helped me listen to things that others may not have approved of.

Although my latest system might not qualify as "high quality" (it costs less than what some people spend on a single metre of interconnect) it has revealed shortcomings in various albums both CD and vinyl. Some of these shortcomings display a certain "charm" of their own while others manifest themselves in a way that makes playback almost unlistenable..

Good chance you dont like the music that much either.

[Guest Muon N']

I don't really understand some comments here.

 

IMO you can have great gear that might only favour some genres of music. Classical requires large scaling with huge transients, and is not going to happen well with just any gear/system.

 

My system will do jazz, acoustic and pop types pretty well but will fall short at doing classical well.

[crisis]

1 minute ago, Wimbo said:

Good chance you dont like the music that much either.

Nope. On the contrary.

[Wimbo]

16 minutes ago, crisis said:

Nope. On the contrary.

Ok, bit different to me. If I like the music, I play it and dont really care about the HiFi side of things.

[PleasantSounds]

I'd be surprised if any hi-fi gear was designed with only specific genre in mind. Why restrict the market?

 

The reality is however that some devices excel in one or a few genres only. From my experience this is particularly common in headphones.

It is either that the designers have different impression of what makes a good all-rounder or design compromises cause  that their products end up being better suited to some genres than others.

[aussievintage]

20 minutes ago, Noum said:

I don't really understand some comments here.

 

IMO you can have great gear that might only favour some genres of music. Classical requires large scaling with huge transients, and is not going to happen well with just any gear/system.

 

My system will do jazz, acoustic and pop types pretty well but will fall short at doing classical well.

Please do not take offense, and not to insult your system - as mine has it's shortcomings in some areas as well, but if it fall's short when reproducing some music,  in your case classical, then it falls short of a strict definition of full hi-fidelity.   

That is not to say it isn't a very good system for other genres.  I am just choosing to say true hifi should work for all types of music, and I would be disappointed if the very expensive high-end systems, that I can't afford, didn't handle anything thrown at them.

[batou]

i think it not so much hi-end system is for classical music.its more seem like large proportion of audiophile like to listen to classical music. hence, people often get wrong perception hifi is for classical music. i personally only used classical music to test the transparency of my system, nothing more..

 

 

 

[crisis]

Just now, Wimbo said:

Ok, bit different to me. If I like the music, I play it and dont really care about the HiFi side of things.

Yes it is. I have been affected by hifi. I have loved music since I was a child but each time I heard music reproduced "better" I have continually wanted it to sound like that. I know that a crash cymbal sounds a certain way. How a kick drum sounds, a piano, guitar, violin etc. Having dabbled in recording and mixing and live music I have my own standards of how music should/can sound. Its not a boast by any means, more a debilitation really. I can sit and listen to abhorrently recorded music on my system I love but I feel shortchanged. That actually shits me. Having acquired a system I am very happy with has presented me with one of those adages. "Be careful what you wish for". On the other hand when its good it is very very good.

[crisis]

22 hours ago, PleasantSounds said:

I'd be surprised if any hi-fi gear was designed with only specific genre in mind. Why restrict the market?

Design compromises brought about by budgetary constraints.

Quote

 

The reality is however that some devices excel in one or a few genres only. From my experience this is particularly common in headphones.

It is either that the designers have different impression of what makes a good all-rounder or design compromises cause  that their products end up being better suited to some genres than others.

There appear to be two very distinct camps of thought. One is that which prefers a "warm" sound and apparently a "musical" sound (which I find a cop out). The other prefers "transparency". To the other party "warm" means a lack of detail and "detailed" means a lack of warmth or perhaps "harsh". It may well be that my preference for "detail" is a manifestation of my age ie diminished hearing in the higher frequencies. The results of my hearing tests have been "you have good hearing for your age" but at 54 that may be  damning with feint praise..

Edited November 27, 2017 by crisis

[Guest Muon N']

4 minutes ago, aussievintage said:

Please do not take offense, and not to insult your system - as mine has it's shortcomings in some areas as well, but if it fall's short when reproducing some music,  in your case classical, then it falls short of a strict definition of full hi-fidelity.   

That is not to say it isn't a very good system for other genres.  I am just choosing to say true hifi should work for all types of music, and I would be disappointed if the very expensive high-end systems, that I can't afford, didn't handle anything thrown at them.

I disagree.

 

To clarify a bit on my position I'm talking about larger scale classical that is difficult to reproduce 'well'. My system is sweet with light acoustic classical backing like that backing the tracks in Tori Amos's 'Night Of Hunters'

 

Maybe the issue here is the definition of high fidelity, or It's just that we have different definitions of 'doing it well'

 

No offense taken, I have been around long enough not to