What is meant by "flat earth" audio?
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Bronze Member Username: SubiedriverPost Number: 31 Registered: Apr-05 | Here's a newbie question for everyone. What is meant by the term "flat earth" audio? I keep seeing this term and it seems to be applied to Linn and Naim equipment in particular. But I don't get it. How are people who like Linn and Naim equipment similar to people who believe the earth is flat? Can someone explain the origins of this term and what it means today? |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5119 Registered: May-04 | I think you'll find "flat earthers" like to believe what their senses tell tham more than relying on numbers on a piece of paper. And, the flat earth folks don't move forward with what are the current trends in audio. In this case, the current trend would be 999 pre set surround modes on a HT receiver. The F.E.'s tread their own water. Since this is a term more often used by the British press, possibly one of the guys from over there can help more that I can. |
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Gold Member Username: John_aLondonU.K. Post Number: 3665 Registered: Dec-03 | I read some British press, and have not encountered "flat earth" applied to audio. I doubt that it means much, except perhaps "holding an opinion once widely shared, but now discounted". The implication is "....by people like us". |
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Silver Member Username: Frank_abelaBerkshire UK Post Number: 774 Registered: Sep-04 | I couldn't put it in words very easily so I went over to Pink Fish Media who are very flat earth and based in the UK. Their manifesto reads as a flat earth definition but is just plain interesting so I've reproduced it below. Regards, Frank. Why 'flat earth'? The term was originally used in a somewhat derogatory manner by many in the UK hi-fi press when the Linn / Naim axis that had dominated the industry during the 80s gradually began to loose momentum. It is used by those who like pretty sounding hi-fi that usually can't hold a tune or play in time, more of which later on. Things now have moved on to the stage where 'flat earthers' are rather proud of the term! How can we take offence? Our hi-fi actually plays music! Linn and Naim both sold their hi-fi using the concept that the actual portrayal of music was the most important factor -- this brought forth the concept of the 'tune dem'. The idea is that in any A / B dem of two components, one usually allows the listener to 'sing the tune in their head' far easier than the other. This component is the better one, regardless as to how pretty the other may sound -- i.e. musical content over presentation. Now 30 years on it is hard to believe how radical this approach was, but bare in mind that hi-fi was then still being sold almost entirely on specifications. It is still sadly very often the case that an expensive high end audio system actually holds a tune far worse than a basic transistor radio (hence the site logo!). The other key concept that both companies firmly believed in was 'front end first' i.e. that the source component is by far the most important element in any audio system. If the information is not there at the start it can not be brought back later, no matter how good the amplifier or speakers are. Garbage in, garbage out. With any budget the majority of cash should be sunk into the source components, it is absolutely amazing to hear what quite affordable amplifiers and speakers are capable of when fronted with a real heavyweight source. This is in my opinion unquestionably the correct approach to selecting a audio system that is enjoyable to listen to in the long term. Far too much audio equipment sounds unnaturally pretty: Hi-fi systems that produce 'smooth' or 'liquid' hi-hats and cymbals are inherently wrong. Hi-fi systems that produce 'soft' snares are equally wrong. A cymbal is in effect a bit of sheet metal formed into a slightly conical profile that is repeatedly hit with a wooden stick... sweet, smooth, delicate... yeah right. A snare drum is a metal or wood cylinder with a taut tuned skin on the two flat ends, with a series of tensioned metal springs on the underside, picture this construction in your mind, now hit it hard with a wooden stick. Did you get a soft sound? Audio systems with great gobs of bass may at first seem impressive, but try following the actual tune the bassist is playing, or hearing how the bass line grooves in with the drums. Slow fat bass is wrong bass. The mainstream hi-fi press seems to be in a very sorry state at present, lacking any real direction, consistency or continuity, and giving the impression that advertising revenue is the sole driving force. The ideologies and products portrayed within the glossy pages are for the best part questionable and often laughable. The qualities that seem to hold the most appeal to reviewers seem to have little or nothing to do with the accurate reproduction of music. Bland systems to play bland AOR music on would appear to be the order of the day. I'll have none of that round here thank you! This part of the pink fish media site is dedicated to introducing people to the classic yet affordable flat earth systems of the past 30 years. There is a whole world full of great second hand audio equipment out there, go and buy it and enjoy it. |
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Bronze Member Username: SubiedriverPost Number: 32 Registered: Apr-05 | Thanks Frank. I'll check out the Pink Fish Media site. I still don't quite get the "flat earth" reference other than this: I suppose flat earth believers are people who only believe what their senses show/tell them, eg, they believe the earth is flat because to all appearances the world *is* flat, and they won't believe otherwise, no matter what science tells them, because they trust only in what they can see and hear for themselves. I just don't get why Linn/Naim lovers are like this. And what else would a "flat earth audio" person believe? Would he scoff at expensive power cords and speaker cable and interconnects and other tweaks? Maybe we should get William Safire to do a piece on this in his Sunday NY Times column? I'd like to find the first use of this phrase to describe a certain kind of audio fan. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5138 Registered: May-04 | Interesting site, Frank. Seems I've heard that bit about transistor radios somewhere. |
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Silver Member Username: Frank_abelaBerkshire UK Post Number: 778 Registered: Sep-04 | Hubert 'Flat earth' started out as a derogatory term. Nowadays, it's accepted as meaning those whose systems put PR&T (pace rhythm and timing) first and 'HiFi' second, where 'HiFi' is stuff like imaging, soundstage, resolution, detail and tone. The latter are nowadays often referred to as 'round earth', the implication being that the two earths will never meet. Regards, Frank. |
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Bronze Member Username: SubiedriverPost Number: 33 Registered: Apr-05 | Well I know I'm a newbie but honestly I don't get what PR&T or PRAT are all about. Is it just a matter of these guys trying to excuse the fact that some gear doesn't have good soundstaging, resolution, detail, etc.? So they say, well, it is a gritty-sounding amp and it lacks all of those nice sound qualities, but it's got this "PRAT" thing? ie, is this a case of making a virtue out of a set of vices or shortcomings? And if this Naim stuff isn't "hifi" how can they charge so much for it? Heck, I can buy stuff at Circuit City that has lousy soundstaging, no detail, etc. And anyway from what I've heard and read, the Naim CD players sound really really good. Rambling, sorry. Thanks for the explanation. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5171 Registered: May-04 | Wow, where to begin? How about here: https://www.ecoustics.com/electronics/forum/home-audio/146311.html |
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Bronze Member Username: SubiedriverPost Number: 34 Registered: Apr-05 | Oh God. Not that thread again! I got involved in that thread and then it became like one of those endless-loop arguments. I stopped keeping up with it after a while. I like the sound of my stereo. I don't think it sounds like a concert. Nor does it sound like a sound studio. That's OK by me. It's also OK by me if other people want to make their stereo sound like those things. Fair play to all and everyone. Meanwhile, however, if you want a chuckle, go to the Naim website and under FAQs read their explanation about why the Naim tuner can't bring in weak stations. It's not a design flaw -- in fact it's an attribute! Classic eg of "worse is better." |
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Gold Member Username: John_aLondonU.K. Post Number: 3681 Registered: Dec-03 | The only Naim item I have is a two short lengths of speaker cable. In a good light, you tell the polarity by which way up the word "NAIM" appears on the insulation. The letters are thin, and embossed in the black plastic. In strong sunlight, you can just about read them. In normal room light, you need a magnifying glass. Grovelling around behind a speaker, they are invisible, and you have to trace the polarity by touch, and from memory. This is surely an example of "Flat Earth Audio". |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5173 Registered: May-04 | Hubert - The point of the thread and the flat earth thinking is there is more to reproducing music in your home than the BS attributes the audio magazines suggest are being pushed to new levels each and every month. Chasing "soundstaging" around a recommended components list will keep you financially and musically bankrupt. However, if that's your choice, you can tell everyone the world is round and sail off to find your fortunes. I can't find the Naim site that mentions tuners so I can't even guess at what they suggest. I will tell you chasing tuner performance is about as futile as it gets in audio. |
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Bronze Member Username: SubiedriverPost Number: 35 Registered: Apr-05 | Jan, I meant no disrespect and in fact value very much the comments of yours that I've read on this site; and I've learned a great deal from them. Same for some others here who post a lot and are very informative. With only limited exposure to this hobby (2 years of subscribing to Stereophile) I already see exactly what you mean about the BS attributes and crazy reviews and the madness of the "latest and greatest." Not only could you go bankrupt, but also a bit crazy, eh? And don't get me started on Stereophile. I enjoy it, kind of -- but man there are some things about it that make me shake my head. Then again, without going bankrupt, my new modestly priced Rega P3 turntable has been giving me lots and lots of pleasure lately. I started looking at Naim because I thought maybe a Naim amp like the Nait 5i would be a good match with the Rega turntable. In doing some research on Naim I kept seeing this "flat earth" business and wondered what it meant. Bottom line is I want to go hear some Naim stuff and see what it's like. I tried, once, about 18 months ago, but sales guy steered me off Naim and onto Musical Fidelity instead -- mostly because of the funky DIN connectors (this was the Nait 5, not the Nait 5i) and the 30w power rating. In the end I didn't get the Musical Fidelity and I wished I'd at least listened to the Naim. The sales guy seemed to indicate that his store carried Naim only to meet demand from longtime "Naimiacs" (his term) who love the brand and buy complete Naim systems with all parts from Naim; but he wasn't interested in exposing Naim to newcomers like me. No doubt the guy has been around a long time and figured it would be a pointless demo cause having sized me up he knew I wouldn't go with the Naim anyway and he'd just be wasting time. Which probably was true. Still, I'm curious about the Naim gear. Only way to know what it's all about is to hear it. And again, I appreciate your comments. Same for you, John A. -- always a pleasure. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5177 Registered: May-04 | It's too bad when a dealer makes the decisions for the customer. Paste on a fake moustache and pull a fedora down over your eyes. The dealer won't recognize you (sounds like the sort that remembers wallets more than faces anyway) and insist on hearing the Naim. Even if you don't like it, it's well worth the listen. |
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Bronze Member Username: SubiedriverPost Number: 36 Registered: Apr-05 | Good idea. Thanks. I'll break out the old fake beard and head to the dealer. BTW here is the Naim FAQ list with the question about the tuner: http://www.naim-audio.com/company/faq.html Also note the last question about why Naim uses plain old power cords instead of some fancy power cord, and doesn't believe any special cord can do anything to improve the sound. I take it that kind of attitude is an example of "flat earth" thinking? If so, maybe I'm in tune with this "flat earth" way of thinking. Instead of upgrading and constantly looking at new gear, it would be nice to just: Find some good stuff at a not too high price that all works together well; Realize that every piece of gear involves compromises and limitations, and accept whatever limitations my setup has; Cancel the subscriptions to Stereophile, The Absolute Sound, and UHF; Spend the money and energy on music, not gear. I get the sense that this is the mindset of "flat earth" folks and "Naimiacs." They've chosen their brand, they know what it can and cannot do, they're happy with that, and they're done. Sounds good to me. |
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Gold Member Username: John_aLondonU.K. Post Number: 3688 Registered: Dec-03 | No, try another dealer, Hubert, if you can. Personally I like the look of Naim. They have a considerable reputation in UK. Frank Abela (above) has made recommendations on this forum. I discover from the link and your comments that I, too, am a flat earth listener. Thank you. However, Linn is a totally different case. I do not see how Linn and Naim can be bracketed together. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5184 Registered: May-04 | I'd go along with the idea of realizing every component and every system represent numerous compromises. Make your decision as to which qualities are important to you and find the gear that does that job the best. You may change your mind about some things through the course of time; but if you've thought it out well in the first place, you won't be wandering in the desert searching for a "saviour" in next month's magazines. I hold on to my subscription to Stereophile to keep up with what is happening in the industry both in equipment and in attitudes. I pick up other magazines when there's an article or three I find interesting. If I should sit down and read through all the audio rags I've collected since the mid 1970's, I doubt I could count all the times a new piece of equipment has been hailed as "the best ever", "the best ever in my system", or "breaking new ground". Add them all up and I would suspect a home audio system to actually sound better than live music by now. (Sadly, I have found that is the attitude of many people willing to spend large sums on audio equipment. "But, there's no imaging when I listen to live music.") As to the Naim FAQ's. Naim and Linn have been linked from the mid 1970's when Linn made no electronics and Naim made no source equipment. (Many Linn dealers began to shun what had been a lucrative, mainstay product in Naim when Linn began developing amplifiers and speakers. It became an intriguing split when Naim introduced their first tonearm. It was meant to fit on a Linn LP12, of course.) Both companies had/have an attitude they are correct and there is no need to look any further. That attitude appeals to a lot of people for various reasons. I find it, overall, not too different from someone who finds the ideas and products of a car, beer or organic food company appealing to the way they think. You certainly can look at products like Linn and Naim and see they hold their value and have proven themself reliable. That's worth something in the audio market where a lot of "best ever's" are no longer in business. Tuners are a tradeoff of all sorts. Trading sensitivity for selectivity is a constant in tuner design. Sensitivity for low noise and high overload are common trades. Many a Japanese tuner built for specifications has proven that trying to get everything in one package when dealing with tuners is not a path to auditory bliss. Naim and Linn just have a way of stating their case that seems to bother some people who would prefer more ambiguity for their own follies. As you would suspect, I see no problem with saying what you believe. Particulalry when the results of your advice will likely lead to more music in your home. You'll have to excuse me now, I've got my Newman's Organic Potato Chips and a bottle of Annheiser Busch's Budwieser and I'm going to watch some motorsports and cheer when Ferrari kicks Porsche's butt. |
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Gold Member Username: John_aLondonU.K. Post Number: 3690 Registered: Dec-03 | Thanks, Jan. I see, yes - you are right. Linn and Naim were complementary in the 70s. A Linn Sondek LP12 turntable with Naim amplification was a common coupling. As an alternative to Naim, people might have chosen Boothroyd-Stuart (spelling?) which I believe became Meridian, and is not really flat earth any more, having gone on to greater things, such as DVD, MLP and the like. Linn seem to be alone amongst those names in having embraced SACD in a big way. The rest shun it. It is strange. |
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Silver Member Username: Frank_abelaBerkshire UK Post Number: 783 Registered: Sep-04 | Linn used to make record deck (Sondek LP12) and speakers (Linn Saras and Isobariks). Naim provided the amplification. Linn came out with the source first principle claiming that you couldn't fix a signal once it was broken and many many LP12s were sold because they really did something special on the front of quite basic systems. Linn developed an amplifier - oh dear! Naim took effront and developed the SBL loudspeaker (a classic that lasted 20 years). Naim compounded the split with the ARO tonearm and Armageddon power supply - for the LP12. They never produced a complete turntable. They didn't produce a CD player until 1991 and then it was hailed as one of the most organic sounding players on the planet. Linn also came out with CD players, went down the multi-room route and developed the range beyond what was traditionally thought of as the hairshirt HiFi company. Naim have expanded their offering and appear to be coming into that fold too, but more slowly. On the subject of PR&T, a relatively famous test was the Linn toe-tapping test. Could you follow the tune? Linn contended that if you could not or did not connect with music such that it got your toe tapping, then it didn't matter how well the kit measured since it didn't do the job it was intended to do. This was broken into constituent parts of pace, rhythm and timing. Pace can seem different in systems. They can sound 'fast' or 'slow'. Neither is correct - 'fast' can sound rushed, 'slow' just drags along. Rhythm is a factor more appropriate with modern music but still appropriate to classical. It is that factor which makes you want to get up and dance, or at least gets your heart beating in time with the music. Timing is factor which is more to do with interplay between musicians. When you listen to a piece of jazz or rock, a system exhibits good timing when you can tell that the various musicians are playing off each other, where the bass leads the beat instead of follows it. This is a very difficult aspect to get right and where most systems fall down. As you can see from these descriptions (which are a first cut), the elements are nothing like the tradional technical merits of the recording (soundstage etc) and everything to do with the musical content. This is why those who appreciate this type of system find round earth attributes a distraction. Their point of view is that it doesn't matter how 'nice' a recording sounds if it doesn't have the engaging attributes of the musical performance. A round earth system is one which - in their view - simply doesn't get the basics of the music right in the first place and has thrown the baby out with the bathwater. It is a different way of listening I think. For example, I've had the situation where my manager who is a serious flat earther has asked me what people are listening to on several occasions when he's heard some new much vaunted piece of kit which fails utterly to reproduce PR&T properly. It escapes him completely. I am not such a flat earther. My system accomplishes many round earth attributes handsomely while maintaining much of the PR&T of flat earth systems. Therefore I appreciate much of the rounder earth kit, but I admit that I wish the balance of my system (wonderful though it is) was slightly more flat earth - without losing its round earth attributes!  And therein lies the rub. It seems that to make a flat earth system do round earth properly takes a heck of a lot of money. It seems that it is easier to give a system round earth attributes which are immediately and obviously impressive than it is to make a system which has flat earth attributes. An amp may have more sparkle, space and air (Pioneer A400 anyone?), or it might have a deep warm bass (90's Arcam anyone?) but it won't time well or will become wearing over time or just be boring, allowing you to read a book when Led Zeppelin is on in the background! No way you can do that with a flat earth system. You just lose your train of thought and lose yourself in the music. John, early Meridian (always Meridian, even though they used to put their names in front in the beginning) was flat earth, but they went round earth in the 80's with the 500 series and then pioneered digital reproduction in the home when people just about knew how to spell digital. Meridian is arguably the leader in digital electronics nowadays and MLP is the fruit of Meridian's investment in digital techniques. MLP is Meridian Lossless Packing - a lossless form of compression that can be done on the fly allowing DVD-A to contain huge amounts of data while using relatively little capacity. But Meridian's sound is certainly not flat earth. Fantastic - just not particularly involving in my view. The rest don't just 'shun' SACD (and by the same token DVD-A). I have spoken with people at one or two of these manufacturers. They are investigating SACD and DVD-A and they have played with them, but they have great difficulty getting it to sound right. It seems a lot of the PR&T stuff is down to phase coherency and linearity; it's possible phase gets really messed up with the current crop of high resolution chipsets, or they simply have to learn their lessons like they did when CD first appeared. Whichever it is, it's not because they don't want to be in that marketplace. They're businesses after all, and can't ignore important developments in the industry. Of course SACD and DVD-A simply haven't taken off so these smaller companies may simply be waiting to see which format wins the war (if any) before committing production costs to their kit. Naim, Linn et al have long lived products. e.g. a CD player will typically last 3 years without modification and an amp may last up to 5 years (!) so they have to take this into account. This is another reason why the likes of Meridian have gone for board replacement architectures in their high end stuff (their high end stuff is our super stratospheric stuff...) to try to build in some lack of obsolescence. Not so strange after all. Regards, Frank...hoping this makes some sense...! |
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Gold Member Username: John_aLondonU.K. Post Number: 3706 Registered: Dec-03 | Great, Frank. Thanks. Will read some more and think about it. Small point; I am not lumping togther SACD and DVD-A, quite on the contrary. Naim, Meridian, Arcam have eschewed SACD but adopted DVD-A. Vice versa for Linn, I think. There is a sort of cultural divide there, it seems to me. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5224 Registered: May-04 | And, Frank, you have forgotten a small detail. Linn went about 17 years without producing anything other than a turntable. The arms, cartridges and speakers came well after Linn had established their dominance in the audio market. It was at the time the peripheral products began appearing that the single speaker, "Linn store" come into being. It was at that point that Naim became an anscillary product to many dealers who found the Linn ideas much simpler to sell. The two companies will forever be linked, however, as against the mainstream of the audio market while seeking evermore divergent ends. Yes, I agree whole heartedly about joining the two earths being enormously expensive. I know it will appear condescending, but that was the point of "do you listen". I wish you had done your explanation of 'prat' on that thread. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5225 Registered: May-04 | As a matter of fact, would you mind pasting your description into the "do you listen" thread? |
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Gold Member Username: John_aLondonU.K. Post Number: 3709 Registered: Dec-03 | I have read it all now, Frank. Excellent. Many thanks. I shall think about PR&T. It seems to me these qualities are in the music, or they are not. Perhaps PR&T is one of the elusive qualities which Jan seeks, and about which I am sceptical, being in the music as well as in the system.... I have been looking at what people have to say about SACD recently. The Chord web site is interesting for what it does NOT say - it nowhere says "CD is just as good" but starts with how many CDs people already have, how small the sales are of the others, how long will this format last, and so on. This fits with what you say about a strategy of "wait and see". http://www.chordelectronics.co.uk/news_article.asp?id=7 BTW MLP is not such a huge deal; I think the ratio of file sizes is 1.85 to 1. DVD-A can be DVD-A without MLP; it is just that MLP is the only allowed compression algorithm. That is a small point. MLP is a good thing. All credit to Meridian. For my part I feel much more comfortable with the DVD-A tribe that the SACD tribe for various reasons. That is another issue. BTW Linn also made LPs, so that people who bought their turntables would have something to play on them, even after the inferior CD had taken root. At least, that's what they said at the time. They have quite a different story, now. |
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Silver Member Username: Frank_abelaBerkshire UK Post Number: 788 Registered: Sep-04 | John The reason I lumped together SACD and DVD-A is that both formats' sales combined are so insignificant. In fact in 2004, there were more sales of new vinyl than SACD and DVD-A combined... Yes, Chord's wording is interesting and their D/A decoder is one stunning piece of kit, though I'm not so enamoured of their transport, even if it is a technical tour de force. Another interesting point is that there is a rumour of a new top of the range megabucks CD player on its way from Naim - and it too will be dedicated to CD only! Rumoured price is around £14000 ($24000 or so). The crazy thing I heard recently from a relatively reliable source is that DTS encoding has the option for uncompressed storage. i.e. a DTS track can be completely uncompressed and a DTS decoder can read that provided the appropriate flag is set on the disc (a la HDCD). If this is really the case, a standard DVD disc could be used to store uncompressed music in DTS format and that would have as much resolution as the DVD-A and SACD options, although the program length would be less (about an hour I believe). I have several Linn LPs. They're ok but no great shakes. They still make records (and CDs). The qualities of PR&T underpin almost all music to a greater or lesser extent. The only music which doesn't seem to have this is the type of music during the progressive avant garde period in the mid-late 20th century such as Schoenberg or Berg, but even some of those pieces have aspects of timing. Any other more commonly accepted music genre has PR&T in abundance. Yes it is inherent in the music - the question the flat earthers are asking is whether the system allows those attributes to get through to you? Jan - will do, although I didn't really think that thread wanted to be revived... Regards, Frank. |
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Gold Member Username: John_aLondonU.K. Post Number: 3721 Registered: Dec-03 | Frank, Yes, I agree about DTS. I remember reading up the specification and seem to remember it was 5.1, PCM 96/24, and a "perceptually lossless" compression could be applied. This means DVD-A without MLP would amount to the same thing as uncompressed DTS. The DTS compression was to get smaller audio file on discs where much of the space is taken up with a large video partition. I must leave PR&T for another post. Best regards. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5269 Registered: May-04 | "Perhaps PR&T is one of the elusive qualities which Jan seeks, and about which I am sceptical, being in the music as well as in the system.... " Here I am, banging my head against the wall some more. God, this is getting painful. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5274 Registered: May-04 | John - I think you're missing the idea that PRaT can be destroyed by some pieces of equipment. It is in the music; but that doesn't mean it will make it out of your speakers. |
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Silver Member Username: DiabloFylde Coast, England Post Number: 216 Registered: Dec-04 | My thanks to Frank for explaining the phrase "pace, rhythm and timing", which I must have read a thousand times in an audio context without ever having seen a worthwhile attempt to define what these words actually mean when used in this way. If the phrase were used in a sporting reference (cricket or golf strokes, for example) then the meaning is quite clear, and instinctively so. However, even with the definitions which have been provided, I am still struggling a bit where hi-fi gear is involved. Maybe I'm a bit thick. Pace can seem different in systems. They can sound 'fast' or 'slow'. Neither is correct - 'fast' can sound rushed, 'slow' just drags along. Pace, when applied to a performance, is obvious. Compare the Klemperer versions of the Beethoven symphonies to those of Von Karajan. This is my definition of pace when applied to music. In the terms of PRAT, I'm assuming that the CD, vinyl or other recording is turning at the same rate, so there is an apparent but illusory difference in pace? No, I don't understand. Maybe if the sound is very flat and boring - it just seems to last a lot longer that you might want! Rhythm is a factor more appropriate with modern music but still appropriate to classical. It is that factor which makes you want to get up and dance, or at least gets your heart beating in time with the music. I'm English, so don't have any natural desire to dance and will only do so if forced - unlike those with, say, Italian or Maltese roots. So I'm never going to get this one properly.  Some systems do seem to emphasise the 'life' in the music though. Timing is factor which is more to do with interplay between musicians. When you listen to a piece of jazz or rock, a system exhibits good timing when you can tell that the various musicians are playing off each other, where the bass leads the beat instead of follows it. This is a very difficult aspect to get right and where most systems fall down. Anyone who has ever looked at a dual-trace oscilloscope which is simultaneously displaying the voltage waveform from the source and also the output of a microphone placed in front of a speaker will know that this cannot be the case. Even if the speaker has 15" Cerwin Vega bass units with several ounces of mass in the voice coil, I doubt if the bass would be slowed down sufficiently to actually follow instead of lead! So I assume this is another case where an auditory illusion is being accomplished by some systems. I still don't like the phrase. It implies that some fundamental changes are being made to the music, whereas the reality is that subtle changes to the attack, decay etc. are having a psycho-accoustic effect in the mind of the listener. In my ever so 'umble opinion, of course Regards, diablo |
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Gold Member Username: John_aLondonU.K. Post Number: 3724 Registered: Dec-03 | I agree completely, diablo. I have tried to say similar things, before, but perhaps I was less clear. I read "bass timing" often in HiFi reviews, and, as I have said to Frank, I have no idea what different bass timings could sound like. Jan, this is all referring back to the "Do you listen" thread. We have discussed this issue. I tried to make the point clearly there again, yesterday, after Frank copied and pasted his post there. I shall have to come back to this later. Let me say for now that I think the source of the apparent disagreement is simply the way in which we use words. Remember you asked there (Wednesday, July 2):- What qualities do we hear in live music that we would like to have our audio systems possess? What can we say about the experience of hearing live music that we want to bring into our home systems to make them more "lifelike"? My answer is still "None": the system and the music are two distinct categories, and we cannot sensibly describe one using terms that apply to the other. I think PR&T are no exception. I cannot see why people object so strongly to this point, feel attacked, leave the forum, bang their heads against walls, etc., - as they did on "Do you listen". To me, my position seems like common sense. I am willing to discuss this question further. If the ensuing discussion results merely from stupidity on my part, as was alleged, I am also willing to try to understand. But, as I have also said, I do not see the need for repeated expressions of incredulity etc. Who is leading whom, in an ensemble, has nothing at all to do with loudspeakers. If they are good ones, they may enable us to hear things, including subtle things, that we could have heard in the original sound. I cannot see what else can be said. |
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Silver Member Username: Frank_abelaBerkshire UK Post Number: 792 Registered: Sep-04 | Diablo What a cracking post! Brilliant. Many people have tried to explain the meaning of the terms in PR&T and it's not that easy to do. However, the timing aspect where the bass ends up following instead of leading is a well known effect. You said "implies that some fundamental changes are being made to the music". That's exactly right. HiFi systems mess with the signal as it's going through them. The biggest and most obvious problem caused by HiFi systems is phase modification. Lots of systems mess with the phase signficantly - and this is not restricted to the speakers - and the biggest problem is that a system will modify the phase of different frequencies by different amounts. This means that if you get a 90 degree change in phase (not unheard of in some components) in the bass and a 180 degree change in midrange, the bass arrives at your ears behind the midrange making it sound slow. If the opposite effect happens, it'll sound fast. It appears we prefer fast to slow but even fast is wrong. It's certainly not an auditory illusion. There has been a lot of work in the last few years to address timing and phase coherency (and phase linearity) but we are far from a solution here at the moment. John, I've seen no evidence of stupidity on your part and I can certainly appreciate where you're coming from. However, things rarely seem to be as simple as common sense would appear to indicate. I also see the parallel between this thread and Do you listen. Not sure where to post... Regards, Frank. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5278 Registered: May-04 | Where to start? John - Your point concerning the music having qualities and the system having none is, to an extent, well taken. And, those of us remaining on that thread have agreed to that fact. The wording I used seemed sufficicent for some to understand what I was after, for some to take too literally and for others to take offense for being asked to think or defend their ideas. (To some it amounted to not being able to recommend subwoofer cables.) All in all, I don't think there is a sloppier thread on the forum for that very reason. Some issues got discussed; but in the (very) long run, very few got resolved. Why? Because of Pacing, Rhythm and Timing, of course. The thread was torn apart, there was no rhythm and the timing of most remarks was off the beat. That the pace was meager, fits and starts, is hard to ignore. There was no flow to the discussion. That forces outside the concept of the idea were the cause of this is the point of this analogy. I cannot speak for Frank. I think he gave you an explanation that comes from being a salesperson as much as a listener himself. When salespeople try to come up with words to explain a concept to a client, they pick words that are uniquely their own while (hopefully) hewing to a commonly agreed upon central theme. How I describe the concept may be slightly different than Frank; and I do not wish to get things more confused by my words. Please understand I'm explaining in my terms and not some company line that has given all salespeople talking points concerning P.R. a T. "It implies that some fundamental changes are being made to the music, whereas the reality is that subtle changes to the attack, decay etc. are having a psycho-accoustic effect in the mind of the listener." Exactly, sir. Now that you've got it, I can't imagine why here should be any more confusion. The way I see this, diablo and John view this whole affair as what goes in must come out - exactly the same, there can be no room for error if the system is doing its job properly. Exactly! Now that you've got it ... The problem is things are not as cut and dried in reality as they would appear on paper. This goes to the heart of "all amplifiers that measure the same, sound the same". Yes, on paper they do all sound the same. So why bother designing, selling and buying hifi? Let's just put a design on paper and stare at it when we want some entertainment. Because once you leave that piece of paper all hell breaks loose. If you accept that components do sound different from one another, I would think the next logical step would be to ask why that is true. Some of the truly flat earth people ( I think the English press coined the phrase "Luddites") will try to convince you it is because someone has told you amplifiers will sound different and therefore you willingly believe what you are told. This always struck me as the ultimate bit of circular logic. Believe that I am telling you the truth when I tell you they are not telling you the truth. Political and religious hogwash!!! Anyway, now I've got myself distracted. If you ask why amplifiers sound different from one another, you have to come to the conclusion that it is because they do not measure the same. I continue to ask Gregory Stern what are we measuring when we say "amplifiers that measure the same"? How far do we go? Is it just power and T.H.D? He has no answer and copies a quote from an article he has read that doesn't address the question. That is his proof that I am deluded. I have tried my best to assure him there is better proof to be had of that fact. He doesn't believe that either apparently. On the playing field of those whose world is flat enough to allow a bit of curvature to the horizon, it is accepted that what goes in will not necessarily be what comes out of an audio system. Now where do I begin discussing why that would be true? I don't know how to begin. This is the basis for almost fifty years of disagreement between the Luddites/paper lookers/measurement takers and those who prefer to listen and then pass judgement on what they hear, not what they see on paper. The example I used in "do you listen" is the Dynaco ST-70 power amplifier. It is unfortunate that more people in audio have not heard this amplifier despite it being the most successful amplifier in audio history. It has several things going for it in terms of P.R.aT. First, it is a valve amplifier. Most valve amps cannot help but have some degree of pace and timing. The vacuum tube is still, in most respects, the most linear amplification device around and usually contain fairly simple circuitry. Second, the ST-70 was based on the UltraLinear connection between power and output transformers and the valves themself. The UltraLinear connection tried to make a higher powered pentode amplifer sound more like a simpler triode amplifier. Remember this is in the mid 1950's when triodes were still available as amplification devices but the desire for higher power drove the implementation of tetrodes and pentodes, basically, more complicated amplification devices. The signal passed through more gain stages to acheive its higher power. In the listening opinion of many people, this meant the music signal had lost some of its life that was present when it was run through the fewer gain stages present in a triode valve. Finally, the ST-70 was a budget amplifier. As such it has a loosely regulated power supply. When the signal swings the power supply, the power supply can over react and produce a swing that is just a bit larger than the signal. This will emphasize whatever is swinging the ball. In most cases, it is the bass line - the pace and rhythm of the music. This makes the ST-70 the ideal amplifier to explain what the sound of P.R.a T. amounts to. In this case the P. and R. of the formula are present in abundance and, since the amplifier has a relatively simple circuit emulating the sound of an even simpler circuit (the UltraLinear quasi-triode sound) the timing of the sound you hear follows along with the other two parts of the equation. The sound of music played through a ST-70 just plain swings along with the power supply. To many people what you hear from any amplifier is the power supply, the rest of the circuitry is just icing on the cake. You can argue this is not proper operation for an amplifier; it is changing the signal in some fashion. You would be correct. But, that doesn't change the fact the ST-70 exemplifies what we are discussing. The challenge is to retain the qualities that make the amplifier "musical" and get the rest of the signal to be the same input to output. Let me draw another analogy. With the Bush administration, when they gained power, everything that was done was "anti-Clinton". The dislike for the failings of the previous administration was so intense, they sought out being as much not like Clinton as possible. I make no political marks here, but I think it's fair to say we can all see the result of being so dramatically different that the previous administration. So it was with transistors. They sought to rectify everything the solid state camps saw as the problems of valve amplification. Power supplies got stiffer with more and more regulation, distortion components changed from the "musical" even order to the "unmusical" odd order harmonics to which negative feedback was added as a panacea that only proved to make things worse. I could go on and talk about the phase shifts introduced by the number of capacitors and inductors in an audio system. I could point out that in many speakers the woofer and tweeter are connected out of phase with each other and how more drivers in an enclosure will usually only make matters worse. It should be obvious that in our desire for higher power we have resorted to using more gain stages that are noisier and have more linearity errors between stages. How can this not affect the signal in terms of atack, decay, timing pace and rhythm? It is how well the designer can acheive one goal and not loose sight of all the others that account for P.R.a T. being held in high regard among some listeners. It is what drives the resurgence of valves as a simpler is better concept. Taken to its most basic components, it is what is driving the single ended triode connected to a single full range driver school of audio. Having spent the last two weeks with T8's speaker which is essentially a single driver concept, I can tell you the sound from the oldest schools of audio thinking are still very valid today. P.R.a T. is one of the things many components have lost in the drive to look good on paper. https://www.ecoustics.com/electronics/products/reviews/156699.html |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5279 Registered: May-04 | Though many high end amplifiers have utilized far less global negative feedback than what is done in lowered priced equipment, or equipment from the 1970's when N.F.B. was considered the best way to make the input look like the output on paper; the heavy reliance on N.F.B. to reduce T.H.D. was one of the first things attacked by the flat earth folks as destroying what they adored. A look at how N.F.B. is implemented and its inevitable result should give a good start on how the signal can be altered within the circuitry of the amplifier. If you don't understand global N.F.B. design, please put it in a search engine and read for a moment. |
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Silver Member Username: Frank_abelaBerkshire UK Post Number: 794 Registered: Sep-04 | I hasten to point out that I have had no "company line that has given all salespeople talking points concerning P.R. a T" though I accept that being a part-time salesperson means I am under the influence of like-minded individuals. Your discussion is very interesting Jan, and I would agree with much of it. I'm not a tube convert, finding that tube systems introduce as many problems as they solve in many cases. I do accept, however, that valves are the most linear amplification devices we have, which is why negative feedback is less imperative than in a transistor based amp. That said there are some transistor amps which have little or no negative feedback (Cyrus and Densen have models with no feedback for example) and which do not sound anything like valve amps generally speaking. Feedback, phase linearity and coherency, ports vs sealed units, boron vs aluminium cantilevers, alnico vs samarium magnets, AC vs DC motors, belt drive vs direct drive, paper-in-oil vs electrolytic vs foil, twisted pair vs capacitative wire... All these decisions exist in any one system. All of them mess with the signal in a myriad of detrimental ways. It's a miracle we get anything decent out of them at all, but it also explains why a little transistor radio can be as delightful (if restricted) as a high end system. Regards, Frank. |
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Gold Member Username: John_aLondonU.K. Post Number: 3726 Registered: Dec-03 | Jan and Frank, Just a real thank-you for taking my comments in good part. I have read all your posts. We are moving house this week and I have little time, also will have to find a whole new location for our system. Eventually, when we have a new roof over our heads. I should so much like to hear examples of the things you describe. I have long been in favour of considering phase, and always preferred two-driver sealed box type speakers, thinking they avoided phase problems as far as conventional speakers can (depending on aligment and crossover of course). Nevertheless I occasionally witness people audioning e.g. B&W 600 series, they sound pretty good as I cruise past, and I lose count of all the drivers. I also think part of my pleasure in the ESL speakers I now have is the seamless and coherent way they deliver sound in-phase across the frequency spectrum. I think it comes over as what might be described as "effortless midrange". But, to be critical about this, I would have to have to have something to compare. I imagine it would not be difficult to make a circuit to delay the signal by various amounts at various crossover points, and see how things sounded. Alternatively, perhaps there is a test disc that demonstrates such effects? From such discs, I am familiar with "out of phase" between channels, but, of course, this is a completely separate question. What with no time and no experience, all I can offer is more "fits an starts" so I should probably lie low for a week or so, but I shall continue to follow this thread with great interest. Thanks again for your responses. I see a large batch of e-mail notifications from "Do you listen", as yet unread, by me. I hope it is not more about how I have missed the point. I, too, am unsure where to continue. Best regards. PS Jan, I, too, originally thought that quote I gave back to you was perhaps just a little imprecise, and that was all. But this was not the problem: indeed I saw a number of contributors were with it all the way. I can understand the irritation with a position which might be paraphrased as "this is all mistaken, there is nothing to discuss": it hardly seems constructive! |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5313 Registered: May-04 | Don't concern yourself over "do you listen", John. There are now 891 posts on that thread. I'd say a good 50 or so actually discuss the topic of the thread. A lot of people found something else to talk about on that one. |
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Gold Member Username: John_aLondonU.K. Post Number: 3728 Registered: Dec-03 | Thanks, Jan. I have now read all those posts, and do confess that I heaved a sigh of relief that none referred to mine. |
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Silver Member Username: DiabloFylde Coast, England Post Number: 221 Registered: Dec-04 | I'm now almost totally convinced that the phrase "pace, rhythm and timing" came into audio from the world of golf. Imagine a professional audio reviewer, whose golf handicap was going down the pan despite daily practice (how else do you fill the day if you have only two or three products to review each month in order to earn a crust?). So he hires Arnold Palmer -- remember, this was a long time ago - to improve his driver technique. He is left in no doubt that the correct pace of shot is important. Timing is vital, you must judge the wind speed and play your shot when the wind is about to ease. The rhythm of the stroke must be perfect. Having had these words repeated incessantly all day, he finally goes home and remembers that he has a deadline on an amplifier review. To be finished by the morning. The amp is a 'Brand-Ex P 155'. It isn't very good, but he cannot say anything bad about it because Brand-Ex buy a lot of advertising space. A meaningless, but good-sounding, phrase is called for. His mind was still full of golfing advice. He considered "pace, timing and stroke", but that wasn't quite right. "Technique, wind and balls" didn't fit the bill either. Then came "pace, rhythm and timing". The rest is history. As with real history, the attempted explanations of what might have been meant, have followed in the phrase's wake. Thank you, Frank and Jan, for attempting to explain the unexplainable. You have both made a valiant but futile attempt. I now have two lots of explanations for the three words of the phrase. "Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." I cannot identify with the Queen mentioned above. Not in any way - even the rumours that I look a bit like Freddy Mercury are false. Frank, I'm never going to accept your statement " ... the bass leads the beat instead of follows it" as being a genuinely observable phenomenon! Yes, phase distortion can occur. More important in this context is probably "group delay", where frequencies of 30Hz or so could be as much as 20ms behind the treble. Still couldn't result in a real perceptible change in the relationships of the instruments in time, as the higher frequency harmonics from the bass will not be delayed by anywhere near as much. And anyway, 20ms is a very short time! Jan, you say "the power supply can over react and produce a swing that is just a bit larger than the signal. This will emphasize whatever is swinging the ball. In most cases, it is the bass line - the pace and rhythm of the music. This makes the ST-70 the ideal amplifier to explain what the sound of P.R.a T. amounts to" and then "You can argue this is not proper operation for an amplifier; it is changing the signal in some fashion. You would be correct." Err, what am I to make of this... ? I thought that you did not like tone controls, Jan. This sounds like a sort of inverse loudness feature without an off switch -- and one which was not designed, just a sort of happy accident! I'm lost for words! Momentarily, anyway. (long pause) I strongly suspect that you were pointing the finger at me as being a strict devotee of THD and IMD stats. I'm not. You are wrong. I bought a well specified Onkyo amp a few years ago, partly on the assumption that advancements in solid state design would have reached a state of near perfection. In spite of the good reviews it received, I found it to be totally unmusical -- the tunes were recognizable, but that was about as good as it got. I'm currently about to order some expensive paper/oil replacement capacitors for some Quad II amps. I have also seriously thought about reviving a project which I started many years ago -- building a John Linsley Hood Class A amp. Seemingly, it is still well thought of, see this diyAudio thread for example. I still have the heatsinks, just everything else is out of date. Is this proof enough that I don't think that all amps sound the same? I viewed a recording of Beethoven's 9th tonight, it was broadcast with fairly high quality audio. When I saw the big bass drums being played, the sound that came out of my speakers was timed to perfection, there seemed no discernable delay. The pace -- well the conductor decided that -- and I don't think my system changed it at all. Rhythm -- plenty of that as well, but not artificially induced by an inadequate transformer. Maybe I just can't relate this old and peculiar phrase, "pace, rhythm and timing" to mean the same as it obviously does to yourselves, Frank and Jan? It pleases me to think that I can recognize good sound. I may be wrong in thinking that. If I am not wrong but hear the same good and bad things in the sound then maybe I am just describing it differently? Or is that a bit Rumsfeldian? I was hoping to get a job as a reviewer for Stereophile when I retire, but I seem to be so out of step that maybe I'll just have to write for HiFi News and play golf instead. Regards, diablo |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5345 Registered: May-04 | I never point fingers. None. When I point one finger at you, three point back at me. Ahh, platitudes! The ST70 is a tone control that can't be turned off. I didn't say I employed one in my system. But, they are tremendous fun to listen through on occasion. And, an excellent way to demonstrate the qualities in question. Your golfing analogy sounds suspect to me. I had heard that P.R.a T. came from an Italian audio reviewer. Guido was between reviews of a new valve amplifier and a new tuner when he received some distressing news. His girlfriend, Maria, had discovered she was pregnant with Guido's child. Naturally, this was not news that Guido wanted to hear and he was unsure how to break it to his wife and mistress. Being a good Roman Catholic, Guido put down the dipole antenna and headed down to the basilica to see if Father Sarducci was hearing confessions. Surely Father S. would know how to handle this delicate situation. As Guido passed the fountain in the town square, he was met by his old friend Paulo who had been nervously searching for Guido since lunch at the trattoria. "Guido, have you heard the news", Paulo said. "Yes, yes, I'm on my way to see Father Sarducci right now. He'll have the answer I need", replied Guido. "Father Sarducci?! What's he going to do", asked Paulo. "He'll have heard of other fellows in this predicament. Surely he'll know how to handle Maria and my wife." "Guido, you don't have to worry about the women", Paulo assured him. "No?" "No, Guido, the women will not kill you", Paulo replied. Guido was overcome with joy. His problems had been solved, he was blessed once again. "That's a relief, Paulo. I was certain one of those crazy women would have my heart stewing in her ragu tonight", Guido said with a sigh. "But, Paulo, how do you know none of the women will harm me?" Paulo's eyes got as big around as a Pizza Margerita. "Because, my friend Guido, Maria's brother was in the cafe where I just had an espresso; and HE'S GONNA KILL YOU FIRST!" "KILL ME FIRST?" "Yes", said Paulo, his eyes wandering to three young ladies walking toward the piazza, "I heard him say he's going to kill the dirty rotten feccia who got his sister pregnant." "Guido, what are you gonna do?" The sweat was pouring off Guido by now. With a shaking tone, he said, "I don't know, Paulo. I don't know." "You got to help me, Paulo." "Sure, sure, Guido. I'll help you. You and me, we been amici since we were little raggazzos." Growing more desperate by the minute, Guido grabbed Paulo by the arm and spun him around. "Paulo, you go find Maria's brother, and you distract him. Buy him a gelato, buy him an espresso, Paulo, introduce him to your sister if you have to." Guido!" "Just go, Paulo, my life depends on you. I'm headed off to see Father Sarducci. No matter what, Maria's brother will have to give honor to sanctaury. He will not kill me in the basilica." "Go, Paulo, remember you have to save my life." "Sure, sure, Guido. Don't worry, I'll do my best for my grande amico." Guido headed off as quickly as possible hoping Paulo would be able to forestall Maria's brother until Guido at least arrived at the basilica. Paulo ran off to fulfill his mission, pausing only to notice the young ladies were still standing outside the piazza. "I'll bet my bottom dollaro these young ladies know where to find Maria's brother", Paulo thought. Reaching the basilica in record time, Guido saw Father Sarducci just as he closed the doors to the confessional. Guido looked around the chapel. There was Signora Baccalla who he had known since he first noticed her perfume when he was an altar boy. Behind her in line was Baptiste, the shoe maker. His wife made the best almond biscotti Guido knew about and he had stopped over many times at Baptiste's house to check that Baptiste's poor wife wasn't getting too hot by the oven while Baptiste was busy at the shop. As he looked at the line of poor wretched sinners who were waiting to have their souls saved by Father Sarducci, Guido could only hope Paulo had succeeded at delaying Maria's brother. As each parishioner went into the little cubicle to confess their sins to Father Sarducci, Guido began to think of the sins they must have to confess. Surely, by the time Guido got to Father S., his minor indiscretion wouldn't seem so bad. But, what if Paulo had failed?! What if Maria's brother were outside the basilica right now? What if he was such a scoundrel that he would not respect the rule of sanctuary? Sweat once again began to pour from Guido's brow. HE BEGAN TO PACE!!! "What was that sound", Guido exclaimed loud enough that the few old women fingering their rosaries in pennance turned to stare at him. Signor LaRosa ,who Guido used to bum cigarettes from, and whose wife had the most perfect smile and brilliant purple eyes , turned and shushed Guido with an unapologetic stare. By now Guido knew that Paulo had failed at his task. Guido knew Paulo was not someone he could trust and he knew Paulo had probably found some young lady to take to the gelateria. Here Guido's life was on the line and all Paulo could think about was his own pleasure. Guido was becoming more furious at Paulo with every passing second when he noticed the door to the confessional open. Out stepped Carlotta, the older sister to Guido's boss's wife. "She's not as hot as Michelle said she was", thought Guido as Signor Saltore made his way into the dark box to face Father S. Guido suddenly realized his fate could be in the hands of an old man confessing he had impure thoughts about his neighbor's elderly sister. "Ohhhh, Christo Sancto!", Guido exclaimed. "Surely I am the most miserable buon ragazzo in all of Italy" Guido paced and paced up and down between the pews unable to think of anything except Maria's brother, that rat Paulo and that he had never noticed how shapely Signora Marcotini's ankles were. "Can't you people all just let me go ahead of you", cried Guido. "Surely if you die before I come out, your eternity with the Devil won't be as bad as you all think." Guido knew TIMING was everything at this point. Finally, it was Guido's turn to get into the confesssional and throw himself on the mercy of the Church. "Bless me, Father, I have sinned and you gotta help me!" "What is it now, Guido", Father S. replied with a time worn sense of having been here before. Guido began to explain how his girlfriend had tricked him into getting her pregnant. "Father, I swear! She told me she was using the RHYTHM method." "Oh, Guido, how many times have we been through this before', asked Father Sarducci. "Father, you gotta help me out. I swear on my Nona's grave, I'll never do this again. Maria's brother is looking for me. He's gonna kill me. He's hated me ever since I got friendly with his wife." "Guido!" "It's true, Father, he has no honor. What should I do if he finds me here, Padre?" "Guido, you have nothing to worry about", said Father S. "REALLY! That's terrific news, Father. But, that seems impossible to believe." He knew his fate was sealed if Father Sarducci wouldn't help him one more time. Guido chuckled, "There's no use trying. One can't believe impossible things." "I daresay, you're not giving it much practice, Guido", said Father Sarducci. "When I was a young priest, I always did it for half the day. Why, Guido, in seminary I sometimes believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." Relieved that his life and good fortune had been spared, Guido headed home. After leaving his mistress' townhouse, he met Paulo and Maria's brother along with the three young ladies from the piazza. All had been forgiven over a couple of bottles of Chianti and Maria's brother invited Guido to come along to the ristorante for some pasta. Back home in his apartment that night, the audio gear all sounded a bit sweeter, Pavarotti was a little bolder and Guido laughed about how he had been so worried that he PACED around the chapel, thinking his TIMING on Earth was up because Maria couldn't count and had no RHYTHM. He sat down to write his review. |
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Silver Member Username: Frank_abelaBerkshire UK Post Number: 814 Registered: Sep-04 | LOL!! Brilliant! Hey diablo, believe what you like. I just explained how pace, rhythm and timing are viewed by a certain fraternity. I don't care what you believe and don't intend to push it on you. Regards, Frank. |
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Silver Member Username: DiabloFylde Coast, England Post Number: 223 Registered: Dec-04 | Frank, Okay.  Jan, I totally believe the story (except for the purple eyes bit). It's very good. Regards, diablo |
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Gold Member Username: John_aLondonU.K. Post Number: 3731 Registered: Dec-03 | Wonderful! Short post on impossible connection. Just one of the six before breakfast. Will be back. Bass players who try to set the pace, rhythm and timing get the push, same as anyone else. They are a pain. Ensemble playing is about no-one controlling anything. Someone counts 'em all in, so everyone knows when to start, and how fast it will go. Then everyone follows the same time, rhythm, pulse, call it what you will. No-one leads; that is anticipating the beat. It messes things up. I can report that everything sounds different in a different room. No change, there, then. I missed the Choral Symphony, diablo. I just finished listening, in real time, to the The Cleveland Orchestra performing Mahler 3. I thought they were wonderful. The balance was excellent. They must employ some good engineers and some bad. Sorry if that belongs on a different thread. Pace. |
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Silver Member Username: DiabloFylde Coast, England Post Number: 228 Registered: Dec-04 | >They must employ some good engineers and some bad. I'm just been sat here at home, waiting for a Telecoms engineer to install an extra broadband line (appointment time 8:00 - 13:00). No bother, though, the work people are paying for my time. So I'm replaying the Beethoven again. Just hope I can hear the doorbell. The difference between this recording of an orchestra and some others from the proms is remarkable. This one is smooth, whereas some others have been very grainy. The standards they adopt seem very different from one performance to the next. To get the absolute best out of them, you would need to switch between various amps and speakers. I don't think that a good 'compromise' system exists. Regards, diablo p.s. I noticed that you ended you ended your post with 'pace', Latin for 'let there be peace'. I hope that you are not referring to Frank's comments on my views re "pace, rhythm and timing"? Frank and I know where we each stand. I agree with about 60% of what he says. Frank believes nothing of what I say. S'okay by me. I'm not offended. |
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Silver Member Username: Frank_abelaBerkshire UK Post Number: 824 Registered: Sep-04 | Diablo Hey! I resent that! I might believe some of what you say, just not on this topic where I believe you're a misguided klutz... John, your pace/rhythm/timing comments may be true for ensembles and orchestral, although one could argue that the conductor/leader is driving the music along, but it's certainly not true of any rhythmic contemporary music in the jazz, pop or rock genres where the bass instrument typically drives the piece along. Regards, Frank. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5385 Registered: May-04 | Frank - Shhhhhhh!!! We're trying to drag John into the middle of the 20th c/ slowly. He's up to Shostakovich. I don't think American jazz has crossed the ocean yet for John. Another decade or so and maybe he'll discover Elvis and The Beatles. (s.f.) |
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Gold Member Username: John_aLondonU.K. Post Number: 3732 Registered: Dec-03 | Yes, indeed, I meant pace, diablo. I was trying to think of an even more contrived explanation of the origin of "pace, rhythm and timing", but I doff my hat to you and Jan, and admit defeat. Therefore, the little-know Siamese school of porcelain, contemporary with the eponymous Chinese dynasty, will never see the light of day. "Peace, writhe 'em and Thai Ming" was the goal. But, as you know, pace is pronounced par-chay so it was going to be pretty bad, whatever. Frank, I still maintain that no-one "drives the piece along", not in tempo. A conductor may signal it, to help the players who are too far away to hear it properly. He can also change it. But once it is set, it is a shared tempo. Everyone should know where the beat is; it is just synchronicity, and does not reside with one player, or with less than the whole. You only need someone "Driving" when you have a change of pace, accelerando, ritardando, etc. A player of a bass instrument who thinks this is his sole responsibility has delusions of grandeur, and will wreck the ensemble. Jan, it also applies to jazz. There is some free-form modern stuff where there seems to be no rhythm at all, or else everyone has his own. That's my impression, at least. According to Cole Porter "You take some skins, jazz begins; take a bass, now we're getting someplace..." Nothing in there about "PR&T". "(s.f.)"? Actually, I was already dragged into the middle of the 20th C., almost exactly. diablo, Hope you are now successfully wired. In our new abode I find I have access to a wireless network with an internet connection. I have no idea whose it is, just that it works. I have ordered our own ADSL so I will be legit in a few days. Possibly this post is illegal. Wish I could turn the conversation to Beethoven 9. The Zürich Tonhalle Orch seem to be in favour at the moment. I heard part of their prom. The brass swapped to original instruments and fluffed lots of notes. I thought the BBC was using the hyperactive balance engineer for that one, and they should put him on ritilin or something. I think it was piano concerto No.3 with Emmanuel Ax. His piano kept changing size. I could have got mixed up. My prom book is a box somewhere. I must take some time to read posts of the last week or so on other threads. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5387 Registered: May-04 | John - Read again your Porter quote and I think you find PRaT is the very thing he is meaning to imply. It might be helpful, in this case, to substitute "going" for "getting" some place. |
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Gold Member Username: John_aLondonU.K. Post Number: 3733 Registered: Dec-03 | Spot on, again, Jan! But "now we're goin' some place" is poetry and is not meant to be taken literally. Speakers, if good, will create the same impression. But it is not really what happens. Any more than "Hey Mister Bass Man, you're on all the songs...". (That is ripped from the mid 20th C). If Porter is gospel, we might as well worry deeply about "Next July we collide with Mars". I used to post serious things on threads here, as you may recall. "Take a blue horn, New Or-leans born, Now listen to - well, you know who..." Leaving Katrina aside, which is difficult, these days, we do not really need to discuss the best colour for jazz trumpets, do we...? BTW Louis is up there, imho, and dwarfs Eric C. Must go. Sorry to be terse. And cryptic. There will be posters on this forum from Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi. The do not need plays on words at this time. All the best, you guys. Pace |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5390 Registered: May-04 | Hey, John, don't bogart that joint! |
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Silver Member Username: DiabloFylde Coast, England Post Number: 232 Registered: Dec-04 | > His piano kept changing size. They sometimes do that, don't they. I have a recording with a piano which is wider than the orchestra. Maybe there is a dimension where 'eat me' and 'drink me' are mandatory for pianos, a la Alice? Boringly, it is more likely to be due to duff sound engineers, though. The Beethoven 9 from last year was artistically brilliant, balance was good but sound marred by a few glaring audio glitches. They don't make BBC sound engineers like they used to. |
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Gold Member Username: John_aLondonU.K. Post Number: 3734 Registered: Dec-03 | Amen to that. The Ax/Zinman/ZTHO Beethoven piano Concerto No 3 is on BBC 2 tonight so one could see if Ax pauses to drink from the bottle labelled "Drink Me". Probably the cameras will generate that effect anyway. The RAH makes an unusual rabbit hole. Jan, I vaguely associate that line with Easy Rider. Is this some sort of Trivial Pursuit? At present, they would not make it to the Mardi Gras. What an awful thing. Hope our old friend Larry is OK. I don't think Katrina touched Florida. Sorry, I am on the wrong thread. I only have time for one, and you, friends, have drawn the short straw. BTW The Ax/Zinman/ZTHO concert clashes exactly with "House", to which the family is addicted. I easily imagine JV as an audio Dr. House. Patient: My right speaker makes a buzzing noise. JV (from behind the latest issue of the US equivalent of Motor Sport): Go home and get some rest. You will find your neighbour has done with trimming his garden hedge. Other posters: The Socratic approach to interconnects has today given way to a more holoistic approach. ...sort of thing. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5397 Registered: May-04 | There are times when the obvious and the not so obvious need to be stated. Alice's cookies and bogart's joints seeemed appropriate to your last post, John. I can, of course, make reference to Alice's cookies which did not get served at her restaraunt due to the excessive bogarting of other materials. Say goodmorning, Arlo. |
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Silver Member Username: Frank_abelaBerkshire UK Post Number: 830 Registered: Sep-04 | John, According to the wife (who used to be a conservatoire standard clarinetist before she got RSI), the conductor's job is to mark the beats in the time signature. Some do it more flamboyantly (Mehta) and some do it less so (Karajan) but this is just their primary role. The instrimentalists are also keeping the beat (by counting) as they read the score. The conductor also adds interpretation. This is why some conductors are more popular than others. The interpretation changes the pace rhythm and timing of the piece. Apart from adding and removing certain parts of a piece (often due to artistic differences on what is and is not genuine, or different versions of the score) this is why pieces vary in length. for example, Fritz Reiner's interpretations are always briskly paced. He seems to race through Scheherazade, whereas the Karajan takes an altogether more languid approach overall (which I prefer). Solti tends push the orchestra along aiming for the crescendi whereas Monteux takes a very French but strong grip on the orchestra giving them enough room to breathe freely, yet keeping the listener on tenderhooks all the time. Monteux is (was I guess) probably my favourite conductor. A modern 4 or 5-piece band rarely has the luxury of a leader. Counting in is a requirement so they all hit the beat on time, but after that they have to listen out for each other since variation is in the nature of live performance. What generally happens is that it is the bass which keeps the tempo going. In band circles a change in beat in a song is often called the 'push', often supplied by the bass player. I'm not theorising here, this is well known fact. 'House' is fantastic. The scary thing is I have a very good friend in London who is an osteopath and who is not quite as unkind as Dr. House but certainly reminds me of him, although he looks very different (2 crutches and a big round person). Regards, Frank. |
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Gold Member Username: John_aLondonU.K. Post Number: 3735 Registered: Dec-03 | That's good, Frank, thanks. Toscanini was a record-breaker in his time, so I am told. These Italians, again. There is a late 80s Norrington Beethoven symphony cycle where he meticulously observes the composer's metronome markings, and the general duration is similar to Toscanini's. "but after that they have to listen out for each other...." Yes, that's it. "What generally happens is that it is the bass which keeps the tempo going. " This would mean the others cannot keep time, or keep together, without the bass. That may happen, occasionally. But it is not usual. Not if they are any good, just as musicians. If there is no conductor, the "leader" should direct tempo changes, and everyone has to agree who that is. But once the tempo is set, it is just like a clock ticking inside each player, and the clocks become synchronised if they are listening to each other. Which is another "given", regardless of genre, if they are any good, in my opinion. I feel most disinclined to argue any further. I think we agree on many things, and I am still learning, with thanks, about flat earth audio. I too like "House". What a convincing E. Coast American from Hugh Laurie. I wonder if he convinces the natives. I'd still rather watch the prom, but am outvoted. Maybe I'll get my separate TV and audio systems back before too long. All best wishes. PS Bought a Tivoli One, or so I thought, partly on Jan's recommendation. In the box was actually the main part of a Tivoli Two. I assume it gave only the left channel. It still sounded astoundingly good. Have returned it and will get a replacement next week. Wonder if Tivoli table radios count as flat earth. Great sound; simple and intuitive design. Also, analogue - and analogue tuning. A real dial, not a numeric display. What a pleasure. |
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Gold Member Username: John_aLondonU.K. Post Number: 3736 Registered: Dec-03 | Jan, I thought "bogart" was a verb in that context, meaning "to keep to oneself". I could be wrong about that. I doubt that Bogart had a joint, but anything is possible. |
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Silver Member Username: Frank_abelaBerkshire UK Post Number: 832 Registered: Sep-04 | John If I came across as argumentative I apologise. I know my turn of phrase can be quite forceful and I always need to keep an eye on it. It was not meant to be so. To me, Hugh Laurie sounds very convincing as an American, and when he imitated doing an English accent badly I thought it was hilariously funny and amazing acting! I ownder if it gets on his nerves as much as Ewan McGregor trying to do an English one as Obi-Wan. As to the Tivoli, I believe the Two gives out a mono signal when not connected to its counterpart, so I think you lost out there, although you've saved your soul. I'm not sure whether it rates as flat earth but it is an excellent little radio. I have one in the kitchen. It's possible the portable PAL model is more flat earth since it really bangs out the rhythms. As to the analogue tuning, I'm convinced this is half the secret. Analogue tuning devices always seem to make their tuners sound better than the opposition. The Tivoli suffers absolutely no drift which used to plague tuners of old and was one reason why quartz PLL tuning became so popular. Regards, Frank. |
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Bronze Member Username: SubiedriverPost Number: 37 Registered: Apr-05 | John A., Hope you are enjoying your Tivoli Model One. I got one a couple years ago and we love it. Last Christmas I got my dad the iPAL only to have him tell me, about a month ago, that he never opened it because "I don't have one of those iPods to go with it." I explained to him that it's just a radio -- granted, one that happens to look like an iPod and has an input for an iPod. Here I was thinking I'd given him a cool hip toy and he would have been happier (or at least less confused) if I'd given him the wooden box version like the one I have. Ooops. Also I saw your mention of the Cleveland Symphony. One reason the music sounds so good may be simply because they are such a fantastic orchestra. My wife's family are in Cleveland so we get to see the orchestra on visits. They've also got a fantastic hall. Which is weird because Cleveland is not exactly the nicest city in America, if you know what I mean. We also got a performance by Cleveland Symphony here in Boston last spring. They really are fantastic. About 15 years ago I saw a non-costume production of Wagner's Valkyrie by Cleveland Symphony in Severance Hall. Unreal. If you visit the States it might (almost) be worth a visit to Cleveland. Plus they have the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but it's awful, in my opinion. |
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Bronze Member Username: SubiedriverPost Number: 38 Registered: Apr-05 | This maybe overly provocative but here goes. If we kind of understand what "flat earth" means, and we know that Naim and apparently Linn are "flat earth" companies, who else is? eg: Is Audio Note flat earth? They're Brits, and tube-based, but awfully expensive and kind of fancy-pants. Maybe that's the opposite of the "bah humbug" flat earth approach? Then again they make those old-fashioned speakers... How about NAD? They once were Brits. And they're ugly and cheap. Does that make them flat earth? Or just low-end? Who else? What brands are "flat earth" and what brands are "round earth"? |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5417 Registered: May-04 | Virtually any company producing DIY kits, single ended triode amplifiers or full range drivers. |
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Gold Member Username: John_aLondonU.K. Post Number: 3740 Registered: Dec-03 | Frank, Thank you, but no apology is expected from you - not by me! I like forthright views, and have some of my own. Unfortunately I have got on the wrong side of several good folk, as a result. Jan has witnessed this, I think. Several things occur to me, as always on these interesting threads. Frank or Jan or Hubert;- The guy I bought the Tivoli from is moving premises, and I forgive him for having a Two in a One box. It is a nice shop he has, and not too far away. He says he is going to work mainly on AV sales and installation, but keep audio as a side-line, for which he will only carry what he likes himself. He is the guy who "sold" me my current speakers, which I bought from elsewhere, by saying he kept hoping someone would trade some in, so he could keep them himself. I had previously tried to get a Tivoli from a locally well-known chain (UK; "John Lewis") but neither Oxford Street nor Bluewater, Kent, actually carried them, as advertised, and the sales assistants looked at me as if I was from Mars. Anyway; a Tivoli One table radio seems, to me, to be a single speaker in a very small cabinet which also accommodates a well-thought-out radio receiver and amplifier. Question: what sort of speaker design is it? The one I had seemed to have a reflex port. Amazing frequency response from such a small cabinet, and, apparently, only one driver. I could not reasonably take apart a unit I intended to return. Jan, you may know - is it a "mini" transmission line, or what......? I was going to ask this on "Do you think" but I do not wish to interrupt a learned discussion by people who understand and/or make actual loudspeakers. More random questions and answers are sparked by previous posts but that will do, from me, for now. Oh, I tracked down a "TV and audio repair" shop today. Named "Armstrong", with the original company logo. The nice receptionist said the staff are some of the original makers, they now repair all classic British audio products, and she gave me a modest "guesstimate", promising a full quote if I brought my 25-yr old unit in. They do not seem to have a web site. I thought of diablo and his Quad II. I am so pleased they survived. The demise of Armstrong (put head-to-head with e.g. Arcam in the late 70s/early 80s in audiophile reviews) is a salutory tale. I will send their telephone number and e-mail address in private message if anyone is interested. |
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Silver Member Username: Frank_abelaBerkshire UK Post Number: 833 Registered: Sep-04 | All I know about the Tivoli is that it's a ported enclosure. I believe the drive unit is a 3 inch single driver, but the port chimes in to help give that impression of depth. The PAL uses a 2.5inch driver and is a sealed unit which is why it's a bit smarter of step methinks. I'm surprised about John Lewis. They have Tivolis in stock in Reading AFAIK. Incidentally, in a bid to keep up with the market, Tivoli have launched a new model with DAB as well as the analogue tuner section. The speaker has gone to the top plate so the DAB tuner section can sit next to the analogue tuning dial. It sounds better than any other DAB radio of this type, but then it should since it's more money at about £230. I haven't done an A/B against a Model 1, nor am I likely to...! Regards, Frank. |
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Gold Member Username: John_aLondonU.K. Post Number: 3744 Registered: Dec-03 | Thank you so much, Frank. I think I like the flat earth qualities of the Model One. I am not persuaded by DAB. If I need to hear the pips late, and to sample what audio compression codecs do to the 1 kHz sine wave which makes them, I can always plug my computer into the Tivoli or my HiFi. I just hope they do not turn off analogue radio transmission next year. I am getting more and more worried by everything digital. Yesterday's news, here in UK, about HMV and Virg_n's challenge to iTunes was completely wrong about iTunes' limited file format compatibility - you can actually play pretty well any standard audio file format in iTunes, which is essentially Apple QuickTime. Also write .wav, .aiff, or any respectable audio format onto an iPod. I do not believe the journalists are that lazy at their research. I suggest that was paid-for propaganda, masquerading as news content. How else to explain it? Here's another flat earth observation. My first hifi purchase of any consequence was an Armstrong 600 series Stereo FM tuner, in 1979. It is now back in service, works perfectly, and is the best source I have at the moment. I do believe the "switch to digital" is directed, somehow, and not a response to market demand.E.g. I keep suggesting that protection of packaged content is the primary objective of SACD, otherwise we would have hi-res PCM, and people get angry about this. I used to be paranoid etc..... BTW the earth being flat is a good enough model for getting around, reading a map, etc. going to work, finding the nearest record store etc. Better a detailed map based on conventional cartography that satellite GPS telling you only which town you are in. I am not a Luddite, not at all, but it is important to know what is an appropriate level of technology for any application. One does not worry about the uncertainty principle when estimating the best moment to jump on an escalator, or factor in the speed of light when deciding when to pull away from a green traffic light. Is this a "flat earth" attitude...?! |
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Bronze Member Username: SubiedriverPost Number: 39 Registered: Apr-05 | John A., As a journalist I can tell you at a) we are in fact pretty lazy, otherwise we would have done something more ambitious with our lives; and b) we're also mostly people who majored in English or literature and never understood math or science, and therefore easily hoodwinked by high-tech and electronics companies; and c) we're also very often overworked, especially those of us who work at dailies or (worse yet) online publications that pump out items every hour, which means we don't have time to do thorough research and just fall back on the excuse that "we just report what people tell us." I can't say for certain but I'd bet that's probably responsible for the false claims about iTunes rather than the oft-cited line that we're getting paid to put out propaganda. Some poor scribe who can't afford an iPod and has never used iTunes went to a press conference and reported what was said -- and didn't have to be handed a 100 bucks in his press kit to tell lies. I mean, think about it. If Virgin or any company tried to pay off reporters, wouldn't at least one SOB rat them out and create a scandal? Also please note that most of us, believe it or not, have some basic shreds of decency and integrity; but even if we didn't opportunities to get bribed simply don't arise. Companies like Sony, Apple, Microsoft, etc., do NOT go around offering journos payola to write lies, and yet those of us who cover these companies for business press are constantly accused of "getting paid off." In 22 years in this line of work I've never been offered payoffs and have never heard of anyone else being offered this kind of bribe. Sorry but this is a bit of a painful subject for me. I'm constantly seeing people who don't like some article of mine complaining on their blogs that I must be a "paid shill" for such-and-such a company. Er, no. Not quite. But thanks for libeling me on your blog. It's especially galling because usually my article was correct -- it just wasn't what Mr. Blogger wanted to hear. Good example: a pal of mine recently did a story reporting that a research firm had taken apart a Mac Mini and found out the parts only cost less than $300 and the computer sells for $499. He wasn't making this up. He didn't initiate the story. A research firm put out a release on this and this reporter and his publication found it to be newsworthy and so they wrote it up. The reporter didn't say it was good or bad for Apple to charge $499 for a Mini, just that a research firm had taken this thing apart, found out who makes the parts, and estimated the cost. This poor reporter got hit with the most vile comment strings online that you've ever seen. I guess because some crazed Apple fans thought he was "anti-Apple" or -- wait for it -- had been "paid off" (by God knows who -- Dell? Microsoft?) to say bad things about Apple. All that said, from reading stereo mags and car mags (if you ever read car mags) you probably have recognized the more subtle form of "persuasion" that clever companies engage in. You don't hand out hundred-dollar bills. You fly some journo to your factory in France, or Italy, or England, and you wine and dine him, flatter him, tell him how well he speaks French or Italian, tell him he's so different from all those other moron Americans, he's so sophisticated and refined, tell him how much you appreciate his input and solicit his suggestions on product design, ask him how things could be made better, tell him how handsome/clever/brilliant he is and what good taste he has, and basically pander to his ego because you've figured out that journos are incredibly obnoxious egomaniacs who love to hear themselves talk (just like college profs; otherwise they would have pursued careers that pay more but don't let you show off in print, on TV and in the classroom)... and guess what? The guy falls in love with your amp/speakers/sports coupe and will gladly spread the word about what wonderful products your company makes. Now *that* kind of thing happens all the time. |
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Gold Member Username: John_aLondonU.K. Post Number: 3746 Registered: Dec-03 | Hubert, That is a wonderful post. Thank you. I withdraw my suggestion about the reason for the error. However, a crucial point is your question "I mean, think about it. If Virgin or any company tried to pay off reporters, wouldn't at least one SOB rat them out and create a scandal? " Suppose the control came down at an editorial level, and the SOB knew his job was on the line if he blew the whistle.... Stranger things have happened. I think I could give you concrete examples from both sides of the Atlantic, but had better not. You are quite right that journalists, like everyone else, make mistakes. The problem is that people assume they have researched their story. That is a reasonable assumption, and one the "hacks" encourage. As some newspaper proprietor once said: opinion is cheap; news is expensive. It is opinion masquerading as news that causes the problem, I think. |
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Silver Member Username: DiabloFylde Coast, England Post Number: 239 Registered: Dec-04 | Hubert - Is Audio Note flat earth? They're Brits, and tube-based, but awfully expensive and kind of fancy-pants. Maybe that's the opposite of the "bah humbug" flat earth approach? Then again they make those old-fashioned speakers... Gawd knows what they are. They seem a funny sort of company to me. If you click on their website and then select 'Audio Note Philosophy' and then 'Are You on the road to Audio Hell?', the essay there is endorsed by the Audio Note UK proprietor - it is definitely flat earth. The boss of Audio Note UK is Peter Qvortrup, who would be worthy of the title of English eccentric - apart from him being Danish! John A - The Ax/Zinman/ZTHO Beethoven piano Concerto No 3 is on BBC 2 tonight so one could see if Ax pauses to drink from the bottle labelled "Drink Me" .... I watched that. The sound seemed fairly well balanced. The playing was competent. The piano seemed moderately stable in size. I've deleted it from my DVR though, because it wasn't good enough. I still have a recording of Murray Perahia playing the same concerto from 25 years ago. The Perahia version is so much better, words fail me to describe how magically superior it is. Even my system, which contains absolutely no Naim/SET/Audio Note or other flat earth components, seems to recognise this and can deliver music of astounding 'musical' quality when given the appropriate input. It may be that some systems give more 'pace, rhythm and timing' than others, but I'm sure that there are vastly more differences coming from the actual performances..... Flat or round, I don't care as long as the goods get delivered! Regards, the temporarily musically satiated, diablo |
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Silver Member Username: Frank_abelaBerkshire UK Post Number: 846 Registered: Sep-04 | Audio Note - the words are flat earth (as are many of the round earth manufacturers), but I wouldn't say they actually are flat earth. I admire their products greatly, but their balance is more round earth than flat earth. As to cost, Audio Note have introduced many reasonably priced components and their entry level DIY amplifiers are an absolute steal! As to PR&T, it is not really a question of systems giving PR&T attributes to the music in question. It's a question of whether they let those attributes through, in the same way as a round earth system lets through the full tonality and soundstage of the piece. Regards, Frank. |
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