I have a SS amp 120 wpc of mid to med-hi quality. For now I have Klipsch RF-52 II / RC-52 II in a 3.1 setup (with an SW-310 sub I never use) I live in a condo and noise-control is a consideration.
What I like about the Klipsch Reference sound is the bass ha punch, detail and depth. The sound has good detail. The bright sound helps with classic rock and older lower-quality music.
What I dislike about my current setup is the soundfield is too small, the bright sound gets annoying over time and sounds awkward with new music and they're rear-ported.
I feel i'm ready for a speaker upgrade. I've listened to a long list of speakers and come to a few conclusions:
- I dislike the metal dome tweeters in all but the high-end gear that I cannot afford. The best sounding tweeters i've heard were silk domes. I prefer silk domes at the price point i'm considering. I think the materials are not what makes good sound - I mean I don't care about all the aluminum, titanium, berylium, kryptonite glow in the dark crapoleum hype just give me silk domes and paper cones in a well-designed product with quality crossovers and construction and i'll be happy
- 2-way and 2.5-way speakers sound as good and sometimes better than the 3-ways in the "affordable" price range. A 3-way tends to be brighter, have better midrange definition (mostly upper mids) and the bass ha more depth though not necessarily louder. The 2.5-way tends to have greater bass-midrange cohesion and a deeper voicing. It's a trade-off. My point is I personally see no point in paying a higher price for a 3-way if a 2.5-way is available in the same series. The only 3-ways that I liked were the ones with low bottom crossover points (250 Hz and below) - probably due to better cohesion - that seems to be important to me
- I'm having issues with standing waves. My RF-52 II are rear-ported. If I stuff socks in the ports the standing waves go away (along with half the bass). I realize that I could move the speakers out from the wall or treat the walls ... but if i'm going to buy new speakers it seems common sense to me to buy something that is not rear-ported. To me it's like you can move furniture in a Porsche convertible but it's so much easier to rent a moving truck. I'll pass on anything rear-ported.
So, based on my tastes in sound and my room considerations I decided the perfect speaker for me would be a 2.5-way with silk domes and woofer/mid-woofers at least 6.5" or larger in a front-ported box with low crossover points. I was hoping to stay below $2000 for the pair but willing to consider more.
I only found 3 speakers that fit that exactly:
Castle Conway 3 Canton GLE 470 Sonus Faber Venere 2.5
I also discovered a 3-way that as far as technical specs go seems like it would be a perfect fit for me as well: the Von Schweikert VR-4JR
I've heard the Venere 2.5 (and 3.0) and I love the sound. It reminded me of Avalon Ascendant with less bass depth - huge sound field - great imaging. I did a comparison of the sound of the 2.5 to Diamond 804 and the Venere 3.0 to the Diamond 803 and there was very little difference in the sound. The diamonds bass was a teeny bit deeper. The Venere was voiced deeper (which I like) the Diamonds were brighter. The highs were both excellent. The Venere has a larger sound field. Both were detailed and balanced. I preferred the sound of the Venere to the Diamond except for the depth of the bass.
I cannot hear Von Schweikert VR-4JR - they no longer make them - they're quite rare. I've not heard any of Albert Von Schweikert's speakers. I've heard Dave Wilson's speakers and I like the sound I wish they looked a little nicer that's a lot of $$$ to pay for something that looks like a file cabinet. But Wilson's speakers sound great. Do Albert's speakers sound as good as Dave's? Are they similar in sound?
The only way I could own VR-4JR would be to buy a pair on Audiogon blind having never heard them - and pay around $2000 plus shipping. The warranty is 10 years and is transferrable according to VSA - but i'm not going to bank on that. The ones i'm seeing are around 5 to 8 years old. I could send them to VSA and pay $895 for a "Mk II" upgrade - new drivers - so age and/or over-driving them would become irrelevant but that's more $$$ and time and effort.
For now i'm thinking my best choice is the Venere 2.5 - brand new - I can get them for $2000 today. I'm just hesitating - wondering if there's something else I should be listening to first.
What is the best speaker out there for this price range? The CM9 and Canton Vento are rear-ported. Paradigm Studio, PSB Image and Synchrony, Focal Chorus - the Venere sounds better.
What else should I listen to before I swipe my card for the Venere? Harbeth?
Is it possible to relocate Klipsch speakers? Speaker placement is a HUGH factor in how satisfying your speakers sound to you. You just might want to try that before paying $2000 for a new set. If you have a small room, a sub/sat combo might be a good idea.
If you locate your NEW speakers at the same place as the current Klipsch, you may have the same bass problem. I suspect you are at a bass 'node' in the location.
Please GOOGLE 'room mode calculator' and play around with it. If your room is a regular shape, enter the LxWxH and look at the result.
If you want help with the result, post back and maybe we can be of some help.
I'd suggest an experiment. UNPLUG the ports. Pull 'em WAY out into the room. But NOT 1/2 way. Try some music which originally had 'offensive' bass. Push 'em back toward the current setup position, maybe 4" at a time. Relisten.
I googled and used a room mode calculator. I'm not sure what it's telling me.
Anyway - i've had 4 loudspeaker models in this room all sitting in the same place same amp. The 2 that were front ported gave me nothing unusual in the bass. The 2 that were rear-ported gave me bass problems that are beyond anything i've ever heard. If I did not hear it myself I would not believe it. If I told you about it - forget it - you will not believe me. You will think I am exaggerating the hell out of the problem. It has to be at least 3 reflection points all coming together in a few places. It's occurring below 40Hz. I saw somewhere - Avalon website? - not sure where - but it said the distance between the 2 walls you're backing them up to - that times 2 - that wavelength is where most standing waves occur - for me that's 36Hz (14') which sounds about right.
With any loudspeakers it's normal to get more bass next to walls and in corners. I'm not expecting a flat response all around the room. But what i'm getting now is unbelievable.
I can pull the speakers out from the wall about 4 feet and the problem almost goes away. I was pulling the speakers out to listen to them and putting them back when finished. That got really old fast and the boxes became loose from being moved so much. Bad idea. I'm done with that - not going there again.
I can leave the speakers where they are - about 1 foot from the wall - and put socks in the rear-ports and the bass problems get much better too. It also takes a great amount of the depth from the bass response and I think it affects the timing of the drivers.
I gave the Venere 2.5 another audition - compared it to the Diamond 804 again - and i'm loving the creamy smooth sound of the Venere 2.5. I honestly prefer that sound to the Diamond 804. The secret to me is the 2 octaves between 160Hz and 640Hz - the upper bass and deep midrange. I love the sound of a speaker that is rich in the upper bass. To me it adds what I call "punch" and realism to the bass - add to it strong deep midrange and it seems to me to be as close to natural sound as you can get. There's just something magical about a good 2-way or 2.5-way that 3-ways lack - cohesion? I don't know. I just know I love that sound and I want it.
I hope you're wrong about the bass node. I had front-ported speakers in here for years and I don't remember ever having an issue with the bass. Did I ever listen to songs with deep enough bass to have the problem? I don't know. I was not even aware that such a problem could exist. I've never heard anything like this. It was not until I got rear-ported speakers in here that I started hearing it and it took me a while to figure out the rear-ports were the cause of the problem.
Anyway - thanks for the insight. I think I will get the Venere 2.5
When I ran my Magnepans FULL RANGE and the SUB crossover at about 45hz, the bass was muddy and indistinct in the bottom octave+ Since changing to a preamp with bass managment and doing a low-cut to the main speakers at about 60hz, all is well. I left the sub settings UNTOUCHED. I can now easily follow even a complex bass line and distinguish between standup bass and 'guitar' bass. Big Bass, like tympani drums are now dramatic, especially when turned UP�.no LOUDER!
Are you still running a sub WITH the main speakers? Do you have any way of changing the settings? Do you run with THX settings, which implies 80hz crossover to the sub? Are your main speakers 'large' or 'small', according to the controller?
I'll go over the room mode calculator, later. It is simply used as a tool to see how many and WHAT frequencies are reinforced thru reflection. More is worse. The idea is that you have 2, 3, and 4 wall 'bounces', which go down in severity as the number of bounces rises. But, you have 3x 2 wall bounces. Long, Wide and 'up/down'. Read the output while visualizing the waves bouncing back and forth in your room.
My amp is 19 years old - pre-dates digital and bass management. It has a subwoofer output - full signal. I keep the frequency dial on the sub all the way down - 40Hz. So it extends my fronts adding just the subcontra octave as needed. I never use it for music. There's only maybe 20 songs in my whole collection that have notes low enough to need it. I use it for home theater if at all - most of the time I keep the sub turned off. I feel like it probably annoys my neighbors more than its worth to me in extra kaboom.
I have had an amp in here that had bass management and it did solve my bass problems. That was one of the pluses for buying a new amp with bass management. That amp was so much lower in sound quality to the amp I have now that I sent it back. You are right - bass management can solve my problem - I just don't have it. I'm not interested in a new amp right now. Certainly not just to fix this bass problem. I think I can get more for my money on better speakers.
I did it. I bought the Venere 3.0 - black. They're much bigger than I thought once I got them into my place.
I only had time to listen to a few songs this morning before heading to work. My immediate impression of the sound was that it was quite flat and unremarkable. Of course the most expensive speakers i've ever auditioned struck me as extraordinarily plain. I have to repeat the word neutral a few times in my head to remind myself that the perfect loudspeaker will always be nothing more and nothing less than what you feed it. The songs I was playing were retro 70s - music that is relatively quite plain - and most likely should sound that way unless altered by something somewhere. My ears have been trained to listen to the over-bright extra-punchy warm and loud Klipsch Reference sound. So a clean Sonus Faber sound would be - should be - had better be noticeably tamer and smoother. It is. What's interesting is that even though I knew the sound was going to be less colorful than that to which I have become accustomed - I still expected some sort of magical sound - something extraordinary - something remarkable to stand out as a hallmark of the higher quality sound that we tend to expect from anything with a higher price tag hanging on it. I knew better but yet still had an unexplainable disappointment with the blandness of hearing the more natural sound i've been searching for. I'm quite certain these speakers will require a long break-in. I've heard they suck until fully broken-in - moreso than most speakers. I wish they had a little plastic stick that will pop up when they're "done" and broken-in the way a Thanksgiving turkey does in the oven when it reaches the "done" temperature in the very middle. We'll see (hear actually). More later - but I did get one song going on the 90s channel - something with a hip-hop beat in it - it had some deep bass notes - I walked around - sat in "the spot" where the bass usually sounds like I have 6 large subwoofers maxed out - and I heard nothing uneven or unusual in the bass range. I did notice the bass lacked depth - far more than I was expecting - compared to my Klipsch Reference with their massive 5.25" woofers. I may cancel my plans to get rid of my subwoofers as part of this upgrade. We'll see (hear). More later.
Speaker break in is one of those 'third rail' issues in hi-fi. Me? I'm on the side of speakers breaking in within less than an hour of play. With the rare exception of difficult caps. So, what 'breaks in', after all? YOU DO. as you get accustomed to the 'new sound'.
Sales guys, who started the 'It NEEDS 500 HOURS' or some such wacky amount of time are more than aware that if you don't like it after THAT long, you'll sell and move 'up' the food chain or have readjusted your hearing reference to call the 'new' speaker 'IT'.
Other users also bought into the break in thing. They 'heard' changes over time and rather than thinking they changed (my hearing is FINE, thank you!) decided the SPEAKER or (fill in blank) changed.
It may be argued that speakers being the MOST mechanical of components may need the most break in. Certainly I've not heard people beefing about the Disc Spinner needing 'more time to sound right', though many of the same arguements apply to cartridges, too.
Now, on to 'newer' preamps. My Parasound is considered, perhaps, entry level. It is full featured, however, with 3x digital inputs, Tone Controls (defeat able) and balanced ins / outs. It also has defeatable bass management. I can run the sub out (2 mono outs AND a balanced out) either full range or low-pass) I can run the stereo outs (balanced or single ended) as high pass or full range. Nice. Single ended output is a Very Low 100 ohms! This means you'd have to LOOK to find an amp with too low an input impedance for this to make sense. I now have a Very Flexible preamp. I can add a 2nd sub, if I was THAT kind of nuts. I run ONE single ended to each amp, and use the amps internal in/out splitter to 'clone' the signal to the other channel, so I can easily biamp my panels. And since the panels, even full-range, run out of steam mid-40s, the sub has real work to do for music as well as HT duties.
Post back when you've got the next level of experiments done and you've started messing with physical setup. TAKE NOTES as you go.
issue 1 - I bought the Venere 2.5 - they delivered 3.0 - an open box pair. I was pissed when they brought in a bubble-wrapped pair - no boxes - and said they were open box. Looked fine. Then I realized they were the 3.0 and not the 2.5 I paid for - difference of around $900. So I started thinking I got lucky. But I never really auditioned the 3.0 - i mean I listened to them - but not really - I did the 2.5 mostly - and all I remember is that the 3.0 had stronger and deeper bass and was voiced brighter. My amp is a little on the bright side so I was afraid the 3.0 would be too bright. So far the 3.0 - in my place - does not seem very bright at all and the bass is really weak. It scares me to think what the 2.5 would sound like after hearing these. for now I feel like if I do not like the 3.0 it's not likely I would like the 2.5 so i'm not calling them to complain about the delivery mistake - not yet - but I eventually have to - the product in my possession doesn't match the receipt I have. warranty repairs? what if I want to sell these things later on - I have no boxes for them. yes it's a deal but not all that much of a deal.
issue 2 - i'm not noticing anything unusual about the bass with the Venere 3.0 as far as the standing waves problem I was dealing with (what I was getting from the RF-52). Sure the bass gets a bit louder when i'm next to walls - that's always going to happen. But there's nothing jumping out at me as strange. If I understand you correctly - you were suggesting that the room itself and the position of the speakers could be the cause of the standing waves - just making me aware that front-ported speakers could have the same problems in the same spot. I've been thinking about that. If I put my subwoofer in the same spot as my speakers and play the problem songs I should get the same thing I was getting with my RF-52 - right? worse actually - the sub can crank out more deep stuff than the RF-52. I tried that and I did get some boominess to the bass but it was nothing like what I was getting with the RF-52. With the sub I get notes around D0 - D# 0 - around 36/38 Hz that are 50 to 80% louder than notes a few keys away. There is definitely some buildup related to the room dimensions going on. With the RF-52 II in that same spot those same notes are 400 to 600% louder. I do not expect you to believe me - if I didn't hear it myself I would not believe it either. It's crazy enough that I do not sit here and listen to music. ever. I can put socks in the rear ports and the bass goes back to what I call normal - still not even - just not crazy. I think the rear ports on those speakers are tuned to 36Hz. And they work really well. Those speakers send twice as much deep bass out the back as they do out the front side.
issue 3 - to answer Jan - yes. my expectation was that I could put the gold level speakers on the silver level amp and it would sound better than it did with the silver level speakers. Then one day later i'd replace the silver level amp with a gold level amp and it would sound better again. It would have a gold system sound. I do not expect a gold system sound without the gold amp. But I do expect $3500 speakers to sound better than $750 speakers on any amp. I auditioned the Venere on a variety of amps - Peachtree - i'm pretty sure that's a tube pre-amp class D amp - a McIntosh tube - McIntosh monos - all better than what I have now for sure - and a Denon class AB SS price tag under $600 that I seriously doubt is any better than what I have now - i'm pushing 120 wpc which is equivalent to 200 wpc in todays amps. I can't believe the bass is weak because I lack power. I think it's what i've become adjusted to. It'll take time for me to adjust.
issue 4 - I can't decide whether I like them or not. And that alone makes me think they're not the right ones for me. I imagine that if I spend that kind of $$$ for audio I should be thrilled with it. I realize it would sound better if I had a better amp. I refuse to believe that an amp alone would make all that much of a difference in here - no more than it made at the audio shop.
The sound - On some songs they sound wonderful - by far the best sound i've ever heard in here - or anywhere - ever. Wow. On my higher quality recordings it is SCARY how real it sounds. The speakers totally disappear. I feel like i'm there in a way i've never heard before. i've heard some really good audio systems before but auditioning in a store is not the same as sitting in the privacy of my own home and listening to what I want to. this is incredible. i'm blown away on some music. but on other songs it sounds downright weird. the bass is much weaker than I was expecting. the bass gets distorted on songs with deep bass. speakers should omit that which they cannot play. that's what the RF-52 II do. the Venere seem to lose control below 80Hz. I can use a sub to fill in the bottom but a sub cannot take away distortion. Ideally - if i'm going to spend this kind of cash I the speakers have to be good enough that it will be like my car - something I love and am happy with - not something I want to upgrade or something with issues that annoy me. The next logical step would be to get a reasonably priced, low-powered tube amp and run it with my current SS in a horizontal bi-amp configuration. That should be a pretty darn good system for the $$$ IMO. Does that sound reasonable?
issue 5 - I believe in break-in - i've heard speakers change over time more than once before. was it all in my head? maybe. I remember I did not fall in love with my car audio at first. Within weeks I was in love with the sound - so much that i've been obsessed with finding something close to it for my home (that car will eventually have to be replaced). I'm not that picky. I spent $200 for speakers for my car. Not $20,000. Not even $2000. $200. My car radio has Toyota written on it. And I love that audio system. I've gotten countless hours of enjoyment listening to it. I still can't find anything for my home that's anywhere near it at a price i'm willing to pay. I'm quite certain that McIntosh monoblocks driving Diamond 802 would be as good and probably better. I refuse to believe that I have to spend more $$$ than I spent on my car just to get an audio system as good as what's in my car. Anyway - the more I listen to the Venere the more I like them. Are they breaking in? I don't know. They're open boxes. Am I getting broken-in to them? Yes. It takes time. At some point I think I need to go get the old RF-52 II / RC-52 II and stick them back over there and see just how good they sound now after listening to the Venere 3.0 / Center for a week. If the Venere are worth the $$$ then I should want to get back to them ASAP. If I want to keep the bright, punchy beaming at you Klipsch sound at that point then maybe that's the sound for me. At least then I can forget about the high-end stuff and not waste mine or anyone else's time flirting with it. I hope I have one more pair of white socks in my drawer come next weekend.
It's not necessarily the LOUDNESS of the bass, but the frequency. That's why I wanted you to look at 'room mode calculator' and try to understand that when you get multiple 'bounces' (2, 3 and 4 wall) at the SAME frequency, you WILL have problems.
The RF-52 could simply have a bass 'peak' at a frequency which ALSO happens to be one of your 'peak' response points. The room mode calculator may help figure THAT out, too.
I had the WORLDS cheapest car stereo in my '83 Accord. Maybe 6 watts TOTAL and 4" speakers in the front door. It was JUNK. But, it sounded Terrific with the FIRST cassettes I made from the few CDs I bought. So good in fact, that the goofy kid next door, who had spent a BUNDLE on car stereo liked my stuff better. He was getting suicidal so I relented and showed him my 'secret'. For a couple months, I had cassettes in circulation and may have been responsible for the purchase of a half-dozen CD players. The help to everyones sound was that dramatic. Cheap stuff like in my Accord benefited every bit as much as more expensive stuff like my buddy had in his 'Z'.
Do NOT biamp with different amps. You'll regret it in direct proportion to how different the GAIN of each amp is. Trust me. If you want to biamp, start with 'what is the crossover frequency'? That will give you some idea of the ratio of power needed above / below the crossover. My panels, for example, are crossed at 600hz. This is VERY near the 50:50 point so I bought a PAIR of stereo amps. Done Deal. And with the offloading of bass to the sub and from the mains, that makes it even better.
Now, the CAR and HOUSE are completely different spaces. Your house could be anything from 1000 cubic feet UP. Make that 10x12x8. MUCH larger than any car inside, not to mention the difference in materials, reflectivity and ROAD NOISE.
You're scattershotting this and may never reach sonic nirvana except as an act of sheer, desperate LUCK.
You're right about that. The car is a very different animal than the house. Car audio doesn't have to concern itself so much with dispersion or room acoustics. We just blast sound at ourselves loud enough to overcome the background noise. And the fact that I have an audio system in my car that I absolutely love is pure luck. I realize that.
I'm trying to have more than luck with the home system it's just that stuff sounds so much different in my place than it does at the audio shop. That's one thing Bob Carver got right.
I'll listen to the Venere for a few more days. I'll switch back to the RF-52 II and see - I miss them - I miss the Venere - which one wins. If I go back to the RF-52 then i'm done with audio as long as the gear I have now still plays. Because that will tell me that the high-end speakers are pointless without the high-end everything else - something i've suspected all along. If/when that old amp finally dies i'll go get the whole new system - ideally a step up.
If the Venere win this contest then a new amp down the road is the next logical step - or whatever. i'll cross that bridge...
What's crazy to me is that my wife - the woman I had to fight for hours to get the Venere's - has fallen in love with them now. She's the one who loves them. So if I do send them back i'll have to fight my wife to do it. Unfrickinbelievable.
"i'm pushing 120 wpc which is equivalent to 200 wpc in todays amps."
Bullsh*t. Did you tell the salesperson that? Did you discuss your theory of gold and silver sound with the salesperson? Was the salesperson old enough to even know what a 19 year old JVC A/V receiver was? Where it fit on the subjective quality scale in its day?
What did they say about your theory of system building? They obviously let you go ahead and spend your money.
What's your current source player? Is it at least a "silver"?
You didn't ask why the store gave you $900 more expensive speakers and didn't ask for more money? You didn't ask why you weren't getting what you ordered and paid for and you and the store had agreed upon you wanting? You didn't ask?
" I can't believe the bass is weak because I lack power."
You refuse to believe a lot of what you don't care to believe, Rocker.
" I refuse to believe that an amp alone would make all that much of a difference in here ... "
What's the minimum impedance point and at what frequency? What's the electrical phase angle at that same frequency? "Watts" are not "power". I thought we went through all that several years ago.
Did anyone at the store ask what amp you intended to use with these speakers? Did they ask what you wanted from a speaker's sound? Or, was it just you didn't want a rear ported speaker? And they went ahead and let you buy the Sonus Fabers? They actually gave you "bigger" and "better" speakers than you paid for knowing the amp you had? And, you didn't ask why?
I'm basing the 120wpc then = 200wpc now theory on what i've heard lots of people say about todays amps. I do not know this to be true. But many people on this board and others have said that todays amps (the class AB home-theater - made in China - what I assume is the modern-day equivalent of what i've got) do not put out the power they're rated. But forget that. Irrelevant. I have 120 wpc. That is enough power to drive these speakers. I'm marking "need a more powerful amp" off the list. Are you disagreeing with that?
No the sales person at every audio store i've visited for quite some time are all young enough to be my kids. What am I supposed to do about that? Are you saying that i'm looking for an old-school sound that's hard to find nowadays? That an old salesman will understand better what i'm looking for? Ok.
I cannot remember everything I told every sales person or what all we discussed. I do remember listening to the Sonus Fabers (along with many other speakers) on a variety of amps - trying to get a feel for how much of a difference the amp makes. I told all the salesmen who asked that I had an old-as-you-are class AB that somehow still works and is probably closest to something like that as far as sound matching (I point to the $500 range class AB home-theater receiver). The sales guy always wants to play the McIntosh tube amp to demo the good stuff which includes the Sonus Faber. I listened to that and then asked him to use an amp more like what I have at home for the SF - so we did most of our listening with a Denon that costs just under $600. What amp do you think we should have used? The PeachTree and the class A tube sounded better. Of course. The bass was stronger on the Denon than it was on the tube - which did not surprise me. What did surprise me is the PeachTree class D sounded as good as the tube amp - at least on those songs and on the Sonus Faber. I really did not see a huge difference between the amps. I auditioned the Venere 3 times. The final time I put the speakers up to the wall about 6 feet apart with little toe-in and sat where I would be sitting at home - this was as close to home as I could get it. We listened to my CD collection on the Denon AVR and low volume - like what I would do at home. I don't remember thinking anything about the bass being weak just that it lacked depth. The 3.0 did not lack depth the way the 2.5 did. I was thinking my smaller room would push up the bass some and a sub can fill in the bottom as needed. It's the kind of thing consumers often tell themselves when they're trying to talk themselves into buying something. I probably did some of that but I don't remember weak bass being something I was willing to overlook. Not at that price.
I listened to you tell me over and over that my old JVC Super-A amp is total crap. So I bought a new Yamaha AVR and tried it. The old JVC sounded much better - at least on my Klipsch reference speakers. I brought a few others home to compare and concluded that at least on my Klipsch reference speakers that old JVC is actually quite good for a home-theater class AB amp. I never said it was a high-end amp. I said - based on my comparisons - that it was as good and likely better than the average, under $1000 class AB, made in China, home-theater AVR all the audio shops are selling to the "affordable audio" consumers. That is the type of amp I listened to at the audio shop when deciding on the Venere. What amp should I have listened to? What are you driving at? That I should chunk the old JVC as a first step? That I should buy a high-end amp before even thinking about high-end speakers? I've heard a variety of opinions in that area. Based on what i've heard some speakers and amps match up really well and others do not - the only truly reliable methodology is to pair them up and listen and decide. Apparently your opinion is that I should have known I was wasting everyone's time even thinking about pairing anything of any quality with my old JVC crappy amp. Right? If you're right I apologize. Some of the sales guys said the Veneres work well with any amp including the cheap ones. Other sales guys said I need a tube amp to get my money's worth out of them. I think they're both right.
I never said anything about rear-ported I just did not express interest in anything rear-ported. My bass problem is not likely just rear-ports. I know that. But give me a break. I know for a fact the rear ports on my speakers are a major contributor to the problem - I can sock those ports and the bass problems decrease exponentially. So if i'm going to spend thousands on new speakers why in the hell would I buy rear-ported speakers? There are lots of good speakers on this planet that are not rear-ported - why not buy one of those?
Did they ask me what I wanted from a speakers sound? No. I analyzed the sound of my car system and home system and what's missing from a technical level and decided ... to not do that anymore. YOU told me that was a bad approach. YOU told me to just go and listen and let my ears tell me what to do. I did that. And the only thing that I really liked was the high-end stuff. The Venere's sounded pretty darn close. I still did some technical justification in my own mind - I cannot not do that - but it was the sound that got me. Did the salesman say no you don't really like what you think you like you really want to buy this over here. No - and if he did I would have walked out. I liked the Venere. He did his job and sold me the Venere.
Like I said - the delivery guys brought me an open-box pair of 3.0 - they were gone by time I realized it. They were in and out in a blink and I was focused on making sure there were no scratches or dings and that the things played. After they left I decided this gives me the opportunity to audition the 3.0 - I want to decide whether I would prefer to keep the 3.0 or get the 2.5 - so when I do go by to complain about the mistake I will either push to keep what I have or push to get what I paid for - either way I want my receipt to match what I have. Exactly how is this my fault? Why are you giving me attitude over this anyway? Some delivery guy - think Dire Straits "money for nothin and your chicks for free" - screwed up and gave me the wrong thing. I can easily fix it. First I want to decide what fix i'm going to push for. No - the salesman did not send me the bigger better speaker as some big conspiracy and no this has nothing to do with Hangar 52 either.
Aren't you the guy that I spent like 3 months trying to explain what an analog connection is - and failed - and eventually gave up?
The minimum impedance point on the 3.0 - not sure - I read somewhere in a review - only found 4 - it was around 160Hz - below the 180Hz roll-off of the bottom woofer - and was 3.8 Ohms - I did pay attention to that. My old amp is not made for today's low impedance speakers. My Klipsch speakers have a minimum impedance - I have this saved off somewhere - lower than the SF - I can't remember the frequency. Electrical phase angle at that frequency? So let me get this straight - we're all a bunch of morons because I did not find a salesman old enough and smart enough to understand the impact of the electrical phase angle at the lowest impedance frequency of the speakers I wanted to buy relative to my ancient amp? A "real" salesman would know that right? And an intelligent shopper would most certainly know to look for a salesman with this knowledge. Ok. Sure. I'll remember that next time I buy anything. Thanks Jan.
I swapped subs this morning. I was using a JBL ES150 - 10" "woofer in a box" front-firing bottom-ported box style sub. It's an average low-cost sub that retails for around $500 that I got for $150. It was not matching well with the Sonus Faber Venere 3.0
I swapped in a Klipsch Reference SW-310 sub instead. It's a 10" - 900W "power cube" style sub. It has strong dampening on the main front-facing driver - no ports but passive radiators on both sides. It's a fairly clean sub.
The SW-310 matches very well with the Sonus Faber Venere. That system sounded great this morning. With the JBL sub the bass was boomy and indistinct. With no sub at all the bass was empty below 80Hz. On songs requiring musicality in that range often it was distorted.
With the SW-310 - dialed to 60Hz - it sounded much fuller - very musical. I played a few of the songs that were revealing distortion in the lower notes and that distortion was still there - of course - the final product being a little disappointing.
These speakers sound stunning for pianos. They're good with instrumental and vocal music. They're probably best suited for listeners of music that doesn't demand much below 60Hz. An amp with bass management features that can subtract the bass below 60Hz and send it to a sub is probably what you want for music that does.
"Like I said - the delivery guys brought me an open-box pair of 3.0 - they were gone by time I realized it. They were in and out in a blink and I was focused on making sure there were no scratches or dings and that the things played. After they left I decided this gives me the opportunity to audition the 3.0 - I want to decide whether I would prefer to keep the 3.0 or get the 2.5 - so when I do go by to complain about the mistake I will either push to keep what I have or push to get what I paid for - either way I want my receipt to match what I have. Exactly how is this my fault? Why are you giving me attitude over this anyway? Some delivery guy - think Dire Straits "money for nothin and your chicks for free" - screwed up and gave me the wrong thing. I can easily fix it. First I want to decide what fix i'm going to push for. No - the salesman did not send me the bigger better speaker as some big conspiracy and no this has nothing to do with Hangar 52 either."
Leo, explain to Rocker what a "white van speaker" is and how it's sold. I'm too busy laughing my butt off.
This is like the insurance commercial where the two guys are trying to break into the other company's vault. Both of them end up falling through the hole and dangling from their own rope.
Watching it all on a video feed, one insurance rep says, "Should we call security?"
Flo's response? "Naw, this is just gettin' good."
In your case, Rocker, it just keeps getting "better".
"Aren't you the guy that I spent like 3 months trying to explain what an analog connection is - and failed - and eventually gave up? "
I'll give you an answer on that one, Rocker. Later. For now, just pay attention to leo's 'splanation of how there's "no conspiracy" going on with your "get lucky" speakers. People, particularly people in business to make a profit, do not just give away $900 worth of equipment you haven't paid for. And, if they do because some money for nuthin delivery guy "screws up", they do call and see what they can work out to get their gear back and still keep you happy. They don't just write off a $900 loss for that day. Don't ya think?!
I'm guessing you haven't heard anything from the salesperson or the store, eh? That doesn't seem strange to you? At the very least, you drop several thousand dollars with this store and no one calls to check with you? To make sure you're happy? That you're not thinking about returning the speakers? And they can cash your check? But you've heard nothing? Not even the store manager/owner has called? The delivery guy hasn't called to explain his screw up? What? you think no one has noticed the 3.0's are missing from the warehouse?
This is the best entertainment this forum has had in months.
"The sales guy always wants to play the McIntosh tube amp to demo the good stuff which includes the Sonus Faber."
I gotta say, that's priceless, just frickin' priceless. You have no clue why that is, eh? And you just can't see the difference between your JVC receiver and a McIntosh power amp?
"Electrical phase angle at that frequency? So let me get this straight - we're all a bunch of morons because I did not find a salesman old enough and smart enough to understand the impact of the electrical phase angle at the lowest impedance frequency of the speakers I wanted to buy relative to my ancient amp?"
I never even implied WE ARE ALL morons, Rocker.
" A 'real' salesman would know that right? And an intelligent shopper would most certainly know to look for a salesman with this knowledge. Ok. Sure. I'll remember that next time I buy anything. Thanks Jan."
What did this kid's business card say? He was a box pusher? Or, an "audio consultant". 'Cause if it claimed the latter, you may have grounds for a misrepresentation suit.
You don't have to thank me, Rocker. Even if you did, you'd be back in a few months claiming I was the source of all of your problems. Again.
"Aren't you the guy that I spent like 3 months trying to explain what an analog connection is - and failed - and eventually gave up? "
As I recall those weeks, I was trying to get it in your thick head that two discrete analog channels in cannot create three discrete channels out. https://www.ecoustics.com/electronics/forum/home-audio/710267.html#POST2002535
You suffer, and will continue to suffer, from the mistaken belief that what you want to believe will automatically become reality. Yet, what you believe is; 1) a physical impossibility, 2) electrically incompatible if not laughably moronic, 3) ancient thinking that hasn't been useful since the 1960's, 4) not at all well thought out because you begin with totally incorrect thinking, 5) simplified to the point of ridiculousness and, 6) that everyone else is responsible for your own self created problems.
You refuse to accept what guidance you have been afforded on this forum even when no one - I repeat, "NO ONE" - on this forum has agreed with you on several basic issues. You have acted impertinently out of frustration with your own lack of knowledge and simply dug yourself into a deeper hole and then complained about your situation. You assign cause and effect to whatever meets your fancy at the moment rather than learning facts which might assist you in making better choices and getting better results.
For example: your Klipsch speakers have rear ports and your sound has problems in the bass region. Your receiver does not have the ability to deal with low impedance loads, which you claim to realize. Yet, you blame the rear ports for your bass problems, as if all rear ported speakers and all ports were created equal, and continue to think your JVC receiver can perform at a level which is an impossibility when mated to the load you have decided it should drive. D@mn! the facts and d@mn the electrical laws which predict it won't work, you know better. Screw Ohm's Law! What did he know about your JVC Super A receiver?
You stuff socks in your speakers' ports and think this is somehow different than stuffing the supplied foam plugs in those same ports. The speaker is no longer a properly designed ported system yet you prefer to think a change in bass is due to the position of the speaker's port relative to the front wall. You do no further research or thinking and continue to illogically dismiss rear ported speakers despite the advice provided by this forum. You ask for assistance and when it is given you blithely ignore it and make up your own reasoning which will suit your limited knowledge and your unwillingness to either accept reality or live within the boundaries of reality. You act on impulse and then complain about the lousy results.
When I saw your post a few weeks ago, I was astounded you would have the b@lls to show back up on this forum, Rocker. You obviously are as oblivious to how much of an @ss you made of yourself the last time or you are just so aware of what @ss you are that you didn't want to start over on another forum. But here you are, making more stupid decisions which are not based upon any advice you've been given here and not taking your time to do your homework which would have explained a little about what that salesperson should have been asking and how you should have been thinking.
"Some of the sales guys said the Veneres work well with any amp including the cheap ones. Other sales guys said I need a tube amp to get my money's worth out of them. I think they're both right."
You wouldn't have been willing to take no for an answer if the salespeople had tried to help you but you are perfectly willing to take yes for an answer when you want to buy something. If you had paid for a new truck and then found out it didn't fit in your garage (let's assume you actually took delivery of what you paid for for now, eh?), I can't imagine what your reason would be for this or who you would blame for the f*ck up. There would have been several obvious reasons the truck didn't fit in the garage you already had but you would have ignored them because your logic would have told you whatever you buy should work ... just because you think it should.
I'm absolutely positive you have no logically valid reason for thinking both those responses might be correct. Or for why they both might be total BS. You liked the speakers under your bizarre audition situations and you bought them. Well, you bought "some" speakers. You didn't get the speakers you actually paid for but you rationalized away your greed at getting something for nothing and, as a result of all your other mistakes and missteps, you still have something that for any amount of money needs help. There's bass distortion and you want to blame the "something for nothing" speakers. You are a peach, Rocker. You didn't call the shop yourself after you realized the "mistake". No, you thought you "were getting lucky" so you kept your mouth shut. Why?! They delivered the wrong speakers for godssake!!! You would have called if they had delivered speakers that cost less than what you paid, wouldn't you? You wouldn't have thought that was "an opportunity" to audition the cheaper speakers, would you? I don't think they delivered "white van speakers", Rocker, but the entire story is exactly how people create their own problems based upon their own greed and overwhelming stupidity. I would love to hear the conversation if you try to return these speakers after this amount of time and you try to explain how it was all the delivery guy's mistake and you are the innocent victim of that mistake. That no one from the store has called to even check in on how you're doing with your new speakers sort of says you and this shop were made for each other.
Now, paired again with a receiver that in your own words "is not made for today's low impedance speakers", you just can't get it in your head that amplifiers do matter. Or that what you put into a high end speaker is likely to be what you get out. What's your source player again? So, in your way of thinking, the answer is to pair the speakers with crappy subwoofers and think that Bandaid won't come off. That's you, Rocker, to a "T".
"So let me get this straight - we're all a bunch of morons because I did not find a salesman old enough and smart enough to understand the impact of the electrical phase angle at the lowest impedance frequency of the speakers I wanted to buy relative to my ancient amp? A "real" salesman would know that right? And an intelligent shopper would most certainly know to look for a salesman with this knowledge."
There's a very limited supply of "moron" to go around here, Rocker. You and the salesperson seem to have used it all up so there's none left for the rest of us. But, yes to all the rest of your post. Audio is in a pretty sad state at this time and idiots such as your numbnuts kid shouldn't be allowed to be on the sales floor, but they are. And, if you don't want to be taken in by your own stupidity and greed, you should take some time and make some effort towards becoming a knowledgeable consumer. No one even asked you what you were looking for in a speaker? That should have been your first tip off that you weren't going to get help from anyone who has no sales training whatsoever. Though, I can see you being the customer who just wants to dominate the sales process because you think you have this all figured out and the salespeople are only there to screw with your decisions. Whenever I met "you" on the sales floor, Rocker, I just stepped back and let you make an idiot of yourself. And, just as you have here, your sort usually did just that. I couldn't help you if I tried because you didn't want assistance. You wanted to do some cockamaimee demonstration that proved nothing while ignoring any advice to the contrary. You wanted me to be your servant all the while ignoring any advice that was being given. Advice like, we demonstrate high end speakers paired with high end equipment for a reason.
"What amp do you think we should have used? The PeachTree and the class A tube sounded better. Of course. The bass was stronger on the Denon than it was on the tube - which did not surprise me. What did surprise me is the PeachTree class D sounded as good as the tube amp - at least on those songs and on the Sonus Faber. I really did not see a huge difference between the amps."
What amp should you have used? I don't know and I don't care at all. The point is you've already said your amp isn't well suited to a low impedance speaker load so as long as you are going to buy whatever speaker you want, it doesn't much matter because most amps today are far better at driving low impedance loads than your amp is. But you don't know why that is, do you? You don't know what "power" actually is so you make up something in your head that makes your old JVC nearly twice as powerful as anything that's available today. You don't know why it would be, do you? And, to be sure, it definitely is not. It was low end junk 19 years ago and it's lower end junk now. You haven't even mentioned using the equalizer on the JVC to try to fix your problems. I would have thought that would have been your first response. But you've read something that suits your purposes so you make up whatever you need to so you are satisfied. And that's exactly what you have done since day one of your entrance onto this forum, Rocker. You take words of advice which are honestly trying to save you from yourself and you put them in some sort of mental Cuisinart processor that is your brain and what comes out doesn't in any way resemble what went in. And you run with it. And you get yourself in deeper and deeper trouble.
Rocker, I was considering trying once more to help you. Then I came to, "Aren't you the guy that I spent like 3 months trying to explain what an analog connection is - and failed - and eventually gave up?" , and everything I disliked about dealing with you the first time came back to me. You don't want help, you want someone to spend time with, sort of thinking, if you hang out with the smart kids, you'll be smart too. You obviously will never learn because you are unwilling and possibly unable to learn. You've made this mess, spent lots of money and wasted lots of people's time doing so. At the moment I'm just watching and reading and laughing my butt off. Until you change, Rocker, nothing else about this situation is going to change either. Leo said you were scattershoting this. I'd say you are spitballing this 'cause what you're doing doesn't even rise to the level of really doing anything about the situation. Could you possibly find something suitable out of sheer luck? IMO, not a chance. You think you think too much and, I promise you, you won't ever get anywhere with how little you think right now.
I'll just watch for awhile longer, Rocker. Proceed. This is getting better with every post. What'ja gonna do next?
Jan, for someone who has the knowledge you claim to have it is sad that you cannot find a way to be more helpful. You don't listen to people.
I thought a forum like this was a place to learn. I thought I could ask questions and bounce ideas off of people. I've had just such an experience on many forums addressing many subjects. But on this forum I keep running into you. And you insist on flaming me.
Not only are you rude. It's very unprofessional and downright childish. This is the kind of behavior you see from spoiled grade school kids and young adults of low intelligence. For a man of your age it is not only surprising but a little alarming.
Is this your forum? Did you and jazzy and leo all pitch in on this website as a way of generating some ad revenue? I can't think of any other reason why a man your age would sit around flaming people on audio forums. You're frustrated that you can't get the forum to become a library of information the way you want it? Stop taking your frustration out on me.
Set up fake users and post the questions you want asked and have the conversations you want - with yourself - but as the different users you set up. That's part of getting a new forum filled with the keywords you want Google to find so people find your site when they look for info ...
If this is the case - and you clearly do not want me on your forum - just say so. I will not waste another second of your time nor mine.
If you're going to flame everyone that disagrees with you or refuses to take your advice then you'll be flaming more people than you'll be helping.
If this is not your forum then either find a way to be constructive or get off my thread. I am not going to sit here and argue like a child with you nor am I going to agree with every suggestion you make.
" If this is not your forum then either find a way to be constructive or get off my thread."
LOL!!!
Think about that statement for just a moment, Rocker. You don't think this is "my" forum. But you do think this is "your" thread.
Guy, that is typical "Rocker thinking".
You insult me one more time ... several, actually - and then berate me for not being more "constructive". "Constructive" meaning what, Rocker? Help you pull your @ss out of this sling you've put it in? Great form, guy, insult someone multiple times then ask for their help.
Pure "Rocker".
I ask you what your next step will be and you tell me how you would run this forum if you met someone like yourself. I have no doubts what you described is exactly how you would run this forum.
This is a public forum, Rocker. I don't own it and I don't have any say in how it's run. Neither do you. We are both guests here. The difference, as I see it, is that I have been here for about a dozen years and I've seen my fair share of "Rockers" come and go through this forum. I've worked on a sales floor for decades where I met my fair share of "Rockers". Unfortunately, you are not all that unique when it comes down to being waaaaay over your head with audio. Or with not taking the time to help yourself be a better, more informed, more patient and more successful buyer. Not unique at all.
Would you have called the store had they delivered less expensive speakers? Would you have seen less expensive speakers as "an opportunity" to audition a real world speaker in your home with your receiver? Answer those two questions honestly, Rocker, and you'll possibly see why I am - as you say - giving you "attitude". I've seen your type many times over the years, Rocker, and I've yet to meet a "Rocker" who would have made that call. I've talked to too many people who took advantage of the "wrong speakers" being put on the van that I know how your brain works when it is being offered "something for nothing". And I know from experience, they are the sort of people who just keep making the same stupid mistakes. Just like you are doing, Rocker.
There's not a word of what I posted above that I won't stand behind and say again because you obviously haven't absorbed a word of it. What I posted was actually meant to be constructive since nothing about your situation is going to change until you change. Nothing is going to get better until you make an effort to create a situation which actively promotes better results. You do not listen to the advice you've been given. In this very thread you were advised to take a look at a room calculator. It was suggested smaller speakers and a sub might be a better solution to your bass problems. Or possibly moving the speakers. I assume the advice was provided because you had made up your mind your bass problems with the Klipsch were a function of standing waves. More than likely, they weren't, but that's a completely different matter right now. Rather than take the time to analyze the advice you were provided, what did you do? You ignored it and you bought some expensive speakers by the next day. Why did you bother asking if you are not going to take the advice someone offers? Why? Why are you here, Rocker, if what we say doesn't matter to you?
You say you know - YOU KNOW! - your POS receiver isn't suited to low impedance speaker loads. Yet you continue to by speakers with a low impedance!!! Why? Explain that, Rocker, and you might just begin to see why I went off on you. Like the red neck comedians say, you can't fix stupid. And, in your case, Rocker, you are showing definite signs of being terminally stupid. No one can help you until you change what you think, how you think and what you do in response to your misguided and impetuous nature.
THAT IS "CONSTRUCTIVE" ADVICE, Rocker. You are your own worst enemy. Either you change how you go about this or there's no reason for anyone to take any more time with you. I have no desire to make any effort to help someone who won't help themself. I certainly have no desire to try to help someone who won't take any advice and wants to tell me I am wrong after they have screwed up their system.
I don't even know why this thread exists. You claimed you were "perfectly happy" with your results from the last thread. Even though the bass s*cked then too. Now you have a little money and you thought you'd throw it at a problem you knew existed. You knew "the soundfield is too small, the bright sound gets annoying over time and sounds awkward with new music and they're rear-ported."
"And they're rear ported"!
You never took a moment to think beyond "they're rear-ported." Even though you have been told your speaker placement was incorrect for the speakers you purchased and the sound you claimed to want. You blamed the speakers and not yourself for not wanting to get the best out of the speakers you paid for. I get that speakers don't always fit into a room when they require you pull them out from the corners. But simply blaming the speakers because "they're rear ported" is a flash of ignorance that can't be overcome on this forum. The Klipsch were always "bright", they were always "annoying" and they always had a "small soundfield". None of that changed since you brought them home. None of which was helped by your POS JVC receiver with a built in graphic EQ.
But you decided the best thing to do was to buy even more expensive speakers that were even more transparent to the signal being fed to them. The fact audio stores demonstrate high end gear using other high end gear didn't even make a dent in that thick skull of yours. You are hopeless, Rocker. And you are insulting. What do you expect from me? You insult me and then you want me to help you. It doesn't work that way. You ask for advice, then you ignore it and you come back and tell me I was wrong when nothing you've done has changed the fact what you own is mediocre, poorly set up and owned by someone who simply doesn't listen.
I am not going to help you, Rocker. I can't help you. I couldn't help you last time because you didn't bother to help yourself. Until you become smarter and more informed about this, no one can help you - certainly not some kid in an audio store who doesn't know his @ss from the hole in the ground you have dug for yourself. Certainly not from a store that delivers speakers without boxes, that you haven't paid for and that doesn't take the time to help you set them up and, at the very least, get a signature that you accept what you have received. Or, did you do that, Rocker? Did you say you were OK with the speakers you now have? You said in a post you were "po'd" at the open boxes but then you also said you thought you "were getting lucky". Those two things don't go together. But that's how you think and that's why things will never work out for you until you change. I know you've got this all rationalized out so you're not at fault, Rocker. And until you change that too and take responsibility for what you do, what you've done, nothing is going to change. No advice provide is going to make any difference until you make a difference.
Now, that difference can be going to another forum. You won't break anyone's heart by doing so other than you are providing some great entertainment right now. You can go to another forum and even tell them what a sh*t I've been to you. None of that will change the facts on the ground, you f*cked up. Accept that, Rocker, get yourself out of the hole and start over. Learn to listen to the advice you are being given. If you can't arrange the speakers to provide their best quality, then it is stupid to buy more expensive speakers which will be even more sensitive to their environment and the signal you feed them.
What's your source player? Would you please answer that simple question?
Equipment matters. Knowing how to put together a system is not blaming rear ports for lousy sound.
You figure it out, Rocker. This forum will go on whether you are here or not.
Bottom line here: i'm dealing with 2 things that makes audio a "challenge" for me:
1) we moved from a townhouse with lots of closets to a condo one-third the size with few closets - we packed in here with stacks of boxes everywhere. I barely have room for speakers at all. I can't move them around without throwing away stacks of boxes of my wife's stuff (bad idea). So they sit against a wall, close together with boxes around them. Not good for audio. Sealed boxes, front/bottom ported work better - rear-ported is the worst for this situation.
2) I live in a condo. I am NOT going to become the guy that annoys his neighbors with sound. The bass is what annoys neighbors in a place like this. But I love strong bass. So: a) it is impossible for me to use a powered subwoofer in a way that I can hear it / enjoy it that does not annoy my neighbors. meaning: I cannot use a sub as long as I live here - which means b) I need speakers that produce ample bass on their own without a sub - while not having too much bass either
It is really REALLY hard to listen to speakers at the audio shop and tell just what the bass is going to sound like once I get it here.
If I lived in a house and didn't have to care about the neighbors buying audio would be easy. I'd just buy what I like. But I cannot do that.
2 years ago I bought Klipsch Reference. The bass was strong enough to not need a sub but it was too strong. I was getting knocks on the door. So I down-sized to smaller Klipsch Reference - the RF-52 II with dual 5.25" woofers. That seemed to be the right balance - just enough bass to stand alone without a sub but not so much it annoys my neighbors. But they're rear-ported and have a small sound field. But I like the sound. I can live with them.
I thought the Venere sounded like a larger speaker that I could get away with living here - the bass was mild - I knew that - it has to be.
When I auditioned the Venere (3 times) I listened to the most bass-heavy songs I had on the cheapest amp they had. I was focused mostly on making sure they would not produce TOO MUCH bass. Of that I became certain.
Once I got them in here the bass is weaker than I expected. That by itself is not a problem. The problem is that after listening to them for a week I do not think I can enjoy their sound without a sub. And that is not an option.
The Venere sound fabulous on this old amp. I realize the JVC "Dynamic Super-A" amp - along with all the other attempts at Class A with transistors that were made back in the 80s / 90s is going to draw snickers from the audiophile crowd - I took your advice and I bought a new amp Jan and it sounded worse than this one - but that's another thread i'm trying to not go too far into the amp on this thread. You feel the bass would be adequate if I would buy an amp more suitable for this pair of speakers. I believe you. I do not believe the deep bass distortion has anything to do with my amp. Maybe it does. There are reviews of the Venere where the reviewer pointed out that they "lose discipline" in the lower notes. One reviewer stated to listen carefully to the bottom notes when auditioning these speakers. It's almost like they're tip-toeing around the issue i've ran into - without angering Sonus Faber.
All that matters is that for now i'm not prepared to buy a new amp. On the amp I have now I cannot listen to the Venere and enjoy them without a sub and that is not an option.
They gave me an open-box pair. So if I send them back i'm not generating another open-box pair. It costs them nothing but the time I had them. I'm thinking if the 3.0 do not have enough bass for me then the 2.5 most certainly will not either. I don't want to go through the trouble of taking time off work to be here for the delivery guys to come get these and give me the 2.5 so I can listen to them. It annoys me that you make it sound like i'm somehow evil because I used the 3.0 pair they brought me to make my decision instead of taking time off work to correct their mistake. It was their mistake not mine. The 3.0 and 2.5 look exactly alike. One is 2" taller than the other. Unless they're side by side you can't tell them apart unless you take the grilles off. I did not notice their mistake until they were already gone and at that time I needed to get to work. If I take any time at all off work right now it will have to be for a job interview. I am going to have to do that I cannot afford to take time right now off work to deal with speakers. Not my highest priority.
What I did learn from this is a) the Klipsch Reference sound probably is the right sound for me as long as I live here and have this old amp b) if I ever do reach a point (move/win lottery) where i'm going to buy the Diamonds or Avalons or some high-end audio i'll buy the whole system not just speakers and c) i'll find a salesman I like working with and take the time to do it right
this just turned out to be a really really bad time to be doing this. **it hit the fan at work Monday so now i'm sending out resumes and going to interviews - my TiVo is freezing and constantly restarting itself and I cannot get it to work - my wife is sick and now i've got what she had.
Tell your wife she has my sympathy. I hope you both get better soon.
However, none of what you just posted changes anything I've said. What you've just posted is yet another example of you feeling you are the victim and you have had nothing but circumstances fall upon you. Face one fact, Rocker, you are an active participant in this.
Nothing you posted above changes the fact you asked for advice and then ignored it. Nothing changes the fact your entire thought process about this is wrong. Nothing changes the fact you have a situation which requires not a larger, more expensive speaker but rather some clear, fact based decision making. None of it changes the fact that bass is bass and annoying your neighbors bass comes from pressure waves which excite the resonances in their space. It doesn't matter where those pressure waves come from, a large speaker or a subwoofer. In this instance, bass is bass. You want "strong bass" from your system. Your neighbors don't want to hear your bass. One of those two facts has to change.
None of that changes the basic fact you received the wrong speakers, getting "something for nothing" and you said nothing to the store. I will predict that had you called the shop and informed them of their "mistake", they would have apologized, set up an appointment at your convenience to swap speakers and told you to enjoy the speakers you had until then. But you haven't called. You haven't called the store. And they haven't contacted you, which I find just as alarming. You haven't contacted Sonus Faber for some advice regarding their product. You haven't done anything which would actually work towards resolving an issue which has occupied too much time for too many people. None of that changes the fact you took an extra $900 worth of equipment and have made no attempts to change anything about the situation. Have you?
I'm not going to take a lot of time reading reviews but the few I've looked at do not contain words I would associate with bass problems in the 3.0. If you have read several reviews of the SF's as you say you have, then you should have noticed no one was driving the speaker with a 19 year old cheap when it was new JVC receiver. It has nothing to do with "all the other attempts at Class A with transistors that were made back in the 80s / 90s". Crimeny! Rocker!!! stop blaming everyone and everything other than yourself. There were several very good class A, solid state amplifiers during that time, several of which still exist today and the class A part of your JVC is not the problem. It has nothing to do with what "audiophiles" think. Stop blaming me! Nothing has changed the fact you initially referred to your JVC receiver in this thread as being mid to mid-hi quality. Which it is not. Stop kidding yourself.
Nothing changes the fact you were provided with information regarding proper speaker set up way back in the earlier thread and you ignored it. Nothing changes the fact you have a desire for bass which does not fit into your present living situation. Now you want to blame your wife's boxes! LORD!!! Nothing has changed about how you go about "thinking through" your situation and then arriving at a completely incorrect decision in response. Nothing has changed the fact you act on impulse.
Nothing has changed the fact you have done nothing which would actually make you a better, more informed and more successful buyer. So little has changed for the positive, Rocker, I can't feel a bit of empathy towards you and your situation.
That is entirely meant to be constructive, Rocker. Take it as such.
If you want "strong bass" and your listening environment does not favor the quantity or the type of bass you want to hear, have you considered headphones for those times when you want to hear bass? That is a very common answer to what you are saying is one of your problems.
You've not really proposed any solutions to your present situation that I can see.
I actually do listen to music on the headphones whenever my wife is home. I've been using the home audio mostly for HT. I do enjoy listening to music in the weekday mornings - wife is not here - all my neighbors are gone to work. I do not turn it up loud but I do have that window of enjoyment. I still do not feel comfortable with the bass being too loud - even though I want more bass I realize I cannot have it.
Not all bass is the same Jan. My subwoofers pump out bass down to 23Hz. The RF-52 II are rated at 36Hz. I can use the EQ to take bass out of my fronts. The EQ has much less effect on the sub. I've had noisy neighbors before. We (everyone else in this building) got them kicked out. But while they were here I remember their subwoofer being the most annoying of their sound. I finally got them to cut off the sub. They still had the system turned up loud and it was annoying at times but the sub being on or off made the largest difference in the annoy factor.
Do my little 5.25" woofers pump out just as much as deep of bass as a 900W powered subwoofer? No. My Klipsch RF-52 II do not annoy my neighbors at the volume levels i'm listening to them at - they could if I turned them up loud enough - but i'm not doing that. 2 years of listening to them with no complaints is all the proof I need of that.
If I turn on the SW-310 on low volume will that annoy my neighbors? Maybe. Maybe not. That's the question I have to ask myself. It is most certainly a deeper bass with a greater potential for loudness. I honestly do not feel comfortable with that sub on. Just because of how loud those kids next door were and how much it annoyed everyone in this building I honestly cannot turn that thing on and feel comfortable. I have not been comfortable with it on this week.
So I have to ask myself - can I live with the Venere bass without a sub? I need to decide - and soon.
The salesman that sold me these called my cell this week - I was at work and didn't answer - he left a message - checking in to see how i'm getting along with the new speakers - I called him back today - told him about the mistaken delivery. He laughed. He asked me what I wanted to do - keep these or get the ones I bought. I told him I appreciate having the opportunity to choose but I bought the 2.5 so we're arranging a swap.
I hate this. I bought the 2.5 - but I cannot get rid of this niggling feeling that one day i'll look back at this and regret not hanging on to the 3.0 - they gave me that option.
FTR the law is on the side of the consumer - and should be. Think about it. Imagine you buy the $750 refrigerator. They deliver it. A week later they send you a bill for another $1000 - what? didn't you notice you actually received the $1750 model? you evil person didn't you notice the silent ice crusher and quiet-run motor and lettuce crisperator that the model you bought does not have? Thank goodness businesses cannot do that. Now if they catch the mistake they can ask to make an exchange but technically you do not have to oblige. If you buy the 683 and they deliver the 802D you get to keep the 802D regardless of whether or not you noticed their mistake.
Jan I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about. I'm not making excuses for anything. I'm telling you the parameters i'm dealing with. This is not an impossible set of parameters and to be honest with you I think we've done a fabulous job so far. I think my audio sounds great right now. Not perfect. But great. Bordering on awesome.
The Sonus Faber Venere are an incredible product for their price. They're not perfect but nothing else at that price point is either. I'm getting more and more used to the bass - the lighter bass. The more I listen to this sound the more I like it. I feel good about that.
Let me get the 2.5 and go from there.
BTW - I have seen a few people posting their experience with the Venere - and they're hooking them up to SS HT receivers - models that cost hundreds not thousands. I listened to the Venere in the audio shop on HT receivers costing under $600 and they sounded fine. I'm not the only one doing this.
"My subwoofers pump out bass down to 23Hz. The RF-52 II are rated at 36Hz. I can use the EQ to take bass out of my fronts. The EQ has much less effect on the sub. I've had noisy neighbors before. We (everyone else in this building) got them kicked out. But while they were here I remember their subwoofer being the most annoying of their sound. I finally got them to cut off the sub. They still had the system turned up loud and it was annoying at times but the sub being on or off made the largest difference in the annoy factor."
So, do you think the neighbors you helped kick out had subwoofers that "pumped out bass down to 23Hz"? Do you think they were playing music with content down to 23Hz?
What music would that be, Rocker? What music do you or your kicked out neighbors play that has bass extension down to 23Hz?
First, I doubt you have a sub that actually puts out useable sound down to 23Hz even if you could find music with that frequency in it. I'm guessing this is another one of your concocted ideas, sort of like your idea that your 19 year old 120 watt JVC is actually equal to a modern 200 watt amp. Stop trying to BS me. Even saying the Klipsch are good to 36Hz is a complete misunderstanding of what the specs are, and are not, telling you. The rated wattage of the subwoofer doesn't matter one bit, Rocker. You pull the strangest crap out of your b*tt when you're trying to justify your ideas to me.
So, I take it from your response that you don't think the resonance of the structure within your neighbor's apartment has anything to do with how annoying your bass is? It's all about the equipment you have, eh? Even IF you played music with response down to 23Hz - and I have no idea what music that would be - and you had a system capable of reproducing 23Hz in your room, your neighbors aren't hearing 23Hz. What does 23Hz sound like? You do realize that's close to the physical limits of what humans can "hear" and you're getting into the region where you don't hear the frequency, you simply feel the pressure wave it creates. That's one reason I don't really believe you when you say your sub "pumps out bass" down to 23Hz. Even if your room could support that frequency, your sub isn't likely to actually reproduce that frequency. And I can virtually guarantee there are no domestic rooms short of concert hall dimensions that are going to support a 23Hz pressure wave. Please try to stay within reason when you make up your BS reasons for what you do, Rocker.
Even if you played music with 36Hz bass, and we're making believe your Klipsch could actually play a 36Hz signal, that's not what would annoy your neighbors. It's the frequency that resonates within their space that they hear and that annoys them with its one note, droning, rattling, distorted noise. But don't believe me, Rocker, you haven't believed anything else I've said. You've argued with everything I've said. But the fact is everything you've said about your subwoofer's output is basically make believe BS and really has nothing to do with what's annoying your neighbors. Yes, volume matters and you want volume and the louder you crank it the louder the resonance gets in your neighbor's apartment. That's the only thing that really matters in your system and your neighbor's apartments. 23Hz has absolutely nothing to do with it. Nothing. I just don't know where you get these ideas.
There's very little bass on most modern recordings which extends beneath 60Hz and the signal has to be there before the speaker tries to reproduce it. It's what is happening much higher in the frequency range that your neighbors are hearing resonating in their apartments.
Your original thread was about you wanting a "powerful" system that "hit" like your car system. That's why I suggested the Klipsch with their over abundance of midbass quantity and their typical bass alignment which emphasizes the midbass "punch". You want bass that is going to annoy your new neighbors. You can't have that when you live in an apartment. You know that but, what's your response to that fact? You go buy more expensive speakers!
What does buying a higher quality speaker have to do with bass that annoys your neighbors? Even if 23Hz did have anything to do with this, you would still have the same sub. You can read numbers, the Venere's specs didn't in any way suggest you wouldn't have bass. If you thought you wouldn't be using the sub with the SF's, what the he!! does 23Hz have to do with buying the Veneres? It is literally impossible to help you when you won't tie down your reasoning for more than one post. You're everywhere. Whenever I say this is illogical, you come up with something even more illogical and even less related to the issue. Unless we know what the problem actually is and why you did what you did, just what are we supposed to do to help you?
Your complaint about the Klipsch, as you stated in an earlier post in this thread, was "the soundfield is too small, the bright sound gets annoying over time and sounds awkward with new music and they're rear-ported." The soundstage wasn't annoying your neighbors. The bright sound wasn't annoying your neighbors. And, when you actually get down to it, the rear ports weren't going to annoy your neighbors. If your "logic" is your speakers had bass response down to 36Hz, what do rear ports have to do with annoying your neighbors. Did your kicked out neighbors have rear ported speakers too? Crimeny! Just for once try to use real world thinking about the real world, eh? Stop conflating one idea with another when the two have nothing to do with one another. Stop making stuff up and pay attention to the advice you are given. Otherwise, why are we here? What the he!! is it you want, Rocker?
That's what I constantly get from you, Rocker. When I say this, you have yet another, different excuse for whatever I've asked about. You never answer a question, you just make up another excuse. I never know why you've done anything because your reasons are never the same from one post to the next. And, when it comes down to it, the real answer to why you've done something is the same as your thinking about the wattage of your JVC, "I do not know this to be true." You're simply throwing it against the wall and hoping it sticks because NO ONE has agreed with how you are thinking. But that fact doesn't stop you. You just make up another BS answer.
What exactly does annoying bass have to do with your JVC? You admit your receiver is not designed to drive low impedance loads yet you went out and bought, first, the low impedance load of the Klipsch and then you bought the low impedance load of the SF. And you know your receiver is not designed to drive low impedance loads. There's no logic there and the impedance load is not relevant to annoying your neighbors type of bass. No one can help you when you do not have a logical approach to what you're trying to accomplish. Like I said, NO ONE who has responded to your posts has agreed with several (any really) of your most basic ideas about how audio systems operate. Until you change that, this is just jackin'off without any results all for no good reason.
"BTW - I have seen a few people posting their experience with the Venere - and they're hooking them up to SS HT receivers - models that cost hundreds not thousands. I listened to the Venere in the audio shop on HT receivers costing under $600 and they sounded fine. I'm not the only one doing this."
I never said you had to spend thousands on an amp. I never said a receiver would not make sound with the SF's. Making sounds, playing loud and playing home theater sound effects and making interesting music are two vastly different things. There are some moderately decent receivers out there today though I still wouldn't suggest a speaker of the Venere's quality be paired with any receiver. That's not the point and, if you really don't understand the basic idea that all amps - and all receivers - are not equal, if you really cannot get that idea in your head, then there's not much I or anyone else on this forum can do for you. You have said your receiver is not designed for low impedance loads. You realize that. But you keep buying low impedance speakers! There's a disconnect there. It's like being told you need a vehicle with towing capacity if you want to tow a boat then buying a Honda Civic to tow your boat. Then when it won't do that because it can't and it wasn't designed to do that, you go buy another Civic and want it to tow your boat. And then complain again that your new Civic can't tow your boat either. Sooner or later the person who originally told you the Civic could not tow your boat gives up trying to help you.
I am not responsible for what other people want to hear and, if they think their receivers sound good with the Veneres, that's their business. That has nothing - got it? NOTHING! - to do with repeatedly pairing low impedance speakers with an amplifier you realize has not been designed to drive a low impedance load. Stop obfuscating the issues. Your JVC is not well suited to the Veneres IMO. That's my advice. You may like the sound, Rocker, but I am not responsible for that either. When you tell me you have bass problems and you have an amp that isn't suited to the load and you can't set up the speakers for their best performance and you won't even tell me what the rest of the system is, I eventually can only respond with, "So?" You just simply want things to happen because you want to believe they should. And you make up BS excuse for why what you do has nothing to do with the results you get. But your reasons for thinking what you want and what you do have no basis in reality. NO ONE on this forum has ever told you they do. But that doesn't stop you.
You now have an even more restricted space for setting up your speakers than you did in the first thread when you already wouldn't do a proper set up. But now you went out and purchased even higher priced speakers. What do you actually expect from them? If you say you are willing to live with the limitations of your space, then why are we here? You aren't going to change anything that might make a difference. So, why are we here? If you tell me it's so you don't annoy your neighbors, then I'd say we are done here because you haven't applied the least bit of critical thinking to your problems. Bass is bass, pressure waves are pressure waves and, if your neighbor's apartments have things that resonate in sympathy to that bass, then you still have the same problem no matter what speaker is reproducing that bass. That's just a matter of physics. Things resonate when you excite them and the only way to not have them resonate is to not excite them into resonance. Full stop. Period!
In other words, Rocker, I really don't see what it is you want from us if you aren't going to take our advice and you aren't going to pair your speakers with a decent amp designed to drive low impedance loads and a system that can provide the same level of quality the speakers deserve and you aren't going to set up the speakers and the system for proper operation. I don't know why you are here if you aren't willing to do any of those things, Rocker. We can't magically make things conform to how you want them to be.
Would you please tell me what your source player is? Why won't you do that? What else are you trying to hide from us when you want us to tell you how to get better sound? What is your source player?
I'm not even going to discuss with you your BS thinking about the 3.0's and returning them to the store. IMO it's just another one of your absurd bouts of excuse making that relieves you of any responsibility for what you've done. I never said you were "evil", you apparently see yourself as evil when I confront you with some basic facts. Would you have called had the store delivered less expensive speakers? If you would not have called, then that puts that matter to rest. If the real answer annoys you, change something about it. If you think that makes you evil, then do something about that. Don't explain anything to me. Don't put it on the store. Do something about it to change it.
What I said about this is you are in the same boat as so many others I've met who want to take advantage of "the wrong speakers being put on the van". My experience with the folks who get themselves into that situation is they all think alike and they all keep repeating the same mistakes because that's their personality. So far, Rocker, I see you making the same mistakes over and over and not thinking you are responsible for any of the results you get. Everyone other than you are the ones responsible for the results you obtain. And, if one excuse doesn't cut it, you make up another excuse and then another excuse and then yet another excuse. I see you making excuses for why you're not responsible for any of this, you are just the victim. And I see you constantly making the same stupid mistakes and constantly making up BS excuses.
Why are we here, Rocker? What exactly is it you want from us?
You keep saying that I refuse to take your advice - that I do not listen. That is not true. I've tried everything you suggested. Some of it worked. Some did not.
Name one thing you ever suggested that I did not do or try? NAME ONE.
You tell me to move my speakers out away from the wall. I do that and it helps but I cannot leave my speakers sitting in the middle of the room. I got tired of moving them out from the wall to listen and move them back when done. So you call me a fool and flame me and say I do not listen how can anyone help me - because I refuse to leave my speakers sitting in the middle of the room? Really?
What do I want from you? At first I was hoping you could help me find a way to fix the boomy bass issue without moving the speakers. The answer very well may be that there is no answer. Right now - unless you want to shed light - my understanding is that i'm never going to be able to sit speakers against the wall where they are now and sit here on this couch and not get boomy bass. The acoustics of the room dictate that and nothing can ever change that. A new amp will not change that. Front-ported speakers are not as bad as rear-ported speakers but they still have issues. Transferring bass to a sub doesn't change anything either. I accept that. I know that as long as I live in this place and keep my gear where it is I cannot sit on this couch and listen to music. I accept that. I'll sit somewhere else. Moving me is so much easier than moving the gear. As far as i'm concerned that issue was resolved even though I was not able to find a way to sit on the couch and listen to music. But that's not because there is not a solution - it is because I have chosen a solution that does not resolve my ability to sit on the couch and listen to music. Thank you. The room mode calculator was helpful.
The second issue I've been addressing is the Sonus Faber speakers. I realize my amp is old and not high quality. I've bought the HT receivers and they're not an improvement. Today was the first time I ever heard you say that you do not think the Sonus Fabers should be on a HT receiver. That's news to me. Yes I realize amps are very different. I did not want to get into a new amp on this thread. We can if you want or I can start a new amp thread. I do not know a whole lot about amps. I did some research a year ago when I bought the Yamaha AVR that sounded worse than what I have now but most of it was HT type stuff. As far as I know all the rest of it is either way out of my budget (we're talking new car prices) or only a stereo amp. And for now i'm hooked on the center channel for HT use. I can use the EQ to subtract bass from the sound and turn up the center and get a good sound that does not annoy my wife or neighbors. I like that. Any replacement has to continue to meet that criteria and I am not aware of any stereo setup I could arrange that would achieve that. If i'm going to stick to the 3.0 (front/center/left/no sub) for HT what affordable choices do I have?
What do I want from this board? 2 things. We've already addressed the boomy bass issue and I have already gone over that. I'm satisfied with the help i've received here on that issue and unless there is some new information or ideas that issue is closed as far as i'm concerned. Thanks.
Second - and I already know the answer you will give me - you already have. You believe i'm wasting my time pairing speakers like the Venere with any HT receiver. Ok. Thanks.
Now - armed with that opinion - I still want to explore just how good of a sound can I get with this old amp. So far the Sonus Faber sounds pretty darn good. I realize it could/would/should sound much better if i'd get a new amp. Understand. I cannot spend another chunk of money that big right now. I was hoping I could do this in an incremental way. So for me the Sonus Faber being a good match for the old JVC is not what's important in the long run - it will be until I can buy a new amp - but what amp is the best match for the sonus Fabers - and from there what sources are best for that amp. I take it from your comments that you feel the incremental approach is a bad idea.
To answer your question - my sources are even worse than my amp. I have an old JVC CD player. I mostly use the TiVo (right now the thing won't even power up it keeps restarting and hanging) that's not helping me test drive the Venere - the source I use the most has been unavailable to me. I bought a cheap media player - I copy my music song files out of iTunes onto a flash drive and plug into it and play music through it sometimes. The sound quality of that thing is the same as the old CD player. I never mentioned that because I knew you'd flame me over it. I do realize the Sonus Faber is in a league above the rest of my stuff. I was under the impression that I could buy better stuff one piece at a time and the overall system would get better with every piece. The Sonus Faber alone do improve the overall system. Is it worth the $$$ like it is now? Probably not. Will it be worth it down the road when the whole tamale comes together. That answer depends on what comes next.
Right now - your advice is to send back the Sonus Faber, stop wasting your time and do not come back with questions until i'm ready to spend whatever it takes and do whatever it takes to upgrade my sound. Is that an accurate statement?
No, that is not a correct assessment of what I have said.
First, and foremost, thinking in system building has for decades been based upon a "garbage in = garbage out" equation. Computer stuff! If you corrupt the file as it enters any part of the system, then you cannot expect good results at the output of any part of the system. As errors compound in each subsequent stage of the system, the issues become expotentially larger at the output of the system. The system cannot repair or replace data or information that was left out, added or distorted/corrupted in some way at the source. It can only pass on what it has been fed, errors and all, and as each stage sees more errors at its input, the result is even more errors at the output. Does that make sense? You can only expect an output that is no better than the source and the signal chain is good.
That's the beginning of why shops demonstrate high end speakers with high end gear in front of them. There is a difference between source players and it will be reflected in the final product reproduced by a better speaker.
The speakers cannot only not repair a poor signal chain, they will be increasingly more able to demonstrate the deficiencies in the signal as they become more transparent to the signal coming in from the front of the system. Unless, that is, the speaker designer did not design for transparency. For the most part, Klipsch is not a line recognized for its transparency to the source or accuracy in its output. They are intended to be loud, brash, tipped at the high and low end with a pronounced mid and holes in between each frequency range. They are not meant to display an "audiophile" soundstage. They are generally voiced to be forward and in your face. They have punch and they "hit", but they do not have deep bass extension and the horn loading means they do not have wide dispersion or smooth, even "power response" into the room.
A speaker designer can manipulate the bass extension, the volume/loudness capacity of the system and the enclosure size/volume capacity. Those three things are tied together and when one value is changed, the other two change as a result. Your Klipsch were designed for what you originally said you wanted from your system, loud and bassy. "Bassy" however mean lots of midbass and not much deep bass. Otherwise the system would need to be larger and/or it would not play as loud. "36Hz" essentially means the woofers will move if you feed them a 36Hz signal. It does not mean there will be useable output at that frequency. The port means the speaker is not designed to play music at 36Hz, it is there for purposes of making the system play louder and have more midbass in a reasonably sized box. Klipsch uses a very basic trick with their designs and that is to pump up the midbass, which to most people will appear to be deeper bass which isn't really there. It's called the Dopler effect and is similar to engaging the "loudness" circuit on your receiver. A good compensation circuit follows the Fletcher Munson curves for frequency/amplitude compensation. But the idea in loudspeaker design is, if you hear a low to mid frequency sound at a louder volume, most people will take that to be a lower frequency. So the Klipsch speakers show well in a demo room because they play louder, seem to superficially have equally deep bass extension as a "better", more accurate system as long as appropriate demo material is used and they have a system alignment which is giving a punch to the sound.
In addition to those values, most Klipsch speakers have a "relatively benign" impedance load on the amplifier. They have less bad effects on the sound when they dip down in impedance, mostly, IMO, because they are not accurate in the first place. If you aren't expecting accuracy from the speaker, then you are more forgiving when accuracy is not what you get back. However, if you want loud and you want "punch", that is what you will typically get from a Klipsch speaker. The personality of the speaker will dominate the system sound. If you want loudness from your system , it is easier to obtain through more efficient speakers than by buying higher wattage. However, higher sensitivity in the speaker system often leads to more errors/distortions in the speaker which will need correction if you want accuracy. Klispch does not go for accuracy. A Klipsch speaker will dominate the sound of the system, warts and all.
Unfortunately, you might say, what Klipsch has done with their speakers is follow the laws of physics which predict these things will occur in their speakers. Those same laws of physics say you will get lumpy bass when the speakers are not placed well away from corners and the room will dominate the sound no matter what speaker system you use. There have been some speakers which are purposely designed to minimize the room effects, but they are few and far between right now and they have their own drawbacks.
As I understand the current Sonus Faber line, they have been designed by the new owner's team to work well with a high end HT receiver. They are, though, a high end speaker with basically high end traditions and high end aspirations. Therefore, they are not meant to work well with less expensive, poorly designed HT receivers or cheap receivers of any type. And they will demonstrate the benefits of a superior amplifier but also demonstrate the limitations of a poorly put together front end. Exactly why stores and reviewers do not use cheap receivers when showing the Sonus Fabers. Typically, more than one amp will be auditioned on a high quality speaker to achieve a good match in a shop or when the speaker is under review. What people use after the speakers leave the store is largely out of the control of the speaker designer, the shop and certainly of the reviewer. You have been warned more than once. If you decide to ignore the warnings, you must face the consequences. They are like a sports car with bald tires and bad alignment and a broken shock absorber when used with a cheap amp. What you expect for what you paid is not likely what you will get back.
Not all high end receivers are equal and not all high end amplifiers are equal. System matching means you understand the needs of the system, most especially the pairing of amplifier and speaker load. Low impedance by itself is not a bad thing. Most tubed amplifiers use output transformers which will facilitate good transfer functions when the impedance drops. However, most tubed power amplifiers have limited current delivery. As impedance continues to drop, Ohm's Law states the need for higher current to maintain equal wattage output. When low impedance is combined with higher electrical phase angle, the Voltage/Current components of wattage begins to arrive at the drivers with a time lag and a phase shift between them. The "better" the speaker, the more likely it is you will detect this time/phase shift as poor response from the speaker. For most listeners this isn't an issue when they are selecting a Klipsch due to their general lack of transparency.
In some cases, under conditions of low impedance combined with high electrical phase shift, the back EMF from the drivers within a speaker system begin to drive the amplifier in an out of phase situation which can be made worse by the use of high negative feedback levels in the amplifier's design. Many mass market HT receivers use higher levels of NFB to reduce their on paper distortions and to make the solid state amplifier more stable. In a tube amplifier, the transformers are essentially what help keep the amp stable. Very few solid state amplifiers use output transformers. In this sort (transformerless) direct coupled, solid state amplifier design common to most receivers, it's typical for the amplifier to test well on a bench while being fed simple sinewaves but incapable of delivering adequate "power" on demand or for sustained time periods when asked to do so into a real world environment of a real world loudspeaker playing dynamically demanding musical material. This is the situation with your JVC. It was a low end product when it was new and corners were cut which are reflected in its real world performance.
Yamaha HT receivers at their low end, and in general, have difficulties supplying current. Their power supplies are not stout enough to drive all channels at once, therefore, they will tend to claim wattage output for only two channels driven. When all channels are tasked, their power output drops significantly and their current delivery is the first to suffer. To provide good on paper distortion specs, they use fairly high NFB values which, combined with other choices made in their design, tends to make for a rather bright and at times harsh sounding amp. Not the ideal for most amplifier pairings when a Klispch speaker with similar characteristics is chosen. In general, the "audiophile" atttitude towards most Yamaha amplifiers right now is they are not very musical. The main benefit of your JVC over a current Yamaha would be, IMO, the JVC doesn't due to cost restrictions overemphasize its faults where, for many listeners, the Yamaha does. Particularly when paired with a Klipsch speaker.
All receivers and all amplifiers are not created equal however.
"You keep saying that I refuse to take your advice - that I do not listen. That is not true. I've tried everything you suggested. Some of it worked. Some did not.
Name one thing you ever suggested that I did not do or try? NAME ONE.
You tell me to move my speakers out away from the wall. I do that and it helps but I cannot leave my speakers sitting in the middle of the room."
You ask a question and then you proceed to answer that question in your next sentence.
I gave you an answer. Trying it but not using it is the same as ignoring the advice IMO. If the problem exists and you've been given a solution but you prefer to complain about the problem rather than solve the problem, stop buying that d*mn Civic.
If your doctor told you to do something to protect your health and you chose not to follow your doctor's advice and got sick, your doctor is not to blame. You are.
If you know not to drink and drive but you choose to ignore that advice, then you are responsible for whatever results may occur.
Figure it out, Rocker, it's not other people who are to blame for your decisions. We have been giving advice which has been intended to save you from yourself. You have chosen to ignore all of it and/or distort it in such a way that it no longer resembles the advice provided.
I will repeat once again, NO ONE responding to you in these two threads has agreed with your most basic ideas on how audio systems operate. NO ONE. You figure out why that is.
It was also suggested you should use some room treatment devices to help with your bass issues. You did not try any. And this is not the first time I've told you your JVC is not suited to a "better" system.
There were several suggestions at the very front of this thread which you blew off. I could go on, Rocker, the whole Dolby issue, but I think that's enough.
I understand that amp/speaker pairings are as important as the equipment itself. Is that what you're trying to tell me?
It seemed to me that if the old JVC could drive the Klipsch speakers - which are essentially 4 ohm speakers with really low minimum impedance - and essentially knock the pictures off the walls with strong deep bass - that it could drive the Sonus Faber even though they are low impedance as well. It's not that simple. Ok.
I started this thread thinking about buying something like a VR-4JR on audiogon at a descent price. I was very hesitant to do that because I was imagining what would really happen is i'd get the speakers here and then it would not sound like I was hoping and i'd be stuck wondering if I just got ripped off (I don't really know what to expect in this case do I?) or if my amp sucks. I didn't want to do it that way. By getting the Venere I know what they should sound like - heard them on adequate gear - so I know the problem is my gear sucks. I'm not surprised by how this turned out but I had to do it this way.
Over the weekend I actually figured out a way to get the Venere speakers to work on my old JVC receiver with good bass. I was thinking about what you were saying - that the old JVC does not have enough current to drive the SF properly - the result is weak bass. I looked and sure enough the equalizer was on. The old JVC does not have bass/treble controls but rather a 7-band EQ. So i've been pushing up the first 2 and last 2 sliders a little to act like bass/treble boosters. That's how it was set: +2,+2,0,0,0,+1,+2 - I changed it instead to leave the bass/treble flat and subtract mids: 0,0,-2,-2,-2,-1,0 - and the difference was phenominal. Unbelievable actually. WOW. The bass became very strong with incredible punch. I love the bass these SF Venere are producing. I added the sub at 70Hz and it does help the sound on most songs. It still sounds pretty good without the sub but much better with it. I found the best location for the speakers and sub and as of right now this system sounds downright wonderful. This is by far the best sound i've ever had in my own home.
For the record I still plan to upgrade my amp. I feel this system will sound even better with a better amp. I'm not getting my money's worth out of the SF on this old amp. I wanted to see how far I could take the sound using this old JVC receiver. I'm not getting any further into that on this thread other than to say I think this is as far as my system can go without an amp upgrade - which I need to do. What i'm saying is that what I figured out this weekend did not change the fact that I want to upgrade my amp. The only thing that changed is the urgency to do that. I'm not feeling as urgent now that I have a system I can live with. I'll take my time and do the amp upgrade right.
The only "problem" I have now - which is a good problem to have - is that I can turn this system up louder and louder and is gets louder - in fact it can get quite very loud - but it never sounds loud. No matter how far I turn up the volume it does not seem loud to me. That's how it is in my car - on e of the things i love about my car system - I can turn up the volume to the point it starts to distort and it never sounds loud - it's clear and rich and sounds good. It never hurts my ears. I can listen to it all day long with the volume turned up and it does not bother me at all. My home system is like this now too. I just hope I do not end up annoying my neighbors with it. When I had the Klipsch Reference speakers those things sounded loud to me on almost any volume. I could not turn them up much at all without feeling like i'm going to annoy my neighbors and reaching a point where I did not enjoy listening to them. If I turned up the volume on the Klipsch Reference speakers it would hurt my ears and/or give me a headache. I'm not into loud - that's not my point - my point is the type of sound they make - a sound I enjoy that never becomes bothersome versus a sound that becomes annoying quickly.
Here's my analogy. The sound of the Klipsch Reference speakers on the old JVC receiver with the EQ tweaking it - that sound reminds me of the pictures I took with the camera on my first iPhone - it had no flash and was low resolution. It's like taking those pictures - most of them were not very good and many were dark because it had no flash - it's like taking those pictures and loading them into PhotoShop and doing the Sharpen, Bright, Color Depth ... Contrast ... doctoring them in PhotoShop. I could get a few really good pictures in the end but still most of those pictures would just be Photoshopped crappy pictures.
The sound i'm getting with the Sonus Faber is more like pictures taken with a good camera with a flash. Quality pics do not need PhotoShop. A true quality picture will always be better than a PhotoShopped crappy one. This is the sound I was looking for. It's just as good and maybe even better than my car audio already - and I haven't bought that new amp yet. I will though ...
Jan - I honestly don't think I would've figured this out without your input. I tried turning off the EQ - that didn't work. I would have never thought to subtract mids like that. Like I said - this is not ideal like it is now - but I know what to do to fix it - buy a new amp with strong current - a heavier amp. Thanks!
I believe the Sonus Faber Venere speaker system was the best choice for me given my circumstances and personality. I look forward to building a great sounding system with them.
Rocker, I understand your analogy. However, speaking as someone who is about a B- at photoshop for PHOTOGRAPHERS (not illustration folks) I gotta tell you I have NOT met a photo I could not improve.
The audio / photography comparison would be to tell you that just like reproduced sound, photos have little or no OBJECTIVE reality. Interpretation is key. Color balance, contrast, and a host of other adjustables including 'sharpness' are in the mix. And just like Audio, in which an 'adjusted' room sounds best, I use a CALIBRATED monitor which yields correct color and will PRINT exactly what I see.
"I understand that amp/speaker pairings are as important as the equipment itself. Is that what you're trying to tell me?"
Not exactly. In professional audio there are many standards which the designer of a system can rely on. Or, at the least, find through minimal effort by researching specs. In home audio most, of those standards do not exist, most of what is pertinent to good system construction is not even mentioned in the specs and what you as the designer of a system might encounter in this component is not always what you can expect from another similar type of component. For example, it is common in pro audio to have an output impedance for most electronics in the under 600 Ohm range. Under 600 Ohms impedance allows long cable runs and almost always assures the designer the next component in the signal chain will have a higher input impedance value to assure good transfer functions. In home audio, input and output impedances can be all over the place and with, say, a purely passive pre amp the impedance of inputs and outputs will possibly change every time the volume control level is changed. Therefore, anyone wishing to build a technically correct home audio system must be aware of what they are buying in each component.
Home audio most often uses multi-way speaker systems which incorporate a few crossover filters. One amplifier is commonly set up to drive this load full range. Crossover filters are typically constructed by combining coils and caps to roll out higher or lower frequencies and with resistors to pad down sensitivity differences between drivers. Coils and caps introduce both impedance and phase shifts which make life tough for the amplifier driving that load. With the wide variance in loudspeaker system design found in home audio, a successful system will be strongly influenced by the ability of the amp to adequately drive the speaker load as it varies with frequency (and to a lesser degree with amplitude). Whether the mismatch occurs in the components or in the amp/speaker pairing, the results are similar when it comes to signal quality. Yet, it is virtually unheard of for the receiving component to drive the preceding sending component. When power amplifiers rely heavily on NFB to meet specifications, this is really not that uncommon in the amp/speaker pairing. The need for a power supply capable very high current delivery is required as impedance continues to drop and electrical phase angles rise. Combined with the - I would hope - very obvious room effects added to the acoustic output of a loudspeaker, the combined effects can be several times as severe as what we see at the component level. Take into account the loudspeaker is a transducer which converts one form of energy into another form of energy and now we have a serious issue of losses and additions not seen at the electrical level of component to component matching. At some point we should discuss the "personality" of components and speakers and how best to match one to another but nowhere in the average system today is that more apparent than in the character of a loudspeaker. There is no component which has the personality/character of, say, a Klipsch loudspeaker.
Yes, you had a low impedance speaker and you went out and purchased another low impedance speaker for an amp which you admit is not well suited to low impedance loads. What I've been trying to impress upon you though is not all low impedance speakers are equally wrong matches for any specific amplifier. How you set up the system can mitigate some issues of impedance which makes for a more complicated discussion of what speaker will be best for what amp. Whether the speaker designer has utilized high order filters or low order filters and any notch filters used to correct driver deficiencies will change just how tough that speaker will be for any given amp.
"I started this thread thinking about buying something like a VR-4JR on audiogon at a descent price. I was very hesitant to do that because I was imagining what would really happen is i'd get the speakers here and then it would not sound like I was hoping and i'd be stuck wondering if I just got ripped off ... "
I just don't think you grasp exactly how someone "gets ripped off", Rocker. No one does it to you other than yourself.
" By getting the Venere I know what they should sound like - heard them on adequate gear - so I know the problem is my gear sucks. I'm not surprised by how this turned out but I had to do it this way."
I'm sure you've convinced yourself you "had to do it this way". But we're still talking about a loudspeaker being affected by its location within the enclosed space of a domestic living room, your position within that same space and that changing one of those two affects the other. The room remains the single most significant element in what you hear from your system.
I'm still amazed at how your thinking works. You heard the SF's on good gear in another system in a dealer's showroom. Whatever you perceive as different in their sound in your room, with your system, is what you simply put down to your gear.
Yes, that's part of it, as I've been telling you, but not at all everything about it. The room remains the single most significant element in what you hear from your system. Read that sentence two or three times, Rocker.
" I found the best location for the speakers and sub and as of right now this system sounds downright wonderful. This is by far the best sound i've ever had in my own home."
Uh-huh, and does "best location" mean you've moved the speakers away from the walls and boxes? And, they will stay away from the walls and boxes? As will the sub?
"I tried turning off the EQ - that didn't work. I would have never thought to subtract mids like that."
As a very general rule eq should cut rather than boost. However, no matter which way you push the slider, a graphic equalizer with any number of frequency centers is a very imperfect device. No matter how the eq is arranged the various frequency centers will create what is termed a "comb filter effect". Rather than a resemblance of the smooth shape created by your eq's sliders, the actual frequency response of the eq'd signal is full is dips and peaks. So while cutting is easier on the amplifier than boosting, by altering the position of the curve of seven sliders you've simply traded one set of comb filter effects for another. Your room is already doing the same sort of comb filtering to the output of your loudspeakers, http://idanaltman.hubpages.com/hub/The-Comb-Filter-effect
Combined, the resulting signal is on a roller coaster ride of peaks and dips, additions and cancellations, time and phase shifts before it ever arrives at your ears. My suggestion remains at this time; buy a HT receiver with "auto-room-correction" circuits. These are equalizers by another name but, in this case, they are far more sophisticated and capable of far more "correction" vs just a change than is your JVC's graphic eq.
I'm not even going near the photoshop thing. Personally, I disagree with both you and leo but that's another discussion.
Jan, the fact that a digital camera processes the image to convert to either JPG (typically) or some of the RAW formats, changes what you SEE to what you GET.
Even in the old days of film, I could shoot the SAME image with say…..Provia, a good transparency film, than turn around and shoot again using Velvia. 2 different films yield distint results. One was a 'warm' or perhaps 'saturated' film useful for colorful nature stuff while the other was a cooler film which also produced good flesh tones and was useful for people shots. Even the last of the Kodak 'Professional' print films, the NC series had a VC compliment which produced, as the title implies, 'Vivid Contrast'. The NC, was the BEST wedding film I ever used. (with proper processing on calibrated gear)
This renders all images subjective. While you would like to compare what you see with 'nature' or 'what I saw', do we ALL see the same thing? Nope, just like audio, people value different things in images and in 'reality'. For example, I love geometric shapes and forms. Contrast, color saturation, sharpness and even elementary composition can all be altered per preference. Virtually ALL images you see in magazines and online are altered to a greater or lesser extent. I just did some CUSTOM work for a friend who took a half dozen wedding photos and wants to send 'em as a gift. One of the subjects is a little vain and I had to reduce some skin blems, do away with red-eye, make the color balance more natural, add some sharpness in the case of one candle lit photo, add a LITTLE bit of cooling filter ('blue', but not) in order to reduce the 'well done pizza' effect on skintones. I still left the skin tones warm / candle lit.
YOU may have an objective sound in mind. Most people don't and any comparison of even a reasonable system to 'reality' is strictly accidental. Name your goal.
To me the comparison between photoshop/ photography and Music / reproduction is clear. People emphasize what they choose. Go for the goals they choose and usually settle for 2nd best. I'll send you soem proof, or at least indications�..offline.
And, I'll give credit where credit is due. Your talk over the years about 'goals' and 'values' in what you hear has got me thinking about my photography. What do I value? What do I see? How can I help YOU to see it? MORE:
We're getting off topic here, leo. You have a friend who was in a position of taking candid, capture-the-instant photos of a wedding which showed, I can only assume, some degree of reality which existed in the actual event. The people, the space, the wedding party event are still there in the photographic image, though not in a "pleasing" way to you or the vain individual. You base your decisions of how reality should look based on color, saturation, etc reasons and your perception of what the event should have been, not what it was. Yet, you weren't even at the event.
You assume you can take some other person's reality and digitally convert it to suit your perception of your idealized reality and those "corrections" will be acceptable to everyone since they are the "conventions" performed to alter reality in most printed images. I'm afraid I don't see things as you do in this case. Make a more pleasing image? Fine, if that's what you think someone else will want. However, looking at your statement that most every photo appearing in media has been altered does not change the fact that may not be the most appropriate way to deal with reality. We are infected with images which are not reality and being told we need to live up to those false images. How is that a good thing?
Do I want a photoshopped image of another super model? As a consumer, I'd say not. Do I want a photoshopped image of the events which have occurred over the last few weeks in Ferguson, Mo.? I think you already know my answer to that question.
If you had photoshopped a non-favorite uncle from the photo, that would be one interpretation of reality. You didn't do that, you simply "enhanced" the image as you feel would be more pleasing to a vain individual. Did you first consult with this wedding party member to get their input on what was more pleasing to their thinking? Possibly, they would have preferred the uncle did disappear even more than they would have been in favor of more rosey cheeks and chiaroscuro lighting effects
Apparently, you did not consult with them. You adjusted values which you feel are "conventionally" in need of adjustment. That the multiple manipulations you performed even have such titles as "candle lit" and "red eye reduction" says to me you performed tasks which others have led you to believe are "wrong", less pleasing images of reality. Wrong about reality, leo? You tell me what that makes "reality". Disposable IMO. How is that a good thing? "1984" comes to mind.
You see what you did to reality as something which exists by way of color, contrast, saturation, sharpness and composition. You want to alter the objective image to your subjective opinion of what is pleasant. IMO that is very much like your response in Dak's thread where you describe listening for the string squeaks of a player moving across the fretboard. String squeaks are not the moment, leo. They are not the music. And they seldom create the emotions of the music or the intent of the performer. Today, great efforts are made in post production to remove these "imperfections" from the reality of a live performance. Though they are the very thing you see as "music". They are the very things which are objectively inevitable in a live performance, just as coughs, sneezes, candy wrappers crinkling, etc are part of what is the experience of the live performance. In other words, unless they are grossly inept at their art, string squeaks do not represent what the performer was doing to affect my feelings toward their musical creation. Does that make them disposable? Only in the view of certain people with digital controls. However, you listen for what is your own subjective musical reality and I listen for what is subjectively my own.
You photoshopped the images into something that didn't exist. I'm sorry, what does that prove? No, I cannot create an audio system which alters the reality of the recorded experience. But, still, what does that prove? I create by careful planning an audio system which reproduces to the greatest extent the reality I have in my mind of how a musical event plays out and how it affects me personally. I can do no more. I cannot bring Elvis back to life as a 19 year old laying down his first tracks on a hot, steamy summer evening in Memphis. I can only put together a system which best translates that event to my perceptions of what might have occurred. Is that the equivalent to "photoshopping" in a 19 year old Elvis? Not in my opinion. YMMV
By its very nature a "recording" is changing what you see to what you get. Move a camera or a microphone off to one side and what you get is not what you would have had in the previous position. What's your point? Taking a good photo or making a good audio recording is first and foremost a function of composition. If you have read any of Wilma Cozart's comments on the original Mercury Living Presence recordings, you'll see microphone placement and level adjustment was arduously slow and precise in order to achieve the results which have been hailed as landmark recordings for more than sixty years. (http://www.soundfountain.com/amb/mercury.html) You could not photoshop into those recordings a better interpretation of the actual events of that day and that space. The name "Living Presence" was meant to imply the listener was experiencing the reality of the orchestral moment just as the engineers perceived it and the listener could effectively experience the virtual presence of the performers as they were creating a musical event. Musically those recording still, to this day, present the same visceral thrills and excitement as they did when they were new. The time spent in preparation to make the recording was one reason the label eventually moved to less expensive, less realistic, less thrilling but more "cost conscious" techniques. Being "cost conscious" hardly qualifies as being superior when it comes to the very reason a recording is made, to capture forever an event which is temporal in nature.
Yet, that is precisely where every type of recording has moved over the last half century. Just as the general trend in consumer audio has been towards greater convenience over higher quality and a greater a sense of reality, so too has the photographic industry moved to generally lower image quality in favor of the ability to manipulate the final product.
You can argue there has always been the "subjective" impression of the recordist to manipulate certain aspects of the image and I can't argue with that. From the paintings in the caves to the images which have formed our conscious impressions of the life we have lived, everything is an interpretation of reality. That is the very reason we hold some people up to the title "artist". Their interpretations are literally what draws us to their creations. Ansel Adams did not create Yoesemite National Park any more than Geogia O'Keef created the SouthWest landscape or Remington created the myth of the American cowboy. These are all interpretations of what an artist saw in their mind's eye. Ask most Christians how they perceive Jesus and they'll draw upon the ubiquitous images of a light skinned, Eastern European male of aristocratic descent (read: fine featured) from the 16th century. You could take a photo of any of those images and photoshop it into something it is not but none of what you have done would change the fact those images are iconic and immutable in our collective "reality". There is nothing you could do digitally to make that fact anything other than true.
We can reduce the reality seen down to the vaguest impressionistic pointillism or the most grotesque explosion of primary colors of early expressionism and nothing would alter our concepts of what another artist has created. We can look at images of the Silk Road through the eyes of an artist painting very two dimensional, highly stylized images meant to decorate the halls of the Emperor's palace or we can look through the lens of a contemporary artist and see the reality of a very hard and brutal life as lived by the peasants of the land. In each we will see the reality of the artist as they wanted us to experience it.
IMO, that's all that matters; to see even a small glimpse of what another individual experiences. To intentionally "photoshop" those images insults their creators IMO. Art exists only in the moment in which it is experienced. Before and after, there is no art, only an image detached from reality.
While you can photoshop a few wedding photos and have a different final result, that result does not reflect what was in the camera's viewfinder. You can make a photo more acceptable to a vain subject but you cannot remove the reality of the event. I can look at a photoshopped image and see what the photoshop operaore wants me to see, but I cannot alter the reality of the actual event. Stalin can have those individuals who displeased him erased from all photographic records but he could not remove all traces of their existence. We know those people existed, we know they had an effect on the reality of the world we live in and we know Stalin tried to alter our reality and failed.
The fact they existed is objective. The images recording their existence are subjective in our perceptions. We look at the written record of someone eradicated from Russian history and, therefore, Russian photographs and we perceive the image through the conscious recollection of our "reality based" perceptions of a brutal dictator. Photohopping in some candle lit highlights on Stalin's cheeks cannot alter those perceptions.
That film manufacturers offered the analog photographers a way to create more aesthetically appealing images does not change the brutality of the Zapruder film. Nor does it change, for those who lived with the aftermath of the event, all that has occurred since and as a result of that image.
Not to give you a hard time, leo, but your statement, " ... I have NOT met a photo I could not improve", is first, on the highest level of self importance and, second, absurd on the face of it. No matter what you do in the digital manipulation of an image can you alter the talent of the original artist - if art existed at all. Just as we live in a world where reality is a rundown of our lunch spelled out in 140 or less characters, we also live in a world where pointing a camera has been mistaken for being a photographer. Neither are a true, insightful recording of reality. Not to say some very crude images are not the very images which establish reality in the minds of many viewers, just that pointing and creating are two extremely unique abilities. One has been shown to be the skills found in a curious primate while the other is the exclusive province of the artist and their imagination.
As with audio, what we as a collective have been reduced to is exactly what you describe; we can create whatever we want from the reality we wish to escape. We can record a dozen artists on a dozen different days or over the course of years. We can take those bits and pieces and put them together to create a more aesthetically pleasing result but we cannot change the fact those dozen artists were never in the same room at the same time. If talent exists in the reorganization of bits and pieces, it cannot replace the talent required for an artist to first create and then capture those things which are relevant to the reality of the original event.
Should there be a "goal" for such a thing? IMO, of course. If you have no idea of where you want to end, how do you begin? However, your goal and my goal need not be the same. Your path and my path do not need to meet. No matter how hard or how many times you try to explain your goal to me, your reality can only be interpreted through my own subjective reality and my own subjective awareness of my own past experiences. I can't be you and you can't be me.
We both came up with a different answer for Rocker as to what to buy. I have to say you are very much like many of the student set designers I schooled with; you create a design which ignores the very obvious needs of the script. You give forward a design which fails to read the stage instructions which plainly state "the character enters from the main stage, circular staircase" and you design in no staircase what so ever. Rocker says he has a center channel speaker and you give him an answer with no capability to use that center channel speaker. You have "photoshopped" Rocker's reality to suit your own needs. In this case, you have not "improved" the reality of Rocker's system, you have eradicated it from existence as surely as Stalin had his enemies removed from the photographic records of his life. You have created your own reality to suit your needs. Not the needs of Rocker.
That, to me, leo, is what you can do to "improve" any photo with photoshop. I would not care to see what your photoshopped image of Adam's Yoesemite would look like.
Jan, Even 'good' digital cameras don't capture the dynamic range of the eye. The eye/brain interface and processing is Every Bit as complex as the EAR/brain system.
That's why, for example, I can take 8 shots from +3 stops (which really renders shadow detail well) to -3 stops which will allow detail in very bright, highlighted areas. The process is called HDR for High Dynamic Range.
You mention Ansel Adams. This guy INVENTED and worked 'The Zone System' to a fine art. I'm not going to bother to try to explain it, but part of the idea is to use the fact that your light meter is based on '18% grey'. That is the 'reference level', if you will.
I've done plenty of 'Substitute' metering and used to bring an 18% card WITH me at all times. I'd use my camera close up on the card and meter THAT in the same light as my subject. Today? I'll bring my Sekonic 358 with me and use it in 'incident' mode. My new Digital has much better dynamic range then the camera it replaced and I don't have much trouble getting from a good highlight to shadow detail. The built in histogram function AND the 'active' LCD and eye level (OLED) viewfinder make good exposure adjustments easy.
As it turns out, Adams made a great many VERY good negatives. But, his further contribution was in PRINTING. I've got some Adams stuff which HE supervised before going to press. It is much better than the same print in a hack-job calendar printed long after his death.
The professional images I see are pretty much untouchable while the amateur stuff looks awful, in general, needing cooling or warming or a whole host of other stuff. Don't forget that if these guys adjust the computer monitor, it is without reference. Just like 50% of ALL televisions purchased have NO further adjustments made to the color.
A story? My cross the street neighbor is an EXPERT on lighting. He does lots of good stuff. You may have seen the Nancy Reagan Interview a couple years back. HE lit it. When I saw it I was annoyed by the FLOWER lit with a kicker in the MIDDLE of frame, far background. I was informed that there was a HUGE debate about that flower and the lighting. To me? It was distracting.
And yes, I CAN improve just about any amateur level photograph I've ever seen. Not the stuff exhibited, though I DO sometimes differ, I don't think my choice is necessarily better, but by and large, nearly every amateur photo I've seen can be helped.
Leo, you and I are talking about two different things. First, allow me to repost your original words.
") I gotta tell you I have NOT met a photo I could not improve."
OK, obviously, you have met a few photos you could not improve, Adams work to be just one. You don't really have to try to impress me with your knowledge of photography, leo. I'm not a dummy when it comes to grey cards. Or a zone system of working. Manufacturers names and specific models numbers aren't required for you to speak to me. You are sounding a little like the guy on an audio forum who claims his opinion should be respected as superior because he owns such and such equipment. Just tell me what you want to say and leave out the unneeded parts. OK?
You made a statement regarding improvements you could make to any photo. Clearly, that was a bit of stretching the point.
IMO, "improving" a subjective value is a bit like adding eq to a sound system. Except worse. I don't personally deal with photoshop in most cases. Of course, I understand the need for calibration but that isn't what you were discussing in your original statement. Really, leo, do you think you are the only photographer who adjusts their camera's settings and their monitor and printer's settings?
What I see you saying is you can take a lousy photo taken by a lousy photographer and you can change it around. Fine. I have no problem with that. Most photos I've seen taken by people nowdays are limited by the abilities of their smartphone's camera. Even when I was more active with my photography I saw many photos taken by people who had spent a good sum on their gear but didn't take the camera off the "infinity" setting. They allowed the camera to dictate the autofocus and never looked at anything other than what they wanted to see in the foreground. They took photos of interesting views but somehow managed to mist the more interesting patterns they could have created by simply looking and thinking before they snapped the shutter. So, I have to say, what's your point? If it is that a lot of people shouldn't be allowed to buy a camera, I'd have to agree. If it is that photoshop was created to make up for what the photographer can't manage to do, well, where's the argument? There's a place for photoshop and, of you want to spend your time fixing bad snapshots, fine. That, however, wasn't what you had originally said.
Are we done with that topic now?
If so, more importantly IMO is the idea of how to improve a photograph. Once again, my opinion is you can't improve anything which is intended to capture the moment in time. Whether it's an audio recording or a photograph, that is, IMO, what we as a recordist are attempting to accomplish. If that's not true, don't we have enough photo of sunsets and bluebonnets already out there? Why create more unless we are trying to record what is occurring at any instant in time?
You mentioned wedding party photographs which you touched up. Here's my story of wedding photos. My nephew wanted to learn photography when he was visiting about a decade ago. I took him to my regular shop and he purchased a camera. We went out and did some shooting that night and the next day before he had to leave. As with so many budding photographers, he originally had little sense of composition. So I showed him a few ways to make more interesting compositions. I showed him how to work a meter and adjust the camera's settings. A few years later and a camera upgrade for him, he showed me his library of save worthy shots. He had taken photos at two weddings and a small bunch of get togethers and they were included in his album. In each of his "candid" shots of an event, he missed recording the event. Each and every candid shots was staged and posed. Before he took each "candid" shot, he would ask the people in the frame to look into the camera lens and do something interesting.
Now, we could argue about the value of having posed shot at a wedding party but, IMO, that is not the meaning of "capturing the moment" if it takes time to set up the moment. Just as with Dak, where he was, IMO,spending at least as much time listening to his system as he was listening to his music, my intentions when I take candid shots is to be invisible to the event and record the moment in time. Yes, there are the posed shots but those are a different thing. I think of my candid shots just as I think of my audio recordings. It is the musical event which interests me in audio and it is the personal event which I am after with my photography. Understand? I can never have that moment back to take an identical image so I want the one shot I take of that exact moment to say as much as possible about the event. My aim is to create a time capsule of sorts which can be viewed by anyone and they will see what was occurring at that instant. Even if the event did not happen to them, they will have an emotional bond to the event I am recording. They can draw on their own recollections of similar events which they have experienced and they will see a bit of their own history in what I have placed on an image. No different than how I approach an audio recording. It is my recollection of a similar event which I am hearing as the music plays. I may take several shots of several instances but each should uniquely express the moment at which they happened.
I have a series of sunset photos I took on a trip out to Big Bend National Park in SW Texas. Over the course of about 20 minutes or so, with my camera on a tripod, I simply took photos of the setting sun against the mountains and terrain of the Rio Grande Valley. Each photo is a unique moment in time which captured the progress of the sun's descent behind the mountains on that day. Each frame, therefore, holds an image of a moment captured in time, a time which will never exist exactly in that same way again.
Do you see what I am getting at? You can dress up the wedding photos to make them more pleasing to that person's vanity. You can use those presets on the photoshop menus to adjust the image to a conventionally accepted idea of "better". But you cannot do anything in photohop to change the moment the image was taken without being completely false to the event. You can eradiate the background just as Stalin eradicated the images of his enemies. You can place the event in some foreign land and some exotic setting. But none of that is being true to the original event. Fun and funny? Maybe. But, if that was the intent of the photographer, then I'd say the photographer is not much more then the Weird Al of the camera crowd.
Therefore, what is it you are "improving" in those shots, leo? If you are merely putting a bit of tint in someone's cheeks to replace the imperfections in the natural appearance, how has that "improved" what was, to me at least, the importance of the moment at which the photo was taken? Candle lit highlights do not alter the event which is on the image. If the moment in time is what is on the image, how can you change that image to "improve" it without being dishonest to the event? My answer is, you cannot improve on the moment because the moment is now gone forever and that image is all you have to recall that exact event.
It's listening to the musicians create music rather than listening for how your audio system reproduces the "sounds" of the musicians. Right? You cannot improve on what has come and gone. You can only record it and accept that you've done the best possible job of recoding what was of value at that moment. Placing highlights in the image after the fact does nothing to change the fact the image is of an event which has come and gone. Another image is, of course, another event. Taken together, they are an image of a time which recorded those events we wish to recall at a later date. Without getting deep into those weeds, the photos we take today are the shadows on the walls of Plato's cave. They are not reality but they are how we, as humans, understand reality.
So, I have to ask, just what did you think you were "improving" in this image? IMO you are altering the inconsequential bits and pieces of the image. You did nothing to "improve" the image which captured a moment in time, because you can do nothing to reinvent that moment the shutter clicked.
That's why I am opposed to your ideas of improving any image, leo. There are those photographic images which are so perfect in their ability to stir the human emotions within the viewer that they are literally impossible to alter without removing that which the images express. There are the images which are literally meant to record an instant in time that we cannot and should not forget. You cannot improve upon those images, leo. IMO, you can only falsify them.
Can you change the crap snapshots taken by 97% of the people with a camera. Certainly. Changing though is not improving any more than eq improves an audio recording of Elvis on a hot, steamy Memphis night in 1954.
Jan, Cameras capture only part of what you see. They are simply machines and do NOT 'see'. To that end, what you see is NOT what you get and the nut behind the wheel is still most important.
2 major aspects to photography.
1. Science. Stuff like ISO sensitivity, f-Ratio, shutter speed and the like. Included is all the lens measureablees like angle of view, and the various distortions. Nobody seems to enjoy fringing, for example, when the lens doesn't focus all colors of light at the same distance.
2. Art. Compostion and balance of elements. This covers the countless subjects of photography. Some people enjoy capturing motion in a still frame. And yes, 'candid' vs 'posed' photos. Many successful shots are posed/setup yet may appear 'spur of moment'.
There is NO question in my mind that I can help the first and give good advice on the 2nd. The only way MOST persons learn is by doing. The so-called kinestetic learner. That's why I formerlly recommended FILM to learn on. It slows the process down and allows some reflection on the process. Someone learning with digital may end up with several Hundred shots and STILL not be able to tell the good from bad, though still expressing a preference. The trick is to get 'em to SEE what they are doing and maximize what they like, as output.
Photography is similar to music in that in photography you have the initial work. Call it the studio tapes. Than you must work toward 'output'. Prints, for example, or even an entire wedding album. Between the recording / shooting and the output of album (photo or audio) comes WORKFLOW. This is where many persons fall down.
People are happy with mediocre photos. I've tried to interest car-people and they are monumentally stupid when it comes to better photography. But I can understand the emotion involved in some blurry, instamatic stuff of 'the ride'. I want to give 'em a wall hanger that'll last and be around long after the car is a fond memory.
Part of my process of wedding photography involves interviewing the bride and finding out what she expects as output. Album? CD? Setpiece shots of everyone? Formal shots? Only Candid? I even had ONE bride I'm glad I missed. She told me later she was a 'drunken mess' and had NO intention of EVER picking up her photos! How's THAT!
I'm talking about ART and SCIENCE, of which both music and photography are composed in about equal measure.
One final point concerns 'rules'. In photography, you have some rules, just like music, with say, cord progressions. But just like music, you can ignore the rules and still make pleasing or even great (music or photography).
And Yes, I sure dodged a drunken bullet. I had a few others I'm glad I missed, too. Today they are called 'bridezilla'.
I'm talking about ART and SCIENCE, of which both music and photography are composed in about equal measure."
As it stands on paper, that's more than a little bit insulting.
Music has rules which are always followed. Western music has rules which are not similar to Eastern music but both have rules which establish how their results will flow. In Western music, we have "modes". Modes establish that any chord progression or any single note movement within the music is subject to a rule or a group of rules. No matter where you go with music, you follow a rule. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Music is contextual. What occurs before and after any single moment will determine which rules are in play. There are no "wrong notes" in music, only notes which have yet to be established as belonging to the composition. These are rules which date back to the Greeks and their philosophies regarding art. Aristotle and Plato stuff. One of the most basic rules of creation in an artistic endeavor is, anything is possible only if the possibility of "it" occurring has been established prior to its introduction. Read about the Greek playwright's use of "Deus ex Machina".
Call it art or science or a combination of the two. What you accept as correct is what you have been told will be correct. Robert Wilson and John Cage followed the rules which said they could do "this" but not "that". They merely bent the conventions of their day. No artist can use all the rules which are in existence, so "conventions" become those rules which the audience favors in any given time period. Performers who try to implement too many rules generally leave the audience exhausted since the rules say you will always follow the rules. In the movements away from the highly stylized art forms of the late 19th c/, artists often stripped their art of all conventions to achieve a "primitive" form which follows those same rules we see in "native" art forms. Technology has wedded art and craft and blurred the lines of both as the rules can be seen in both.
What is bent are not the rules of music, poetry, theatre, etc., but rather the accepted conventions of the day. Brecht called it "epic" and "didactic". Miles Davis played it as a sus4 and a 13th. No rules were broken in either case. The audience was simply being introduced to a new way of seeing art in a new light. The rules already existed. No one had employed them in quite that way before Brecht and Davis challenged the audience with new methods of performance. Oddly enough, both styles of performance were drawing on ancient styles to bring fresh eyes to old themes.
When technology creates a new guitar, for example, the same rules dictate that a I-IV-V chord progression still works as it did with an acoustic guitar. When film is introduced to a stage play, the same rules of theatre exist as they did when Sophocles first wrote the Greek Tragedy of "Antigone" and when Jean Anouih wrote his version in 1948. Anoiuh was very aware of the rules of the play long before he set pen to paper.
This is why people study music, theatre, painting and sculpture, etc. If you remain unaware of what came before you, then you are going to stumble around for many years making stupid mistakes and d calling them new rules. In the end, all you've done is made a mish mash of the existing rules.
Rules are the very essence of jazz and blues music. While the rules have a difficult time describing, say, exactly what a blue note is and how it operates, the flatted fifth which is the blue note has not suddenly appeared in music's rules in the last one hundred years. Bach used it to his adavantage over the objections of the Church to his writings. Convention of his time said a blue note was the "devil's note". Bach said, "Possibly, but the people enjoy it when I play it." We still play it. Jazz, blues and many popular songs wouldn't be what they are without it being included. A performer would be a bit of a fool to go on stage and attempt either form, jazz or blues, without first comprehending the rules which dictate where the music must begin, where it will end and what will occur between those two points. A jazz player who doesn't understand the rules of the modes is not a jazz player. They are wandering in the desert, hoping they will stumble across someone who can lead them out of their plight. They will emerge on the other side with a better understanding of modes and rules.
Sorry, leo, you are not breaking any rules with anything you do in photography. You cannot "ignore" the rules. You may be unaware of the rule you are using, but it already exists and has existed for thousands of years. New technologies make rules easier to follow, they do not make rules obsolete. I can guarantee that whatever you do, it is within the rules and probably has been done before.
Like the rule of 'thirds' which is used as an aid to composition. Generally, you arrange elements of interest at 1/3 intervals and tend to avoid the center of the frame as the center of interest.
I would speculate that a 'constructive violation' of rules is acceptible. That is the 'art'. Working within the rules, which have a scientific basis, at some level.
You don't have to explain the rule of thirds to me. You don't need to explain grey cards to me. But I know of no rule which isn't being followed in photographic composition that isn't a long standing(ancient, actually) rule in painting, sculpture, architecture, design, etc.
You said, " ... But just like music, you can ignore the rules and still make pleasing or even great (music or photography)." I am completely unaware of how you can create great music without using established rules. As I said, you may be unaware of the rule, but that is ignoring an education, not a rule.
Equally, I know of no rule which can be "ignored" in composition which doesn't fall under the criteria of yet another rule. Conventions are a different than a rule. We break conventions all the time and some people become famous for doing so.
Are you trying to make a point? Or, just throwing out things like "rule of thirds"? I simply do not understand what you are trying to get at.
This all began with you saying you have not met a photograph you couldn't improve. OK, we both realize there are photos that require no further "sweetening". How did we get to where we are now?
Help me out this time, leo. Don't confuse me more.
I just got back from an Xtended weekend getaway to NYC - took the wife on an anniversary trip. She bought some leather boots with red stripes on the heels or so - Louboutin or something French - they were half of what I paid for the Venere - for starters. Trust me - when I say hi-end audio costs me far more than the price tag on the audio - it does - many times over.
My wife seemed to really enjoy the trip so it was a huge success IMO.
We went to the finals weekend of the US Open (tennis). That was my scooby snack. Had fun. New York is cool in its own way but we spent 2 weeks in Paris a few years back and went to the French Open - that was by far the coolest tennis getaway we've ever pulled. How can you not love Paris? Champs Elysees? Louvre? Anyway - i've used tennis as an excuse to get stamps in my passport. I collect them (stamps in my passport - and blue chips from AA but that's another story). NY is another planet not another country so no stamp this time but we needed the getaway.
I'm not touching the photo thing. I know very little about photograghy. I was into underwater photography for my entire thirties. I dived the Caribbean all over and clicked thousands of photos. I have stacks of underwater photo albums - the photos were taken underwater is what I mean - the stacks of albums are not underwater - in case you were wondering. All I remember - this was before digital cameras - I had a 35mm waterproof camera made by Sea & Sea - I used iso400 speed film and set the shutter speed at 100 and set the aperature wide open for dark/cloudy so i'd maximize the exposure - underwater is not a bright world - even in the caribbean. Hell one of the funnest weeks of my life was when me and some friends took a boat out of West Palm east to Bimini Bahamas and sailed around for 5 days diving every cool spot we ran across. We dived 4 to 6 times a day and stayed drunk / toasted on top of being narced from the diving (nitrogen buildup). I borrowed a friend's underwater camera for that trip - fell in love with the underwater photography thing - bought a camera of my own just like the one he let me borrow when I got back and was heretofore hooked on it - underwater photography the drunk/toasted part of it is another topic - took hundreds of pictures that are still probably the best I've ever taken - because from then on I tried too hard to get better pictures. To me that's an interesting point in and of itself. Now i'm too old and rusty to dive (that's my excuse and i'm sticking to it). Still have my scuba gear in the trunk of my car. If I bring it inside my wife will throw it away. The zipper on my gear bag rusted closed. I can't sell it because I can't take pictures of it. That's my excuse and i'm sticking to it.
Jan - you perceive audio / photography as the ability to capture the sound and sights of an event or a performance and reproduce it later somewhere else. Your strong belief is that the audio or the photo or video should be as objective as possible and leave it to the observer to draw their own interpretations or to adjust the presentation however they may prefer. It is only the pure and objective record of the event that can achieve this. I tend to agree with you to a point. I sense your frustration with SACD - a technology that had great potential - only to be shot down by executive bobbleheads - sacrificed on the altar of profits - or profit protection. The concept of the equalizer annoys you. Producers of music who inject great amounts of subjectivity - personal flavor and coloration into the music - annoy you greatly. I tend to agree with you on that last point.
Leo is living in our not-perfect world driven by profits - a world where the objective is not to produce an objective record of an event but to sell a product - and most people do not want an accurate record of anything - most people would hate recordings that truly reflected live performances - we're so used to the singer's voice and lead guitars / brass instruments being brought to the forefront and the drums and bass instruments faded into the background - that's what sells. You know that. You metioned in another thread that older music was boosted at 200Hz to sound better on car speakers. A great deal of the music the iPod generation is listening to has a boost at 50Hz so it sounds better on earbuds. Try playing that stuff on a good audio system with a powerful sub (I lived next door to that nightmare for over a year - but that's another story). Almost all the new HT receivers have DSPs on them to simulate all kinds of listening environments. That's what sells. Fake sells. You're right - people don't care as much about the accuracy of a record as they do the ability to manipulate it. We want to live in a photoshop world. The real world is ugly and hard to change. Dreams are far more flexible - they're tailor-made.
The fact that you two are essentially saying the same thing but seeing it from two different viewpoints - or classifying it in different ways - highlights the challenges these industries face. Exactly where does "objective" end and subjective begins? If I improve my product by doing what I feel is an improvement to the results - perfect example is red-eye reduction - have I made my product more "real" or less? You could successfully argue either side. I say make the tools available and let the user decide and i'm pretty sure you both agree with me on that. But using red-eye reduction for someone else's photo - is that being more objective or subjective? So you started with "never seen a picture I could not improve" and 3 rights and a left turn later we're at ... i'd like to buy a vowel. I'll go back to driving with my foot (explained later in this post) and let you guys figure this one out. I guarantee you i've never taken a picture you cannot improve.
Leo I appreciate the fact that you appreciate my photoshop analogy. The greatest teacher who ever walked this Earth taught complex concepts to illiterate / uneducated masses using what we call parables. I'm not that good of a teacher - I have taught classes on computer stuff - and I've found analogies and charts get points across rather well. I'll take all the help I can get in this world.
Jan - I know you'll find this hard to believe but i've actually heard many many times in my life people saying to me "I wish I was smart as you are." I told this one woman - coworker - one day - no you don't - she gave me a look of surprise / shock - I told her - think about it - if you were smarter than 99% of the people on this Earth (not saying I am) that means you live in a world of idiots - your parents are idiots - your brothers - your relatives are idiots - most of your friends are idiots - your coworkers - your boss is almost always an idiot - you live in a world ran by idiots. She just looked at me with an expression of painful realization. Life is like being trapped in the back seat of a car being driven by drunk teenagers driving really fast the wrong way on an interstate hanging out the window doing a bong hit driving with thier foot on the wheel - okay maybe not quite that bad - watch CNN for 5 minutes - yes that bad - and there's nothing you can do about it. There's a very good reason why a huge percentage of the smartest people on this Earth become alcoholics and drug addicts and many commit suicide eventually. I loved getting hammered drunk when I was young it was a relief to be as stupid as the world around me. Successful smart people find something to focus themselves on in ways that allows them to ignore the stupid in which they're enveloped - those last 13 words - read them again and again and again. And thank you. I apologize for adding to the frustration.
The most frustrating part of this world to me is politics. Since we're already off-topic why not. It amazes me how many people get caught up in the dog-and-pony show of bipartisan politics. The function of the Federal government - at its highest level - is to make absolutely certain that the rich and powerful STAY rich and powerful. That's it. Everything else is a distraction or a means to that end. People protect thier golden gooses. That's what most politicians are there to do. That's it. Everything else is a distraction. Actually, power and wealth usually come together but not always. Politics often represents a process whereby one is traded for the other - usually wealth buying power and the politicians with the power selling it to the highest bidder. Just depends on where you look. Simply put: a small number of people - or one person - gets most of the wealth and power and uses that wealth and power to protect their own stranglehold on it - whether they themselves hold offices of power or they use puppets instead (much preferred since puppets are easily replaced). That process is what we call politics. How does 1% of the population rule the other 99% in a democracy? Easy. Same formula they've been using for thousands of years: keep the 99% divided and fighting against themselves - keep them stupid - keep them distracted - and keep them brainwashed. Ok - i'll get off my soapbox. I've made my point. Thank God for laughter. A good sense of humor is necessary to survive in this world.
I have read through all the new posts. I will do some research into the products and ideas - i'll scratch my head for a while and get back to you. It may be a while - been really busy lately and things are getting worse not slowing down anytime soon - that's my excuse and i'm sticking to it.
"Producers of music who inject great amounts of subjectivity - personal flavor and coloration into the music - annoy you greatly."
There are tools which can be used and at times they should be used. I wouldn't take my claw hammer out to rake the leaves. IMO tools are often used when they are there, not because they are useful. If I'm on a guitar forum and I suggest to another member they forego all of the pedals and effects they have acquired I am very likely to be told to mind my own business and do so on another forum.
My opinion is too many people use too many devices and buttons and knobs and sliders for a few basic reasons. First, the less educated users feel they will be more "professional" if they have more things to play with. I have a friend who wanted to learn how to play guitar so his first move was to spend about $10k on gear, with an entire rack of effects pedals. He can't play a note and found out learning how to play was going to take effort so he never bothered to learn. The equipment sits unused.
The less educated player sees pictures of engineers working at 168 channel mixers which feed to a bank of effects devices and they think that's how they can make their sound "better". Even the engineers often feel the same way. We have become a listening public that doesn't listen to live music which means we have no reason to want the sound of live music from our playback systems. From the days of the Civil War players were always seeking a "different" sound, something that would set them apart from all the other players. Once electronics entered the capacity of the musician, the desire to have that unique sound didn't suddenly disappear. As the musician became more and more dependent upon the electronics to make them different, soon they all began to sound alike since all the same electronics are available to anyone with a credit card. Formulas for how a recording should sound were followed and we ended up with the homogenized sound of most modern music. The idea of fixing it in the mix became the most common way to make a recording.
A decade ago this forum had a discussion regarding multi-channel recordings and why most of us still listened in stereo, two channel. The final agreement was the sound quality resides in the mix. There are certain recordings which wouldn't be what they are if technology had not been applied, if not stretched, to arrive at an end result. I have no problem with that. I just see the use of buttons and knobs to be used too often as a crutch for not having a very good idea in the first place. I don't have a lot of ... "appreciation" for the recording stars of today so I wonder just how many will be remembered a half century from now as we think of the pioneers of music who played during the first 3/4 of the 20th century. I really doubt most listeners in 2050 will be searching for Lady Gaga recordings.
"You metioned in another thread that older music was boosted at 200Hz to sound better on car speakers. A great deal of the music the iPod generation is listening to has a boost at 50Hz so it sounds better on earbuds."
Well, yes, the music industry is about profits. They have created mixes which sounded good on boom boxes and car stereos and now they are tailoring their sound to MP3 players and $5 earbuds. There is, though, a growing interest in issuing albums on vinyl which means you can't mix for a MP3 if you are playing back on a turntable. Mostly, these are small independent labels which can do their own marketing via the internet. They may sell through small independent shops but my experience is, if you go into such a shop and ask for a recording they don't have in stock, they get on their computer to see where they can buy it off the internet.
There is a small stream of musicians who are looking back at the simplistic process of years gone by and trying to capture a similar sound. They are, though, flowing against the tides of the large recording companies. They require a dedicated listener to find them and, even then, whether you like their music is not always a given. I receive the catalogs from Music Direct and so forth and they are full of mid-century recordings. I don't need yet another copy of The White Album. In the end, I'm not sure what both those things - new vinyl and old vinyl redone - actually say about the state of music other than not enough people go to hear it being made live in front of them.
"If I improve my product by doing what I feel is an improvement to the results - perfect example is red-eye reduction - have I made my product more "real" or less?"
My personal issue with technology such as red eye reduction is, IMO, it makes for a lazy photographer. If you can fix the problem after the fact, why learn how to avoid the problem in the first place? Learning how not to get red eye was one of those very basic lessons I was taught as I first learned anything about photography. Most of the lessons learned yesterday are now taken care of after the fact. fix it in the mix. I had times when I hadn't yet acquired the equipment to perform a certain photographic effect. I've had times when I was shooting photos which couldn't be counted on to avoid certain problems. For those times, Photoshop is a terrific innovation which allows better results without resorting to a lab tech's concepts of how my photo should appear. Just as with buttons and knobs being the crutch for the latest musician, IMO Photoshop all too often gives today's photographer permission to ignore learning how to take a decent photo. Or putting forth the effort to create interesting images. If fixing it in the mix is always your answer, sooner or later your work is all going to look very similar and formulated. If fix it in the mix is your guiding principle, IMO, you aren't looking to capture the moment, you're looking to turn out images which adhere to a formula for what you can fix later. Just as with a recording pieced together from disparate bits and parts, players who never saw one another, the end result with most Photoshopped images are not worth my time.
Yes, once they're pointed out to you, they become easier to notice. Yet, this sort of pattern recognition was a common problem with many of my nephew's photos. When I would rearrange his composition or refocus his framing, he could see what might have been an interesting image. Nothing much he could do about missed opportunities though.
Jan, if you read some of my posts over in the photography section you'll see I tend to agree in part with what you say. When asked to recommend a beginners camera, I formerly would say to buy a used AE-1 or even an old Pentax manual camera. This 'manual' or even just film process SLOWS DOWN the process and forces you to evaluate what you are doing. So WHAT if someone goes to a wedding and takes 400 photos? Can they tell the good from the bad? Would another 400 photos help? Digital cameras are a 'systems' approach to photography, not image or quality or composition. When you decide photography is for YOU and you've learned a little discipline, along with some of the elementary rules, feel free to spend some more $$$ and get a nice Digital. These days, however, most film cameras are 'shot out' and film is becoming problematic. I have a perfectly good Polaroid Land Camera, one of the originals, which took now-unavilable roll film, B&W only. It was a terrific picture taker. My other 'relic' is a Yashica 635 which will take either 120 OR 35mm, with the 'kit'. The 35mm is a kick, since the lens is 85mm. This turns it into a very, very nice portrait camera, for tripod use. With 120 film you get some amazing, large (med format, actually) negatives or tranparancies.
But THESE days, I've sort of changed my recommendation for anyone who wants to get SERIOUS about phtography. Take a couple JC courses in photography. Learn a little processing using FILM. Exposure than starts to make more sense to the novice. Take an ART course in 2-D design. This helps with composition 'elements' and arrangement thereof. That helps someone learn the difference between lots of bad->ok shots vs 'better', more pleasing images.
One thing I do like these days is showing my uneditied stuff on the TV. Even a modest sized 50" plasma, showing full frame stuff is lots of fun. Some images make more sense as a 4x6 while others seem to like enlargement better. I have a shot from vacation which printed to 14x60 and is SPECTACULAR. And cost a small fortune to get Framed! Most modern sets will take either some kind of memory, like SD and have USB slots.
I'll PM you MY test shot for 'see the pattern'. I like this shot and find that many persons can't see the pattern, some even after you TELL them what is there. You be the judge.