will
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Beowulf.
My room and system, but within my perceptions and preferences, the Nirvanas do compete. They have a signature though, as the others do. I am keeping them in now as I find what they bring to my sound compelling, but also to see where they go with more break in. I really like the Decware cables too, and like the Morrows also, but not unequivocally. I am hesitant about them for a number of reasons I put in post 42. The cool thing is, the Nirvanas are cheap and have a good return policy, so even if they don't fit ....
Maddog,
I have noticed cables being a bit "off" when first installed too, even when they are broken in.…worse for some than others…especially the Morrow cables really had to "warm up" a while before I felt I could listen carefully to them…the dielectric??? Likely!
At any rate, all three had been in use over the last several months, and hard as it is, I did run each a while before initial critical listening. After that, when I changed them again, I just sat down and listened to a number of the same test tunes with each, and each cable came in with the same level of settling in. This is another reason I went for hours of "passive" listening with each. Just in case.
You pose some interesting questions about "reality" in music reproduction and perception. I think these are valid and good to keep in mind, but also relative depending on ones body/mind, senses, discernment, practice, gear, gear/room synergy, and perhaps most importantly, having reason for trusting, and then believing our preferences and perceptions. I find psychoacoustic concepts interesting, and I agree that acclimating can be influential, but also feel it does not necessarily have to be to a meaningful degree. For me a lot is physical…listening fatigue being a great indicator of this.
Starting from such a satisfying music playing system, with parts and components made by folks with very good minds and ears, it appears for me that the reference concept applies more to them than me as long as my room is good.
I mean, every recording we own was made based on individual preferences using individual sets of gear, rooms and ears. And all are different! So to me, it is more a thing of adjusting my system to enjoy the recordings I love to hear to help them sound their best as much as possible (most of which are at least decent in musicality). Actually, the wide range of recording qualities, some bright, some dark, some bassy, some sizzly, and so on, seems itself a governor for keeping from getting too far off real.
In this, some audio decisions might be a touch different than adjusting for reference recordings, but not very different. For me it is about getting the system/room the best it can be toward a sense of players in the room. And after all, of all the recordings I have heard or made, none are totally accurate.
And venues for live playing…I can't even think of trying to duplicate that myself…most venues beginning compromised, often in many ways. So I need to go by the standards my system and room create, and trust my preferences to guide the way. There are the occasions when something does not work well, but luckily not often for me.
As long and hard as I have listened, first impressions often last for me. The way I listen and the way I "play" my system, with tuning and changing out tube sets every so often (as a vehicle to finding new listening pleasure as well as reaching greater levels of discernment), I believe I have come to a baseline that is pretty real. My perceptions and decisions yes, but the sounds of real instruments and real voices within this.
I check myself with the help of my wife pretty regularly. We will AB stuff and she has little or no idea what I put up is "supposed" to do. Neither do I for the most part except in a general way since the only way for me to really "get" a piece of gear is to hear it myself, in this room. Sometimes, I check whatever it is myself first to get my impressions…but also, I might just put it up and we both listen, in which case I develop my impressions on what I hear as we listen and wait for her to comment before I do. Though her words are most times a little different than mine, what is described is ALWAYS what I heard. I trust this.
This is interesting. Thanks for starting this part of this discussion… I love it when real thoughts stimulate more thought.
For me, when I hear something that draws my attention, it is most often a thing that holds up with time. Either I don't agree with it in my system/room, or I do, in which case I might flesh out the subtler details with time…or not. Most times I really like what it brings to the system, perhaps because I rarely try anything out of the blue, using trusted sources as pointers. But also, as my room and system become more refined, it accepts synergistically more variety of decent stuff than it once did.
In this exploration, many things that "stick out" at first can be really good….more refined transparency; forgiving qualities of warmth that do not compromise detail and which still hang within a neutral feeling framework; more satisfying bass; better timbre; better attack and decay; micro or macro dynamics, or micro detail..textures, or whatever.
It actually constantly amazes me how a system/room that is so good can get better by following and trusting perceptions and preferences! With the vast variety in recordings and mixes of good music, for me it actually becomes an imperative to try to help the system awaken them as much as possible, sheerly for the increased pleasure of hearing them. "Accurate" to the original recording may not be very true to the real sound of instruments...players or singers in rooms. This is my objective, to help pull out the real sound of music right here. I think it is safe to say that many recordings sound better here than they did in the studio or live venue. Why not improve them with an excellent system/room.
It is tricky, and there are many places where we could stumble, but I doubt I would like a system that was completely accurate. Then all those different rooms, and recording gear, and mixing gear, and mastering gear, and digitizing gear, and all the rest that was not accurate to begin with, will sound inaccurate in terms of a real musical experience.
As I "write out loud" I guess I find accuracy a bit mythical. No matter how good the technology and gear, and the measuring gear, finally it is people running the gear and making decisions based on their preferences and perceptions. And we all know that gear and technical knowledge is constantly developing, change that by definition rules out ultimate accuracy.
I do like that the gear makers I like use good references along with their knowledge of tech and most importantly their great perception and discernment.…it puts me in a good ballpark for my personal exploration and refinement of all that I hear in tuning my system/room to satisfy me.
I guess one safety factor that can help keep us on course is this: Though few recordings are accurate in fact (or recorded in accurate rooms), most who made recordings of good music were trying to make it sound real within the framework of a given economic environment, technology, gear/systems, and rooms…all of which, they also tried to make sound real. But few are alike.
So if we make our systems feel right within the the variety of the above, there is likely a "balance" within the imbalance of recordings that can work with. We might lose a little of the best of the best in terms original accuracy, but we might also improve upon a lot of recordings that are not so accurate. At the same time, I don't really think those more accurate recordings necessarily suffer from system tuning…they might have a slightly different flavor than the original mixing room, but still be great, or even get better musically. This is my experience anyway.
Luckily, we can get gear to help us get great sound in our own rooms, and we can flesh out the good of what we listen to without revealing just how bad the less good recordings are. This is a whole lot of what I love about good tube gear.
All that said, I think your suggestions for checking system sound and trying to get it real are interesting and compelling, I am just pulled into the exploration from another angle, very possibly toward a similar end.
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Suggestions 10' Speaker Cables (Read 105245 times)
