Have your say & ask the experts

As on my other thread I bought some speakers today after listening to 4 pairs.

My problem if I am honest is I thought they were ALL good and couldn't really split them, now I know to the trained ear there would be differences. My problem was when he was changing over the speakers it took about 2 mins and I had lost the feeling for the previous sound. Whatever happened to switching where you could tell immidiately the difference?

 All I can say is I like the sound of the one's I bought but if you were to ask me the differece between each of them I couldn't, yes they are better than the Wharfrdale 10.1 but they were all around £500.

Now speakers are the easiest to assess, god knows how people can tell:

Difference on Mains cables, speaker cables, Stands, etc.

I have been into Hi Fi for over 30 years and I do appreciate a good sound, I can tell the difference between say a £200 mini system and seperates at £500. But I wish I could appreciate just how good some speakers are, don't get me wrong I listened to some 5k speakers today and instantly heard a difference!

 Ian

i sort of know what you mean, i always need a home demo to sort out what the real differences are.  i struggle at the dealers, but find it easy at home.  maybe the acoustics of my livingroom make it easier?  or it could be because i'm more relaxed as i don't have to decide in an hour or whatever.

It is easier to hear the differences -

- with practice after hearing loads of different systems

- between radically different systems

- if you listen analytically, so you are listening out for specifics in the sound, such as is the bass clear, do the cymbols tizz, is the ir sybillance with the vocals, is there any distortion.

Even if you did not specifically hear a difference, I am sure you will have picked a sound that 'did it' for you more than the others did.

I bang on about the importance of tester tracks when auditioning and the most important for me is Pink Floyd 'Siummer 69'. If I get goosebumps or a spine tingle when the chorus kicks in, then that is the sound for me. If think as to why that is, it is because I prefer a brighter more dynamic sound and smooth to me sounds flat.

I am sure IBD and hammill, without fully realising it you have chosen the best sound for you. Without analysing the sound, something will have attracted you to one particular system or bit of kit. 

If differences are small i know it should be better to hear differences if you can switch between components/cables or take a breath and listen instantly to the other component/cable what could be different. And not overlaps 15 minutes or longer. It's easy to get carried away in hearing a difference at an emotional moment or state of mind... while there is no difference. And always try to listen when your zen-like in a calm enviorement when differences tend to be small.

good point idc, i have found it gets easier the more "practice" you have.

idc:

It is easier to hear the differences -

- with practice after hearing loads of different systems

- between radically different systems

- if you listen analytically, so you are listening out for specifics in the sound, such as is the bass clear, do the cymbols tizz, is the ir sybillance with the vocals, is there any distortion.

Even if you did not specifically hear a difference, I am sure you will have picked a sound that 'did it' for you more than the others did.

I bang on about the importance of tester tracks when auditioning and the most important for me is Pink Floyd 'Siummer 69'. If I get goosebumps or a spine tingle when the chorus kicks in, then that is the sound for me. If think as to why that is, it is because I prefer a brighter more dynamic sound and smooth to me sounds flat.

I am sure IBD and hammill, without fully realising it you have chosen the best sound for you. Without analysing the sound, something will have attracted you to one particular system or bit of kit. 

Personally, sonic differences between speaker brands I find obvious, the odd exception. Same for amps on the whole though it's more subtle. Players/DAC's etc again more subtle bordering on confusing and not always directly related to outlay, certainly not as much as the first two categories though differences become more obvious the larger the price divide. Again, certain exceptions perhaps.

But the point surely has to be synergy. I don't want to state the obvious but individual links are only as good as the chain. That's why finding a system you can live with for a long time without feeling something doesn't quite gel can take some folks years. Luck, a good dealer and experience help.

hammill:

idc:

It is easier to hear the differences -

- with practice after hearing loads of different systems

- between radically different systems

- if you listen analytically, so you are listening out for specifics in the sound, such as is the bass clear, do the cymbols tizz, is the ir sybillance with the vocals, is there any distortion.

Even if you did not specifically hear a difference, I am sure you will have picked a sound that 'did it' for you more than the others did.

I bang on about the importance of tester tracks when auditioning and the most important for me is Pink Floyd 'Siummer 69'. If I get goosebumps or a spine tingle when the chorus kicks in, then that is the sound for me. If think as to why that is, it is because I prefer a brighter more dynamic sound and smooth to me sounds flat.

I am sure IBD and hammill, without fully realising it you have chosen the best sound for you. Without analysing the sound, something will have attracted you to one particular system or bit of kit. 

Ok, let me give you an example of what I mean. I have an expensive (RRP over £50, wich is expensive to me) What Hifi 5* HDMI cable. I compared it with the free one I got with my Humax with HD and SD material on my Kuro 5090. I could not see any differences, yet many people on this forum claim to be able to see substantial differences between cables. Fortunately I like the picture with either cable, but perhaps it is like wine tasting. Some people are super tasters (they actually have more taste buds) and can tell wines apart very easily - most people cannot. Perhaps HiFi is like this, some people can perceive very subtle differences and benefit from endless cable swapping etc and some (like me) cannot.

My wife has better hearing than me, proved by her ability to pick out different bit rates with greater accuracy than I can, so I agree re the 'golden ears' theory.

HDMI and digital transfer of signals is a whole topic on its own. My only experience is that I could not tell the difference between three different USB cables.

hi idb

your wine tasting analogy is a good one. Did you ever see oz and james wine program on tv? Basically wine snob (snob with a silent s) oz clarke waffled on forever about this or that grape and then eventually did a "blind" test in which he spectacularly failed to identify a single grape. It was fairly amusing tv but more importantly very revealing about the "power" of self declared experts.

 I believe that in proper scientific double-blind tests 99% of people would not be able to differentiate between individual cables, components, etc and furthermore most would not be able to match the sound to the component. That is to say that a £1000 cd player would sound no better than a £300 one if they test was sufficiently scientifically rigorous.

 However no "expert" will agree with this any more than they would submit to real science as the truth is somewhat inconvenient to the hifi industry (and by inference to the magaazines that rely on it). I will simply say that the randomized control trial stands as the gold standard method of determining the relative "truth" of any given data set and that fact is recognised by the entire scientific community. Whereas many "experts" will rubbish blind testing as not sensitive enough for their ears! Sorry, but that seems very unrealistic to me.

I would have more respect for and use for these magazines if they were a bit more honest and dare I say, transparent...

Anyway, just my opinion, and only backed by many centuries of unemotional scientific endeavour.

Ant

It's possible that your "problem" is that through having been a hi-fi enthusiast for three decades you are a trained listener. Perhaps, instead of falling into the trap of being hung up on sonic differences, you ignore differences that are purely sonic and focus on musical ones?

As for assessing speakers, my experience is that speakers are the hardest major components to assess rather than the easiest. If you compare two sources in different systems then more often than not you'll prefer the same source in each or have no preference. If, however, you compare two pairs of speakers in different systems then your preference will often vary from one system to the next.

Sometimes you will hear a significant difference that results more from system set-up and/or components than anything else. For example, until recently I was using a Marantz PM4400 amp with (less recently) a Marantz CD5400 CD player. My system set-up was unavoidably bad, and when I upgraded from bass-light Wharfedale Valdus 100SEs to Tannoy Mercury F1 Customs the Tannoys' rhythmic performance was so bad that, in spite of the Tannoys being superior in most respects, I found the Wharfedales more enjoyable to listen to. Had I not been an experienced listener I might have assumed that the Tannoys were intrinsically rhythmically poor. Luckily, I was able to guess correctly that the Tannoys were merely shining too much light on the poor bass performance of the amplifier and CD player, a problem that was being exacerbated by the speakers' poor location. Briefly trying the Tannoys in a better location showed that even with the same amp and speakers they would improve given half a chance. My recent upgrade to a Linn pre/power amp, however, emphasised how much the Marantz amp had been holding the Tannoys back. Even with still poor set-up their rhythmic performance became almost as good (in terms of bass) as the Wharfedales' had been.

As for the "golden ears" theory, I don't think one's hearing is that important. When I was young I could easily hear a 5dB signal throughout the so-called normal 20Hz to 20kHz human frequency range, and I could hear sounds above 30kHz. I think 30kHz is probably a more realistic upper point to describe as "normal". Nowadays, my hearing isn't acute, and my upper frequency is just under 15kHz. Certainly, this means I probably can't hear the tortured high-frequency screeches that some CD players used to emit and I am no longer troubled by CD players' "claustrophobically" steep HF filtering. This sort of thing aside, however, I think I am at least as good at detecting differences as when I was young.

[I think I've spent more time correcting typos after posting this than writing it - sorry if anyone was confused by previous edits].