what’s your philosophy of voicing a system?

[Nick B]

Hey Doug,

Sorry for my late response. I just saw this today and I normally just tap on  the "show posts since last visit" tab, and not the one below it. Those are some very nice speakers that you have shown. My speakers are either on a boat somewhere in the Atlantic or sitting in customs or who knows where else. The distributor hasn't been very responsive and I need to follow up on this. I've been so busy with moving and I have yet to spend one evening in my home as I'm still waiting for painting and flooring to be completed. My new place has a smaller listening area and it will be a challenge to make things sound good. But that's a project that is at least 2 to 3 weeks into the future.

As to you not being notified of posts, there should be a notify tab at the bottom, and I would think that would fix the problem.

Nick

[ejk]

If you're interested in the Hornings contact JB trio he has them

[GDHAL]

Too bad this, like so many other forums, include posts that are not on point as far as the thread topic.

Voicing philosophy involves using my ears as the dominant factor, acoustical engineers (one at least) performing measurement data as the second criteria, friends of mine that include musicians as a third criteria, and all others which include audio club members, audio aficionados, and anyone else who purports to be knowledgeable in sound reproduction.

This is how I know the finished product of my 30k all in system easily, let me repeat that word easily, compares with ANY other system costing more than 100k, when one takes into consideration the overall presentation which includes, the second most dominant factor, the room itself. It's unclear to me whether people understand what the primary dominant factor is or what the third and thereafter dominant factor is but that's a topic for a different thread.

Best

Hal

[Nick B]

Too bad this, like so many other forums, include posts that are not on point as far as the thread topic.

Voicing philosophy involves using my ears as the dominant factor, acoustical engineers (one at least) performing measurement data as the second criteria, friends of mine that include musicians as a third criteria, and all others which include audio club members, audio aficionados, and anyone else who purports to be knowledgeable in sound reproduction.

This is how I know the finished product of my 30k all in system easily, let me repeat that word easily, compares with ANY other system costing more than 100k, when one takes into consideration the overall presentation which includes, the second most dominant factor, the room itself. It's unclear to me whether people understand what the primary dominant factor is or what the third and thereafter dominant factor is but that's a topic for a different thread.

Best

Hal

You make a valid point in regards to some posts not being on topic here. However, this is quite a small forum and stifling discussion based on strict rules would further limit discussions imho. As to your voicing criteria, I appreciate what you are saying and it makes sense. Sadly, I don't have access to musicians, audio club members, trusted ears etc who would come to my home and give me constructive input. Nonetheless, I'm getting excellent results and am expecting even better results soon. My new home is limiting as to the new listening location, but I'll soon be consulting some folks here for opinions.

[GDHAL]

@Nick B

Your response is rather "heartfelt" and "touching" to me. For that I sincerely thank you.

Assuming that you have the capability to play digital audio files, I wish to gift to you a plethora of music. Please pick a few shows of your choosing from my website, and I will gladly make them available to you (and others who monitor the thread) for download.

http://halr.x10.mx/other.html

Happy holidays.

Best.

Hal

[Nick B]

@Nick B

Your response is rather "heartfelt" and "touching" to me. For that I sincerely thank you.

Assuming that you have the capability to play digital audio files, I wish to gift to you a plethora of music. Please pick a few shows of your choosing from my website, and I will gladly make them available to you (and others who monitor the thread) for download.

http://halr.x10.mx/other.html

Happy holidays.

Best.

Hal

Hi Hal,

I'll take you up on your generous offer and will send a PM. I should be able to transfer to my iMac desktop and play thru Roon. As my new place is being painted etc, it will be a few weeks til my system is operational.

Nick

[GDHAL]

@Nick B

I sent you a PM with the download link. Kindly confirm receipt. Please download within a few days or so as the files expire after about 7 days.

Enjoy!

Best.

Hal

[P.I.]

@Nick B

Your response is rather "heartfelt" and "touching" to me. For that I sincerely thank you.

Assuming that you have the capability to play digital audio files, I wish to gift to you a plethora of music. Please pick a few shows of your choosing from my website, and I will gladly make them available to you (and others who monitor the thread) for download.

http://halr.x10.mx/other.html

Happy holidays.

Best.

Hal

WOW!

Most impressive list 

[TopRound‎]

I use the finest measuring instrument on earth
my ears, they never lie, they never present data that should be meaningful but isn't
I believe the ultimate test is musical/emotional engagement
does the system draw you into it, do you find what you are hearing interesting and exciting?

In the end that is all that matters

For me tubes have been a big influence in bringing me into that arena, and not because people erroneously think tubes add a warm rich tone. I have heard some bad tube amps, but because they add air and dimensionality to music. If this because of a flaw in the tech then I like that flaw. And may not be a flaw at all...but a sales pitch to sell another cheaper tech..
We all must compromise somewhere, tubes lack the grip on bass that SS does, but I'm OK with that.,but tube bass can be so realistic and tuneful....
I have also found vinyl for me is where it is at, digital is nice but can't come close to good vinyl and I 'm not trying to start of vinyl vs digital war, nor a tube vs SS war. I only use my ears and what makes me happy is what matters to me, it is my philosophy right?
Audio ergo Sum...

[GDHAL]

@Nick B

Your response is rather "heartfelt" and "touching" to me. For that I sincerely thank you.

Assuming that you have the capability to play digital audio files, I wish to gift to you a plethora of music. Please pick a few shows of your choosing from my website, and I will gladly make them available to you (and others who monitor the thread) for download.

http://halr.x10.mx/other.html

Happy holidays.

Best.

Hal

WOW!

Most impressive list 

Thank you, P.I.

I'll add that I have right of passage, because I've actually listened to every second of music on my list. I did not simply collect it and catalog it.

I have a queue of music, in my backlog which is more than one year old (approximately 600 shows of various artists, some new to me), of music that I have but I've not yet listen to and is not yet on my list. It gets added once I've listened to it.

In addition, I don't know if you've checked my Grateful Dead list. In that particular instance, believe it or not, which in itself is a Grateful Dead term/song, and I'll understand if you don't believe it, but I can easily prove it, I have every source of every show. (Not the case with music other than Grateful Dead, as in those instances I have only one source). In the case of GD, this means matrix, soundboard, audience , FM,  prefm, satellite, and all variants of those. This is the result of more than 25 years of BitTorrent peer-to-peer trading. (And tape, cd trading prior)

It's an obsession, but it's pleasin' (lazy lightnin, Bob weir)

Best.

Hal

[BobM]

room setup is absolutely key, but that all depends on the type of speakers you have and the space available to you (and WAF, of course). So "Live End - Dead End" means one thing for box speakers and exactly the opposite for dipoles and panels.

Second, it's worth getting an inexpensive laser measuring device to get those speakers precicely positioned in relation to your listening position. Distance from the side walls, distance from your ears, distance from each other ... yeah all that matters.

Third, don't forget room treatments. But too much of them can deaden your sound, and nothing will likely make thigs sound too live and reflective.

Fourth, play lots of different music. Bass thumps tell you one thing and tinklly things tell another, in addition to the human voice and piano.

Fifth, subwoofers are a whole nother subject.

So how do I voice my system? Yeah all of that above before I even think about tube rolling or cable swapping.

[GDHAL]

room setup is absolutely key, but that all depends on the type of speakers you have and the space available to you (and WAF, of course). So "Live End - Dead End" means one thing for box speakers and exactly the opposite for dipoles and panels.

Second, it's worth getting an inexpensive laser measuring device to get those speakers precicely positioned in relation to your listening position. Distance from the side walls, distance from your ears, distance from each other ... yeah all that matters.

Third, don't forget room treatments. But too much of them can deaden your sound, and nothing will likely make thigs sound too live and reflective.

Fourth, play lots of different music. Bass thumps tell you one thing and tinklly things tell another, in addition to the human voice and piano.

Fifth, subwoofers are a whole nother subject.

So how do I voice my system? Yeah all of that above before I even think about tube rolling or cable swapping.

Correct!

Pecking order is as follows:

1 - your own personal hearing acuity and preference. ... a lot of subjectivity and objectivity involved.

2. - the recording itself. what it is you're trying to reproduce after it's been performed live or in the studio, and the quality of the recording.

3 - the environment. this includes the room, dimensions of room, treatments such as absorption and diffusion, and environmental factors such as temperature , humidity ,EMI, RFI etc. Also includes quiescent noise floor of surrounding environment.

4 - speakers. This includes everything in the way of transducers. Their type, placement and the number thereof. Crossovers vs no crossovers. Dipole, box, open back, planar, etc. Also extremely important is your proximity to the transducers when listening. This includes on/off axis listening, near field or far field.

5 - the topology of ones system. This includes whether it's analog , digital , solid state, tube or a combination hybrid of those . Also can include objective measurements data.

6 - other variables such as acts of God, cables, electrical supply, etc. Balanced power has a profound impact on the sound of ones system. Not better or worse, but immediately and readily/noticably different.

Best.

Hal

[steve]

Interesting posts indeed, but some very crucial information needs to be brought to our attention.
Electronics seems to be left out of the "equation", which is quite regrettable. This post will not be
exhaustive but will cover an example or two. Of course it involves listening. 

1. One single part value anywhere in an electronic component, or crossover, can bloat the bass,
giving the appearance of lacking bass control. Improper internal terminations and
poor materials in coupling capacitors are prime examples, as the affect all octaves in audio, not
less than 1/3 octave.

2. Improper design of the power supplies/filtering stages in components can either fatten or reduce
the bass. Types of filter capacitors, such as electrolytic negatively affect bass response. This is just
basic electronics engineering.

a. Because of poor power supply design, tube designs often tend to bloat bass.
b. Solid state tends to fatten the bass due to large electrolytic capacitor necessity,
with high DA and ESR.
c. Fortunately, global negative feedback (GNF) in both a. and b. tends to lower the output impedance
of an amplifier, increasing the damping factor, but varies with frequency. The result is not really flat
response. Also, again, this involves more than 1 octave, let alone 1/3 octave.
d. However, with proper design, amps may obtain very tight bass without GNF. But then types of
distortion increase.

3. The "matching", itself, between amplifier output to speaker, including speaker wire will
affect damping, thus under damped or over damped bass response. This involves more than
one octave, let alone greater than 1/3 octave.

4. DC coupling between electronic stages almost always creates a boosted bass response, not flat,
accurate response as one would think. This situation also covers many octaves.
(There are certain situations where dc coupling actually causes reduced bass response.)

5. There are many other forms of distortion besides harmonic (and IMD).
The definition being any alteration of the musical information.

6. Although speakers/rooms cause deviations in response, they seldom exceed 1/3 octave bandwidth,
except in the bass region. For example in contrast, 20 to 40hz is an octave vs 5khz to 10khz as
an octave. Frequency response deviation is one form of distortion. Can one imagine if we perceived
every single dip and peak, how awful the playback would sound.

The wider the bandwidth deviation, the higher number of harmonics from a voice/instrument are
negatively affected. That is why although the specs look so good for an electronic component, the
effect so great. A distortions in an electronic component almost always affects the entire audio
spectrum, approximately 10 octaves, and even beyond.
For instance, +/- 0,1db from 20 - 20khz, a deviation in the approximate -54db range, means
virtually nothing as 1 part in a million perception is some -114db to -120db range. Obviously
listening is involved.

The major point is that electronic components should be right near the top of the list. The electronics
is worse than one thinks. Although they don't produce a huge splash in an area or two, as
speakers/rooms do, an electronic component's other negatives effects often occur across the entire
audio spectrum.

A bad component(s) in a good room still sounds bad. Just one bad electronic passive part can destroy
an otherwise good sound. That is why I do a prelim in the room acoustics, check electronics for accuracy
in absolute terms (or visa versa), then work with speakers and source(s), and then deal with room
acoustics again. It is back and forth with source/speakers.

If one does not get the electronics right, then the speaker/room placement/treatment(s) won't be proper
either. Of course it is easier for a designer as they can adjust parts/components etc that others often cannot.

cheers

pos

[_Scotty_]

My first concern since sometime in the 1980s, has been the preservation of the dynamic life of the music. This seems to be the first casualty of the reproduction process. The second appears to be tonal errors.
Many things appear to be implicated in the loss dynamic life. Gain stage design in amplifiers, pre and power amps as well as the total number of passive parts in a loudspeaker crossover are a couple of factors.
Once I had a handle on this aspect of music reproduction, transparency and preservation
of as much of the detail captured in the original recording as possible became an additional part of the
picture.
One might describe this approach to system optimization as voicing
but am not sure that I would. Neutrality and faithfulness to the source in all aspects
of reproduction are my goals. How successful I been in this endeavor is really a
personal value judgment and how someone else might experience the results of my
approach maybe quite variable.
At this point in time I can say that I have reached a stopping point.
Scotty
Sent from an Android phone with thumbs. Why can't Scotty spell?  geez I wonder?

[steve]

My first concern since sometime in the 1980s, has been the preservation of the dynamic life of the music. This seems to be the first casualty of the reproduction process. The second appears to be tonal errors.
Many things appear to be implicated in the loss dynamic life. Gain stage design in amplifiers, pre and power amps as well as the total number of passive parts in a loudspeaker crossover are a couple of factors.
Once I had a handle on this aspect of music reproduction, transparency and preservation
of as much of the detail captured in the original recording as possible became an additional part of the
picture.
One might describe this approach to system optimization as voicing
but am not sure that I would. Neutrality and faithfulness to the source in all aspects
of reproduction are my goals. How successful I been in this endeavor is really a
personal value judgment and how someone else might experience the results of my
approach maybe quite variable.
At this point in time I can say that I have reached a stopping point.
Scoty

+1.  I like the way you think Scoty.

cheers

steve