"Les" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Now I am confused cause I do not remember who wrote what anymore, LOL
I'm sure you're not the only one <g>
>> >I never said ATRAC degraded anything people can hear
>>
>> You never said that, but it's true (at least for some people).
>
>I will never believe this until someone proves it and more than a few have
>tried, come on over to Oak Harbor WA and try.... I'll offer 100.00 to
>anyone who can come tell me the difference in my studio; but if you loose we
>go to the Outback (A HIGH END restuarant, LOL) on your bill.....
If I lived a little closer, Larry ;-)
>> Most serious audio people would not consider Onkyo or HK to be "high end"
>> -- there is little difference in audio quality between a good JVC CD
>> player and a good HK CD player.
>
>Anyone who knows audio equipment or who has ever sold audio equipment
>knows better than this. While not the highest end Onkyo & HK are high
>end consumer versions whereas JVC is NOT.. But you are right, there
>is little difference in the sound quality which is what I tried to
>explain all along. SO little and subtle you can only notice it at
>very low volume.
I would disagree, Larry, about HK vs. Onkyo vs. JVC, and I would consider
myself someone who "knows audio" pretty well. Harmon-Kardon and Onkyo are
*marketed* as "high-end consumer" but in reality (as you yourself wrote)
they don't really sound any better than JVC. In fact, if I recall
correctly, neither Onkyo nor HK ever had a CD player listed in
Stereophile's recommended components, while JVC has had at least two --
one of their consumer CD players was listed as a Class C transport for
several years. While some people don't give Stereophile much credence (I
personally admit that I think a lot of their "tweaks" are hokey and some
of their "subtle differences" are there because they want them to be
there), I think that more than any of the other audio magazines,
Stereophile at least does a good job of differentiating between what does
and doesn't reproduce good sound.
>What do you consider high end by the way??
I think for CD players you have to at least get up to NAD, Adcom and the
like before you can really say you're approaching "high-end." That said,
there are CD players from "high-end" manufacturers that aren't that good,
and CD players from "consumer" companies (like the JVC unit mentioned
above) that are. And as I've said before, many people don't have "high
end" components, and are perfectly happy with them -- I know you and I
agree here, Larry, but I just want to reiterate that there is nothing
that says you have to have "high-end" stuff to enjoy your music.
>> That's where I disagree. While the average consumer doesn't care, you
>> don't have to spend obscene amounts of money just to get a "high-end"
>> system that can reveal the differences.
>
>I can agree on most of what you are saying but Again, I am very curious what
>you consider "high end"; if JVC decks are equal to Onkyo then are radio
>shack speakers in the same group as Klipsch??
Well, not anywhere near usually, but Radio Shack distributes an
Optimus-branded speaker made by Linnaeus that is probably in that range.
The rest of Radio Shack's stuff is pretty poor ;-) Along those lines, for
years, many people in audio considered the Optimus 3400 to be the best
portable CD player on the market, but who would have guessed. Kind of
what I mentioned above -- even the bad companies get it right on occasion
<g>
>How about +/- .0001 db; think you can hear that difference?? Or how
>about 5hz, think you can hear that? Have you ever had a hearing test?
>If equipment can't outperform the human ear then how would we ever
>measure human hearing? We do it every 3 months in the aviation world.
>This statement is simply not true but it does "sound" good, LOL.
and, similarly, "J. Coon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I am an engineer, and I think that if we can hear something, there has
>to be a way to measure it. THis is science , not hokus pokus.
If you're talking about measuring test tones, dB, frequency response, you
(and Jim) are entirely correct. However, my point was that musical
reproduction isn't about simply reproducing test tones, certain sound
levels, and the "best" flat frequency response. If it was, we would have
had perfect audio reproduction years and years ago. While equipment can
measure those things, it can't tell you whether or not a certain stereo
system sounds more (or less) like the original performance. In terms of
hearing music and the spacial, directional, and, some argue, emotional
cues within it, the human ear is much more sensitive than any equipment.
Two speakers that are measured by equipment to have the exact same
specifications can sound remarkably different to human ears, even in
controlled, double-blind testing. That's why audio magazines don't just
publish measurements, and why we don't buy stereos by spec sheets.
I actually think we're on the same page here, Larry, no?
And finally, while this isn't completely on the same topic, you also
wrote:
>What is also important for me to make clear is that the person that
>can not tell the difference doesn't have to have poorer hearing then
>the excited person (by the standard means use to test a persons
>hearing). He/she hears perfectly fine. Maybe even better then the
>exited person, as far as testing goes. But their thought processes
>are not able to comprehend the difference.
Exactly (IMHO, of course <g>)
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