The Good the Better and the Great - a guide on how to determine what your listening too.
This guide is based on my experiences. This forum has many esteemed members so of course people will disagree but overtime this is how I differentiate systems.
If it proves useful to you it will save you a lot of money spent on upgrades. And if not, it may make for an interesting read!
I thought of writing an article on how to judge a good system from a great one (better is in between). I have been in this hobby for a couple of decades and have experienced systems ranging from a humble Rs. 20,000 one to ones costing crazy amounts. The idea behind this article is that very often we are taken in by the
engineering behind a speaker or DAC and get taken in by that rather than by the music.
So how/ what makes a system good, better or great? (It isn't the price)
1. Good System:
A good system delivers music. It tries to stay neutral, tries to deliver what it can to the maximum without superimposing a strong character of its own. This is known as
errors of omission where it is better for a system not to deliver a particular frequency rather than trying to act smart and over deliver on say bass or treble.
A good system may deliver the respective frequencies, but may fail to engage you. It delivers highs, mids, low, soundstage, dynamics, detail, etc. I call this a technically right system. Long ago I heard a wilson benesch floorstander extensively (the entry level model). It was extremely controlled, didn't boom, was positioned well so it disappeared. But it didn't engage me. If I had to rank it based on treble, mid, bass, control etc. I would say it was perfect but it missed out on making me get involved with it.
Most systems fall into category 1. Again it doesn't depend on the brand but depends on how everything is brought together. On category 1 systems, some songs will sound ethereal but majority of songs will sound boring. We all have had a setup like this, where we will demo what sounds great on it when a friend is visiting but secretly we know it doesn't sound good on most CD's. I have heard flagship maggy's and flagship B&W's driven by flagship boulder monoblocks, driven by the flagship Audio research preamp and Ayre CD player all connected with transparent cabling in a properly designed room (not an audio show!) and I would classify it as category 1. Hence price has nothing to do with it.
However I have felt that this first category of systems do not connect with you. It lacks certain qualities that take it to the next level. So what are these qualities? Let us move on to see.
2. Better Systems:
Many years ago I was listening to Don Mclean 'Empty Chairs'. There is a part where a piano is being played on the right side of the soundstage. I have heard this track many times, but I heard it on a Mark Levinson preamp for the first time. It was driving a pair of Bryston monoblocks hooked to a Morel speaker. For the first time it felt as if someone was playing the piano, rather than a piano playing in the background. The decay between notes was present, it timed well, the image wasn't too large.
Welcome to the better system. What I was hearing were parameters like PRAT, micro detail, correct image size, space between the notes etc. It didn't matter whether the system extended from 20-20000Hz, something that the humble Morel bookshelf cannot do anyways. But what mattered was that it made me sit in front of the system and get engaged by the music rather than judging it. Nothing stood out nor did I feel it lacked anything.
A long time ago I was walking on the street in Boston and there was a homeless man sitting by a church. He was singing into a mike and was playing a guitar hooked up to a small speaker. I stood there and was amazed by how wonderful it sounded. This is what I mean by getting engaged. I didn't care for the bass or treble or anything. I was just walking by and heard something beautiful, stood there and was entertained. When I was a kid I learnt the piano. I would frantically try and focus on reading the notes right and my teacher always said focus on the timing and the space between the notes. That's what makes one a good piano player. I guess this is what she meant.
Money can buy a good system easily but only careful system matching (cables, tuning accessories) and tuning by ear can get these parameters. Sometimes one gets lucky as well and ends up with this system. So often one hears a small simple setup at a show and it connects with them compared to the big boy systems in the other room (Category 1).
If one get to this level I would suggest stop and enjoy it. It is very difficult to achieve this. Some companies try to deliver some of these parameters but usually they only deliver one or two parameters which become a flavour that is superimposed on everything you play through it. Naim delivers on PRAT, Marantz when it was owned by Philips delivered on a seductive midrange, Accuphase delivers resolution, etc.
If you dare and want to go to the final level then read on.
3. Great Systems:
Wow. So you decided to read on! Great systems deliver everything that Better Systems do and they go beyond category 2 parameters. When you listen to a song, you not only get engaged into it you also feel as if one is watching a movie or hearing a story. You get what the song is all about. You can hear the singers singing together, or singing off, or whether they were enjoying singing together or engaging in playful banter while they performed. You get the seriousness of the performance or whether it was a light hearted one or whether the singer was trying to impress the listener with a particular part of his/her voice. You can almost tell what mood the singer was in when this performance was made. Here the performance is delivered while the system just gets out of the way. Bass, treble, mids, soundstage, nothing matters anymore. I have heard this VERY few times and every single time I did the setup was driven by tubes with a tube output stage as well. I don't think it is a function of even order harmonics here but probably about the simplicity that some tube circuits are built with. Minimum parts, very high grade components, NOS tubes, high sensitivity speakers? I do not know the secret formula, but when you achieve this sound nothing else matters.
Well, I hope that this proves useful and if anyone has experienced something similar I would love to hear what they experienced and felt!
This guide is based on my experiences. This forum has many esteemed members so of course people will disagree but overtime this is how I differentiate systems.
If it proves useful to you it will save you a lot of money spent on upgrades. And if not, it may make for an interesting read!
I thought of writing an article on how to judge a good system from a great one (better is in between). I have been in this hobby for a couple of decades and have experienced systems ranging from a humble Rs. 20,000 one to ones costing crazy amounts. The idea behind this article is that very often we are taken in by the
engineering behind a speaker or DAC and get taken in by that rather than by the music.
So how/ what makes a system good, better or great? (It isn't the price)
1. Good System:
A good system delivers music. It tries to stay neutral, tries to deliver what it can to the maximum without superimposing a strong character of its own. This is known as
errors of omission where it is better for a system not to deliver a particular frequency rather than trying to act smart and over deliver on say bass or treble.
A good system may deliver the respective frequencies, but may fail to engage you. It delivers highs, mids, low, soundstage, dynamics, detail, etc. I call this a technically right system. Long ago I heard a wilson benesch floorstander extensively (the entry level model). It was extremely controlled, didn't boom, was positioned well so it disappeared. But it didn't engage me. If I had to rank it based on treble, mid, bass, control etc. I would say it was perfect but it missed out on making me get involved with it.
Most systems fall into category 1. Again it doesn't depend on the brand but depends on how everything is brought together. On category 1 systems, some songs will sound ethereal but majority of songs will sound boring. We all have had a setup like this, where we will demo what sounds great on it when a friend is visiting but secretly we know it doesn't sound good on most CD's. I have heard flagship maggy's and flagship B&W's driven by flagship boulder monoblocks, driven by the flagship Audio research preamp and Ayre CD player all connected with transparent cabling in a properly designed room (not an audio show!) and I would classify it as category 1. Hence price has nothing to do with it.
However I have felt that this first category of systems do not connect with you. It lacks certain qualities that take it to the next level. So what are these qualities? Let us move on to see.
2. Better Systems:
Many years ago I was listening to Don Mclean 'Empty Chairs'. There is a part where a piano is being played on the right side of the soundstage. I have heard this track many times, but I heard it on a Mark Levinson preamp for the first time. It was driving a pair of Bryston monoblocks hooked to a Morel speaker. For the first time it felt as if someone was playing the piano, rather than a piano playing in the background. The decay between notes was present, it timed well, the image wasn't too large.
Welcome to the better system. What I was hearing were parameters like PRAT, micro detail, correct image size, space between the notes etc. It didn't matter whether the system extended from 20-20000Hz, something that the humble Morel bookshelf cannot do anyways. But what mattered was that it made me sit in front of the system and get engaged by the music rather than judging it. Nothing stood out nor did I feel it lacked anything.
A long time ago I was walking on the street in Boston and there was a homeless man sitting by a church. He was singing into a mike and was playing a guitar hooked up to a small speaker. I stood there and was amazed by how wonderful it sounded. This is what I mean by getting engaged. I didn't care for the bass or treble or anything. I was just walking by and heard something beautiful, stood there and was entertained. When I was a kid I learnt the piano. I would frantically try and focus on reading the notes right and my teacher always said focus on the timing and the space between the notes. That's what makes one a good piano player. I guess this is what she meant.
Money can buy a good system easily but only careful system matching (cables, tuning accessories) and tuning by ear can get these parameters. Sometimes one gets lucky as well and ends up with this system. So often one hears a small simple setup at a show and it connects with them compared to the big boy systems in the other room (Category 1).
If one get to this level I would suggest stop and enjoy it. It is very difficult to achieve this. Some companies try to deliver some of these parameters but usually they only deliver one or two parameters which become a flavour that is superimposed on everything you play through it. Naim delivers on PRAT, Marantz when it was owned by Philips delivered on a seductive midrange, Accuphase delivers resolution, etc.
If you dare and want to go to the final level then read on.
3. Great Systems:
Wow. So you decided to read on! Great systems deliver everything that Better Systems do and they go beyond category 2 parameters. When you listen to a song, you not only get engaged into it you also feel as if one is watching a movie or hearing a story. You get what the song is all about. You can hear the singers singing together, or singing off, or whether they were enjoying singing together or engaging in playful banter while they performed. You get the seriousness of the performance or whether it was a light hearted one or whether the singer was trying to impress the listener with a particular part of his/her voice. You can almost tell what mood the singer was in when this performance was made. Here the performance is delivered while the system just gets out of the way. Bass, treble, mids, soundstage, nothing matters anymore. I have heard this VERY few times and every single time I did the setup was driven by tubes with a tube output stage as well. I don't think it is a function of even order harmonics here but probably about the simplicity that some tube circuits are built with. Minimum parts, very high grade components, NOS tubes, high sensitivity speakers? I do not know the secret formula, but when you achieve this sound nothing else matters.
Well, I hope that this proves useful and if anyone has experienced something similar I would love to hear what they experienced and felt!
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