SETUP TIPS
AFTER 30 YEARS OF AUDIO AND VIDEO EXPERIENCE WE'VE LEARNED A FEW THINGS WE'D LIKE TO SHARE
1) The room is a huge part of the sound and roughly represents 1/3 of the sound quality of any system. From the room measurements, we can get a good idea of what were working with and how to best approach your speaker selection. A smaller room is very different than a larger room in the loading characteristics. Speakers should be carefully chosen to properly load the room.
There are many competing designs that include a wide variety of different technologies. These factors result in trade-offs and offer many unique and different flavors, styles, frequency ranges. Additionally one has to consider performance, budget, decorative, and room placement issues.
Speakers are therefore usually the hardest part of the system to choose. We offer a wide variety of great speakers that can fill any need or desire and a complete line of sub-woofers and in-wall speakers.
2) All amplifiers sound different depending on the speaker’s load. All speakers regardless of the nominal impedance have areas where the impedance deviates enough to make a difference. Additional needs from speakers are from sensitivity, amount of drivers and what I refer to as “David’s law of cubic inches” (add up the total displacement of the speaker cone mass) more mass regardless of the sensitivity requires more dampening and power and is as important as the sensitivity for good sound.
The second step is amplification.
3) As Linn was famous for saying in the earlier days before CD’s the source is the most important part of any system. This is still true today. If the information is not their at the beginning of the chain the information is lost.
*A lot of attention should be made to selection of the sources.
4) Audio is synergistic and the room, speakers, electronics, cables, stands, conditioning and often tweaks are all things that should be considered and discussed.
A superior dealer easily makes the sum of the chosen parts greater than the parts. A week or inexperienced dealer or lay person usually wastes money and never gets the performance one gets from a well designed system.
If you need help in picking cables, speakers, electronics, conditioners, stands parts or designing a system or room please call me in the showroom 310-472-8880 and or set up an appointment. Please note, proper design is best done on the phone on in person but simpler things and scheduling can be done by e-mail.
LISTENING TIPS
"It's all about the Music"
I’ve been thinking a lot about Music Lovers, Musicians and Audiophiles and wanted to share this:
Music Lover are often not audiophiles and and most musicians don’t own good audio systems.
This is what I’ve figured out:
High end audio is BEST served with good recordings and the better the system is the worse a bad recording sounds. A good recording becomes alive and demential on a great system and it does not take a leap of faith as Harry Pearson founder of The Absolute Sound said “to believe the players are in the room playing for you”.
A music lover is someone that is into music and often the history of music. These type of listeners are usually not as interested in what is possible only at the expense of a poor recording sounding awful. The logic here is a great system allows you to hear deeper into the recording and HEAR’s virtually everything in the recording and in the case of a poor recording one hear’s everything often muted and restrained, tonally incorrect and even distracting & annoying errors in the recordings.
Musicians are unique and thank the heavens that they exist and make music for the rest of us to enjoy. Musician’s have a unique prospective and most of them identify with music in the way they relate to what is being played and often break it into parts or study the instruments individually and how they come together. Most musicians so much prefer playing to listening that a great system is more often overlooked for their ultimate experience being that of making the music (being one with their instrument).
Audiophiles come in every type 98% male and 2% female and every nationality. As I often say, Audiophiles are born more than being discovered later in life. I kiddingly refer to being a Audiophile as a person with a defective gene (certainly I have that defective gene). Audiophile’s think as themselves as music lovers but many get lost in a few good recordings and know little about music and the history and origins of music that GREATLY enhance the experience one can have. My recommendation here is to broaden the types of music you listen to and if you not already listening to Jazz, Classical and Blues you are missing a WELTH of great recordings and a better understanding of MUSIC and discovering new horizons. There are many people that know music and the better recordings that can help you to enjoy music to new levels and help you with picking recordings and new music. These people should be sought after, valued and mentor others.
The Zen of Listening to Music for the “Smart Audiophile”
After considerable thought here is the best way I have figured out to be a music lover and Audiophile:
Music can be looked at as “the soundtracks of our life’s”. I know in my case a recording often takes me back in time and I can sense a time long past and have a sensation of going back in time. Where you were, when you got the album, what you were doing, where you were living and friends and relationships all reminding one of our past and often fond memories.
As I see it, it is all about the music but the experience of Miles Davis, Kind of Blue or another great piece of well-recorded great music on a great system is a transforming experience. Personally, I listen to a lot of deceased artists, perhaps more than those that are still alive and the recordings were often fresh expressions of brilliant artists that were at their best and together in groups that don’t exist and are a transformative way of reconnecting to the past.
So how does one respect music and be an Audiophile & Music Lover?
This is so simple and can be even profound. If you really love music then show respect it and try following my two suggestions:
1) Find, collect and save great recordings (best when it is not Audiophile music) for special listening sessions in which your activity and attention is only about listening to the music. Use that special music and time to heighten the experience. It is often a good idea to tell the family if they exist what your doing is listening and you need “your special time” to enjoy your experience.
2) Sort out the music you love and have generous supply of the lessor recordings for your car, office, whole home, shower or other places you listen. You should never find your self without a abundance of music to listen to. We sell music servers, set up LP systems and whole house music systems in and outdoors and subscription music services like Tidal link to: tital.com (a better quality music paid subscription service) and help make “music” an integral part of our customers life’s.
As a music Lover, there are times when I study an artist or type of music and use different places to best serve the music and my enjoyment of it. There is a reason they refer to “singing in the shower” and it is one of my favorite ways to get my days started. My car is full of driving music, books on tape and lectures and I’m rarely bored when I’m driving and I have music as a background at dinner, when entertaining and ofter even on the Tennis Courts playing or practicing.
To sum this up we should all try to reach out and broaden our listening tastes, learn more about music and it’s artistry and enjoy the music more as a integral way of “living better”. Respecting music and either listening as “the activity” or using it as the sound tract to you life is worth the efforts !
Making Better Audio Systems One System at a Time