List your subwoofer and its limitations /strengths

[bluelightning]

"Analog" is certainly used that way, but is a real word with a real definition. Musicality is certainly more open to interpretation, but that is the rub in all of this, isn't it? How do you talk about sound? I'd rather talk about how something moves me than look at graphs and measurements (which, BTW, don't tell the whole story either as much as you would like to think they do), but to each their own I suppose.

Agreed. Most audiophile terms have real world definitions, just not pertinent to relating the sound to the science of electronics. An example being "analog sound" What electrical property/response contributes to an "Analog" sound ? muted high frequency response ? I have seen the term "Analog sound" applied to cables , again what electrical property ? Is it resistance, capacitance, inductance , some other voodoo ? Then comes "airiness" and the same set of questions arise. What makes a system sound airy ? Is it an elevated frequency response in the upper frequencies ? The list goes on and on. In any case I don't want another debate Just like to point some things out as a practicing electrical engineer.

 

[markshan]

Analog means not digital. Every other use is fluffery. Musical means musical.

 

[Jeffrey Michael]

Analog Sound to me equates to being warm, more realistic, closer to being there at a live event versus bright sounds that we got from early digital discs and players where no instrument or effect sounded realistic.

 

[markshan]

Analog Sound to me equates to being warm, more realistic, closer to being there at a live event versus bright sounds that we got from early digital discs and players where no instrument or effect sounded realistic.

Analog or digital files can be warm and realistic. The warmest piece of recorded music I have is the Honneck PSO SACD, and I have hundreds of records.

I actually consider myself to be primarily a record collector and the surround thing is a very gratifying secondary passion.

 

[ssully]

How can you not believe in musicality for something that is playing music? Seems pretty basic to me.

Why -- or how -- should a subwoofer (or amp, or any sound reproducing component) care if the input is music? Seems pretty ethereal to me.

 

[ssully]

Analog Sound to me equates to being warm, more realistic, closer to being there at a live event versus bright sounds that we got from early digital discs and players where no instrument or effect sounded realistic.

So much mythology.

 

[ssully]

Analog means not digital. Every other use is fluffery. Musical means musical.

Well that certainly clears things up.

'Musical' of course has a common adjectival meaning as in 'musical theater', 'musical instrument', 'musical box', that has nothing to do with its poetic, undefinable audiophile connotation .

 

[bluelightning]

Analog Sound to me equates to being warm, more realistic, closer to being there at a live event versus bright sounds that we got from early digital discs and players where no instrument or effect sounded realistic.

The usage of "analog" in this sense is incorrect electrically speaking. Being warm does not necessarily equate to "more realistic", just subjectively more pleasing to the end user. There are plenty of bright sounds from live events as is. Bright sounds from early CDs were an artifact of mastering rather than anything else.

Analog means not digital. Every other use is fluffery. Musical means musical.

I am glad you clarified the meaning of analog . At least we agree on this.
Now for musical. To electrical equipment, (atleast if you believe in electrical theory) a signal is a signal ( of a certain bandwidth). It doesn't know or care if it music or not. If a system exhibits a certain frequency response, it is going to do the same whether it is noise or music.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

Now for musical. To electrical equipment, (at least if you believe in electrical theory) a signal is a signal ( of a certain bandwidth). It doesn't know or care if it music or not. If a system exhibits a certain frequency response, it is going to do the same whether it is noise or music.

Oh no. Is this gonna be like when I finally learned the truth about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy...

Please tell me I can still believe in electrical theory

 

[hobie1dog]

Can we please use this thread to discuss subwoofers only?

Thanks

 

[erebus]

I have a Mirage Omni-S8. I guess it's decent, but I'm not real sure how to judge the performance of a subwoofer. I do want to move up to something better. Does anybody have an opinion or have heard the tower speakers made by Definitive Technology that contain built-in powered subs?

 

[Jeffrey Michael]

Analog or digital files can be warm and realistic. The warmest piece of recorded music I have is the Honneck PSO SACD, and I have hundreds of records.

I actually consider myself to be primarily a record collector and the surround thing is a very gratifying secondary passion.

I agree. I did say early Digital, not what I hear currently.

 

[markshan]

Why -- or how -- should a subwoofer (or amp, or any sound reproducing component) care if the input is music? Seems pretty ethereal to me.

Instruments playing music are supposed to be ethereal.

 

[markshan]

Well that certainly clears things up.

'Musical' of course has a common adjectival meaning as in 'musical theater', 'musical instrument', 'musical box', that has nothing to do with its poetic, undefinable audiophile connotation .

WTF are you talking about? Systems to reproduce music should be musical. Why is this so difficult?

 

[markshan]

Now for musical. To electrical equipment, (atleast if you believe in electrical theory) a signal is a signal ( of a certain bandwidth). It doesn't know or care if it music or not. If a system exhibits a certain frequency response, it is going to do the same whether it is noise or music.

If this is true, why do tubes sound better to so many when they do a measurably worse job of accurate reproduction? Why does adding noise to a file make it sound better, not worse? Just because you refuse to acknowledge that there are factors other than graphs, some factors that we don't even understand, doesn't make it so.

 

[ssully]

Instruments playing music are supposed to be ethereal.

Instruments don't play themselves. And actual musicians prefer them to be real. Ethereal drums sound quite lame.

 

[ssully]

I agree. I did say early Digital, not what I hear currently.

But was it 'early digital' or 'early mastering for digital release'. But then, why do the self-professed connoisseurs on places like Steve Hoffman's forum seek out 80's era 'target CDs' if early digital was so dire? Maybe the 'badness' of 'early digital' is more legendary than real? I find it hard to believe that everyone who claims to remember how 'bad' it was, was hearing the absence of dither.

 

[ssully]

WTF are you talking about? Systems to reproduce music should be musical. Why is this so difficult?

It's not 'difficult', it's 'meaningless', at least as you've defined it so far. Systems to reproduce images should be visual! Pie crusts should be pie crusty! It's not even up to the (also silly audiophile ) level of 'analog instruments should be reproduced in analog'.

 

[ssully]

If this is true, why do tubes sound better to so many when they do a measurably worse job of accurate reproduction?

Tubes look so tubey!

Why does adding noise to a file make it sound better, not worse?

You mean audible noise? (I try not to add that to any of my files.)

Just because you refuse to acknowledge that there are factors other than graphs, some factors that we don't even understand, doesn't make it so.

Just because people have preferences , doesn't mean it's beyond the realm of science. Science actually studies those, too.

 

[bluelightning]

If this is true, why do tubes sound better to so many when they do a measurably worse job of accurate reproduction? Why does adding noise to a file make it sound better, not worse? Just because you refuse to acknowledge that there are factors other than graphs, some factors that we don't even understand, doesn't make it so.

Sound better is different than more accurate. Tubes sound better because people like the sound of the distortion products it creates due to its inherent non linearities, NOT because they are more accurate. There is also the warm sound from a rolled off response. When people say they like a more "analog" sound or sometimes tubes they are generally saying they like a rolled off frequency response on the highs. This is again far from accurate. Just because you dont understand engineering and the significance of graphs, don't knock them.

Every piece of electrical equipment you are using , including the device you are using to type on this forum, which is far, far,far more complicated than a "audiophile" audio system relies on these same electrical principles to operate correctly. If indeed there are even slight flaws in the theories or engineering the system would could to a halt.

Consider this: in your average PC , there are billions of instructions executing every second. If in those billions, even ONE bit is incorrect, your system can crash.

I dont understand why is it that audiophiles like to continuously question these principles without even having a basic understanding of them.