Another fun video questioning if your hearing can be trusted. There are some pretty interesting illusions in there:
In nature, no two of anything is exactly identical....symmetrical....
I am seriously considering surgery on my right pinna to exactly match the left pinna.
Symmetrical pinnae will help the "stereo staging" ie. phantom imaging.
Thank you Alan Blumlein.
I am seriously considering surgery on my right pinna to exactly match the left pinna.
Symmetrical pinnae will help the "stereo staging" ie. phantom imaging.
Thank you Alan Blumlein.
Since there seems to be an insistence to discuss anecdotal evidence (better called first-hand experience) pejoratively, why did most of you purchase Linn equipment over other manufacturers? If you can’t trust your ears, should you not be selecting your equipment by the technical numbers only?
1000W power amps, here we come.
1000W power amps, here we come.
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I'm not sure what the take away from this thread is.
I don't think that prior expectations are the biggest challenge when selecting between set ups. Differences range between very subtle and very obvious, and we can definitely hear a wide range of differences, but not all differences get you closer to the music.
Bias might be a factor, but genuine subtle differences that you hear might also be misleading. For example, more detail might sound initially more engaging but become fatiguing because it has messed with timing.
The technique of Linn's tunedem provides a pretty good mechanism for evaluating systems, though I'm not good enough at it to eliminate misdirection when the changes get subtle. However I have not found a more reliable approach.
That doesn't mean bias can be ignored, but I think a suggestion that any difference heard is solely down to bias is probably just noise in the discussion.
More important is consistency of evaluation technique. If you don't know how someone is evaluating changes, you can't really tell if a reported difference is actually an improvement.
I don't think that prior expectations are the biggest challenge when selecting between set ups. Differences range between very subtle and very obvious, and we can definitely hear a wide range of differences, but not all differences get you closer to the music.
Bias might be a factor, but genuine subtle differences that you hear might also be misleading. For example, more detail might sound initially more engaging but become fatiguing because it has messed with timing.
The technique of Linn's tunedem provides a pretty good mechanism for evaluating systems, though I'm not good enough at it to eliminate misdirection when the changes get subtle. However I have not found a more reliable approach.
That doesn't mean bias can be ignored, but I think a suggestion that any difference heard is solely down to bias is probably just noise in the discussion.
More important is consistency of evaluation technique. If you don't know how someone is evaluating changes, you can't really tell if a reported difference is actually an improvement.
Additionally, listening to music is an emotional thing. And that means there are many factors involved that aren't necessarily logical.
So if an ugly box in your room sounds better than the box you find attractive, but having to look at the ugly box could detract from the emotional musical experience, then buying purely on sound quality might not be for you. Its the whole feel good thing that matters - and that's more than the sound quality on its own.
I have this problem with cables (and stupidly bright blue LEDs), if they're a mess they distract me too much. For many its similar to having a scratch or dent on your one year old car. It doesn't matter how fabulous the car is, as you walk up to it all you can see is the scratch. Or maybe that's just me
Back to hifi, there was a speaker promoted on another forum a while back that was touted as being the most musical speaker ever. I heard them, with the recommended electronics. Yes, they played a tune and in Salisbury they would have been described as PRaTful. But it didn't matter to me. Because they did so many other (derogatively described as hifi issues and therefore irrelevant) that there was no way I'd ever want to sit and listen to them.
Its an emotional thing we're chasing. To think that we should be entirely logical about it doesn't make much sense to me.
I wanted well made reliable kit that was easy to use and sounded great in my lounge from an established company that I knew. I’d been using Naim kit, but it didn’t work well in my cottage and Naim offered no solution to my problems. So I tried Linn amplification and all problems disappeared. I had other kit over the years and only Chord Electronics comes close to Linn for me (Linn wins in my lounge because of Space Optimisation). I’m sure I could enjoy music on other excellent systems from companies like NVA, Rega, Sugden and Conrad Johnson and I have heard very good Naim systems (though I am dubious of Linear Power Supplies with large transformers).
I am sure there are other great brands, but, as I’m happy with Linn (and Chord for upstairs), I am not really interested in changing brands. Yes, I have had comments that cheaper equipment made in China could sound good, but my attitude is “so what?”. I’m delighted with what I have. I did hear some Ming Da at a hifi show and can’t believe anybody would have wanted to buy it based on that demo, but I’m sure some folk must like it (wasn’t cheap either).
A couple of distinctions that I have found to be useful:
Hifi is not music. Music is not hifi.
Hifi is objective. It is designed by engineers using established engineering principles. At least at Linn it is. Of course there may be a point where a design does something that can't be quantified, but there is a cause and effect happening. The shape of the Kandid body comes to mind.
Music is subjective. Of course it can be dissected and looked at objectively, but that's not what we usually do when we listen to music. It occurs as a subjective experience by which we are moved emotionally.
Hifi is not music. Music is not hifi.
Hifi is objective. It is designed by engineers using established engineering principles. At least at Linn it is. Of course there may be a point where a design does something that can't be quantified, but there is a cause and effect happening. The shape of the Kandid body comes to mind.
Music is subjective. Of course it can be dissected and looked at objectively, but that's not what we usually do when we listen to music. It occurs as a subjective experience by which we are moved emotionally.
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