Manifesto is still a strong word. I’m not trying to start a movement! But this is an audiophile position statement. Hopefully it will be informative and entertaining.
I have been an audiophile since I was born. No ifs, ands, or buts. It started with the first things I heard as a child, played though tube amps and big (but not really all that great) bass reflex speakers. After that I was exposed to transistorized hi-fi amps (as well as DDT and nuclear fallout) at an early age (I survived). There certainly has been a maturation process. 53 years of it. Some periods in this process could be criticized – when I bought my first CD player, or when I bought my Bose AM5′s. Or even when I bought the JBL’s for my recording studio. But as a true audiophile, I soon realized that what I had needed better sound, so I continued to try to improve things and I haven’t stopped.
Manifestos are always absurdly long and wordy, aren’t they. That isn’t my style. Maybe I need to find a new word to describe this post or else make it extremely long and wordy!
16 Bit Digital Audio is Not Good Quality
This is an evil to avoid. Very little 16 bit digital audio is tolerable through anything but crappy speakers playing at low volume. Cars, MAYBE. OK, this it’s been pretty much OK in all the cars I have owned up until now, including my sonic favorite, my 2000 Chrysler Town and Country Limited (Infinity speakers and pretty good sound dampening). Some 16 bit recordings sometimes seem to sound good, but there is just so much room for improvement that it to accept this as good.
Lossy Compression Audio is Currently Unacceptable for Musical Listening
Lossy compression is prevalent in all broadcast, cable and satellite TV content, most consumer recorded TV (except Blu-ray and some DVD’s that use PCM), all satellite and HD radio, personal media players, etc. We start to become accustomed to the sound. There could be some possibility for improvement, thus the weasel language above – “currently.” Today, though, lossy compression is not good enough for music. At best, it offends. At worst, it offends a lot.
Compressed music can be listenable. I watch lots of video with lossy-compressed audio – even the occasional music oriented video – and it is mostly tolerable. But this is not critical listening.
Solid State Amplifers Add Bad Harmonics
Fortunately, this doesn’t happen a lot until they are at or above rated power. None the less, it has led me to seek out tub amps for critical listening. There is a hardness (vs. a tube softness) that is audible at low levels. This is revelation listeners need to make with their ears. The hard vs. soft, cold vs. warm sound is the subtle criteria by which the sound of amplifiers, which one would think should be neutral, should be evaluated. Although it is a subjective trait, it is demonstrable.
Bass Reflex Enclosures Distort
Bass reflex, tuned port, folded horn, anything where a back wave of a speaker driver escapes is not ideal. The transient sound is always muddled by this additional energy. A good number of the speaker in my collection are some kind of bass reflex design. Some are better than others (some are outstanding, like my Ohm Walsh 4′s), but speakers that avoid this are the best. Musical instrument amps are mostly exempt (even though they usually suffer from this problem to an extreme). Their cabinets serve as a way to get a particular sound and make it very loud. They are instruments themselves, not sound reproducing devices.
Under Powered Solid State Amps are Very Bad
This is so easy to avoid these days. It seems like the only components manufactured for the last 20 years are fairly high powered (even cheap ones). You want a lot of head room with transistors. With tubes, under powering is also bad, but not nearly as bad.
Cables Should be Judged on Ability to Deliver Signals
If a wire and it’s connectors can carry the required current to deliver the signal as intended, it is adequate. Losses and changes from cables are a part of the circuit design. Unintended effects from cables are rare from cables made with the right materials. Designing a workable circuit and using the right materials is important to creating good sound, but one piece of 10 gauge copper with the same diameter cores, properly connected, will be as good as the next. This is also (especially?) true for digital cables (TOS link, HDMI, etc.).
Use your Ears
The best way to judge things is with the best measuring instruments you have available – your human senses. It is alarming to know how much hearing (and vision) loss we experience. Just do some high frequency hearing tests with persons younger than you and you will see. None the less, these instruments are your most valuable. Train them by concentrating on the sound. Testing sound with multiple options (A-B-C) is a great way to start. Use a variety of sources.
Newer is Not Better, Older is Not Better
There is a lot of great new gear (most of it with absurd price tags). Great stuff was also made throughout the last 50 years. What was great a long time ago could still be great. What was junk a long time ago is still junk. There are different degrees of goodness and badness and there are many amazing bargains in second hand hi-fi.
