Another observation…..

[beck]

The interview below contains an interesting observation I have made myself when trying to get music out of my cheap cd player.

Start at 21:30 and stop at 23:50. The rest of the interview is not that interesting. :-)

https://youtu.be/Te2WF1XfQ88?feature=shared

[Spannko]

PQ has an interesting take on equipment design. If I’ve understood him correctly, he listens for the differences in the “sound” of different recordings, with the component which generates the greatest difference heard between recordings being the better component. He explicitly states that he’s not listening to the way in which the music is being reproduced. He goes on to say that some people (not all) like AN hifi because it allows them to feel connected with the music. So he’s covering all bases by saying that he designs his hifi for sound and people like it for its ability to connect them with the music. I think it’s fair to say, once a salesman, always a salesman!

[Zee9]

I think the journey of audio is actually very very simple. To one listener brand x maybe interesting and brand y maybe not. Feel free to change the word brand with format, music genre and whatever else you may want.

Does that make one better than the other? Yes but only to each individual person depending on what intrigues or emotionally touches them.

I’ve come to accept that the most important term in hifi is “to my ears…..” which really clarifies most things and makes life a lot lot simpler.

A dear friend once explained to me something very important after some friends came over for a demo. He asked how they liked it. I was pretty confident they did. Then he asked how I liked the sound and I said I think something bothers me. That’s when he said. “Your ears are all that matter”

[Charlie1]

Not come across this approach before.

I understand his statement that each album comes with a sound of it's own due to recording, production, mastering, etc.

Agree with Zee that people have different preferences so one size will never fit all.

I like Audio Note stuff but don't love it so I suppose their approach isn't working 100% for me, although does work better than most. I like their Snell-based AN-K speakers most of all (sealed cab design), whereas their own AX2's (that I had a short while) couldn't do rhythm very well but sounded nice with big band / American song book kind of stuff.