AUDIOPHILE Grade (Natural Sounding)

[kzaki]

Hello,

I wanted to ask what exactly Natural/Pure sounding Speakers/Pre/Amp Iz??

Different amps, HU and speakers have different sound, they all vary in a way that some delivers laid back/warm sound, some are forward sounding and some produce crispy and detailed sound... although they all are hiend audiophile grade equipment but from different brands.

Now if we refer Audiophile SQ, they always talk about natural sounding system....

so point what exactly natural sounding system is(HU, AMP and Speakers) ????

I have asked this question with Audiophiles but unable to get appropriate answer so i said why not to discuss here and see what our people says about it??

Thanks

[doubletrouble]

sit in ur car..pull ur seat lil back ...silent all the useless sound
turn on the music ..neither too loud nor too low
close ur eyes ....try to feel the depth ..you should be feeling somewhat in the middle of the environment of your music ..every deepest lightest music wave should touch your ear drums ....you should be feeling IN ur music..not feeling in ur car

thats natural sounding:)

[doubletrouble]

for this you sometime have to match different brands..with their different capabilities to get ur taste JUST RIGHT

[doubletrouble]

and yeah.....a perfect natural sound is neither much crispy nor much warm..
detailed..that is another aspect..and yes quality means detailing....you get all the equipment and start tuning ..at one time ul hit the right spot when every music will be coming from all sides or u will be IN the environment of what is being played

[doubletrouble]

and yeah...car dynamics play a mojor role too:)

[mani1]

I cant say anything about HU and amp as I havn't experienced alot of options but I can certainly talk for component speakers.

First of all, if we are talking about Audiophile grade SQ, then the most important factor is the source. If your source is an mp3 then it wont matter if you are using Morel Supremos/Focal Utopia or Fusion Encounter/Pioneer D720C. As a minimum a 16bit/44KHz WAV should be used. Offcourse the higher we go the better it is.

For me natural sounding system is one which sounds exactly how the studio intended it for you. As a starting point, lets eliminate all components below USD 200 (locally 20k) as they have bloated lows and highs to make you think they sound good. Infact they may even sound good on poor quality sources like mp3s but their shortfalls are magnified when a proper source like a 16bit/44KHz WAV is used.

For a natural sounding system, the budget for your components should be a minimum USD 250 and the bracket we are talking about here is USD 250-500. Offcourse the higher you go the better it is. Personally for me, I find bright components artificial as the sound is not how the studio intended it to be. Inherent problem with bright components is that as you turn up the volume you will experience bleeding and ear fatigue. Also you will find that instrument detail is overpowering the vocals. Thats not how a system should sound. For a natural sounding system, vocals should be clear, not necessarily crisp, and should be leading/overpowering the soundstage while instruments and detail should be in the background and not in the front.

I will also point out here that we Pakistanis generally prefer bright speakers/components primarily due to the music we listen too. Bright components usually sound better on poor sources like mp3s as they bring the instrument detail in the forefront and vocals become overbearing while keeping up with the flood of bass coming from the back. Due to lack of availability of natural/neutral sounding sets, most of us dont know what we are missing.

And finally my verdict for the best natural/overall speaker in the USD 250-500 band, is DLS Ultimate UP6i. It costs around $350 and gives a run for money to sets double its price.

[splfanatic]

finally haroon gets a chance to share his philosophy hahah

i wont comment on the thread as i am too away from natural or audiophile sq. with spl levels of 145Db+ u dont recognize anything except brutality on ur body n ears hahah

[versatilegenious]

^^brutality on ears??wht u will say abt sitting in TC with 2 Gt5s??? :d

[doubletrouble]

+type R:)

[Lafafa]

pure musical bliss - thats what you will experience in a natural sounding setup...

-sound is rich
-sound is full

that is, frequency response of the system is as flat as possible. no particular freq is overshadowing (over/under powering) the other frequencies. this makes the sound to have a full rich feeling

[kzaki]

Sir, audiophile considered Natural sounding as neutral, which gives you a feeling of live performance i mean without any coloration....

But if it like that then why equipment defers from one brand to another in terms of sound characteristics?? although they both claim AUDIOPHILE grade SQ.

When we listen specially jazz music on tube amplifier its gives extra ordinary pleasing warm sound with excellent separation of freq and excellent depth in music and ultimate clarity... i agree there is nothing like it, but if you go in any live jazz show abroad they are not that perfect i mean there is a acoustic factors in it, no perfect recording since it is live show, speakers they use are for commercial purpose but instead of being that you really enjoy the show... but in recording we get damn perfect clarity, sepration, depth, tonailty which is better than live performance....

Now, we are superseding live performance and adding colors in it like crispyness, warmness, detailing, fowardness and after all we claim as AUDIOPHILE GRADE???

I dint get convincing answer from senior audiophiles .... so what would u like to say abt it ?????

[kzaki]

@doubletrouble point is not how v get involve in environment... point is natural sounding, i mean sound which is equal to live performance.

@Mani, i am not talking about how expensive or cheap component is... just for instance lets take all the top end gear of all major audio brands..... do they sound same??? offcourse not.... and they all claim audiophile gear... but audiophile says it must be next to real performance which is not the case....

i hope you understand my point here???

[madhouse12]

First of all i will have to disagree with mani1 here. if you go to the car audio mag site, in their list of the top components that they have tested, you will find two components from pioneer from their 720 series, both of which are way under 20,000 mark. so expensive is not necessarily audiophile grade sq.

so what does an audiophile grade make? ever heard someone play an instrument? live? unplugged? like someone moving his fingers slowly on his guitar? like someone gently tapping drumsticks on snare drum? the cymbals? an audiophile grade system should be able to reproduce sound as close to that as possible. ofcourse when this sound is recorded in a studio and processed, it changes and then the same audiophile system should be able to reproduce that sound.

waisay another thing is very important. you cant just test ur audiophile system on just any cd no matter how original and good you think the recording is. for this purpose there are some audiophile garde cds that u must purchase or burn from lossless torrents available on net. then you should look for the following qualities in the system

Resolution:
a high end system should be able to produce each note with a clarity. for example if an instrument is not on a loop it should not sound exactly the same unless it was exactly the same. confusing? let me explain. snap ur fingers together continuously. if you notice carefully each snap will sound a little different. if you record this, your system should be able to reproduce the sound accurately so that they sound different when played back.

Depth:
on a stage not every instrument is placed right in front of you, dead center and at the same spot. on most cds you can notice that some sounds are not centered but coming from left or right speaker. on a normal system they would sound just that, sound coming more from left than the right. on an audiophile system you will actually be able to place an instrument on the stage. on an audiophile cd played on an audiophile system you should be able to determine that which instrument was where and which instrument was in front and which in back. oh some recordings claim that they can even record the height from the ground and systems will pick that up as well....

Atmosphere:
a good audiophile system should be able to give u a sense of atmosphere or the place where the content was recorded at. here in Pakistan we have a mind set that all recordings are done in a studio. abroad thats not the case. some jazz and gospel type recordings are made in different environments including churches etc. a good audiophile system should give u a sense of the atmosphere of the recording stage. was the stage wide as a church choir/band usually is or was it recorded in a studio with limited stage.

There are so many oter things that you should be looking in an audiophile cd and system. for knowing what exactly to look for, i recommend getting the Chesky Records Ultimate Demonstration Disc from net or torrents.
Welcome to Chesky Records: The Premiere Audiophile Record Label

remember u cant test audiophile level sq from a non audiophile grade cd.

[madhouse12]

double post editted

[stj174]

kazki: Sir serious ho kar post kea hay thread... ya just having shugal ???

[madhouse12]

he is having shughal i know

[splfanatic]

full time shughal mood

natural sounding two 718s lol

[mani1]

First of all i will have to disagree with mani1 here. if you go to the car audio mag site, in their list of the top components that they have tested, you will find two components from pioneer from their 720 series, both of which are way under 20,000 mark. so expensive is not necessarily audiophile grade sq.

Sir the link for the reviews is

Top 10 Speakers - Speaker Reviews - Car Audio and Electronics

and what they say at the start is

This is NOT a comprehensive list of the best speakers from all the component sets that have been available in roughly the last decade. This is limited to the speakers that we reviewed over the years and it's certainly not everything that was available for consumers.

Pioneer D720C are great components and they are on my 'next to buy' list but calling them audiophile grade components or even comparing them to any decent $300+ component set is not justified let alone the best of the best. In short Pioneer D720C are the best components but in their price range which is under $150

[mani1]

@Mani, i am not talking about how expensive or cheap component is... just for instance lets take all the top end gear of all major audio brands..... do they sound same??? offcourse not.... and they all claim audiophile gear... but audiophile says it must be next to real performance which is not the case....

i hope you understand my point here???

When it comes to audiophiles, these people have extremely sensitive ears and when it comes to them, SQ is truly subjective and the difference between different sets is minimal and not audible to ordinary people like us.

Different companies have use different materials in their top of the line models and all such top of the line speakers only have minute differences. While one shine in the midrange, other may be slightly better in the highs and while one set may go down to 20Hz and produce sub like bass. What my point is that nearly all these top most speakers have only minute differences.

An audiophile who can afford such equipment will always look for something better but what one needs to understand is the law of diminishing returns. Secondly, when it comes to audiophiles, components, HU and amp are not the only things which matter but what matters most is the recording. If an audiophile isn't using a 24bit/96KHz source then he won't be doing justice to his/her investment and probably all speakers above $1000 will sound same. Your system is as good as your weakest link and recording is the main and integral part of the system.

[splfanatic]

mani g

when is ur book ( my journey into sq world) launching

j/k i am in agreement wid u