High fidelity

Why is it a sham? it could be if you took, which you seem to have done, the word hi-fi and looked it up in a dictionary. To me hi-fi is TWO-CHANNEL stereo.

Every individual has their own take on how there system should sound. Me? It has to be fun. It needs to put a big smile on my face. My system does that FOR ME. That's hi-fi. Nothing more, nothing less.

Anyway no-one has press ganged you into contributing. If you don't like this forum you have two choices: Look up other forums or press the 'OFF' button on you computer.

This is one of those polemic debates that seldom gets consensus (but plenty of argument).

There are those who feel that a system should be completely neutral and faithful to the recording......then there are those that want fidelity to the actual instruments and don't worry how that happens (since nobody only the recording engineer knows exactly how it should sound).

The former group like to see measurements and objective tests to prove this accuracy, while the latter group don't give a stuff, as long as it sounds subjectively right.

Any 'hi-fi' can only attempt to reproduce the sounds that are fed into it. Which isn't going to be how the instruments sound when heard first hand.

As for not wanting to be controversial, it's obvious that's exactly what you're trying (not very well) to be.

So you've heard highly-rated speakers which in your opinion can't accurately reproduce the sound of a solo piano.

Hardly makes them universally rubbish does it?

Nor does it make the reviews a lie, a con, nor anything else.

Most of the recordings that I have are good enough to sound like the instruments when heard by a member of the audience in the concert hall, or in the recording booth. Some hi-fi systems are good enough to do a good recreation of the recording, some aren't.

Covenanter, which speakers have you heard that don't recreate piano well?

Sorry, but going regularly to Symphony Hall doesn't mean you know enough about what pianos sound like to decide whether a particular speaker accurately reproduces them.

Put any two pianos side by side and they will sound different, even if played by exactly the same performer in exactly the same way. Even if they are both the same make and model of piano.  Put those two pianos into different acoustics and they will sound different again.  

Unless you can put a pair of speakers in the same room as the actual piano on which the recording was made you can't even start to say with any rigour how much 'fidelity' those speakers bring.  Even then there are the in-between stages such as microphone choice, engineering choices etc. that are virtually impossible to account for.

See where this is going?

personally, I'm simply separating forum from the mag. I just enjoy reading the forum and contributing to threads that interest me and I feel I can bring something in. the mag on the other hand is too superficial in it's reviewing technique for my liking. I would gladly see some measurements along listening impressions to back them up or contradict. and I think that rewards scale got very much inflated. you see 5* reviews all too often IMO, where 5* should be reserved for only exceptional products, I guess. it's hard to get any guidance when everything around is 5*. it's no different if I had no knowledge about products beforehand and just went into the shop to audition what's there already.

anyway, in case of what I think hi-fi is, or should be, I'm completely on your side. hi-fi is all about as best sound reproduction as possible IMO. otherwise it's not hi-fi. but it's also true there are many philosophies as to which means of sound reproduction bring you closest to the real thing. there's no single solution. like SET + efficient speakers vs. SS power plants + hard to drive speakers. or oversampling vs. non oversampling. or a lot of negative feedback or no feedback at all. or active speakers vs. passive speakers. or box speakers vs. open baffle speakers. etc. but which solution is the best, most faithful and most realistic? I guess the power to answer that question lies only in hands of the listener.

BTW, just out of curiosity, could you name speakers which in your opinion can replicate the sound of piano faithfully?

Hi-Fi systems are partially about compromise.

Without silly money some aspect of the sound can always be improved upon.

Even then an expensive system might not reproduce exactly what the artist intended.

A speaker that can reproduce a piano well might struggle with something else and vice versa.

Also, trying to reproduce a 'live' performance is almost impossible as lots of recordings are made from lots of separate components (voice, instruments, backing singers) recorded separately, put together then 'fiddled' with to get the sound the artist, label and sound engineer want.

You can really only hope to reproduce live performances as 'live' if they have been recorded and mastered VERY will.

As systems are about compromise a speaker that might not replicate a piano well might do other things very well indeed and as a result may suit someone who rarely listens to piano music.

Some systems (source, amp, speakers) are even said to be well suited for classical music but fall when presented with rock. The same can be said in reverse.

There are some systems that do well with both but do neither masterfully.

Then you get some systems that seem to work with whatever you through at them.

But all of these systems can be improved upon one way or another.

I'll stop there with an essay as I almost started writing a book!

Hi-Fi systems are all about compromise.

You are never actually going to accurately reproduce the concert recorded in The Royal Albert Hall in your living room, no matter how hard you try.

What you aim for is something that you think replicates it as best as possible!

Oh, and while we're on about speakers and pianos, can anyone show me a speaker that can accurately reproduce the full range of a piano that I can a) actually afford, and b) actually fit in a modern home's living room??

Listening to music in a concert hall is no indication of the tue sound of anything.

Its like listening to someone singing in a tiled bathroom, then hearing said person singing in the living room. Accoustics of an area have a major impact on what you hear. So while the piano in question may sound a certain way in the contcert hall, that is no indication to what you will hear in a sound treated room. Yet the piano out put will be the same ( you guys see what I did there?)

The main difference listening to a 'live' accoustic performance and via hi fi is seperation of instruments plucks, strums tone etc, and  note degridation. Even listening to an 'electric' performance  (if mics & speakers are used) is not an accurate indicator of what these instruments 'should' sound like and is dependent on equipment used. (the same fobbles as you'll find in hi fi can be applied here) Also how your ears and brain dissifer the info it recieves is also a factor.

So nothing wrong with reviewers giving hi scores to equ that gives them what they want from the music they listen to.

Ok I was deliberately trying to be controversial but it does seem to me that the forum is largely about what a former (female) marketing manager of mine called “willy waggling”.  The habit of listing equipment owned at the bottom of each post is an example of this.  Personally I don’t care if you have the Okey Cokey 5000 or not.  It’s like personalised number plates, the only people who are impressed are the owner and those people who are not worth impressing!  I certainly don’t care what equipment you have in your bedroom or your bathroom.  I only do two things in my bedroom, one of them is sleeping and the other isn’t, and neither require the use of any equipment, hi-fi or other. :grin:

What I am interested in is listening to music and in what experiences people have with equipment which may enhance that listening.  I’ve picked up all sorts of useful and interesting stuff from this forum, indeed I read through a lot of it before choosing kit to audition, but you have to wade through a lot of frankly less interesting stuff to get to the gold.

The point I was making about “fidelity” was that unless you have heard live performances you wouldn’t know what was or wasn’t accurate.  Perhaps the mag should change its name to “What nice sound”?  I don’t think that you can ever completely replicate a live performance in your home but I do think you can get quite close and that is what I am interested in.

Chris

PS I don’t think all pianos sound the same but I do think they sound like pianos!  For example most pianos are tuned to A440 but I believe in Russia they are tuned to A442.  Not sure I could hear the difference but I know that some could.

PPS The speakers that I auditioned which had problems with piano music were the MA BX5s.  As I posted elsewhere, after a lengthy audition process gradually increasing the quality of the speakers I’d narrowed my choice to them or the KEF Q500s and I thought the MAs were great and better than the KEFS with “pop” music, Cream tracks for example seemed more integrated, and, whilst the KEFS were a bit more analytical and revealing with solo instruments and voices, I thought the MAs were the better all-round speaker.  Then I got out my last test CD, Marta Argerich playing the Tchaikovsky 1^st Piano Concerto and I couldn’t believe my ears!  These speakers which had sounded great now sounded simply wrong, as I said elsewhere “like a recording of a piano rather than a piano”.  I did a double take and had the guy at Superfi play the same passage twice on the MAs and on the KEFS in quick succession to make sure that I wasn’t going mad.  I wasn’t.  I seriously wonder if the reviewers here play a wide enough spectrum of music to get a balanced view (and I’m not being snobbish about music, tastes differ and whatever floats your boat is fine by me).  BTW the KEFS have got better on “pop” music as I have run them in or maybe my ears have got more used to the way they reproduce it.

So in your first post you slag off the magazine that hosts / funds this forum, and in your second you slag off a sizeable proportion of the mebers of the forum, very well done.

Come on chaps this is a discussion forum, yes the OP is entitled to his opinion and we have to respect that, in the same vein I agree that hifi to me is 2 channel stereo!

as for displaying a sig,i thought the reason was to identify what one is useing for the benefit of those that answer ones questions or problems

Ben do you disagree with any points that Covenanter has made? If so which points and why?

Whilst I think he could have expressed himself a bit more diplomatically I agree with everything he's said in this thread.

I know where he is coming from when he mentions speakers like the MA's not being good with piano music. Some speakers struggle to recreate the rich tone, timbre and dynamics of a piano, just as some record players struggle to recreate the pitch stability, tone, timbre, detail and dynamics of pianos.