Sight as it always has been; deceiving. A high-end system in a well-decorated room grabs eyeballs and approvals, isn't that so? You know how terribly wrong you could get judging a book by its cover, the smell the brand fetishism is in the air.
In case you're struggling to listen to a system, you try as you could, you try to correct yourself, unfortunately, nothing ever good comes. That first impression will cast to the stone, you couldn't quite shake it off. I like to read about technology and the manufacturer's approach to sound to understand the mind of the designer. But, the written content on the webpage is mostly marketing hype. The use of exotic materials, the revolutionary approach, reading these materials, the measurements, these feel-good sentiment works our mind unknowingly before listening. Even the pronunciation of the brand matters. Cap Orang Kampung or Cap Orang Kaya doesn't really rock. Hold on, it isn't what you think, what leads you to believe, how much you wanted to believe, the truth is in the listening. I've made this costly mistake before and believe me, don't repeat my stupid mistake. Maintain a sceptical mindset to avoid financial loss, you might not be lucky every time.
You see, I tuned a pair of Bluetooth speakers yesterday the other day, my friends discerned the difference but how much the improvement matters to him? Very little, he's not an audiophile. To him, it's just sound, he's more concern with his plants. How much the sound quality matters to you determines how far you go in audio. On the other hand, do we expect flawless sound when we go listening to others' system? Certainly not. There's a "compensation" in electrical terminology, so does in a listening event. You factor in the room, the furniture and fittings in the room, the incoming voltage and what not to make a sound evaluation.
Human voice, no doubts, is the acid test of all home speakers. Getting the sound of the instrument right is not an issue with most speakers but few can do human voice right. BBC speakers are exceptional in this regard I must say. So, why is it so difficult? Well, do you believe a flat frequency response can reproduce human voice emotionally, then we aren't on the same page. At the most, the human voice is articulate and clear, but there's more to the human voice, the soul or the magic some may call. The BBC engineers know it, their secret is thin wall boxes, the unmistakable warmth that inevitably makes others sound clinical. Never mind about metal, composite, slate, marble and et cetera to make the box inert. Thin-wall box isn't without weaknesses, the bass, predominantly vague. So, I'd like to fall in between them, the cabling can add back some of the lost magic. In my book, the cable is a tone control if you know what I'm saying.
If this doesn't convince you, open up the lid of high-end audio and look for yourself the parts and component grades. We know how our thoughts/reviews can sometimes trick us into believing things that aren't what's in a reality. That's how I ended up with two big boxes of cabling, partly due to the user comments and mostly due to changing equipment, I'm afraid. Incompatible cabling if you could discern it, I can't bring myself to a reconciliation. The right cabling is not necessary the most expensive ones go a long distance.
So you can see my frustration when I listened to a system that didn't deliver the goods. Talk a little less, work a little more on the system if he's not poster then what is he?
The whole idea about music reproduction is not a blind honesty to the source that you have no way of knowing. The best you can arrive at is a sound that make-believe and with a little personal preference. Does it come to you that the music reproduction isn't remotely close to the real thing in the first place, we are listening to the sound from the mixing engineer's perspective and how he mixes the pieces? See the mixing console with the knobs and sliders to add loudness, reverbs, ambience, highlight, fading and whole lots of things. They can do wonder with modern recording technology. In reality, the rumbling drum will always be dominating and often smearing, not mentioning the missing nuances in our recorded media.
Why do many audiophiles complain about the lacking of musicality in high-end speakers? They score in every department and measurement. I believe that high-end speakers are accurately reproducing the music signal. Why there's no magic? Why do you struggle to get into listening moods? Because we prefer to listen to a kind of sound. Called it comfort sound if I may derive the noun from comfort food. Your comfort food isn't my comfort food though the food fills our stomach. Durian, the king of fruit, is loved by Asians, smell rotten to the Westerners. Don't be quick to retaliate, I can understand the audiophile sourness, I can understand their bigotry, more than money. It's an outright insult to one's intelligence.
A great system is how best it serves the music, not the measurements. The truth is we're bombarded with enormous information that influences us in a way never before we could imagine. Some come directly at you, some from the sideway. I was asked to resurrect a system from the cold that idled for one year. My first impression was not good, all the equipment and cables were not broken in. And some audiophiles think break in is a fallacy, they came up with supporting evidence too. I have to say I lift my hat to their ignorance. Sad uh? The difference is day and night, they just don't know when to quit.
