Interesting/off-topic but somewhat relatable turn of events- here on the forum! 😀
I do not like to label myself as an "audiophile", however, I love music and have been in high-fidelity sound reproduction for a long time. As a kid, I did not come from a very affluent family, however, my father was a very advanced electron technician and we had some pretty high-end gear in the house,-going back to the early 1950s. We had a MacInosh amp, a very complex Harmon-Kardon pre-amp, a recond compensator, and a Briggs Corner Enclosure wit a 15" Triaxial Speaker- the enclosure was weighed down with sand! When stereo emerged Dad simply duplicated the system- twin amps and preamps and another massive speaker system! crazy! Oh, we had an extremely high-end turntable that was acquired for a radio station- it had extreme pressure control and all kinds of paint-sky features. No warble, flutter, wow, speed fluctuations, or grinding up the LPs. The tonearm was counter-weighted and featured a well-regard Pickering cartridge with a diamond stylus.
My observation is that SOMEt audio "aficionados" are very much lkie their photographic counterparts. Some are "gearheads" in that they may have top-of-the-line stuff but have no knowledge of acoustics or how to actually properly set up their equipment. Others have more modest equipment but accomplish very authentic reproduction because they fully understand the principles of speaker phasing, placement, and impedance matching and have a good "ear" for waht music is supposed to sound like under actual acoustical conditions.
Over the years, I have collected LPs of various pedigrees-some good and some not so good. Great stuff from Deutsche Grammophon and similar publishers and CDs, of various ilks. So here is my philosophy and where it comes from:
One day, when playing hooky from high school, I set off on my monthly sojourn to camera stores in mid-tow m Manhattan. I was detained from the Subway at Grand Central Sation and came upon a public demonstration and lecture given by Henry Kloss, he of Acustic Research (AR) and the "K" in K.L.H. His advice was to attend a concert or performance of your favorite kind of music in their approprait venues and try to retain the sound effect. If you can reproduce that- no exaggerated or too thin, you are home-free! The equipmet was surprisingly simple and well set up.
What this boils do to, is I do not examine or judge every photograph with a microscope to examine grain struct or count pixcels nor do "listen to all my music with an ossisilliscope. A badly set up sound system will bring on listener fatigue or simply become terribly inauthentic as per my ears!
A friend of mine has recently invested a gargantuan amount of money in his latest- and greatest "surround-sound system" and created audio-Hell! He played a few Bach Organ Toccata and Fugues and the neighbors called the police. Besides, the sound was insanely ridiculous. He complained! I first disconned all the speakers and showed him how to create a realistic stereo image wiht two-main speakers and a "phantom channel" in the center! Then I re-conned the othere speakers and explain that in a church, concert hall, jazz club, or a Rock concert, there's a ceraint degree to echo or reverberation and the back speaks should just simula that effect and not have the main source blasting out from all over the place. Crossover networks have ot be properly set and his two giant sub-woofers need to be somewhat toned down. He's happy, as are his neighbors!
As for the integrity or quality of recordings, all I can do is buy carefully. I have certain records that have sentamentl value or are rare performances but are not good. There was an era where producers were releasing "Re-Channeled recording for stereo"- I call it ping-pong stereo best played in monaural mode. Nevertheless, I do not distroy them and besides, bad CDs are fun to photograph for special effects- so I save them! Used LP or CD- usually they. are cheap enough so you usually get waht you pay for or get a pleasent to suppose. I do have a few Direct -to-Disk LPs- really nice.- some Jazz Vocals- incredible presence!
My other hobby- I restor OLD radios. Anytime I want to upgrade my audio stuff, I just fire up on my old-timers. Hard to believe waht our grandparents listened to and enjoyed. Nex time, let's talk about my limited collection of "talking machines"s and Carusso 78s. Maybe not?
