Yes I made assumptions, you clearly have a passion for Audio and this is normally the domain of people like AG. Its rare to have the interest you do and have normal/subnormal hearing, I have no doubt a good system would be more enjoyable to listen to, I just dont have the interest in sound apart from sound and light mixed, I am classed as cerebral visual and wish I could draw. I would love to play the guitar, but only if I can use relays etc to do it
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Hi again LG,
I am going to argue again- I don't especially have a passion for audio, but, pretty much like everybody on ETO, I am unexplainably fascinated by technology and engineering- it seems to be in the genes both from my mother's and father's side, where there was engineers in both lines. It just so happens that audio and electronics are intertwined. I spent years designing and making car ignition systems too but you would not say that I was passionate about ignition.
About HiFi: my view is totally negative and I think that even the very best, most expensive, reproducing systems simply cannot hold a candle to the real thing, not necessarily only music, but perhaps the sound of a drag racer revving up before the off, or the sound of Niagra falls. To me the average reproducing system whether, it be an Ipod, TV or radio is simply awful and what makes it worse, is that the poor performance is an unforced error. That is it could be fixed at no cost.
Just to illustrate the point, one of the engineers in our lab did a make-over of a cheap cassette recorder of the type that were common in the 1970s and 1980s. Originally it sounded so bad that it was often hard to recognize the tune being played and voice was unintelligible. Being interested, I also contributed to the design. The end result was that the cassette player sounded quite good, a million times better than the original sound and we didn't fundamentally change anything apart from a better design and a much more powerful bias/erase oscillator. The final design could have been put into production at the same cost as the original, and for a few pennies more the sound could have been further improved by changing to a better loudspeaker.
Back to the HiFi thing. There is a misnomer that a wide frequency response is a prerequisite and that reproduction of the extreme low and high frequencies is the holy grail. Yes, this is a very important aspect but it is not the fundamental criteria. Instead it is that, whatever the frequency band, the audio signal should be reproduced without distortion and artifacts. This is the part that is the most difficult because the ear is extremely sensitive to some types of distortion, while being almost oblivious to other kinds of distortion. It is just unfortunate that the ear is hyper sensitive to the distortion produced by transistor amps, especially class AB. The other aspect is what can be called smearing where definition is lost. The best illustration is perhaps base. At one extreme there is the impressive earth-moving rumble, so loved by the reggae boys and at the other extreme the articulate, flowing base with incredible slam that you get from some high end systems. By the way, I like both, but for a home system the latter is the only choice.
I made the seemingly extraordinary speculation that I thought you would benefit from listening to a HiFi system and I would like to clarify what i meant. It had nothing to do with the efficacy of a HiFi system as such. Instead it is my theory that by exercising your organs and brain you improve your performance, often radically. It is no different to the principal that reading a lot improves a persons spelling, comprehension, and writing skills. Having a system that produced the extreme frequencies, both high and low, would exercise you audio system the most and because the sound would be more detailed and clear, it would encourage you to listen more.
I had two experiences of this exercise principle. The first was when I was blinded in my right eye: by wearing a patch over the good left eye for about an hour every day I managed to gradually recover the site in the bad eye to a degree. In 2010 my left hand got badly burnt and the doctors said that I would probably lose the control of the thumb and index finger. This worried me greatly as it would have inhibited many activities so, in spite of the pain, I exercised my left thumb and finger as much as I could. The doctors were amazed how well the burn healed and how articulate the thumb and finger were. Now, apart from pink skin and problems with cold, the left hand is back to normal. I am saying this not to brag- in both cases my drive was purely self interest- but to illustrate the point that you can often achieve an awful lot by perseverance.
About not liking music: I suggest that it is just a matter of finding the type of music that you do like. For my part, I hated music, until rock arrived in the UK from the States in the late 1950s. Now, I probably like one percent of music, but the one percent is made up from a wide field from country to classical. I also find listening to audio books on a decent reproducing system is a lot less fatiguing than on most common equipment, especially low end ear buds.
You say you wish you could draw. Well the clue is in the word wish. Nobody will do anything by wishing. It is by study, persistence, and practice that you achieve skills that are not naturally given. If you doubt this just look at a pro in any field- they, with a few exceptions, practice constantly to achieve what appears to be a natural and effortless performance.
I would guarantee that, with the right training and practice, you would be able to draw quite well. If you ever think that your hand eye ordination, or any other innate brain processing, is not up to the job, think again. Just imagine the processing that goes on automatically to ensure that you stay upright and do not fall over, or the fantastic processing that allows you to load into your brain a complete image of a human face in an instant.
Talking about drawing, there was a fantastic girl, in more ways than one, who worked in the Technical Publications department. She could draw someones face in about 10 minutes and it was uncannily realistic and captured the expression exactly. When we were were doing a proposal, we would describe the intended system to her and she would draw more or less what we described, except better. Her artwork looked almost like the real thing and this was surprising as she had no technical knowledge whatsoever.
About playing the guitar- you may turn out to be a good guitarist. You never know until you try! I like the idea of playing by relays; perhaps that would help with my guitar playing. Don't forget to do a post if you come up with a scheme.
spec