| The Savvy Audiophile | High End Music Reproduction/cont'd |
| Yet, what the mass market consumer
is being sold is a reproduction system with a nasty, harsh, over-emphasized
top-end, a bloated “one-notey” low-end,
and a totally smeared, “phasey” midrange. But honestly, how could
the average consumer expect more? He adds to the problem by listening to downloaded
MP3s he’s burned to a CD that is itself so aurally inferior, that it is
unlikely to reveal any shortcomings in the $699 playback device. So what can be done about this, you might ask? Well, the answer involves you. Yeah, you! You are special. Unlike those masses who have not (yet) learned to distinguish between good and bad sound, you can, or you wouldn’t be reading The Inner Ear. Because you know the difference, it’s going to be up to you to educate those around you about good sound. Of course, this is not an easy task. Your friends and relatives will likely offer up one of the standard excuses for sticking to the status quo: “I can’t hear the difference” or, another favourite, “It’s too much money.” They are, of course, wrong on both counts, and you have to explain to them why they are wrong, or better still, why they are misinformed. But first, let me digress for just a moment. Up front, I admit that the task of convincing your friends that they can hear a difference may be more or less difficult. Much depends on the source material; the type of music an individual prefers. There’s little doubt that the benefits of high-end reproduction are best demonstrated with something other than the latest pop music CD. It is a disheartening fact that the pop music industry has gone to battle in what can be called the “Loudness Wars.” The result is that every band wants a CD that sounds louder than the CD of any other band, and to achieve this feat mastering houses have taken to compressing and limiting the music to a point where dynamic range is a thing of the past. Whatever happened to the notion of using a volume knob to make the music louder? It’s anyone’s guess why this bizarre phenomenon has developed; I am merely reporting the facts. Back on point, let’s take the last objection first, the financial one. The other day, I heard a financial analyst make an interesting observation about inflation and the value of the dollar. Apparently, what a $20 bill would have purchased in 1980 now costs $50. If you extrapolate that ratio to audio equipment, what would have cost $4,000 in 1980 will currently cost $10,000. It’s a sure guarantee, by the way, that the $4,000 1980s system would sound mighty disappointing beside a current one valued at $10,000: the quality of sound that you can get for the equivalent inflation adjusted dollars is simply stunning. Today, advances in loudspeaker electrical and materials technology alone sets the modern system apart by light years from its 80s equivalent. If you consider modern amplifier technology, which has seen giant leaps forward in power supply technology and IC design, we are now talking about an entirely new playing field. I haven’t even mentioned the achievements that have finally allowed tube technology to come into its own. Even the CD has reached its true potential thanks to higher quality digital-to-analog converters and super-stable transports. As SACD and DVD-A promised, amazing reproduction is indeed possible in the home. |
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