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I want to be transported back in time and space to 1955 Memphis, Tennessee at Sun Studios with Mr. Cash and his band 10 feet in front of me and Sam Philips a couple of feet behind me in the control room.

I'm with you 100 percent. That's what I want too. But 5-inch drivers will never get you there.

--Ethan

Ethan-

Ya, i agree with you in as much as that 5" single driver speaker system driven by 75 tubed watts wouldn't get YOU there. There is a good chance it might not get me there either, but I'd want to hear it before I said that for sure. But the important thing is that it gets Jan there and it's his money and his musical bliss after all.

The irony of all of this is that while I'm not trying to put words in Jan's mouth (he'll gladly correct me if I did) there is a good chance that he too would agree with the "Time Machine" analogy forwarded by Stephen M and articulated upon by myself. So you, me, Stephen, and possibly Jan agree on the destination but choose to take slightly different roads to get there. As long as we all arrive at the destination of "musical enlightenment" in the end our travel time and route is of little importance.

It's a thin line between love and hate.

Maybe if they had grudge sex.

Totally kidding!

My true and honest belief is that we all lived in the same town, we'd all enjoy listening to demos of each other's systems.

Except for my current one in rental land. I'd describe it, but Ethan would immediately start talking about comb filtering and then he'd get into a fight with others and.....

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But 5-inch drivers will never get me there."

Fair enough Michael. Let's see what others think:

http://forum.stereophile.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=66477&an=0&page=0#Post66477

I hope you'll vote too!

--Ethan

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My true and honest belief is that we all lived in the same town, we'd all enjoy listening to demos of each other's systems.

I'd like to think so too, but it may require copious amounts of your special brew.

Just when I thought we were getting somewhere you had to go and get all silly again. A vote? I know, let's do an astrological chart to see if these components are really meant for one another.

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Jan,

I don't want to get in between this ongoing 'argument' but I have to say if I were in your position, I simply wouldn't care what anyone said about my system.

This is not about what whiner thinks about my system. I cannot recall the last time I did care about what whiner thought about anything.

There are different issues here. Read my first post and you'll see a few of them.

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But the main reason I focus on Jan's system is because he has refused to ever describe it.

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... two different forum members sent me PMs describing Jan's gear ...

If I had never described my system on this forum, how would two members who have never been to my house know what I own? Did they find a way to look in my windows that you missed when you peeped?

Over the course of several years on this forum I've mentioned everything I own at least once and often several times.

I'm disappointed someone here fed winer the information he lacked.

winer, I still want you to tell me the specifications for my system. You aren't trying to tell us you can tell the specifications for my system by looking at a picture, are you?. As full of yourself as you are, even you cannot manage that.

You have not accurately described my system, those are not the exact speakers I now have. The drivers aren't 5" but they are custom units and you don't have a clue what they are, who designed and built them, their reputation in the DIY community, how much they cost or what their specs are or how I use them in the system.

And the amplifier you've shown happens to be a Stereophile class A recommended component. What's wrong with owning a class A recommended component? Or two? Or more?

You don't have even one, is that it?

I do use 30 AWG cabling, fine silver cabling to be exact. IMO it sounds better than any stranded cable I can afford and costs a few dollars to build. Harvey Rosenberg loved thin speaker cables. Did ya know that? I guess you think you know more than Harvey did.

Oh, yeah, "Hell, I know everything!!! - Ethan"

I forgot.

How many yards of wire are there between your amplifier outputs and the drivers in your speakers, winer? Do you know? Your speakers have crossovers, right? All those inductors and crossover circuit paths. You unroll those inductors and how many yards of wire do you suppose they have in them? Why don't you take a guess? Maybe you have 20-30 yards of cable between your amp and your drivers, ya think? Maybe more? God! that's a lot of wire!!!

Guess how many inches of cable I use in my system. That would be an interesting guess I'm sure.

What's the low and high impedance for your speakers?

What do you suppose it is for my speakers? Go ahead, take a guess.

C'mon, winer, the specs? Frequency response, sensitivity, how many amps do I use, available power, distortion, do I have a subwoofer, what's the frequency response if I have a subwoofer, who made the sub - if I have one, what pre amp, what source(s), size of the room?

I've laid out what you need to respond to, tell me what you think you know from a picture someone has emailed to you.

Can your friends tell you this information too?

I doubt it.

You've proven what a dick you can be, everybody told you that.

Prove just how fucking smart you are, winer, talk.

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If we all can agree to the foregoing, then it follows from the developmental history of sound reproduction that several things are important for accurate reproduction. Among these are flat frequency response, vanishingly low distortion (THD, IM, etc.), realistic sound level capability, linearity (in many ways, including input vs. SPL output).

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As you have stated those "things" that are important I would say, no, I cannot agree to such broad definitions of what makes an audio component "sound good". Please refer to this post, #66308 - 04/28/09 05:10 PM, in this very thread for reasons why I cannot agree with such overly broad concepts as "vanishingly low distortion". Look at the frequency response of the Wilson Maxx2 if you believe flat frequency repsonse makes a high end audio product.

Possibly you do not care for those components that do not measure a certain way but then you would be saying that anyone, say, Art Dudley, who feels differently, doesn't understand high end audio or music. I can't agree to that either.

However, this is drifting this thread off topic and into the never ending battles that consume this forum day in and day out. The battles that fill 37 page threads insisting a component or system can only perfom as one person or a small group of persons feels is "adequate" in order to be "superior".

Is it an extension of my ego if my system doesn't measure as vanishingly flat as your system?

I don't think so.

Jan, it appears that you may have misunderstood what I was trying to say. Those 'things' I referred to are for accurate reproduction, and may not necessarily 'sound good'. I do not *believe* a flat frequency response will make a component a "high end audio product"; I think that it will provide accurate reproduction with respect to the signal level versus frequency, one of the many necessary 'things' for accurate reproduction. Vanishingly low distortion is also one of those things.

There are many things that contribute to accurate reproduction. IMO, the right capacitors do make a difference too, an example I gave, as better 'sound'. It's just that measured performance go hand-in-hand with the listening evaluation (done properly, of course for both listening and measurement).

It's also not that I don't care for components that are not super-flat in frequency response. My remarks are about accurate reproduction. Some components that are not the flattest, but reasonably flat in response do sound pleasing to the ear, but is not as accurate when measured. Perhaps we are not as sensitive to these response aberrations once a 'flat-enough' response is achieved, I don't know.

If anyone says that high-end audio is not necessarily accurate reproduction, then what is high-end's purpose? If frequency response is an example, that would be akin to saying that a built-in, permanent tone control is acceptable, perhaps for pleasing or preferable sound but not for accurate reproduction. A built-in filter or tone control is like having data corruption in a bitstream between a PC program and a hard disk. That would not be acceptable. One always wants high-fidelity of the bitstream in the computer. Why would we allow not-as-high a fidelity in high-end audio reproduction if it happens to sound 'good'?

I completely agree with you that this is drifting off the thread, and have more than contributed to this drifting than I should have.

Back to the thread:

I'm not looking at my system (or yours) as an ego thing. If you system sounds really good, there's a reason for it. Same for mine. Those reasons may differ, or may be similar. I want a system that measures well and sounds good, provided the source material is well made. A system that measures well should go a long way toward sounding good (a necessary but not sufficient condition).

I invite friends over to listen so that they may catch the audio bug and get involved, so that they can enjoy what marvelous sound can come out of a good system. It's a sharing and educational experience for others and me when we all listen to a good system to know that such sound reproduction is possible, and not found in ordinary, mid-fi gear, and too many people are missing-out. It's not much different an experience as from my first hearing the KLH 17 speakers as a kid and noticing that it sounds better than my Sears phonograph I used then, and wondering what makes the KLH 17's sound better. The search for better sound started then and continues... I guess that's why we are all into 'audio'.

I don't know if my system is extremely flat or low distortion or not, although the specs say it should be so and reviews seem to confirm it. Yet in comparison with lesser-priced gear, I didn't hear a huge difference, until I modded the electronics. Then wow! That's an audio dilemma for me. It sounds better for reasons that may or may *not* be related to frequency response or low THD and IM distortion. So whatever I modded caused the music to be more real judging from my performing live music experience.

Happy listening.

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If accuracy is not one of their priorities then they're not really hi-fi enthusiasts by anyone's definition. They might as well buy a table radio having a phony mid-bass boost and admit they like that sound.

I understand from people who have heard your system, that it has no pretensions to high fidelity sound. So, you're not one to talk, are you? You're also not a "hi-fi enthusiast", if that's another word for "audiophile", so I'm not surprised by that assessment. You're a pro-audio guy, or a simple "audio enthusiast", limited by your dogmatic beliefs; such as what "accuracy" is in high fidelity. It carries many forms, yet you arrogantly state that it only carries one or two; which only you can approve of. You whine about another member's system for months on end, across dozens of posts, even though all along you're only assuming you know what it consists of, and you wonder why they don't want to share the details of their system with you? If you at all consider yourself a "hi-fi enthusiast", then you've just shown us that there isn't one definition of "hi-fi enthusiast".

I am a hifi enthusiast by anyone's definition (much more so than you are, I would easily argue); and yet that system you described with the McIntosh tube amp, full range single driver tower loudspeakers with the magnet wire? I would be glad to take that system any day of the week, over your Pioneer-JBL rack system. It looks like it could be a highly musical system, whereas yours sounds more like a trip to the abusement park for me, and I have no doubt my ears would hate me for months afterward. I've heard more than enough of Pioneer & JBL, thank you very much. Point is, one so-called "hi-fi enthusiast's" definition of "accuracy" is another's definition of sonic torture. Much as it simplifies your life to believe so, there isn't one definition of "accuracy" in hi-fidelity; for there are too many variables to account for. Wikipedia notwithstanding.

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There may be something absolutely magical about what a full range high efficiency speaker can do at capturing that certain je ne sais quois that that person values in the recreation of sound.

Again, if someone likes that sound then they're not really an audiophile.

Is that so? (rolling eyes). Guess what I found at the Montreal high end audio show this year, Ethan? I'll give you two hints: hundreds of audiophiles, and full range single driver speakers. Which sounded great, as everyone in the room having a great time listening to them agreed. Since you're not an audiophile, please don't talk like you know anything about audiophiles.

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There is some of that, because Jan has been rude so many times to me. But the main reason I focus on Jan's system is because he has refused to ever describe it. Why do you think that is?

A better question to ask yourself is: why do you care about Jan's system? Why are you so obsessed about it, to the point of nauseating everyone with your childish obsession? I mean you even put up an attack voting thread to get people to side with you on what you "think" is Jan's system. Which I'm sure is a first here at the Stereophile forums, the "attack thread voting poll". I figure that assuming what you described is Jan's system (an assumption I am not making since you never proved it was), maybe you're just jealous that he has a more musical system than you do? Save your pennies Ethan, I'm sure you will get there some day....

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Do you know anyone else who is into hi-fi and doesn't brag about his setup to anyone who will listen?

Yes. Me. Shows how much you know about "hi-fi enthusiasts", doesn't it.

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Boy was I wrong!

I am glad you are able to admit it. But that's a drop in the bucket, really. If only you had an idea how often you are wrong, you might be able to recognize when you are right more often, which might actually then lead to being right more often.

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I mean you even put up an attack voting thread to get people to side with you on what you "think" is Jan's system. Which I'm sure is a first here at the Stereophile forums, the "attack thread voting poll".

Actually, dup did the exact same thing years ago.

It resulted in his first ban.

It's interesting, to me at least, that not one of the dup fanatics are screaming about how unfairly dup was treated while winer gets a free pass after free pass after free pass. What gives with that, ya'think?

Winer gets to post fraudulent information about me (that he hopes will embarrass me and even Buddha calls him on it) and become so obessed with me personally that he uses GoogleEarth to spy on my property and tell the forum what he found and what he had hoped to find, none of which, as you have noted, was at a time when I was engaged in anything remotely similar to an on going discussion with winer - the ol' out of the blue attack post he is so good at. So here's another out of the blue BS post from winer and this is another thread driven into the ditch by winer and here we are doing exactly what we always do on this forum - wasting time and winer is trying to humilate another member.

And aren't all of you finally tired of it?

Such a thing as insulting another member's system was, at one time at least, considered unsportmanslike behavior on this forum - kind of like clothes-lining an opponent I think. You know, a dirty move performed in desperation just because your are either 1) an immature 60 year old child who doesn't know what is inappropriate and what is not or 2) you really have nothing with which to debate so you go after the person with whom you are obssessed by attacking something they own. You pick which you believe is the situation here.

And this after dup's "little black kid" joke went without real comment and no action. Be thankful for small favors that winer hasn't resorted to that.

But that was back in the Bush administration years. We don't want to look backward, do we?

There are several things I would still take issue with in your, as I see it, rather simplified approach to "accuracy". Certainly frequency response and vanishingly low distortion would be two that merit discussion - though we've been there before many times and does this really need to be repeated again? As I remember, the founding of Stereophile was predicated by an asssumption specifically regarding the relevance of these two items in any discussion of what was "accuracy".

But winer has driven this thread into the ditch - as he does so often - and a discussion of these topics is not in keeping with the intent of this thread. This thread began with a mention of winer's knowledge of my system and its specifications which he claimed to know. I would still like him to provide those specifications, especially now that it is clear my system doesn't use a "low powered amplifier" (though I have a six watter that does get hooked up on occasion) just to clarify that winer cannot ascertain specifications from pictures alone.

Other than that, there really doesn't need to be any further discussion on this thread of what makes a good system "good" as far as I am concerned. This thread should return its the original purpose and any other dicussions should move to a new thread for clarity of purpose.

A shame we can't get passed this back and forth bickering. There are some good ideas in this thread. I'll keep them in mind. Thanks to those who participated in a productive, respectful manner.