I'm loving Greg Calbi's you tube videos and is on my list to inivite out to my place.

I think I might use his videos as a tool to get across tuning, and maybe breaking the ice to some of the harden views audiophiles get stuck in. I'm hoping that the audiophiles who view some of this stuff catch this most important part. Playback is just like the mastering in the sense that you should be able to make the adjustments needed to bring that piece of music to life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2HcCidSJx4

If your only sitting there as judge without the means to take the music content where you want it to go your really short changing the experience.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune
http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/

The thing I have noticed since going from the studio to home audio is in the studio there is and always has been adjustments. In the mastering room the same thing, many adjustments. Car audio again adjustments, live sound adjustments, home audio adjustments. The one part of this industry that should be adjustable above all other parts, is high end home audio.

As you said "simplicity" and as the rest of the industry is saying adjustable. Simple and adjustable should go and does, hand and hand. It's so obvious and so audible that I'm constantly in shock when I hear a typical high end audio system any more. It's like the dynamics are completely sucked out as if the music vacuum cleaner was just run. Even when I'm in a room of audiophiles talking about dynamics I'm looking at them like "are you nuts".

As you know I'm not going to take sides digital vs tape vs vinyl, I've heard them all at their worst and best, but what I must take sides with is what has been lost between the 80's (even before) and now. There's a huge gap between the product of yester-year and the product now in the high end audio market, and I might add the audiophile setups.

I'm listening to Oliver Nelson at the moment and my system is jammin with dynamics. It's dynamic and clean, transparent and huge, full of body. Earlier today I put on a $5,000.00 High End Audio CD player and it was like someone threw a blanket on the system. Did the same thing at my buddies house not long ago with his $13,000.00 player. He is now purchasing my recommend CD Player in bulk (save some for me LOL), so I know it's not CD's. I keep telling people it's these over built systems, and one by one as they explore they make the jump.

I hope that more people start to learn not only the recording process but also the history of. I think it will help them a lot. Main thing that they need to see is how extremely different each recording is made from the rest.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

Hi J, you said this "The other thing that strikes me is that most people in recording and master prefer analog but don't particularly consider themselves audiophiles. I think simplicity has been lost."

The name audiophile to many of my pro and home friends, means "wanta-be engineer". You would think that audiophile would mean music lover to the extreme, but for us you have to picture, for me anyway, I grew up in a place that was made for and that I tuned for the music in the studio, live, mastering and home. So when I see a high end audio system setup like an ad or tradeshow setup to me that isn't being a music lover to the extreme, but more an equipment collector.

When I see all this complicated equipment shoved against a living room wall it doesn't speak high end at all to me. There's nothing extreme about it but the price tag. What's worse is when I see there is zero adjustability in the system. So here a guy has all this equipment setup on one end of the room and the rest of the room is a living room, and there is no way for him to tune the music in, and he calls it a reference and himself an audiophile. To the music world that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It's like the guy who sets up his FM radio and never tunes in a station. Once in a while a station happens to float into tune but the rest of the time the station is slightly off and no way to dial it.

I mean how can a guy be an audiophile and egnore the biggest part of audio, the room. This is screwed up in mastering studios as well as high end home audio, but at least the mastering guy has knobs. Audiophiles may have become discrete, but they have also become prisoners of one sound.

What's the answer?

The hobby and recording together must take the next step. I personally feel the control and mastering rooms and systems need to get back to simple, and the high end audio room needs to become a playback room, and that room and system needs to become more simple and variable. This doesn't necessarily mean tone controls, but it does mean a step up from complicated stacks of equipment sitting against a living room wall.

Rooms are natural amplifiers wanting to be played, speakers should be designed to play them, and the electronic part of the system should be as simple as possible, with as few components as possible, and more time spent on the mechanics.

It's not that tough, the tough part is the ego. Guys like looking at stereo equipment. They also find plug and play to be fun. But audio is not plug and play, audio is a variable. Why we haven't gotten there yet is our own undoing, but it will come and those who accept it last will look pretty darn silly.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune
http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/

Jgossman also said "I ended up watching many of his videos and then went on to watch many other videos about mastering. The first thing that struck me is most people convert to analog because of the superiority of the tools and then back to digital. That's lots of messing around with the signal."

To that end, I hope it doesn't go on forever. I wish that the mastering could be done at the listeners and by-pass the mastering stage altogether. We're a long way from that, and I'm not sure the audiophile will want to learn how to mix, but it sure would end a lot of messes people get into. Than again it would probably create bigger messes knowing audiophiles.

Nice thing about digital and I have brought this up before, it wouldn't be all that hard to make pre-master copies and market them. That's pretty much what the recording houses do anyway. One thing that you'll notice is as you watch mastering engineers, they are much like audiophiles when it comes to taste. Every mastering house has their own sound and own 'correctness" and judgement on all the recordings that come through.

I don't think for the high end audio guy, today looks anything like tomorrow will look like. It's all fun once you know what your doing.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune
http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/

Hi Geoff

I'm not so sure the studio engineer is going with the status quo as much as it is it's what the technical schools are now teaching what will get the young engineers jobs. There's probably as many or more great studios and engineers out there but the biz has become a commercial setting now instead of a long play "creative source". I say that loosely because I've been with some of the young pups who can run circles around the others. I saw in one of the videos where Greg was talking about James Taylor music and how good it is, well if you look at that camp of music makers they use the same guys and many times equipment and voicing to come up with that particular sound (audio code). They're one of the camps that said "this works lets keep doing it". There are lots of these camps and as an audiophile/extreme listener/engineer they're fun to study and enjoy.

40 years ago you didn't have portable home studios, or something called You-Tube, and the world was not soley driven by what someone saw on the computer screen. It was a different culture and recordings had different meaning. Like with movies look at how fast the scenes are changed vs old school movies. Again you have to look at the history of music. The pop (popular) song was designed to be a 2-3 minute quick fix, but in the old school days still took a day or few days or weeks to get things the way you wanted. FM introduced the DJ world which split listeners up into camps. The concepts of writing music went from long play down to short content burst. There are a lot of things at play with music today, but I look at this as a good thing, more variety. We get to go back and look at the old school and open ourselves up to this newer culture.

I'm not sure where the audiophile is looking or buying music but I'm finding more great music today then I ever have. And as much as I'm not so crazy about some of the equipment choices out there, I'm seeing the lower end of the price scale raising the bar in performance. But isn't that what being a hobbyist is? Your young and think you are better, more up to speed than the old, and from the other side you have the old saying these young pups don't respect the way we use to do things. Both of those views shape the future together and get to go back and explore the past if they want.

I'm also not sure if the recording industry as a whole has ever really considered themselves audiophiles. Audiophiles is kind of a marketing thing that got developed to supply a certain club of music listeners. It started out as a purity and or remastering club but became an equipment buying club. If you owned this you would get better sound but that never really happened, and when the audiophile stopped "doing", the club started to die off, and that's what we're seeing now. I don't think there are any less extreme music lovers out there just not as many equipment collectors as there was. Fatigue listening gets old for anyone.

It will be interesting (hope I'm around) to see the next phase of audiophile come along, shoot it may not even be called audiophile. Some things in this industry move very fast and some very slow, like they're barely moving.

As much as it would be cool to see tape come back, that would take a major movement and I don't see enough buyers to support it, I don't even see enough buyers to support the CD. I do see enough buyers to support wireless, usb flash sticks, computer audio and joysticks. Audio in general will become far smaller (component wise) and the room will play a much bigger part. I've done a few high end game rooms and in sitting there after finished I could easily see where the old could meet the new and work together. For example, you probably have not work much with notch filtering. Basically you find the particular frequency that is causing a peek and notch it out. If you have really good equipment and ears you can make the notch so small that it isn't even able to be heard in the whole. Meaning you get rid of the freguencies that are fatiguing and go on about your listening. Problem is so far people don't understand that this is something that happens differently in every recording and system so you would need to get good at spotting it and dealing with it.

The good news is this is something the younger crowd will get into. The younger crowd may not have all the tools in front of them but as the tools are made these youngsters are not going to be shy about adjusting and tweaking. I see high end audio much different than a bunch of old farts swapping out components and cables in the future.

as far as this statement

"I think it best to consider digital a dead technology and tape and vinyl living technologies"

That's just an uneducated statement!

michael green
MGA/RoomTune
http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/

You know what I think Geoff,

You need to get a stereo and re-join the hobby.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune
http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/

So Geoff

How many cassette tapes are you up to now? Where are you getting your collection from? Meaning are you finding any serious outlets of tapes that haven't sat around in cars and such, or is it hit and miss?

Part of the fear I would think of getting back into cassettes for someone serious about it would be the collections out there. I would think if you never sold your original collection there would be some sense of security of the quallity but tape storage and conditions would be a little scary.

I'm sure there are audiophile collectors of cassettes and reel to reel, but is it like vinyl, where you still see a lot of collectors.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

I sure wish (maybe there are) there were a lot more videos that were about the same length, from different fields within the music biz that gave their thoughts. Not that they all have to agree, but at least let people take more of a look behind the scenes from the creative side.

There are so many variations in this hobby, that explain much of why things are what they are and also that we are not stuck in one tiny camp if we don't want to be. I have my views because I did it and was around others who created recordings. When you spend years shaping the music and studying the signal it's really weird being in the middle of people who choose not to make any adjustments. It's like they're afraid they're going to break something and I don't get it. There are many ways to adjust the signal without creating distortion.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune
http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/

Where did you hear this from?

Tape storage plays an overwhelming role with the sound of them!

Geoff said "They don't wear out and have not been in the back of someone's car. That's an old wives tale."

Okie dokie, well for those who are taking the return to tape seriously here are a few things.

1) Maybe if not more important than vinyl, keep your tapes in a dust partical free area and always in it's case, or make a new case for them.

2) If you have carboard sleeves inside the cases, make sure they are not just cut card stock. Might want to mark the outside of the case and get rid of the cardboard.

3) Do not store your collection near direct sunlight.

4) Do not expose your cassettes to humidity or temperature changes. (storing them in garrages, basements or attics for example is very bad), (tape likes dry cool storage but each type has it's own specs for storage)

5) Keep them away from motors and other components. (not a good idea to stack a player above an amp for example, or in front of wall outlets)

6) Anything in your house that creates a magnetic field can hurt the tape.

7) Don't start and stop the tape. (Cassette machines are not pro machines and it's easy to create wear drop outs.

8) Print Through, (wiki does a fair job on this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Print-through)

9) Shelf life. Reel to reel and thicker studio tape has a fair shelf life but thiner cassette tapes start to fade around the 15 to 30 year mark, depending on their storage conditions. Serious collectors may want to maintain a master and make copies.

10) You should run your casstte collection once to twice a year start to finish. Fast speed is ok but slow speed is best.

11) If your deck has a fit problem never force the tape. (tapes should always pop into place and if you have those that don't, don't use them on a good deck)

These are some of many guidelines for tape users maybe the other guys will jump in with more.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune
http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/

Something that I would like to add for tape guys, and those of you who have been doing this a while might want to add your expertise.

As with any mass media, cassette tapes are known for their quallity control issues. Reel to reel is far better and of course studio tape is way up there on the reliable list (just have to know your machine). The best way to make a tape is get a reel to reel master and record onto your recorder machines favorite tape. When I was doing it I did all of my masters on reel to reel then stored them, then recorded down to my real time slave (didn't use it for play back) , and then on to my play collection. Doing your own once you get the hang of it will ussually blow away the store boughts, and I would think any more it would be hard to tell the good brands from the bad with the store boughts.

I looked through ebay last night and am not sure I would trust many of these cassettes to be honest. Maybe finding another collector or master house that is doing runs might be a safer way to go these days. But if someone tells you they all sound great they're not really a collector. Every tape company has a setting per their product and with the mass companies you really need to go through your cassettes and mark them so you know what adjustments are the best.

If I were getting into it again I would probably have a few different machines that I used for different jobs, or you can play it safe and get yourself a work horse. Problem is if you don't like the sound it might drive you crazy till you find the right flavor of deck. For example I like the opperations of the Nakamichi but perfer the sound of the Teac. The Nak is a tad too dark sounding for me, but can be modded by putting them in a different chassis. Almost all the decks I have ever had were modded somehow, even my studio machines.

However if I were not going to go with something that I could fuss with, it's hard to beat a Nak deck for consistant sound. Teac is probably close to being as consistant, but compared to reel to reel I would have to go the reel to reel route and learn my machine. Lots of great Reel to Reel players and recorders out there but you should get to know your service guy before you go jumping in too deep. You can't just spin and expect miracles. With anything there comes learning curves.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune
http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/

I guess if Geoff chooses to be judge over the industry with his Sony Walkman that's ok with the rest of us. At least after all this time we know at what level he is at.

so moving on

Being judge is not only knowing what comes with every recording, and with every physical source, but being judge is being in control.

Not one part of the audio chain is without the ability of shaping, and with this comes responsibility. Those with discrete systems don't escape this responsibility, they've just made a fixed choice. One choice fits all type of thing, and that's ok if all audio codes were the same and all part values were the same and all rooms were the same and even all of our hearing was the same, but I think it's not to hard to see this hobby is full of variables and there is no way around them and for the guy who sits there as judge from one setting the chances of being a true judge over all these variables only goes as far as his own mind.

The fun thing for me about this hobby is not getting to a state where the I have one sound, but that I can understand the recording proccess and go after any sound I want. The Joy of listening to ECM is not judging ECM for what it can't do but for what it can. If you take each one of these recording labels you will find a history that is rich with individual artistry. You have companies like ECM and then you have companies that own several other companies all with their own unique flavors. The more you study a particular recording the closer you can get to it's objective. Believe it or not even in this age of compression and mass producing there are still more engineers being born with the desire to go further than what was done in the past.

We as listeners are the last part of the audio chain, and at least for myself, as an extreme listener I can't help myself from uncovering the recordings as they are played near me. When I see a new recording pass my way, I go through the first thoughts like anyone else, but because I am judge I have got to the place where I put that recording in a certain file in my mind and decide if I am going to unlock it or play it like it is without making any adjustments.

For example

If I'm playing a recording and it's wide open space wise and I put on the next recording and it is all frontal and shut down, I don't judge that recording based on that stage. I may pass by or I may make the decision to open it up and see what's there. It really depends on my mood and how much I want to do. But one thing I almost always do is open up that recording at least once to see it in it's full space so I can look at the different parts and pieces. I have run into a very small amount of recordings that won't open up so I can take a peek inside.

When I read an audiophile say "it's a bad recording" and then discribe that recording as something that smeared the stage or sounded all distorted that tells me that it's not the recording but the system setup. I've been saying this on several of my threads and as hard as it might be to swallow many guys who are calling these recordings bad and describing what they hear, don't match up. It may be hard to accept that you are listening to a system that is out of line with a recording but the truth is if you are listening to a collapsed stage, or sound running into the speakers or some of the other signs I have brought up, it's not the recording. it's that you are on one side of the info and the recorded code is on the other side.

Let me share this with you

Your watching videos on mastering right? Well have you noticed that in all those segments the engineer gets the recording and hears it's not correct? He dives into that recording and starts making changes right? If it's a fair engineer he is going to upfront and say he is manipulating the signal. He may call it enhance or a number of names but what is happening is he has received a recording and it doesn't "match" his setup, so he spends some time to make it match. Then the engineer puts on some of his final touches and sends his master to the production company and on to you. Your at home and received your copy and put it on and some of the time it sounds great and other times not so great. What do you think happened? Did the copy company send you a bad Cd, tape or vinyl? Did the mastering engineer screw up? Or let me give you a third choice. Just as the mastering engineer got his copy and made the adjustments, so are you getting a copy of something that still needs to be "played". You might once in a while hit it right on the money but more times than not the recording still needs some (maybe a lot) of adjusting to come to life.

This is why I'm here talking about the audio code and variable tuning. I want to show you guys who are interested the difference between compression and distortion, and a lot of other things that you'll find helpful if you choose to take your listening deeper than just one setting judging all. I want to show you guys there's something more than a thousand different systems playing the same piece of music and all sounding different. You have more choices than you know or think if you have been trained to think the "one sound" system way, which is what high end audio has become.

You might think, there's no way a whole industry could have been that wrong. My "discrete" system plays what is there. Well let me ask you this question again and this time think about it before you get upset. If your discrete system is judge and your sound is the sound, why do every one of your systems sound different from each other? Don't get all audiophilish on me think about it, that means you reviewers too. Do you guys really think that these systems are all that revealing? If so than every system you guys play is either correct and the rest are wrong, or the system you are playing right now in your reviewing room or home is not playing the entire recorded audio code.

Now listen up and don't just react

You can't have it both ways guys. You can't be judge based on everytime you put on a new system or add anything and the music changes over the recording. How can you judge that piece of music when it sounds different on every single system in the world? Grab your reference recordings again guys and do what you have in the past, take it around to systems all over the world at every show home, store or other reviewers home and tell me that a system has played that recording absolutely. Keep in mind I've been to your listening parties so you can't fibb.

let me give one example and then get yeld at

Mike Gindi's place in NY. I like Michael BTW fun guy. Reviewers were there as well as a few of the golden ears of audio. I believe it was Kenny from CAT and the gang listening to "hearts and bones", one of Paul's greatest and one all of the serious listeners know inside and out. We were all listening to the guys making changes to the Table and one by one invited to the sweet spot. As we talked I noticed how everyone there was commenting on how that particular system, setup that way, sounded different from each ones personal system. I've heard that same recording in a few of the guys there rooms so I know they were telling the truth. Hearts and Bones sounded different on everyones system. Let me ask you guys, which system was telling the truth? Which one of the collective ears and brains in that room had the answer to this is the way Paul's recording really sounded? According to how this high end audiophile part of this hobby works, all of these systems were wrong but one.

get real people

High end audio and the audiophiles who follow it took a mistaken road when they started making systems so discrete that they only were able to play "one" sound. You just heard me tell you of an example of what happened with one recording "ONE RECORDING" in the middle of millions that all have different audio codes. Everyone of your systems sound different and every recording sounds different.

How can you possibly be judge over anything audio without having a system that can play the music to it's fullest? Revealing systems? Revealing of what I ask? Your sitting there with one of thousands of sounding systems setup completely unique to anyone else, every recording sounds different on that system than anywhere else, and your calling it judge? How can we be judges when we have kicked adjustable to the curb? Some hold up their hands and say "I have better parts in my system or it's better built" Oh really? So these "better" parts are so good they adjust to recordings unique recorded code? I'd like to see that trick. Seems to me I've never walked in on any two systems that play any two pieces of music the same.

High end audio needs to get back to the hobby at hand before it is completely over. Fooled listeners are not going to buy the "best system" for ever, and the whole revealing system scam is going to deflate in time. Revealing of 10% of the music content is not going to hold up in listening court forever.

Have you guys noticed on here how very few people come up when I talk about referencing together? Some guy comes up with a bold smerk or sideways attack but when I say lets take a piece of music and listen to it together they run like little babies on the playground. We need to get past ourselves and have some meaningful listening sessions and dicussion on how we are going to take this hobby to the next level. We're sitting with the answer right in our lap and it's not hard to do, the hard part is only dealing with our attachments and the thought that there was actually a one system fix. But that one system can't happen in a hobby/industry that is built on variables. We can kick and scream all we want and fire flames out our butts till we're all scorched, but this will only result in the mass production companies catching on before high end does.

Time for this part of the industry to shape up and stop the game playing. Time for us to explore what it really means to be judge and actually start being judge. Time for us to look at the audio chain and recording and sources and everything else there is to this wonderful world of music and go after it with something deeper than wanting to be "NEO". Guys Neo is fiction and as much as you want to be the one with the answer you are not going to give a "FIXed" answer or truth in a "VARIABLE" world. We're going to stay on these pages and keep going in the same trade out sell out cop out spins and it doesn't change the future one bit.

the only ones that will change the future are the ones that understand change itself

michael green
MGA/RoomTune
http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/

Hi Costin

I don't think anyone escapes the blame. All the parts of this industry kinda went their own way which makes it tougher in some cases to get that perfect match or many times a match at all. Just like the audiophile got caught up in complex system building with one sound many engineers are in the same boat. They see a new toy and make any excuse they can to justify it's sound. I've been in a lot of studios where it was obvious the engineer made a move backward in equipment choosing, or setup, but no one was going to say a word cause of the reputation this engineer had. However I've also listened to a ton of high end audio systems that cleary weren't playing the music and the owner of the system would defend that system to the death. This is why I tip toe around naming gear. I have a lot more equipment than you think lol, just want to keep under the radar of the haters.

Certain types of recorded codes are harder to bring to life than others. It isn't so much that the engineer was deaf, he just decided to create a recording that was so complex that you need an interpreter to make it through. There are a lot of recordings that I'll get and say "why the heck did they do that". For example Fun "Some Nights". I fought with that recording for a week before I got it to make sense. There was so much electronic craziness used that as soon as you got one part to work right another part of that recording would be way out of balance.

Another problem is all these guys wanting to remaster, WOW! I'll leave that one for when I have the will to cover it.

My fall back plan when listening is go after the stage size. I know that sounds like a broken record but I have always found if I get that recording, any recording, to open up I have a better chance of taking a look at what they did in the studio and or mastering room.

One thing that is pretty easy to bank on whether it is an electronic created piece or in a live room is when you put that piece of music on if the stage doesn't go front to back as much as it does side to side, you've got more on the recording than you are playing. Most of the time if I go to someones home and a piece of music has flatlined across the stage I know right then that recording has not been mated to the system. Some recordings especially in the elctronic realm seem to be harder for a lot of guys to open up.

Had a client not long ago who is a big rock fan but his system sounded terrible. I brought him over a simple vintage Technics and my favorite CD player, and few of my products, and showed him a stage trick. I setup this system in a small bedroom maybe 9 by 12. Once the RoomTune were up and the receiver and CDP were plugged in I turned on the music and started at the front of the room against the wall (I sat on the back wall). The speakers were free resonant so I spread them apart almost to the walls. I started moving the speakers closer to the chair, still spread as far apart as they could be. When I got them close to good I got out of the chair and let his ears tell him when to stop. When he said stop, I jumped in the chair, listened, walked out to his living room grabbed two RoomTune deluxe, came back in and did my V tune for the front pressure zone, he sat down and I moved the speakers yet about a foot closer to him, he ended up being maybe 3' from the center plain of the speakers with them about 8" in from the sides. He jumped up and gave me a hug (bout killed me lol), "best sound I ever heard".

here's one on my tricks

Something that studio and mastering engineers hardly ever do is tune in their center stage pressure zone. Most of the time the console is sitting there so they never hear how much center fill is really on the recording, front to back as well as side to side. Go on google and look at studios and you will see what I mean. Because of this there are a ton of recordings that get to the listeners place and the center stage is way out of balance causing a mess. Simple recordings like Jazz and classical may not show this as much but many complicated rock recordings have this problem big time. Not saying it's not on all recordings some what, but it's really present on rock and other more produced recordings.

I want to show you guys something

Look at most of your systems. You've got left speaker, racks, right speaker. Your center pressure zone is all out of whack. In most cases if you pull your speakers out of there and do a setup similar to what I did for that fella and tune your front stage pressure zone, with some practice your tough to play recordings will take on new life.

A lot of recordings can't play on systems because of this particular problem and because the upper corners in the room are loading. The upper corners of a room and that frontal pressure area are the biggest contributors to a play back system.

There's a lot more tricks to opening up recordings and if you look at how they were done physically many times you will find that a problem you thought was there is as simple as a space issue.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune
http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/

Geoff

Every recording you listen to has been and is being tuned. It's either in-tune or out-of-tune.

I'll have to go back and read your post again sorry, but it looked like you were speaking from an area that we have already past. Your opening remarks are so far out of touch with everything we have been talking about that it looked like your typical spin and ended with your defence as usual when you get stuck, a stupid picture.

One it's hard to take someone serious when they do this style of posting, and two when they are using a Sony Walkman as their judge for audio, failing to be able to do so with their in-room system and their tweaked high end one.

But giving you a pass, what are those products you sell on your website? From what I see you sell them to make a change to the sound correct?

Your a strange ranger Geoff, but I'm glad you have revealed your level of expertise. I think that helps people when they read your posts.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune
http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/

Hi Costin

I looked at my answer over a few times and didn't feel it was complete enough. I was giving a solution to a common problem but I didn't answer the question well enough, sorry.

From what I have read and this may not be a 100% true, most of the guys here bring up rock recordings as the ones they are having problems with, so in answering this let me put on a rock CD.

Well it turned out to be several rock CDs cause everyone I put on sounded pretty darn good with the current setting I have. Maybe it would be better for you guys to pick out one for me and then I could break down the sound of it from the way I listen, and you could describe what you are hearing.

In the meantime let me describe what I was playing before. I had on Paul Motian (jazz) on the system and it was playing for about a day. Sound stage was huge and sitting in my seat I could hear and feel the recording presence all around me, a good sign. The top end was super mellow and spread out, with his cymbals having several textures to them as they rolled out into the room. The drums did not hit and go sideways but spherical heading in all directions evenly.

Now the rock

The stereo Gods must be with me today cause every recording I put on was again huge and I didn't have any desire to play around. I played Ziggy, Aqualung, D&W (Uriah Heep) and now Amie & others (Pure Prairie League). This is telling me (even though I like it), I have locked into a system sound and not the recorded sound. I would probably listen to this sound, and will, until I put on a recording that doesn't match up as well to the setting. I'm sure I'll run into something soon that will hit me weird and I will go in and make an adjustment.

Which I guess brings me to another point. Geoff on another thread was doing his usual spin and trying to plant fear into the listeners heads about tuning and how often we would need to tune if we have an ajustable system. Well that's kinda dumb really. Tuning gives one much more peace actually, because they don't have to do anything if they don't want or adjust to a setting like I just have and enjoy that particular setting (the system playing the music) til I decide to make a change.

With a variable system we have all the options we want. Right now if I wanted to, I could think of a system past like my Wilson/Pass/VPI or Soundlab/Classe'/Wadia and tune this system into reminding me of their sounds. Or maybe I want to go all mellow for the day which is what I have now pretty much. I could go super squeezed with a few turns or any where else I wanted to, including each recordings particular audio code.

Now my world is not so much good or bad but gibson vs fender, or yamaha vs steinway. The content is there, but how do I choose to listen to it.

Here's the part that I needed to put in to complete my thought though.

Recordings range from poorly engineered/produced to incredible. They all have a message, some better than others, and of course they all have different musicianship that ranges all over the map. This is no sudden secret discovered though. Recordings have been doing this throughout history and will continue into forever. The quest from the listeners view point though, is where do we want to be as judge and control over the outcome of our system and sound. The way I see it, the audiophile has been playing plug and play for so long they have walked right passed the point that they every change they make, are doing a fixed tune. To this I say "why"? Why keep doing the same trading game forever when that same listener can design a system that can make every change they have made and any change they want to make. They can get as specific as they want or not, but what a tunable system does is give control over all the variables.

Everyone with tuning can choose their starting place and go in what ever direction they choose to go. As far as revealing goes a tunable system with low mass simplicity will out resolve the most expensive complex system in the world, and do it with ease.

I have several systems here and all of them have a core sound to them. What's interesting is how similar I can make them sound to each other and then at other times I can go places where I sit there mouth on floor. But here's the biggest news I have discovered. Recordings poor, fair, good, great aren't nearly as bad as I thought they were, it's dependent on my abilities to get to their code, their core, and when I do that recording takes on a completely new meaning for me.

So when I see someone trash a recording and they don't tune, I have to roll my eyes a little to be honest "did they really uncover that recording and production"? Or, did they judge based on several fixed point of views? I've had friends in this biz who have spent their whole life thinking they were right to find they weren't right at all just bull headed and unwilling to take the next step. Most of them that could over come their ego say "I never knew that recording had that in it" and they find a new or even re-newed vision for their job or hobby.

Costin you doing your new system hopefully will start you on a path that will not stop there, but take you to a different place in this hobby where you have never been before. You might stop there, or it might start that fire as it did with me to see how far I/you can go, and that to me is being an extreme listener. The guys who sit there and act like judges from one view, are missing out on a completely different hobby. The hobby of letting the music teach us.

the study never ends, thank God

michael green
MGA/RoomTune
http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/

Actually, it's my job to know the differences in tape, Cds and vinyl. I'm a soundstage specialist, that would mean I need to know how they work and what goes into them through the audio pathway.

I'm sorry it bugs you that I can't consider a Sony Walkman as being a high end audio reference, but I can't change that Geoff. My last listen to your reference failed to go very far in the areas of stage, range and accuracy. That's no attack on you Geoff (you didn't design it) and it's no attack on Sony, it is what it is. A Sony Walkman Tape or Cd would not be something that I could use as a soundstage judge, and since this thread is about judging and I judge soundstages and work with and train people who make them I don't see what your point even is. You yourself have said that your reference is not much on staging, so I don't know why you would say I've put words in your mouth. We can all read geoff and the fact is, I have 3000 square studios out there plus my reference systems and rooms and you have a Sony Walkman. I don't see what the issue is do you?

What would you like me to do, make an appointment with these studios and bring your Sony Walkman with me to show them something? What would I show them geoff? I know what they would show me, the door.

Geoff I'm trying to raise these talks to a level of quality dicussions on the hobby that are meaningful, but I could just see someone from Yale (Silliman recording studio) reading this and saying what? This geoff guy is talking about referencing on a Sony Walkman? Or SUNY's Robert Barstow (MGA designed the music wing and studios), or the Eastman School of music, or other music schools I been a part of designing, saying "stop the phones geoff is here with his Sony Walkman". Dude that's just some of the schools not even the studios themself. EMI, Abbey Road, Warner Bros, A&M Records....an on. "hey guys stop the press, high end audio designer geoff kait wants you to listen to cassette tapes on his Sony Walkman".

On these threads, lets move on from the chatter and on to doing things that are constructive. Lets raise the bar bro and show how much we're into moving the hobby and industry forward.

Your findings on simple is fantastic, so lets build on that, instead of saying all need to throw out the industry and go to Walkmans. If we need to talk about low mass vs high, that's fine. Talk about the different sources, that's fine too. Ultimately though we need to get to listening together, that's how judging works as a community. This is about listening you know, and when people are shy about doing that, this is what raises flags for me personally.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune
http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/

I'm talking to a guy who listens to a Sony Walkman and doesn't know who EMI, Abbey Road, Warner Bros, A&M Records are. How about, Criteria, The Hit Factory, Sony. I would guess you know of Sony Studios?

I don't think I have ever seen anyone in this industry or hobby dig a hole so deep lol. And what's so entertaining is he keeps coming back for more.

Geoff, you've done such a good job of promoting me I may never have to list my credentials again LOL. I'll just point them to your threads.

Now if I give my audiophile credentials (again) he'll have some type of put down for them. I've already given a partial list of my components and geoff said "you win". So thanks geoff lets see.

3) MG Audio in Georgia
2) MG Audio Ohio
2) MG Reference Room (appointment only) NY NY, Ohio
TuneVilla
MG Audio Nashville
MG Studios Nashville
MG TuneLand Vegas

Oh and BTW, when high end had stores I was in 650 of them and 37 countries. But who's counting.

So lets see Geoff I can round it off to saying I had 5 high end stores, name a couple of the schools teaching my program, a few of the clients, and my associations with a heck of a lot of high audio audio guys, including reviewers. Would you like me to? Personally I'm getting tired of talking about me, and am ready to do some listening, but if some dumb a** wants to keep trying to show me up with his Sony Walkman I can just keep looking at it as free advertising.

Every thread you attempt to make yourself look bigger than the rest of the posters and every time they run circles around you in knowledge and credentials. So if you wish to keep playing the math game of what you have done vs someone or ones who have actually been there please keep going cause it gives us a chance to post and John a chance to have his forum read.

but

Before you go too much further I hope you realize how much business your throwing into my pocket. You've almost single handly put my name back into the minds of the thousands who started tuning back in the day, and got hundreds of guys thinking about it now. Took 2 orders for my "tunable" speakers today, so before too long I'll need to give you commission cause it seems like your game is working, the problem for you is, it's working for me and I'm loving seeing more people get turned on to the tune.

So Ok, we got my credentials down, now lets attack my products so I can defend them, please. Or maybe the industry can take a look at how many copy-cat MGA companies are out there, cause these guys couldn't design for themselves. Please geoff keep promoting me :) it's saving me a lot of effort.

These readers are looking at a guy who has been in both high end audio and the pro-recording world and thanks to you they for the first time are seeing how much I do in both worlds, so please keep going BRO! You know when I first got in high end audio some of the other designers got mad cause I self promoted. They were all self promoting every chance they got, but I just kept making great sound and the people came to me, not a bad deal right. We even had reviewers calling us to tell us they were sorry but in every review they have to say at least one thing bad about a company. LOL they picked on my literature.

now we can keep going if you want geoff, but shouldn't we get back to judging music

Let me know cause I've only just barely started and at the end of the day all I have to really do is suggest a listening showdown, and we've seen the natives run now haven't we.

talk may be cheap, but you sure are making it worth my while :)

michael green
MGA/RoomTune
http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/

Hi Costin

"Do we get a deal?" absolutely!

My personal emails have gone way up, along with calls and even people lining up to take the tunable tour when we have the new facility put up in we hope time for the 2016 CES.

What these threads are doing is raising the interest in how the tuning actually works. I also got news today suggesting that there is a new breed of audiophile on the rise which will be perfect for tuning according to this source. I can't wait till the press starts doing more to push the new school of audio. From what I was told some of this is happening on AA.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune
http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/

He certainly did, and it was better than all of our systems, then came the Sony Walkman portable tape player and a new height was found by him.

But to the question of geoff's credentials here's a quote from him.

"Why would I wish to perform any testing myself? What good would that do?"

A high end audio designer who doesn't perform tests on the things he talks about. Odd, why would he talk about them? Further more what is he doing on a thread about judging stuff if he doesn't do testing, and what is he doing on a high end audio site if his reference is a Sony Walkman portable cassette player with their stock head phones. Seen here in his dynamics thread http://www.stereophile.com/content/you-want-dynamics . He was showing us, I believe, how to get the best sound he has ever had and wanted to share it with us. I since have listened to his reference twice now. Most of the soundstage was in my head, but then he had an answer for this "it's not all about soundstage you know". So here's a guy pushing products and not wanting to test stuff, and saying we ott to dump our stuff and grab a Walkman, yet he still wants to give advice on the direction of parts and such. Parts he doesn't even own, and that he used on systems that he left behind "never looking back" according to geoff.

Maybe I'm being too harsh on the little fella, after all he provides the forum with cute little pictures of animals.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune
http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/

Hi David

I guess my question would need to be. Have you done successful parametric notch filtering, and have you done variable tuning? I appreciate that your doing your judging from your point of view, but here's were the rubber meets the road for me. With your system your saying

"I have about three hundred CD's, and I'm in the process of arranging them on a shelf with the crappiest sounding ones at the far left and progressing in sound quality to the best ones at the far right. Needless to say, there are more crappy ones"

In my collection I haven't counted lately but it's upward of 12,000 CD's and growing, with maybe 20 or so bad ones. If you have most of your CD's sounding bad, you might want to take a serious look at why.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune
http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/

Hi geoff

Thanks again for asking in a weird sorta way.

Not sure where I was sleeping for 20 years during this

3) MG Audio in Georgia
2) MG Audio Ohio
2) MG Reference Room (appointment only) NY NY, Ohio
TuneVilla
MG Audio Nashville
MG Studios Nashville
MG TuneLand Vegas

geoff said

"You're kind of like the guy who wakes up after being asleep for twenty years"

Since your concerned where I have been and doing.

www.tuneland.info started in 2004, a few months after I finished my work in Nashville. Up to 2004 and beyond I had and have a retail operation. Your right though I did stop going to as many high end audio tradeshows but that was mainly due to speaking at pro tradeshows and consulting and designing for companies like Herman Miller take a peek for yourself http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=herman+miller+room+tune&qpvt=herman+miller+room+tune&FORM=IGRE . I wasn't really away from high end though, just wanted to play a little http://positive-feedback.com/Issue23/green.htm . So while you were toying with things like "Schumann Frequency Generators, tiny little bowl acoustic resonators, constrained layer damping, six degree of freedom isolation" I was designing projects such as
________________________

"Dedication Concert will open Music Facility at SUNY Oneonta

ONEONTA, N.Y. -SUNY Oneonta's Chamber Singers, Chamber Orchestra and World Percussion Ensemble will join world music trio Globetrotting and several faculty soloists at a performance on Friday, Nov. 11, to dedicate the new music wing of the college's Fine Arts building. The public is invited to attend the event, which will begin at 8 p.m.

Attendees will be the first to hear a new work by Assistant Professor Jeremy Wall, who is best known as a founding member of the ground-breaking jazz-fusion group Spyro Gyra. Commissioned for this occasion, Wall's "Songs of Peace" is based on Muslim, Jewish and Christian writings. Like many of his compositions, it blends jazz, classical, pop and world music.

"I developed a number of the themes for the piece during a trip to Morocco last year," Wall said. "And there are R&B and Brazilian influences, as well."

Dr. Orlando Legname, chair of the SUNY Oneonta Music Department, will conduct the performance in the wing's Large Rehearsal Hall.

"We couldn't be happier to host this event. It will be such an exciting moment for our faculty and student performers," said Legname. "What better way to officially open a music wing than to play a concert?"

The new music wing opened at the start of the fall semester. A $6.7 million addition to the Fine Arts building, it includes several rehearsal spaces, digital recording capabilities and variable tunable walls.

"We're thrilled to offer such a sophisticated facility to students who are practicing, performing and recording music," said SUNY Oneonta President Nancy Kleniewski. "It's a beautiful space and we're looking forward to showing it off at this dedication."
_________________________

doing shows with VH1, and hanging out with Slum Village, Wu-tang, Bob Seger, Alice Cooper, Ringo Star, Gretchen Wilson (and her kick butt band), Stacy Mitchhart and a host of other performers. Oh but you don't want to hear names.

Or would you prefer to hear again my test results of the "Schumann Frequency Generators" which I have given a couple of times on here before?

So if this is asleep for 20 years, than maybe your right we should all pick up Sony Walkmans with there plastic ear phones and call it a day.

So tell us geoffy, what have you been doing the last 20 years for the good of music? Oh wait I see it right here http://www.stereophile.com/content/you-want-dynamics . Hey lets give a round for the little fella.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune
http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/