I was listening to classical music on the car radio - which is pretty much what I listen to, and not just because it is more or less commercial-free, which is nice, and not just because it is more or less news-free, which is also nice.

Anyway, I noticed that much of the individual instruments of the particular piece, I forget which, could be heard echoing in the hall where the recording was made. And, you know, a LOT of recorded classical music has along with it the sound of the hall. I like this. It makes the instruments feel fuller and the decay is more interesting and natural.

Funny how a LOT (all?) of popular music has no ambient hall sound at all, either recorded in a studio, and the sound of the studio is edited out if it exists at all, or, if recorded live, the sound of the hall is again edited out, often along with editing out the sound of the audience.

What cinches this for me, personally, is that many bootlegs, recorded live in concert, have an abundance of hall sound… and I really like this. Again on the car radio, this time the Fort Collins station, they were playing a country rock band playing in what sounded like a largeish stadium. The lead guitar was echoing slightly in the hall there… and I loved it.

But back to classical music… it is hard to think of any that we have here where I can recall it having no concert hall sound effects. Maybe this is like science fiction book covers having certain styles and colors, and mystery novels a similar but different style and color… i.e. this is the way it has always been done and we are used to it and the people who record the music just continue to do it the same was it has always be done, and, well, here we are with posts like this commenting on it.

This used to worry me quite a bit. Still does. But I now wonder if it should. [this goes for distributors, and to some extent dealers as well]

A prime example is we go to a show, and go into the manufacturer’s (or distributor’s) room, and their product is shown in a bad light, usually because the associated equipment is a poor, often VERY poor, choice. But the manufacturer acts like everything is fine sounding -that this is the way that their product usually sounds. But… we know better. Their product can sound wonderful.

Another prime example is the systems that a manufacturer uses in their factory to test. Is it another poor system? What about the system the manufacturer has at home? If they have one.

My concern has always been, if the manufacturer doesn’t have a top notch system to test their product on, how will they know how to make it sound its best? They are just designing in the dark, with no clue about just how good their equipment can sound and what their designs are requiring of us to make it sound its best.

[As an aside, Peter Qvortrup of Audio Note usually seems to have a level 5 (or better ) system in his office that he can hear things on [we all could hope and pray for such a system in our listening rooms] and Nordost, from what I understand, has everybody there take prototypes home and do a lot of listening - so they can get a real sense of the product on many different systems. I know most Software companies also use one or both of these approaches as well when developing new software.]

But… another perspective on all this is cars. Or musical instruments. You can’t just fly Van Halen in, or an Unser, and have them drive each one of your prototypes. In some sense they build the best thing that they can, and then expect that they will be used in ways, once they get into the field, that will take their products to the limit… and beyond.

So [when I feel like I need to stop worrying quite so much ] perhaps there is a nice balance here somewhere, between developing high end audio equipment with more or less a deaf ear - only looking at it from the technological point of view, and getting lots of feedback at each step of the development from people who like to push the boundaries of their product’s performance envelope.

We posted this cautionary blurb, the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect, about how people should perhaps scrutinize what they read a little more carefully. That, essentially, a person or publication having a history of known erroneous reports, that a reader knows for a fact are in error, should really cause the reader to discount much of the other reports by that person or publication.

But the reverse is also true to some degree.

I was watching a talk on how the Venture Capital marketplace is being revolutionized, and realized that several of the bold statements he was making I knew to be true. This allowed me to raise the estimation I had that other statements he made, that I had no firm personal knowledge of, might also be true. [yes, of course this can, and is, abused all of the time by salespeople - but still, it is better than them saying things you know to be flat out wrong]

Similarly, with Mike Fremer and JV, they have made several bold [and not so bold] statements over the years that I knew to be true, and this raised, and continues to raise, my estimation that what they say [still, with very large grains of salt] about things I have not yet heard might also be true. In fact, one builds a mental model of people in general [including their motivations, which can be sticky ], ending up with a weighted probability that anything they say in a very narrow qualitative region may be true or not for oneself as well. This is diametrically opposed to many, many of the other reviewers who say things I know to be false, or say things that are completely nonsensical, or even more often, information-free [i.e. they are not really saying anything at all, when you get right down to it].

—————– OK. The previous post is copied here, so that you can read the above in the correct context, without having to scroll down ———–

[Hopefully people can abstract this somewhat humorously described concept below to understand that this quote is a reminder that we also have to take all high-end audio reviews with a grain of salt, to view them with trepidation and suspicion, to look askance when they are in our presence, to… - in particular those reviews by reviewers who have shown that they will sometimes pound the table and insist that ‘wet streets cause rain’].

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.
—————————————————— Michael Crichton

IBM Details World’s Fastest Graphene Transistor

“Lin cautioned against thinking of graphene as a substitute for the silicon-based microprocessors used in today’s computers, at least at anytime in the near future. One major roadblock is that graphene does not work easily with discrete electronic signals, he explained. ”

“Instead, graphene is better suited for making analog transistors, such as signal processors and amplifiers. Today, such circuitry is largely made from GaAs (gallium arsenide), though GaAs offers nowhere near the same electron mobility, Lin said.”

[thanks, Florian ]

Looks like the California Audio Show 2011 aka the Dagogo Show is going to be in Burlingame [essentially near the SFO airport just south of San Francisco] this year. It will take place on July 15-17.

Audio Note will be there. Audio Federation will likely be there as well

No we did not go to Axpona this weekend. Given all the shows, it was going to be the most expensive (getting there and back, shipping etc.) and we are not sure all those Goldmine readers are the demographic that necessarily purchases high-end audio gear [but it will be interesting to get the feedback from the exhibitors as they return back from the show today]

[These Marten versus Kharma questions are very popular. I try to answer each one of these a little differently, to hopefully allow people, over the course of all these answers, to paste together a more accurate picture of the two ‘house sounds’.]

THE QUESTION

I’m curious to know how the Coltrane Momento’s have worked out? I have only seen one review of them (which was very positive), but they seem to have been brought to market rather quietly - as compared to the hoopla of the Supreme several years earlier. Have you had any in your shop for audition? If so, how do you like them? Anything glaringly right or wrong?

I like the look of these speakers - simple to hook up, simple footprint….but apparently with some great components and considerable thought all on board.

THE ANSWER

Yeah, I guess statement products [the Supremes] do receive a lot more hoopla than the penultimate [the Momentos] - and perhaps because the Momentos are comparably priced to so many other speakers these days, they just don’t stand out like the Coltrane Supreme speakers do? All just speculation on my part - but I do agree the buzz has been rather muted (undeservedly so, IMHO).

No, unfortunately we have not had the Momentos in the shop. We heard them extensively at CES last year, loved them [sounded just like we expected them to], and we were actually interested in purchasing that particular pair, but another line [no, I’m not telling which one ] we carry had a hiccup and we decided we just could not swing it at that time. And, now, of course, we are planning on moving the shop, so getting another big speaker just does not seem like the prudent thing to do at this time. [We periodically try to actively sell the Coltrane Supreme speakers so that we can get a pair of Coltrane Momento speakers for awhile - as you may have seen on this blog - only to later think this would be nuts and we can’t live without the Supremes. Kind of an emotional issue here at Audio Federation.]

The Momentos sound similar to the Coltrane Supreme speakers - which we love - and in some instances may be more convenient [2 speakers instead of 4, no external crossover box, and like if, say, you wanted to use an integrated amp like the Audio Note Ongaku to drive them - the absence of an outboard amp (which the Supremes have and the Momentos do not) simplifies things a bit]. Let’s get to your next question, which allows us to talk about these speakers in context, the context being another great set of speakers

>> Hello again - I also wanted to ask about the Marten’s: generally speaking how are they voiced relative to Kharma (a brand that I’ve some experience with)??

* The Marten sound is more determined by upstream equipment and setup than is the Kharma sound. (i.e. the Marten is capable of having more different kinds of sounds than the Kharma)
* The Kharma sound typically creates a larger soundstage and bigger sound, all else being equal [although this is changing with the new Coltrane 2 and maybe the Momento as well]
* The Kharma sound is typically more overtly detailed in the midrange and lower treble [though I think this is changing with the newer Kharma black label drivers] than the Marten sound
* The Marten sound has a blacker background and is more revealing of subtleties than the Kharma sound

One way to look at them is that the Kharma is a party speaker, exuberant, exciting, invigorating, … and the Marten is a truth speaker, beautiful, mind-mucking, deeply insightful…

Please understand I am somewhat exaggerating the differences to help you understand their intrinsic character …. They are both capable of doing all these things quite well.

Hope this helps!

I find the escalating prices of high end audio gear both frustrating and fascinating

For example, the first amp from Dan D’Agostino after he left Krell. It is $45K.

Another example is Tenor, who after a career of making more or less average priced high end amps in the $20K to $30K range went under for a bit and then came back with an amp in the $60K [hard to find a price] region.

There are many other examples. Soulution is another, although they have been around for a few years. The Continuum turntable another example.

And these are established brand names. Many, many others come from nowhere.

What is going on?

I tried to compare it to the clothing industry.

So, say, you have Versace and they come out with $1000 pair of jeans [maybe they have, I do not know]. We look at them and see a whole line of jeans [and many other types of clothing], at a wide range of prices and all fairly well-regarded, if expensive.

This is the model for most high-end audio manufacturers up to a few years ago.

OK.

Now, one can continue along this line of thought and imagine that a leading designer at Versace [as opposed to Target or Sears] leaves and creates their own line of boutique jeans. Maybe they then go and come out with their first pair of jeans and price it $1000. One looks at the pedigree/cred of the designer, and A) the quality of the jeans and …

… there will be some B) people who want their clothes to be one-off, or very unique, or to be the first to discover a new designer, and are willing to pluck down a large chunk of their money on the jeans.

The problem is that A) is quite a bit more evident for jeans than it is audio equipment [which requires lots of associated equipment to be evaluated, etc.] and B) [explorers] I do not understand, personally, but people do seem to want to own something new and unique, albeit all the time hoping that it becomes the height of [high-end audio] fashion and quite popular, making them the ‘discoverers’.

It is perhaps the case then that boutique high-end audio manufacturers that have just a few very high-priced products are catering to that small segment of us who enjoy shopping using the B) explorers approach. The problem might be that as soon as one of these becomes slightly popular and successful, the explorers will look elsewhere. They then sell the gear, which then saturates the used market.

So how to avoid this trap if you just have a few products? 1) Put out a new version of the product or 2) broaden your product line:

1) guarantees the immediate saturation of the used market - so it is a little scary if you only have a few products. Some of the previous owners will go elsewhere, but a few new owners will be added, seeing the product as maturing and more desirable now. But as versions increase, the customer base withers. Unless a miracle occurs, this kind of guarantees the manufacturer will not grow beyond a niche status and will eventually fade away.

2) this is expensive and time consuming. But it does build a sustainable brand for the long term.

So, here is a question. How many products does it take to make a ‘broad product line’?

Take it beyond audio again to… hybrid cars. The SmartCar versus Toyota’s hybrids. You can see how having several options allows a manufacturer to weather changes in fashion and economies.

As a counter example, however, take Porsche. They do not have many models [although fairly recently adding an inexpensive model and a SUV]

That is what I meant above by ‘unless a miracle occurs’. I am sure all boutique manufacturers want to be the Porsche of their niche.

But it takes both a miracle [IMHO] and work. Porsche has a long history. They race their cars. They featured them in movies. Famous people drive Porsche. They put a lot of work building their boutique brand. So I guess that gets us:

3) put a LOT of work into building your brand when it only has a very few products

———————-

I guess the whole point here is that this is really fringe behavior - where established brands are not treated any different than brand new ones, where the pedigree of the designers is not examined very closely, where products are not compared to each other so it remains this real mystery about just how good something really is.

On the other hand, of course, this is a lot of the charm of this industry too. Kind of the wild west with a lot of wild characters doing wild and crazy things. I have no problem keeping it wild, just so long as we all kind of understand and appreciate just how wild and crazy things really are.

[And here we answer another question, this time about HRS damping plates on Audio Aero Capitole CD players]

Dear Sirs,
I contact you because I´ve just bought an Audio Aero Capitole Classic CD Player (Similar to the Capitole Reference without preamplifier section. I Attach a photo).
I red that you strongly recomend the HRS Dampening plates. (you wrote: “The player’s sound was somewhat improved with a mid-size damping plate centered on the top of the unit especially with respect to the detail and articulation in the bass extending up into the midrange.. Unfortunately, this requires moving the damping plate every time the door is slid open to put on a CD - but putting the damping plate on the side of the unit resulted in a diminished soundstage and incorrect imaging.”)
As you saw, my AA Capitole Classic doesn´t have the door problem as the Capitole Reference.
I want to know if you still recomend the mid-size damping plate for my AA. I saw other AA owners that use many damping plates.
I will apreciate your recomendation.

Hi X,

The optimal position and number of damping plates on top of the Capitole, or any component for that matter, is usually only found through a process of trial and error. I think this may be because the vibrations found at the top of a component is so unpredictable, depending on the chassis and other aspects of the component, as well as the feet used under the component, as well as the equipment rack itself. The top of a component is kind of the end of a ‘vibratory chain’:… floor -> rack -> feet -> component -> top of component…

We usually recommend that you start with the HRS Nimbus (feet) first. an HRS Isolation Base (if your budget allows) and then tune the final result using the damping plates. The Nimbus feet give an immediate, predictable, no fuss improvement in just about all aspects of the sound - especially under the Audio Aero players.

That said, around here we occasionally do still use damping plates on the Audio Aero players. However, we use them much more often on the much less expensive Audio Note players [at the bottom part of their line] which have lighter weight chassis than the Capitole.

Hope this helps!
-Mike

John Barnes, a local dealer (Audio Unlimited), passed away unexpectedly last week.

John ran a high-end audio dealership out of a house in the middle of Denver, and was our unwitting inspiration for starting Audio Federation. Audio Unlimited was our primary [only] competitor in the Denver ultra high-end audio market [less so in recent years] but John was always friendly, down to earth, and good-natured about it all.

I would run into John at shows, all the RMAFs and sometimes CES, and he’d always make a few jokes about the number of photos I was taking or whatever and a few jokes about the magazine coverage of these shows [he did pretty darn well at this… harrumph], the state of the Denver market [nobody is happy about it, let’s just say], and other things that made us relative newbies [not so much anymore, this is our 10th year] feel comfortable and welcome.

Thanks, John.

OK. Well. The title kind of says it.

When a product starts appearing in one of these, the 3 big high-end audio mail order catalogs [we can all elusivedisc here too], what does it mean? What do people think?

Is this is kind of similar to them appearing in Ultimate Electronics (bankrupt now), Tweeters (bankrupt), Circuit City (uh…), Best Buy (still with us), …

Is it an act of desperation on the part of the manufacturer? Is it a vote of no-confidence in their dealer network? Is it the old extended ‘middle finger’ to their dealer network? Is it a way to have ‘internet sales’ without ‘being on the internet’?

Why do people buy from these catalogs? Do they have more confidence in a telephone jockey who has never heard any of this gear than in a dealer? Are they unable to find their dealer [what with all the geographical restrictions and many manufacturers not listing their dealers, requiring the audiophile to make an extra call]. Do audiophiles feel that dealers are just plain more obnoxious sales people than a catalog sales person?

Is it just the convenience of leafing through a catalog, or browsing an [well done] online store - combined with the ease of clicking Buy or just dialing the number printed on every page - that allows these catalogs to make sales?

Ultimate Electronics (Sound Track) had good catalogs. But they died. However, they were put out, I think twice a year, not every month. So maybe that is the difference. I do not think Amazon killed them - the prices weren’t all that different, and the convenience factor of shopping locally is huge. The Ultimate Electronics sales people were often creepy, though, which can be a bother.

Anyway, I see brands in these catalog, some of which we carry even, and we hear various reports of how these mail order catalogs DO and/or DO NOT [all insider info we have heard to date is that they DO NOT sell much gear - but let’s ignore that for a bit] generate any sales. And it is just a strange kind of eco-system, separate from the fray of actually listening to music, playing music for other people, meeting people, making friends, investing in equipment to show people, etc. and in some sense they should not be very successful.

But we do see various brands that had not previously been associated with ‘mail order’ in these catalogs - new ones every month [and some dropping by the wayside]. And it always makes us wonder…. why? Are manufactures trying to sell mass quantities through these catalogs, giving up on their withering dealer network?

Should dealers themselves be mailing monthly catalogs out? Should they have online ’stores’, perhaps without carts, but offering the audiophile a pleasant browsing learning experience? Perhaps all us dealers should get together and create a giant - UN-mail order SUPER catalog for the rest of us - automatically routing audiophile’s inquiries and sales / pickups to their local dealer?

Thinking about car manufacturers (like audi.com) they do some of this, and even some high end audio manufacturers do some of this, but perhaps they need to add a Buy Now button, offering no fuss no muss buying and local pickup. Then they would actually support their dealers, the new internet economy, and their customers - as opposed to running from the internet and disenfranchising their dealer network - which is what is happening now when they sign up with the mail order catalog industry.

That is if the DO make money… that these mail order catalogs DO sell equipment (and not just music). What if they DO NOT?

Manufactures definitely appreciate the additional eyeballs / mailing lists that these places have built up. But they do not have as many eyeballs as one might think [about 6 to 10 times as much as this blog does on a good month].

In the end, after all this, are these catalogs nothing but audio porn? People read. People lust. People wish fervently. But in the end - nothing real comes of it?

[These catalogs give Neli heartburn. However, I do not mind them at all; they are kind of like a hard copy brochure-ware-type show report with a lot of photos of gear and some facts. So I just thought I’d explore the world of mail order catalogs here a little…]