Lyrita: Integre 1 Mini review

we wouldn't have this passion if we didn't enjoy music...so please don't have any such illusions that those who do dissect music don't appreciate music.

Please swallow these words as I have atleast met some who are always bent upon fiddling with placement,the dissection of how much or how little bass, treble etc.. it's madness to me.

stevieboy schrieb:

Savyasaachi schrieb: However, when i want to dissect a particular piece of music(instrument) from the song/track, it should be capable of doing so. Saachi hi saachi, i think a more suitable word than dissection in the context of the above section would be discern. if that's your meaning yes! one ought to be able to discern the various instruments from each other. to me that's the essence of music. each instrument merges into a glorious whole but if you want to follow a particular instrument you still can. the dissection i'm not in favour of is how much or how little bass, treble etc... those to me are not the right parameters for judging equipment. IMO etc etc... i agree with you. i dont think audio equipment can be a subsitute for live music. an instrument played and the sound travelling through air to your ears and recreated through a driver will never be the same. but a well designed system ought to recreate that 'rush' dont you think? exactly what abhi felt when he heard those systems with LPs. regards

Discern , yes steve!..that too..but i mean dissect as well..some particular instruments have unusually low bass tones or high pitches or transients that have to represented in the right quantity for me. By right, i mean it to be subjective.

No, again steve, the rush cannot be recreated, the rush taht you feel in listening to a live concert is simply because of that..its live!..the setting, the audience and even the weather sometimes can have an effect on the enjoyment levels in a live concert(not to mention a few hot ladies 'moving to the music'around you)

SUB_BOSS schrieb:

we wouldn't have this passion if we didn't enjoy music...so please don't have any such illusions that those who do dissect music don't appreciate music. Please swallow these words as I have atleast met some who are always bent upon fiddling with placement,the dissection of how much or how little bass, treble etc.. it's madness to me. :(

I am one among them Sub. And yes, most people i know call me mad.

Again, this 'dissection' and quantity of bass or whatever term you want to use, all contribute to making taht track sound the way i want it. IT may not be the way it was intended to be, but its the way I want it to be.

abhi if most of the equipment you've heard so far is not coming close to creating that feel of good music its bad equipment! even if it has perfect treble, tight bass and the most seductive midrange! that's my argument.

Steve,
Thats where we both are differeing first of all...

I wrote very clearly:

The point here is...if the music reproduced is such that it doesnt allow you dissect music then you would only listen to music else you would be doing both. For me it was the media (LPs) which created the magic...on the same systems when we put some CDs, it was all back to square one (not square_wave ). Even the most well recorded CDs hasnt done it for me..so why blame the speakers or the amp or even the listener ??? I am sure, even with an entry level amp and speaker, LPs can do it again for me.

You see the systems I have listened to the LPs in were pretty Okay types...nothing esoteric or out-of-the-box types...simple staright forward hifi...but they did it for me while playing LPs but not on CDs.

While I am blaming the media/software..you are blaming the system (speakers and amp in this case)!!!!
Why....????
System was always true to the source/software and created magic only when it was fed that magical signal...else not!!!
What has it done wrong ??
If you say a system should anyway make it sound as involving and magical (whatever garbage we feed in)...then...god knows .

you pretty much agree in your own post that you listen to live music but evaluate audio equipment differently. which is exactly what i'm pointing out! so why so taking it so personally?

If it was something personal..I would have taken it through PM...I just felt, you are not fair in questioning (to the point of challenging) the listening habits of all the audiophiles of this forum..it was a bit too authoritative IMO!!! I just cant sit back and say aloud "you guys are not listening to music" and just add a "IMO" at the end to be safe. We do have to respect each other's taste to live as a community. You could have just put it in a better way..is all I want to say. If you still feel this was the best way you could have done it..I am quiet..

To get back to the topic..
The reason I feel live vs home audio is different because...I am yet to hear a system which can even give me an hint of live..forget about simulating it.
Most recordings are done in Studio and its never the same as live ambience. The studio recordings are accurate and mostly they mixed to sound crystal clear(good recordings)...while the same sound on an LP attaches a melody (to me)...in CDs they are more analytical and somehow I feel the magic is not captured..i dont know ...Ok, but I still enjoy if the recording and music is worth listening...

In any case I dont know how does one recreate concert hall performance in a Studio ??? Adding anything artificial...I dont think would do it. So live is live.."IMO"

Savyasaachi schrieb:

I sometimes concentrate on only one instrument and follow it through an entire song simply because i find it intriguing, fascinating. Basically, i split it up cause i may like that instrument/s in that particular song, the way it is being played, its contribution to making that song special for me.

ditto!

[quote="Savyasaachi(not to mention a few hot ladies 'moving to the music'around you) [/quote]

ah well how can i argue with that?

Savyasaachi schrieb:

And yes, most people i know call me mad.

Sachi, i would only call you more evolved .


If it were not for the tweaking and playing around with the system, we might not have learnt anything new out of this hobby than we have over the past few years and that to me would be a terrible tragedy!

.. And If all I wanted was musical enjoyment and its emotional involvement, my car system , My HT and my ipod do that excellently.

Arj, VERY good point.

This is a HOBBY, and Hobbies are supposed to Occupy, Amuse, entertain, etc etc ( Oops ! I just realised that Women ado all these also ! )

Also, Arj, you had very appropriately [pointed out that the definition of Audiophile itself is debateble ?

Lets look at Painting. It (Probably ? ) began as a means to depict reality or an incident or a face ( in the absence of photography )..

But then there has been Picasso.....

Was his work art ? Many would say so.

Drawing parallels, Maybe it would be a more appropriate to refer to an Audiophile as one who simply enjoys reproduced music ?

There are many Electronic instruments that do not have a specific sound of their own.... A systesizer, for example will have its sound influenced by the Amplifier and the speaker to which it is connected.

So ten systhesizers are to be excluded from audiophile listning ?

What about the Electric Guitar ?

To me, taking Live as the reference is a good ... Nay GREAT starting point. But when taken to the extreme, may not be appropriate in ALL cases and listning tastes and conditions.

Back to the beginning ... for me a Hobby must Occupy, Amuse, entertain, etc etc . Electrical reproduction of sounds does that for me. So it is MY Hobby. If that excludes me from a Rligous / fanatical cult .... I could not care less. I will continue to Enjoy !

So true Amp_nut. we are not here just so bacause we love music, although that still would remain the main theme.

That part, the millions of College/School kids moving along with their MP3 players/phones listening to music all the time are more qualified at that we who just spend some time in front of our Hi Fi. So do those of us who enjoy those young kids in the Live Music shows (saregama et al) who sing their heart and souls out with emotion which is very well communocated with a cable connection and TV speakers.

the only reason as to why this group is different (I Think) is the quest for Higher Fidelity.

We would be Foools in a self defined Paradise even if we start to think that we enjoy music more than those kids. If that we the case, every musician would have an Audiophile setup ! which we know they do not.

Arj schrieb:

So true Amp_nut. we are not here just so bacause we love music, although that still would remain the main theme.

It has to remain the main theme. I feel it is the only theme. Higher fidelity only enhances the main theme.

If music is not the main theme, an audiophile can be happy listening to a collection of random non-musical sound wave files, right ? The side effect of listening to music can be avoided also. A system can produce sound which is true to the source with zero distortion and flat response even with such random samples (a good example is sound of a motorcycle exhaust) so why listen to music ?

abhi,

i'm not questioning your listening habits. i'm questioning the terms audiophiles (and you ) use for evaluating equipment. i'm sure you enjoy your music as much as i enjoy mine.

i think somewhere the discussion has got sidetracked to whether audiophiles enjoy music or not. so let me give an example of what i had started out to say.

if you remember abhi, you, als, arj and me were listening to arj's system. and he was explaining why he had a sub in his system. he said "to add bottom note harmonics" or something to that effect right? now this is exactly the kind of evaluation i think ought to be happening. evaluate your system as to whether it is performing optimally on 'musical' parameters rather than 'audiophilespeak' for want of a better word. if achieving excellence on musical parameters is the goal then what you do with your system and the kind of system you seek out and tweaks you do will be far different. that's the general drift of my arguments.

am sure college students enjoy music on their discmans but would they get the lower octave notes or harmonics a sub could add? no! and that hi-fidelity is what i think should be the aim. musical fidelity. and those should be the parameters to judge one piece of audio equipment versus another.

and i do feel that a lot of the time hi-fidelity becomes a goal in itself with the music coming secondary. otherwise audiophiles would use terms like arj did and he was only the second guy i've ever heard evaluate a system in musical terms! which leads me to my conclusion that for most audiophiles hi-fidelity in its many individual parts has a higher priority and the music as a whole second. slowly but subtly, the means becoming more important than the end.

take SET amps for example. they sure dont rank high on hi-fidelity when compared to equipment that measures better. but they're supposed to capture more of the music's 'essence'. so i guess one has to choose what one wants and settle down on one side of the fence!

regards

i'm not questioning your listening habits. i'm questioning the terms audiophiles (and you ) use for evaluating equipment. i'm sure you enjoy your music as much as i enjoy mine.

You know what Steve....During the last two years of my introduction to hifi..I have listened to quite a few systems which got the all the "audiophile" attributes you have reffered to very right(Bass, treble, mids, imaging, staging etc) but they were just not involving musically..I can PM you those systems configuration if you wish. The point is, whether we evaluate/describe sound (of an hifi) using typical audiophile words or plain music related terms really doesnt matter as long as our goal is to find/describe whether a system makes music or does it just sound accurate. We have had numerous discussions on this forum regarding musicality vs accuracy. As many audiophiles as I know personally and interact with, whether they dissect music or analyze systems in an audiophilic manner...musicality is always the top priority. If a system is not musical...however esoteric its priced or however accurate it measures in terms of bass-treble-mids....it gets no attention after that moment. But if a system sounds musical other aspects take second priority (though they are still high on priority ).

So I suppose, it really shouldnt matter what parameters one is using to evaluate a system as long as he is placing musicality on top...IMO.
Whether he is doing it by dissecting the music or by reading newspaper...shouldnt be a concern..not to me atleast.

square_wave schrieb:

It has to remain the main theme. I feel it is the only theme. Higher fidelity only enhances the main theme. If music is not the main theme, an audiophile can be happy listening to a collection of random non-musical sound wave files, right ? The side effect of listening to music can be avoided also. A system can produce sound which is true to the source with zero distortion and flat response even with such random samples (a good example is sound of a motorcycle exhaust) so why listen to music ?

Square ..dont want to sound nitpicking but there Are Audiophile who just listed to tracks like the Sheffield drum tracks or chesky test cds or HFN test disks and taking measurements..and also listen to music as a by product once they are done with their tweakings. music is No 2.


I may not subscribe to that school of thought but neither do I think I have the right to call them "Non Audiophiles" Audiophile is about sound..not music. it is just that we chose music as representative of sound. But someone can do that the other way.

There are so many audiophiles who think that moment you are an audiophile you can only listen to female vocals and Jazz..nothing else. although it is that song by Manna De that really get him turned on !! i find that pretty funny as well.

Maybe we could conclude that:
All audiophiles are Music Listners
All Audiophiles love their music Equipment
All Music Listners are NOt necessarily Music Lovers (ie forget the world in music)
Not All Music Lovers love their Music Equipment

Arj schrieb:

square_wave schrieb: It has to remain the main theme. I feel it is the only theme. Higher fidelity only enhances the main theme. If music is not the main theme, an audiophile can be happy listening to a collection of random non-musical sound wave files, right ? The side effect of listening to music can be avoided also. A system can produce sound which is true to the source with zero distortion and flat response even with such random samples (a good example is sound of a motorcycle exhaust) so why listen to music ? Square ..dont want to sound nitpicking but there Are Audiophile who just listed to tracks like the Sheffield drum tracks or chesky test cds or HFN test disks and taking measurements..and also listen to music as a by product once they are done with their tweakings. music is No 2. I may not subscribe to that school of thought but neither do I think I have the right to call them "Non Audiophiles" Audiophile is about sound..not music. it is just that we chose music as representative of sound. But someone can do that the other way. There are so many audiophiles who think that moment you are an audiophile you can only listen to female vocals and Jazz..nothing else. although it is that song by Manna De that really get him turned on !! i find that pretty funny as well. Maybe we could conclude that: All audiophiles are Music Listners All Audiophiles love their music Equipment All Music Listners are NOt necessarily Music Lovers (ie forget the world in music) Not All Music Lovers love their Music Equipment

Hi Arj,
My point was this :
If an audiophile is not a music lover, then why does he listen to MUSIC on his perfect sound producing system which he has tweaked with “ test discs “ ? He might as well listen to some random wave files right ?

So, am I right if I modify your first statement to the following :

1. All audiophiles who are Music Listeners are music lovers too. (If not they will be listening to motorcycle exhaust sound or such stuff right ? )

Is listening to music a coincidence for such individuals because of lack of any other suitable software ?

What other use does a music system have other than listening to music ? I am sure a music system does not turn itself into Bips at night….

Arj schrieb:

Maybe we could conclude that: All audiophiles are Music Listners All Audiophiles love their music Equipment All Music Listners are NOt necessarily Music Lovers (ie forget the world in music) Not All Music Lovers love their Music Equipment

Ha, nice, why I am reminded of those logical reasoning puzzles on gmat etc.
Just add some more statements
Some music listeners love their music equipment
Not all audiophiles are music lovers (wonderfully debatable statement eh)
that completes the full circle eh

well all i was trying to say was there might be a difference between a Hifi System and a music system..
and listen to music (Passive) can be different from Loving Music (Active)

Just to give an example,I might spend only 20-25% of my music time in active listening. rest of the time it is Passive.
but yes i do want my system to be as fine-tuned as i possibly can and I use sound simulators, sounds measuring devices and test discs regularly to do that.

as amp nut so correctly mentions , it is a Hobby.

I listen to music on my Car Fi during my drives, Ipod during my mobile times and HT when i listen together with my family. My level of Music enjoyment is no lesser with these.

left to myself the playing around with the system ..the changes is sound with acoustics, the technical reasoning behind sound, reading up on newer offerings, phsycho acoustics, reviews gives me a huge kick in life and thats why I love this hobby so. If it was just about enjoying music Believe me i would have remained and still can remain with my iPOD

So for me at least it is not Just about the Music..but yes the underlying theme is definitely that.

bharathana schrieb:

Ha, nice, why I am reminded of those logical reasoning puzzles on gmat etc.

Lets just say that I was "Inspired" by that

square_wave schrieb:

Arj schrieb: So true Amp_nut. we are not here just so bacause we love music, although that still would remain the main theme. It has to remain the main theme. I feel it is the only theme. Higher fidelity only enhances the main theme. If music is not the main theme, an audiophile can be happy listening to a collection of random non-musical sound wave files, right ? The side effect of listening to music can be avoided also. A system can produce sound which is true to the source with zero distortion and flat response even with such random samples (a good example is sound of a motorcycle exhaust) so why listen to music ?

I agree with you SQ..but

A system can produce sound which is true to the source with zero distortion and flat response even with such random samples (a good example is sound of a motorcycle exhaust) so why listen to music ?

isn't that music to you(assuming it is a Harley or a GSX R1000)

Hi All
Music is a fig-leaf.
Purnendu

hi purnendu,

mind expanding a bit? though i sort of get where you're going...

regards

From Sound of Music to motor cycle exhaust? Good going guys!!

Hi Sachi / Suhas / Arj,

I was trying to say how different these two are. Musical sounds can evoke certain feelings which no other sounds can even though we like those sounds. I kind of get what Arj is trying to say but I am not very convinced. I still believe music is the central theme of all these irrespective of where you come from. Active or passive listening. It does not matter.

For example, if we remove music from the whole equation, all these equipment will cease to exist……………..You won’t be reading any reviews either. The industry will vanish. This forum will cease to exist.

well square, its hypothetical but i understand the spirit of your post and the point you were trying to convey.
i guess people who listen to music will shift, Speakers will still be used for TV, for Movies, computers etc so we will shift our attention from music to Voice etc so in some way the fascination with the equipment will remain jsut that what we expect out of them will change (Musicality may no longer be so critical)


Taking off from what Amp_nut said about Photography, there are many photographers for whom it is the technicality of the shot that gives the Kick and not the beauty/aesthetics of the photograph.. so the analogy of whether you are a photographer or a painter is a very good visual analogy to the two aural stream in audio as well.

Similiarly for many audiophiles the focus is on the equipment and how they interplay, how complicated sounds can be played clearly (or maybe harmoniously). yes it is music which is played and its emotional involvement could also be important.

But other factors also play a role and that is the "Subjective" part which changes from person to person. The same 500Hz tone and 3KHz tone is heard and reacted to by each brain differently depending on the ear drums own frequency reponse as well as the experience (History) of that tones tored in the neurons in ones brain.

Anyway all this is perhaps too much intellectualisation of a passion..lets just enjoy what we do the best and share experience without forcing the other person who does things differently but all the same ennjoys it.

this hobby is anyway too small as a fraternity to cause us to create sub specialisations !