Audiophiles and Their Approaches to Tuning

Actually, this post is an offshoot to Michael’s post entitled Art and Students of Art.

I used to participate in a lot of the internet forums as far back as 7 or 8 years ago, when they were sort of in their infancy. There were a lot of flame wars (and still are) in those days on the various sites. One thing all these sites had in common was different types of audiophiles. As Michael described the four types of art students he observed, my 36 years in this hobby has led me to observe different types of audiophiles, how they build their systems, and how they tune their systems.

First, the major magazine periodicals used to be the main influence on audiophiles, as well as the local brick and mortar audiophile dealers, as to how audiophiles selected components and systems. Today, the greatest influence on audiophiles is the internet and the internet discussion forums. Even the periodicals have moved to the internet, reaching far more people than the specialty magazines on the racks in book or audio stores. Out of this culture of the magazines came the approaches audiophiles, even today, build their systems. They usually start out with recommended components that have been highly touted in a review by some “expert” in the industry. The question for me has always been, where did the “experts” get their start before the magazines started to play such an influential role in building audiophile systems? Actually, as most people who have been in this hobby for some time know, it began with pioneers like Avery Fisher, Saul Marantz, Mark Levinson and others from the early days of audio as a hobby rather than as just a pastime.

Just about all of my professional life in the business world has been in designing large system computer based business systems. So, when I began the hobby of audio (outside of my business world life) in the ‘60s, I approached building my audio system the same way I was taught to build a large network based computer business system. I looked at the end “goals” first and always knew what it was I wanted to achieve before I ever started in the hobby. The problem I had was finding others who approached the building of an audio system in the same manner. Everyone seemed to focus around “components”, as they still do today. To me, a computer has always simply been a “tool” to accomplish a goal and I could care less about specs on its individual parts except what they might mean in terms of system “throughput”. Unlike Michael, who could care less about what’s going on in other forums and, I might add, rightly so, I do still peruse other forums for the sake of reading and seeing where the hobby is at and where it is going. Basically, from what I read, the hobby has really not changed much since the ‘60s and ‘70s. Back then you had the “kit builders” of products like those from David Hafler and Heathkit and today you have the “DIYers”. Only today, the “DIYers” are mostly building “look-a-likes” that are not necessarily based on any experience with the “real thing”. To the DIYers, it seems that their thinking is, “If it looks the same, it must sound the same.” But, again, the focus is on “components” and not on building a system with a predetermined sonic goal.

I see audiophiles still posting about putting sandbags on everything they can get a bag of sand on top of and “killing” the sound of their room from everything from putting carpets on their walls to actually placing mattresses on their ceiling (I’m not joking here). And, the questions on the forums all seem to center around getting other people’s opinions when the questioner has claimed to have done “research” on their own prior to asking the question. What are even more amazing are the responses. Most begin with, or have imbedded in the response, the words “I think” – not “I know”.

My professional business training, after college, was what drew me to variable tuning. For the first time, here was a “system” that was designed to meet a customer’s predetermined goal and could be tailored to the end user, the way I used to design computer based business systems that were designed to meet the company goals of CEOs of large companies like ATT. This is the only way that I knew to look at things – from a system and end user goal oriented point of view. I needed to see something that showed the “big picture” of where all this was going to take me. I wanted what “worked” and didn’t really care about name brands.

My local audio dealer, who has been in business now for 30 years and who is still a very good personal friend of mine, still has his store set up the way it was basically set up 30 years ago. The emphasis is still on components even though there are “separate” listening rooms (notice I said “separate” and not necessarily “dedicated”) none of which are acoustically treated for good sound nor even necessarily had what I would consider good equipment setups or racks. One day I was visiting the dealer and I noticed what looked like two Corner Tunes and one Echo Tune in one of his listening rooms. I asked him who made them and he said they were from RoomTune. The room was set up in an odd arrangement with a Corner Tune in each of two upper corners. He asked me to take a listen to these huge new tower speakers with well known brand name tube electronics driving them. The Echo Tune was just arbitrarily “tacked” up to one of the walls. I asked him how long he had the RoomTune products and he told me since about ’94. I looked at them, told him to go get a ladder (which he did) and properly oriented the Corner Tunes (he had the wrong sides facing into the room). I reoriented them one at a time and asked him to sit down and take a listen. He was astonished that the soundstage shot down to the end of the room which I had correctly reoriented the first Corner Tune. He made his entire staff come into the room and take a listen. I then correctly reoriented the other Corner Tune and again, astonishment from everyone. They were demo’ing a live James Taylor recording. James’ voice just didn’t sound right to me, so I took the Echo Tune and strategically placed it on the front wall. His voice cleared up immensely and popped into focus – again, everyone was astonished. All this from just reorienting three little “pillow” products in the room.

Now, the typical audiophile solution to the above scenario would be to get or change out the right “component” to bring out James’ voice and to move equipment around (i.e., speakers) to enhance the soundstage. In other words, start “changing” things. Dampening never “brought out” anything in music except making the fundamental frequencies appear more prominent while destroying the harmonics around the musical notes. I see these types of solutions being given out as “advice” on all the audiophile forums – put a sandbag “here”, use granite “there”, use rubber “under here”, place large traps “there”, etc. – and all this advice is spoken with such authority that the readers take the advice as gospel and the road to good sound. Yet, you find these same audiophiles who are asking the questions and taking the advice coming back in a week or month, etc. only to ask a new question(s) on, “How do I get good sound? What component should I replace? Should I build a flexy rack? Where can I find “X” type capacitors to replace the ones in my component?” Also, ironically, those giving the answers are now up asking questions because they have not obtained good sound either. If the goal is to “make busy work”, then they are accomplishing this by this type of back and forth questioning and answering.

When it comes to tuning, my goals are the same as building a system because tuning is just one part of “system” building, to me. As Michael said about artists, when I build a system, I start with my end objective first and build to that point. What is most important to me is that the system does the job it has been designed to do. I rarely ask questions, but I have learned to “listen” intently to others with more experience than I. That is really my secret to getting good sound. Michael can say one word to me and I can build an entire scenario of practical tuning around that one word. He and I have always had that type of chemistry. Any “advice” I get has to pass the “smell” test. Whether I can explain the results or not is really unimportant to me. What I am concerned with is, does the advice make sense and, if so, does it work. And, even if it initially doesn’t make sense to me, I don’t dismiss it out of hand without giving it careful thought and at least trying it. I have found that with all things that “work”, eventually the explanation as to why comes to me in time.

So, learn your system, but better yet, learn yourself first. Identify what is your approach to building a system. What are your personal values and priorities? See if you can identify these things in yourself. That, to me, is the first step on the path to good sound.

So, are you truly a lover of music on the path to good sound or are you the following in disguise? Wink


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Jim Bookhard