Stereophile forum

Yeah, Doctor Fine ain't so fine.

Sorry Michael, I stole your god complex line... Too good not to use up on the 'Phile.

The doc is so uniformed of what MGA does and misrepresents things. I don't know why the regulars up there let him get away with it. Time will tell if they can stomach him for too much longer.

The funny thing is the more he rants and rails against MGA, he creates more opportunity to set the record straight, show what MGA does and highlight how biased and uniformed he actually is. I don't think this has been lost on people up there.

Thats fine. I've likely read more of Dr. Fines posts than most here, always paused about the way he looked at things and often wondered about his system, I don't recall him giving any details. Iv'e held back my thoughts about him as I feel everyone has a right to his or her own opinion. In the thread thats being discussed I really had to question someone who claims there system is perfect. I have no problem with folks thinking there system is great and don't want or need to tune it , to each his own. But to claim it's perfect tells me the chap hasn't listened to many other systems, as we all know there is no perfect system. Then when I saw his opinion of the Beatles box set, well what can I say.

I was quite surprised to see the good doctor get under Michaels skin, as M.G. seems to be able to handle these chaps in a most amazingly cool headed manner. I new that thread was going down hill from the beginning so I refrained from participating. I like discussing different topics and hearing different views but I refuse to get into these all to common pi**ing match's, they serve no purpose what so ever.

That being said, its time to hear some music, Tom Petty-MoJo, I should think.

Thanks guys

I did some editing. As much as I want to smack that guy, I needed to go back. It's hard for me to be mean, but I'm getting close with him   

Wanted to give an update on the stereophile forum.

Don't know if any of you have been reading but it is like pulling teeth on there. It's very hard to get people to listen to music together. Sounds weird doesn't it Stereophile of all places, but I do have some ideas that I think might loosen things up a little or blow a gasket, one of the two.

Michael Green wrote:

Wanted to give an update on the stereophile forum.

Don't know if any of you have been reading but it is like pulling teeth on there. It's very hard to get people to listen to music together. Sounds weird doesn't it Stereophile of all places, but I do have some ideas that I think might loosen things up a little or blow a gasket, one of the two.

First I should say that we all have different opinions and views and thats what makes this hobby/passion most interesting. With that out of the way I would like to comment on the good folks that comprise the SP site as I see them. Many are industry professionals, there lies the problem. Most trained insiders including trades people, electricians, reviewers, engineers and such seem to have many set-in-stone preconceived ideas. When you've been trained in one specific area it's hard to put that training aside and open your ears and mind to what goes against many principals you've learned.

I've nearly exhausted my sanity trying to encourage a friend ( electrical engineer ) that cords and cables can make an improvement, even trying to suggest that wires sound different will be dead headed with specific basic electrical principles. Try and get this chap to sit down and listen with an open mind, nnnooo.

But with that being said I catch myself prejudging audio systems before hearing them. Just walking into a friends room for the first time or a sound room in a salon and looking around at the equipment, the room and other mental keys makes me start forming opinions and building preconceived ideas. It's really hard not to.

We don't all agree on whats right or best, never have never will, deal with it.

Tim

P.S.
I think I'll deal with it by putting on some music, ----------- Dire Straits - On Every Street -------------.

Hey Tim,

If it was a matter of different views and opinions, I agree we are all different and have points to make and there are many ideas to discuss and share.

This is how it should be for end user hobbyists.

However, when you have professionals that have habits of capitalizing on other professionals dialogs with the goal of gaining exposure for their products that they seem unable to garner on their own, I think a line has been crossed.The situation is not about different ideas being presented, it can be described more along the lines of parasitic behaviour.

These professionals can start their own dialogs to present their ideas but elect not to do so because they know they will not get much attention.

If a professional begins a dialog which is hijacked by another professional, it is the end user hobbyists that suffer.

The funny thing is some of these invading professionals don't seem to care how end user hobbyists perceive them based on what they post. The attacks and spins are not important ... Nope ... It's about "bad press is better than no press."

After a few times of this, you end up with what is currently happening on  stereophile ..

I keep looking for SNL cast members to show up saying "just kidding bad joke", but not even that

Hello Toledo

There are a few SP members that do as you say, one in particular that I'm sure gets his jollies by agitating other members, I won't mention his name, I'm sure we all know him. After he gets a salty response I'm sure he sits back and chuckles. I simply ignore his threads and posts.

I'm a bit surprised that SP allows what goes on there. If you don't say something negative about SP the mag or one of the reviewers they don't seem to care. Although it appears there are no monitors try saying something negative about SP and see how fast JA jumps in with a full head of steam. I find that kind of funny as JA has always maintained that a reviewer needs a thick skin, he definitely doesn't. I've been scolded by him more than once, lol.

I think if we make a habit of passing by those type of posts rather than fueling them with responses it will help.

tim

+

It's a funny industry Tim, bordering on strange. Everytime I come back home to TuneLand I smile.

"on ever street" is pretty cool, I've been doing some of his solo stuff lately too

I have to say that May Belt and Geoff Kait are masters at distractions. Many years of practice

Took 7 forum pages to get out of May that she says she is dealing with electromagnetics. That has got to be a record. No wonder this industry is so screwed with people like these running around. Holy smokes I was dealing with electromagnetics back in high school

Agreed Michael.

This type of constant unproductive bickering is making me move away from the forums and audio in general. I've recently logged off several sites, I will still occasionally post here and on SP's site. I won't be renewing my subscription at SP after 22 consecutive years.
I've also decided to walk away from the audio club I'm involved with, although I've made many friends there that I hope will remain friends.
I have three very nice systems so I'll be listening to a lot of music in the future but will abstain from the daily verbal diarrhea that seems follows this hobby/industry. Audio and music was once a very important and fun part of my life but now it's more anguish than pleasure, the fun is gone, a shame really.

Tim

Hi Tim

Sometimes, the words get in the way of the music. Even on stereophile when I responded to you. I looked at my post several times and felt like I wish I could have used different words, or explaned things differently, but after reading it those several times I knew if I didn't say things a certain way it would have given a few the opportunity to bash, and I didn't want that.

Well my friend pop in once in a while and let us know what music you playing.

Hello Michael

I know what your saying, been there. I've never felt offended by your words, although I may not always agree.

I'll be staying in touch.

Before heading off to work I'm enjoying Tom Petty's -MoJo-

Have a grand day all

.

I know what you guys mean. The environment on Stereophile and other forums makes it very difficult to have a conversation let alone a meaningful dialogue.

I used to hang out on audio asylum many years ago and the turf battles and tribalism were legendary. The Internet brings out the worst in people.

I hate having to be aggressive, but If you don't hold your ground, you get stepped on. On top of that if you don't take on the serial offenders, they never stop. You get it to a point where you can ignore them but they start up again. Ugh.

But what are you going to do .. It is what it is. You just try to keep talking about the listening part of the hobby and try to share it with those with common interests.

Hi Toledo

Yeah the A.A. site is one of the worst, I gave up on it a few years ago too. What bugged me more than the pointless bickering and rude people was the spell checkers, make a single punctuation mistake and folks there would proceed to call you illiterate and many other worse names that I can't repeat here.

Gave up the Steve Haufman site recently as well, Steve was a very rude, hostile host, I prefer to discuss audio with open minded folks.

 As far as the Stereophile site goes, I think if they banned a couple people there it would be a pretty good place, but the only time they seem to step in is when the mag or one of the reviewers is mentioned in a less than positive way. There reviewers and staff members used to post quite often too but now seem uninterested in the site.  

Well, back to the music, I can hear Eric Clapton calling me , -Unplugged- might be a good way to start, now that I think about it I'll make it an Eric Clapton day.  

Regards   Tim


.

Love Unplugged

One of favorites of Eric.

I hope that the referencing thing might help with the members over at Stereophile. The one thing that should lighten people up is seeing others enjoying it. it's such a great forum I hate to see it get stuck.

One thing about the Stereophile site that I forgot to mention yesterday was when you go to enter a post it often disappears, once it's gone you have to start from scratch, I don't know about others but if I spend half hour or more typing a post I'm not starting over. That problem was brought to light some time ago by other posters as well. Happened to me yesterday I'll be staying away from there for awhile. The site administrators over there just don't seem interested enough in the site to fix problems like that or the slowness of the site that they said they were going to fix over a year ago and haven't.
Am I being a whiner or are these legitimate complaints ? Give me your thoughts.

Yesterday was an Eric Clapton day ( except for running my young daughter and her friend back and forth to the stables and doing a shift at my volunteer job, the animal shelter ). Today I hear Supertramp calling my name, will start with and oldie but a goody - Crime of the Century- .

tim

Hi Tim

You know what's funny, last night I was laying here thinking about some supertramp in my near future, no kidding.

PhpBB's do take some maintainance, and some of the time it is out of the users hands, so I'm not sure this was a problem they have not looked into as much as it might have been something that has happened to their hosting. If they have a slick IT though he should be able to do things fairly quick, wish I had one.

enjoy the music, it's fun to follow

I think some of the most fun here is following what someone is listening to.

Michael Green wrote:

Hi Tim

You know what's funny, last night I was laying here thinking about some supertramp in my near future, no kidding.

No s**t ?
-------------

-Crime of the Century- has been on repeat for about three rounds now so I think it's time to slide into something by The Who - Who's Next- might be a good start.

Michael , let me know what your listening to and I'll try and follow, if I have it.
I'll be at my computer, which is also the sweet spot of the main system on and off all day.

tim

Very cool

If you check on my thread, I give my playlist in real time.

One thing you'll notice is I let most recordings play a while. And if there's ever a recording you wish to reference just jump in while I'm playing it and we can explore it together.

A lot of fun.

Another thing is I like going to others play list, so you might also want to post on your thread what your playing. Others will follow along too. Sometimes it gets pretty cool when we are all listening to the same music.

I'm Learning

Maybe I never took the time to think about it much, but this time of reading Stereophile forum more closely I'm realizing that possibly audiophiles have not been taught as much about things from the recording end as they should have been or maybe things were written that they didn't read or pickup on.

I'm not going to go back and check, but sometimes I get the feeling that a lot of the knowledge being shared didn't go back, or back enough into the making of recordings as part of the listening chain. Did most audiophiles start at the storage (vinyl, tape, CD) forward, or did they start from the real beginning

here's what I wrote on stereophile after I posted this here
__________________________________

Sometimes when I'm reading here I wonder why aren't the listeners spending time on the real size/ real space of recordings? It's puzzling to me, and is something that has always surprised me, even when visiting reviewers or designers. Why would someone choose to not hear the whole thing? Then the answer comes to me, maybe most don't know or understand the connection between the space recorded in, or created in vs the space being played back in. Honestly even many studio engineers haven't gone that far. They confine themselves to their control room and are making mini choices on the recording without knowing just how big the recorded space really is.

It's not so hard to find out how big the recorded space is, and I think that this is a part of the audiophile world that should be fun for listeners, but why is the talk about it so limited and why do people get so defensive when space is brought up? Trust me, playing in the little audiophile soundstage box and picking each other apart in that box someday will be a joke. Learning about recorded space and pickup patterns is every bit as much of the audiophile hobby as playing back music. People say "how do you know what is real, or what was really on the recording"? This question blows my mind, and I can't figure out why this is not a part of the hobby as much as equipment brand names are. You would think that the history about a recording session would be right up there at the top of the list when dicussing the stage, but instead I see a lot of "after thought" conjecture. People have been playing the game of taste "their taste" on the way the music should be recorded and played back instead of looking at the recording itself and playing it back the way (or close to the way) it was. It's nice to set ideas of what could have or should have been, but don't you think it's more important to look at what is and was? After this shape it however you want and call it "right", but calling it right before knowing what it is looks like a bunch of old men in the home runing into each other in their chairs.

The loudest one wins, nope I disagree. The answer is there for any to visit if they are willing to research. Willing to get out of that box and look at what went into the recordings and learn how to listen to and for what. Not some manufactured idea, but what was and is really there.

This hobby has only just begun for those who wish to pursue it's true meaning and roots, or it can die on the bones by us stopping short of "the absolute sound".

I've had a blast posting on Stereophile this week. If you take a look you'll see me in my natural habitat. Honestly I'm not sure if their catching on or not, but the fact that their watching videos on recording is a big step from where they were.

I truly hope the readers there start looking at the hobby bigger than their own back stoop.

I'd like to respond to some of the posts on the Stereophile forum, but I want to be able to do this without all the spins that happen there. It's to the point for me that I don't even read all of the post but skim through cause it's like hitting repeat and gets extremely old.

If you wish to look at the particular thread I'm referring to you might start here, but it spreads throughout the forum. Basic same talk different place type of thing.

http://www.stereophile.com/content/being-fair

let me give a little background

As you read through these threads your going to notice a common theme, Questions without answers from the people posing the questions. At first I thought Geoff Kait and May Belt were going somewhere with their comments but as time went on I could see that this was not the case, so for those of you who read through this it might seem like it's children on the playground but because I wish to push the tune on Stereophile it is the cross I bear.

It starts out with me giving May & Geoff their own space for the second time to explain what they called "Advanced Concepts".

"here ya go may & geoffy, knock yourselves out

"ADVANCED CONCEPTS like using colors to improve the sound, advanced concepts like Schumann Frequency Generators, tiny little bowl acoustic resonators, constrained layer damping, six degree of freedom isolation, mumetal tents for big transformers, holographic foils, quantum dots for audio applications, battery powered alarm clocks for improving sound and picture quality, you know, things of that nature."

I then respond

"I personally don't see anyone here treating you guys with anything but fairness, but as I did before giving you your own thread to explain, here you are again. A wide open page to share with us your advanced technologies."
______________________________________

I know, I can hear the laughter from here   , but I'm going to go through each of these and cover them, again.

1) using colors to improve the sound

The tie of colors and audio has been something that has been around a long time. A lot longer than the audiophile has been around.

Some of you may have some experience with things like "chakras" for example. You can do your own research on this but if you look up the meaning you get the idea. I'm not here to turn TuneLand into a meditation camp, but if you look at the archives you will see that I opened up the camp over there for discussion. It did not go over well as it opened up different spiritual belief systems and after a few burns I backed away.

At the same time, the things we do to set our state of mind before, during and after listening is not only interesting but something I practice and know others that do as well. One of the interesting parts of this for me is that we all have unigue codes built into us as individuals and based on our own awareness of them we will either follow mind programs that are more set, or be more free floating within our discoveries. In other words if you have more of a paint by numbers mindset you will tend to follow programs more than the fella who is by nature more intuitive. Paint by numbers people do not understand free thinkers and feel like that's what they are and others are wrong. Free thinkers follow things more on a contiuum thought process, one thing flowing into and becoming a part of. Both have their own values, but often times conflict because the paint by numbers guy sees the free thinker as unorganized and undisciplined, where the free thinker is focused on a sense of wholeness and shades vs fixed settings. The free thinker understands we are on a moving planet while the fixed thinker sees things more as standing still.

Why do I point this out when talking audio and colors?

In tests that have been givin for many years on how colors affect the way we hear the results are not conclusive, but are more on a sliding scale.

A test I took a long time ago while doing some work in Atlanta, was to wear a set of headphones doing a standard listening tone test. We setup the completely empty white room so nothing was distracting. The room had no windows and could be set at completely dark, and the light used was a variable intensity and covered the spectrum. The light was able to stop at any shade as it slid through the colors, or could be set at any particular setting of brightness. There were 8 of us doing this and so this took 4 days to get through. Fortunately my office was downtown so this worked perfect for me. The results were interesting and varied with the exact same test. All of us except one showed a different set of results. The one who didn't had tinnitus fairly bad, focusing on the ringing more than the test it turns out.

The long and short of it (I can get into the long of it if you would be interested) is that all of us had a different response code built in us. We did testing with headphones and without, as well as test tones and music.

Following this we did a series of color mood testing and found again that many varying conditions affected our listening, but there was never one set of patterns that were consistent. Everyone responded according to their own makeup.

I've done similar testing since this enough to tie color conditions to an audio change, but unless there is a way to measure the bodies responses to these types of testing the results are at best random. I look forawrd to doing this same type of testing hooked up to wearables, which have and are being refined.

coloring CD's

In doing our tests on coloring CD's we found the same thing as changing colors in the listening room. The results were random and in most cases adding the colors cause a collapse in some part of the soundstage, and dulls or peeks. We found the same results with adding enhancement solutions to CD's. In almost all the testing we did there were changes but with close listening the results were not consistent. Plus, I need to add this note, the changes were not big as compared to any physical changes that were made in these systems, like adding cones for example of different types under components, and the more involved tuning made changes that were huge and predictable as compared to the treating types of tweaks.

I breezed through this as to give a general idea of our experiments but we also did a variety of tests including color dot testing, but found that our white room testing to be the most profound and noticable.  

2) Schumann Frequency Generators

This topic for me covers such a huge range, that I'm sorry but I have to laugh at May & Geoff when they bring this up in such generic ways. Let me break this down a little for those reading.

The Earth naturally creates it's own settling/energizing set of frequencies. It's like a big musical note sitting out in space and supported by it's orbital patterns of harmonics which keeps the movement patterns smooth as it travels. At the same time if you look at Earth from space you will see tons of movement once you get inside the atmosphere. This is because the Earth is involved in what is called the "fair exchanging of energy", something we talk about often here on TuneLand.

I have been involved in Schumann testing as it is require at certain stages of large building construction. I also attend classes at the different convention concerning the latest in these technologies. I find them interesting because of my involvement in designing grounding and tunable products. As a result of these classes and visiting labs, there are certain conclusions that hit you right off the batt. First, from a technical level there is no such thing as inert on Earth. For those who wish to go further you can do your own studies on "inert" and also "inertia". What you will find to cut to the chase is, it's impossible to be on a moving planet and have anything sit still. When I see audio designers talking inert out of one side of their mouth and the Earth's resonant characters I shake my head and laugh to be honest. The Earth in every sense of the word "variable" is a highly tuned motor. You will not find any place on Earth that is not involved in what we call a "contiuum" of energy (fair exchange).

On Stereophile May & Geoff are pushing audiophile devices as SFG correction systems, but let me again show you something. Take any SFG set to 7.83hz and place it in any building in the world and the sum result does not add up to 7.83. An advanced SFG first has to be able to sensor the existing resonance of any particular place and then recrete enough to set the sum to a true 7.83. What we have found in our testing is these generic tools actully put the area out of tune with it's natural settings, some folks even get sick to their stomach or dizzy. If you (we did and still do) go to areas on the Earth that have a well balanced energy level that mates with your particular bodies setting you will notice a heighten value in all of your senses (one of the reason I live where I do). At the same time your body is built to adapt and adopt and if you send your body through different vibratory zones you will fatigue. Take traveling for example. Jet lag is your body realigning to a different set of conditions vibratory and pressure wise.

Our bodies are designed with it's own sensors and adapting systems. There are a wide range of frequencies that your particular code is built to respond to in positive ways and negative. They're not a set 7.83hz, but being in a place that is well balanced such as nature in certain parts of the world where you respond well to or having those frequencies close to you can do wonders. Some respond better in one set of conditions and that same person sick to death out in nature at another.

Now saying this I highly recommend doing a study on your particular vibratory setting and put them to use. You may not find that generic products do the trick but as vibratory health clinics become more popular there will be better products made to tailor to your body.

This is one of the areas I have been interested in for a long time and have a fair amount of suggestions for you to try, if you wish to know just ask.

I'll be back with more. please feel free to ask questions and I'll be happy to share what I know but this is an area that you can research as well, no big secrets here.

Hi Michael

Read the stuff in the link (being-fair). It was a long, pointless exchange between parties holding irreconcilable positions. As the exchange progressed there was less and less light rather than more. What a waste of everyone's time.

Sonic

Hi Sonic

This is the way most of the threads go. I make a point then the trolls come in to start spinning. As a result I gave them their own space (twice) and they quickly turn these threads into meaningless go arounds.

At the same time it does give me a chance to answer some of these topics on TuneLand in more productive ways, incase people wish to explore these ideas.

thanks for your comments