03-04-2020, 03:07 AM
OK -- a synopsis of something I read in Stereophile Magazine. A reviewer recalled that Plato related that all good statues have exaggerated heads and shoulders because a perfect depiction would be seen from the wrong angle (usually below) and look wrong. Then to music -- all stereo systems distort, and you would not want perfect reproduction because it would sound wrong where you listen to music. A recording of the Berlin Philharmonic is recorded to fit the acoustic conditions of the Philharmonie... and not your living room or the passenger compartment of your car.
Perfect speakers are obviously impossible, and some are so designed that you must place them in the corners of a room or they will sound horrid. Such is the design to take advantage of the corners of a box-shaped room. One sort of speaker that was sold in large quantities forty years ago (acoustic suspension) is hardly being made anymore because those speakers draw huge amounts of power, and toward the high range of amplifier power one gets much more distortion.
Some people swear by the quality of high-priced tube amplifiers, but those who love them brag about their warmth. "Warmth" is itself a distortion in contrast to what solid state receivers offer. Maybe a strictly analytical sound isn't so welcome, but that is what one now gets with mass-market stereo amplifiers.
..................
New stuff, basically my own. There's much crap on the market. Maybe due to the expiration of patents (28 years) one can imitate electronics of that time and get good results -- so long as one can market them. I notice that mass-marketers such as Wal-Mart and Target sell innumerable small speakers (which implies compromises -- plenty of boost in the mid-range) that offer a light show in addition to the sound. At least those speakers are cheap, and if you listen to music without listening critically, the light show can distract you from the inadequacies of the speaker. Small size means that one will get a pallid representation of a great organ if such is the music that you cherish.
What the late Paul Fussell lamented as BAD -- not only awful, but pretentiously so -- applies to some speakers that I saw in a rent-to-own (and, yes, that is a BAD business, an unambiguous rip-off) -- is a sound system made by a company of which I have never heard that involves giant speakers, a more elaborate and variable pulsation of colored lights, and awful sound quality. It has a shoddy feel to it, so I assume that it will barely last the time of the rent-to-own contract. I wouldn't get that sound system if I got it for free, and not simply on an installment plan with a huge level of implicit interest, which defines rent-to-own places as BAD business. You get something with the quality of a toy (about like computer printers -- I have gone through ten of them in twenty-five years), probably with poor construction, and -- it will lack durability. It will be out of style within five years.
![[Image: product.edison-professional-4000-party-s...1574958279]](https://file-optimizer.s3.amazonaws.com/rent-a-center/product/product.edison-professional-4000-party-system-entertainment-system.jpg?1574958279)
Yuck!
Perfect speakers are obviously impossible, and some are so designed that you must place them in the corners of a room or they will sound horrid. Such is the design to take advantage of the corners of a box-shaped room. One sort of speaker that was sold in large quantities forty years ago (acoustic suspension) is hardly being made anymore because those speakers draw huge amounts of power, and toward the high range of amplifier power one gets much more distortion.
Some people swear by the quality of high-priced tube amplifiers, but those who love them brag about their warmth. "Warmth" is itself a distortion in contrast to what solid state receivers offer. Maybe a strictly analytical sound isn't so welcome, but that is what one now gets with mass-market stereo amplifiers.
..................
New stuff, basically my own. There's much crap on the market. Maybe due to the expiration of patents (28 years) one can imitate electronics of that time and get good results -- so long as one can market them. I notice that mass-marketers such as Wal-Mart and Target sell innumerable small speakers (which implies compromises -- plenty of boost in the mid-range) that offer a light show in addition to the sound. At least those speakers are cheap, and if you listen to music without listening critically, the light show can distract you from the inadequacies of the speaker. Small size means that one will get a pallid representation of a great organ if such is the music that you cherish.
What the late Paul Fussell lamented as BAD -- not only awful, but pretentiously so -- applies to some speakers that I saw in a rent-to-own (and, yes, that is a BAD business, an unambiguous rip-off) -- is a sound system made by a company of which I have never heard that involves giant speakers, a more elaborate and variable pulsation of colored lights, and awful sound quality. It has a shoddy feel to it, so I assume that it will barely last the time of the rent-to-own contract. I wouldn't get that sound system if I got it for free, and not simply on an installment plan with a huge level of implicit interest, which defines rent-to-own places as BAD business. You get something with the quality of a toy (about like computer printers -- I have gone through ten of them in twenty-five years), probably with poor construction, and -- it will lack durability. It will be out of style within five years.
Yuck!
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.