VR4 HSE Silver Jumpers?

You must know that I am familiar with your approach. It is the more popular one: the aspiration that your system attain a 'sound' you personally prefer. There is consensus among you all that it is subjective, and it only matters if 'you' like it. The mfgrs of inferior equipment love that you all think that way. Even the preowned market flourishes because of it. You all agree to that too.

But by contrasting that with a 'true to the original' approach, is not necessarily a hostile gesture. My complaint with radical Islam, is their inability to entertain or consider more than one thought or idea.

There is a down side to both approaches: the 'connoisers of coloration' approach tends to result in all material played back sounding the same. I believe that is the goal, whether realized or not.

Whereas, the transparency, or true to the original, approch necessitates serious listening be done with 'remote in hand' to adjust playback levels of individual tracks on the same recording to 'live' because you can hear how they vary so much.

In fact often times different tracks on the same recording list different personal, and/or differnt recording dates. (I do not refer here to compilations.)

There is a threshold reached along this path: when even a semblance of transparency is achieved the terrible, intolerable, sonic character of too many of even your favorite recordings are discerned. It can be a disappointment, and discouraging.

But at the same time, the superior sonic characteristics of well produced (sparingly mixed --the first albums rejected from my collection were those with excesses of 'echo' generated from the expander knob on the mixing console) properly engineerd source material can be enjoyed since you can now hear it as well. Also qualities having passed through the colored to taste systems will never be heard.

I know. Its an effective argument, and apparetntly a threat to some. But it conveted me. I have gone through most of what gets discussed here, and frankly, most of it is useless, nay, harmful, to the possiblity of ever attaining 'true to the original' in the playback experience.

No offence, and nothing personal. It is just my opinion, but I am sticking to it :-)

Dida, thanks for your cogent and unthreatening response. It was
refreshing.

I must admit that your description of what's required during an
Audiophile listening session( based on your definition of Audiophile), i.e.

the transparency, or true to the original, approch
necessitates serious listening be done with 'remote in hand' to adjust
playback levels of individual tracks on the same recording to 'live'
because you can hear how they vary so much.

...does not entice me to that destination. For me, it's too much work.
Sitting with remote in hand, adjusting each track to an appropriate
playback level does not sound like fun or relaxation. Does that make me
less than an Audiophile, or lazy? Perhaps so, based on your definition.
But, I'm comfortable with that. And, I'm comfortable with my goals for
my system. So, I thank you for better making me understand the
derivation of your viewpoint. Now that you understand my goals,
perhaps we can coexist peacefully in Audiogon cyberspace, yes?

By the way, the decor of your listenign room looks amazingly like it
could be an apartment in a building I used to live in. You don't reside in
North Hollywood by any chance, do you?

Didactically, here is the same question which you still will not answer. You preach the dogma of "true to the original". How is this possible when your reference standard is a $100- pair of Shure earbuds, that have three noticeable frequency peaks, according to Siegfried Linkwitz himself? If your reference earbuds' output alters the frequency response of the input, how can this possibly be "true to the original"

'The Valley'? Not since the pschadelic 60's: just before I 'really' got into 'Turn on, drop out, and tune in', and moved to Laural Canyon. But that was short lived, perhaps in concert with the brief '60's phenomenon. I was a painter then.

But now that I have grown up some, I am into architecture, which pays better, and my work is better received. I mean, I do (usually) get paid for it at least.

I work out of my home now on computer, and affectionately refer to my VW bug as, 'my child support car'. Similarly this apt. And Bugs in general as, 'just a car. Nothing more, nothing less'.

But becasue it is a Studio Apt, being divorced, and doing a Murphy Bed, I get a 12.5x24x8 office/living/listening room (which has an 8x13 dog-leg kitchenette at the listening end --is that causing even my best setup to require shifing the balace 7 degrees to put the image in the center of the soundstage?). I am also thankful for the 24' dimension, which enables the space to accomodate low frequency extension to 24hz. I would be hard pressed to find anything as large even in much larger apts.

It is 2mi from Disneyland, in Orange County.

I know where you (all) are coming from. Been there, done that. But in defence, holding a remote and touching a button ocassionally is no more a bother than turning a page of the program at a concert. And there is more of a payoff becasue you can get closer to that experience in the privay and comfort of your own home.

The greater difficulty is in having to modify your recordings collection. So many of the greatest performances, which may very well be a favorite, are so poorly produced and engineered that when you can hear them with any degree of accuracy, they become intolerable.

So you end up confining yourself to the few that range from what you would then refer to as mid-it to the totally knock you out with realism sonically superior reference quality recordings, which you otherwise could not even know about, nor ever hear on the 'other' type of system.
And some of which you would otherwise never listen to. Some even in a musicla genre that is not among your favorite, thereby expanding your musical horizon. That is not bad, right.

I usually have no problem coexisting, other than with my ex-wife, that is. But that was all her fault(?) though not her story :-)

Yes, peace. And friendly. It can get wierd in cyberspace where you are not facing the person to whom you are speaking. Much of the hostile language would not occur in person. Eccpet from the larger, buffed up guys, parhaps :-)

I hope everyone (you know who you are) heard that.

See, Dida, that's the difference in our approaches. I want my equipment
to serve my music collection. I don't want to adjust my music collection
to serve my equipment. We are at opposite ends of the same
continuum, yet still part of the same universe.