I could not think of a proper sunject for this post, so I thought that "perceptions" would be applicable as the post is really about people's perceptions of sound reproduction.
The weekend past I went with a friend to help a friend of his move some heavy objects. When we got there this guy said that my friend has mentioned that I have this "bef@k" sound setup and that he would like to hear it. So I said to him that he is welcome to come around and that its not such a "bef@k" setup, but rather a fairly good setup(for the money) that is always in a state of improvement.
So last night he rocks up at my house and I played some music to give him a feel for what it sounds like. Now would this gentleman(I was tempted to use another descriptive word ;D ) not ask me where the bass is! On his R3000 Samsung HTIB there is a lot of bass(okay the term he used was "Bef@kte Bass") I tried to explain to him that the bass he was referring to is actually unnatural, but off course why would he believe me
By this time I am ready for a show off(sound off?) so we go to his house armed with some CDs and Starwars DVD. Play the CDs and I understand what he meant, there is a lot more bass, but its this monotonous boom and very little of the other frequencies can be heard. Put the Starwars DVD on on go to the Pod Race scene and I ask him to turn the volume up, horrible to my ears but apparently music to his.
Go back to my house and put the same DVD in with the volume set medium/high(-20dB) and this guy almost fell off the chair when the Pod Race started ;D Played some music containing double bass(Katie Melua, Patricia Barber, Norah Jones) and now he could hear(and feel) the bass as well as the other instruments and vocals.
The end result was that he wanted to know what he can do to his setup to get that kind of sound and the answer(diplomatically off course ;D ) was to get rid of the HTIB and start building on a decent setup.
My point after this long-winded monologue is really that people go to "hifi" shops, hear something and is immediately struck by the "powerful" sound and buy it not realising all they were hearing was bass in a limited frequency range and nothing else.
The weekend past I went with a friend to help a friend of his move some heavy objects. When we got there this guy said that my friend has mentioned that I have this "bef@k" sound setup and that he would like to hear it. So I said to him that he is welcome to come around and that its not such a "bef@k" setup, but rather a fairly good setup(for the money) that is always in a state of improvement.
So last night he rocks up at my house and I played some music to give him a feel for what it sounds like. Now would this gentleman(I was tempted to use another descriptive word ;D ) not ask me where the bass is! On his R3000 Samsung HTIB there is a lot of bass(okay the term he used was "Bef@kte Bass") I tried to explain to him that the bass he was referring to is actually unnatural, but off course why would he believe me
By this time I am ready for a show off(sound off?) so we go to his house armed with some CDs and Starwars DVD. Play the CDs and I understand what he meant, there is a lot more bass, but its this monotonous boom and very little of the other frequencies can be heard. Put the Starwars DVD on on go to the Pod Race scene and I ask him to turn the volume up, horrible to my ears but apparently music to his.
Go back to my house and put the same DVD in with the volume set medium/high(-20dB) and this guy almost fell off the chair when the Pod Race started ;D Played some music containing double bass(Katie Melua, Patricia Barber, Norah Jones) and now he could hear(and feel) the bass as well as the other instruments and vocals.
The end result was that he wanted to know what he can do to his setup to get that kind of sound and the answer(diplomatically off course ;D ) was to get rid of the HTIB and start building on a decent setup.
My point after this long-winded monologue
is really that people go to "hifi" shops, hear something and is immediately struck by the "powerful" sound and buy it not realising all they were hearing was bass in a limited frequency range and nothing else.
