Month: Jan 2021

Written by Dr Richard Varey

Herb Reichert: Ancient Audio – Golden Eras of Hi-Fi

Herb’s highly-readable history of North American hi-fi culture and journalism. Very informative as I wasn’t there. My hi-fi awakening was in the early 1970s in Northern England. I read Hi-Fi Answers. https://www.nativsound.com/en/blog/herb-reichert-ancient-audio-golden-eras-hi-fi

Written by Dr Richard Varey

On the fly speaker tweaking

My Audio Pro Avanti A. 100DC speakers weigh 29 Kg each, as they have powered ACE-Bass* woofers onboard. I’ve mounted them on rollerballs on plinths, for isolation and stability. They’re 1.1 m tall. This opened up the sound with enhanced clarity and punch. But that all made moving them for placement experiments a real pain. […]

Written by Dr Richard Varey

Movies and TV that featured High End equipment

I’m watching The Lake House with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. There’s a scene in the study of the father architect, played by Christopher Plummer. He’s playing a jazz record on his hi-fi system. This got me wondering which films have featured audio equipment. https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/movies-that-featured-high-end-equipment I recall that Hugh Laurie’s House had several products placed […]

Written by Dr Richard Varey

Long wall wide speaker placement

Via Scot Hull on AudioHead’s The Occasional Podcast, I just heard about Greg Roberts’ surprising recommended spacings, on the long wall of the room. 16 feet apart, or 18 feet or more. And less than 6 feet from the listening seat. To get scale and drama. In a near-field layout, the listening chair is placed […]

Written by Dr Richard Varey

What sort of audiophile are you?

Ken Micallef asks in his latest review for Stereophile. He goes on to say “I think of myself as a critical listener, perhaps a purist, definitely an enthusiast, of music and audio, who enjoys both the journey and the nuts and bolts. I like my hi-fi direct, simple, and personal. Also, I guess I’m a […]

Written by Dr Richard Varey

Romantic Guitar

Today I saw an Adrian Brett record (pop flautist, Echoes of Gold, 1979) and it reminded me of Paul Brett. He had a big hit with KTel Records entitled Romantic Guitar in 1980, then stopped recording. He’s subsequently made many more recordings more recently. I went looking for information about him, and discovered that a […]

Written by Dr Richard Varey

The human mind and hearing

“As in all other faculties except smell, information crosses over from one side to the other: information presented to the left ear travels to the right side of the brain to be processed. Both left and right hemispheres play a distinct role in sound processing, so a person with hearing problems in one ear may […]

Written by Dr Richard Varey

Saying musicality – meaning what?

I’ve been collecting definitions of the term ‘musicality’ as I read about home audio and its use. It’s said often. I’ve written it several times in reviews and blog posts. I’ve looked at it again. The meanings I’ve found are different. It seems to be an important concept in the journey to perfect listening to […]

Written by Dr Richard Varey

Dealing with Implausible Sonic Changes in an Audio System

The listener is an incredibly complex physical and mental variable. What we hear and our appreciation° may be determined by health condition, mood, comfort, interactions of the senses, expectations,……. Such variation in our response to music reproduced may be unexplainable. https://audiophilereview.com/audiophile-news/dealing-with-implausible-sonic-changes-in-an-audio-system/ ° appreciating is a process of noticing, interpreting meaning, assessing, and responding

Written by Dr Richard Varey

Upgrade your ears!

I’ve been trying out a pair of Flare Audio Calmer hearing devices. It’s an interesting proposition. Either upgrade your speakers, or acoustically treat your listening room, or enhance the way your ears work. For US$39. The issue is how you hear what the speakers produce in relation to the room you and they are situated […]

Written by Dr Richard Varey

Music and meaning

Whatever I say here is going to be a gross simplification, if not little more than superficial. There are Professors who build careers around this topic. I just want to explore some thoughts from my perspective. When I wrote my title, I was (naturally, as I don’t do either) taking the stance of music listener […]

Written by Dr Richard Varey

The English language could use some new musical terms, Alan Cross says

Expand your vocabulary. Make it up! https://globalnews.ca/news/7574144/musical-terminology-english/ Does this apply also to the domain of recording reproduction equipment, I wondered. Perhaps we already have too many words, mostly filched from other (often unrelated) fields. We need greater precision and consistency; less ambiguity, vagueness, pseudo words, catachresis, miswording, and malapropism. A category error is a semantic or ontological error […]

Written by Dr Richard Varey

Ambiophonic vs Black Ice Audio Dimension vs Taket Soundstage Activator

Ambiophonic treatment of stereo failings is explained at https://www.ambiophonics.org/. Several software and hardware implementations of the open source ambiophonic technique are available. I now use a miniAmbio processor running RACE software to eliminate crosstalk. I’ve written about it in my recent blog posts ….. The Black Ice Audio sound stage expander is a ‘dimensionality’ circuit […]

Written by Dr Richard Varey

Soundstage Expander + Ambiophonics

Watching and listening, this demo video reminded me of the very enjoyable effect of the Black Ice Audio Soundstage Expander (designed by Jim Fosgate). I then realised that when I added the miniAmbio processor to my system, I set the F360 ‘Dimension’ control to zero. I just adjusted it to a ‘wide’ setting, and wow! […]