Jonathan Weiss’ quest to build the finest sound amplification system ever
Вставка
- Опубліковано 19 бер 2021
- Jonathan Weiss produces some of the world's finest sound gear with materials that are far from high-tech. Jeff Glor sat down with Weiss to talk about his passion for sound and his quest to build the most refined sound amplification system ever.
Watch "CBS This Morning" HERE: bit.ly/1T88yAR
Download the CBS News app on iOS HERE: apple.co/1tRNnUy
Download the CBS News app on Android HERE: bit.ly/1IcphuX
Like "CBS This Morning" on Facebook HERE: on. 1LhtdvI
Follow "CBS This Morning" on Twitter HERE: bit.ly/1Xj5W3p
Follow "CBS This Morning" on Instagram HERE: bit.ly/1Q7NGnY
Get new episodes of shows you love across devices the next day, stream local news live, and watch full seasons of CBS fan favorites anytime, anywhere with CBS All Access. Try it free! bit.ly/1OQA29B
Each weekday morning, "CBS This Morning" co-hosts Gayle King, Anthony Mason and Tony Dokoupil deliver two hours of original reporting, breaking news and top-level newsmaker interviews in an engaging and informative format that challenges the norm in network morning news programs. The broadcast has earned a prestigious Peabody Award, a Polk Award, four News & Documentary Emmys, three Daytime Emmys and the 2017 Edward R. Murrow Award for Best Newscast. The broadcast was also honored with an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award as part of CBS News division-wide coverage of the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Check local listings for "CBS This Morning" broadcast times.
I am glad to see hifi audio being covered in mainstream media, but there's also a lot of misinformation here.
1) There are now lots of streaming services that provide lossless streaming.
2) Giant horns and speakers are not required to play the size and scale of the typical instrument. Horns used in loudspeakers is only partially for amplification, but mostly used to control directivity of the sound and how the sound disperses into a room. The way horns are used in old turntables and brass instruments is for amplification since as they correctly stated, they are not electronically amplified.
If the argument is that a large horn is needed to play the sound of a large tuba (untrue) then wouldn't they need a smaller horn for a sax? Then they would need another speaker just for human voice. Of course this is untrue. A well-designed speaker should be able to produce all of those sounds with accurate tonality and scale.
3) The last thing about price, of course it's about price if the speakers cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. No one mentions a Bugatti without also mentioning it's price.
*** Breaking glass? C'mon bro. What are we doing here. 🤣Music and good sound reproduction can stand on their own merits. No need for all that hype. 😎
Agreed this guy is outdated he is from the golden ear era talking about compression etc... If it's that big of a deal pay the artists to sing live to you everyday if you want 1 to 1 reproduction :)
You getem Joe!😉🤗😇 The guy being featured is known as a modern-day con man with vintage principles!🤭🤭😜
Hi Joe! Agree with your assessment. Also saying that music information is missing is not correct because mp3 file format compresses and strips information not removes chunks of it at random. A good mastered recording can sound very good on a mid level hifi system costing between 1k to 3k usd.
Not to mention, horns have a host of sound issues by themselves. They are not my cup of tea at any price.
When cost is no object, getting great sound is no problem. Also, no mention that a room needs proper acoustic treatment for any critical listening.
Additionally,m give me a scan speak revelator or Seas millenia or even Focal tweeter properly implemented over a compression driver in a horn any day.
You left out the most important thing of all.. the original master recording. It starts from the source. Lossless streaming is still awful if it comes from a bad recording or from a compressed digital source.
I noticed that he was playing tracks from ,"Sera Una Noche" by "La Segunda". That's an exquisitely recorded and engineered album. Good choice to impress the listener.
Yes! A stunning quality recording makes any decent, even entry level system sound really good.
I just brought that album up on Tidal. I can say within about ten seconds that the difference between his system with vinyl and whatever mics CBS used to make the piece plus UA-cam etc., vs a Tidal stream, both into my HTPC is absolutely stunning in favor of his.
@@InsideOfMyOwnMind no, you can't say that. at all.
He is building some of the Best Musical Sounding Systems available anywhere ! Just Wonderful !
A nationally renowned reporter no doubt trained by the finest journalism schools with years of expert and experience listens to the world's finest audio system and all he can tell us of the experience is "It's something else". Amazing. That's something else.
Well put. Alas, the articulation capacity of most modern day journalists / reporters are; well let's just say "something else."
And you're surprised by this?
This guy is a real salesman. Not sure if anything he’s saying is true, but he knows how to get his story out there and convince people that he’s doing something special
Usually people have these ability who sells this kinda stuff
Go to a hifi show that set these systems up so you can hear them
The US still produces world leading audio gear that reflects passion and commitment to an ideal, rather than focus groups and trend following. Check out Grado, Klipsch, Boulder, Pass Labs, Mcintosh, etc.
Yes ! And I'll add the turntable Grand Prix Audio Monaco and the tonearm Wheaton Triplanar . Speakers from Spatial Audio . Tube amps from Carver .
Add Legacy Audio into the list! Also Modwright! They are not cheap but they are very nice! I know; I used to have a Modwright KWI 200 integrated and a pair of Legacy Audio Focus SE speakers. A killer combination! Big, full, clean, clear sound. I heard things in the music I hadn't heard before. By far the best system I've ever owned.
ESS Laboratories with Heil Air Motion Transformer technology as well.
Balanced Audio Technology,(BAT) Avalon Acoustics, Atmosphere, Magico, Nordost, V.P.I., Kronos, Wilson Audio, to name a few.
Actually polish zeta zero and lampizator are way better than any US audio brand. Also spanish Alsyvox and greek aries cerat
Mr. Weiss's speakers are for people that have thousands of dollars to throw at design. I'm sure they sound great but you can achieve this quality at a much more affordable price point. The craftsmanship looks impeccable.
I have done so my whole life. Digital music is awful. I play only cds on my system. I do not agree with lps being superior but this is like an abortion arguement
@@tangentz0007 A CD is digital music.
Wow...This guy paid a pretty penny for this advertising spot on this fine “news” station
Well said!! And yes!! Mucho dinero!!! 🤓👍🔥✊🔥
That news segment is my birthday present to me! 67 as the sound of that good ol' Rock'n'Roll and in Analog since I'm an analogic man (code Joe Walsh)
Wow. Those speakers sound so good on my laptop :)
As an audiophile and collector of audio equipment... as much as I don’t like MP3’s... it’s not missing 95% of the sound. Probably missing 5-10%.
Yes, data compression and lossy reproduction are 2 different issues. That seemed very deliberate on Weiss' intention to mislead. He could have said that a lot of the subtleties and nuances in music have been lost due to data compression. But as an audiophile or music lover, we don't use MP3 anymore. We have much more advanced codecs now. IMHO
Whatever percentage it is...they(MP3s) still sound lousy, though. It's a great, but cheesy format at best.
Thank you for making that observation. As a scientist and engineer it always makes me twitch when people cite some percentage number that was clearly pulled out of the air and wasn't based upon any actual data (or facts).
As for lossless vs. lossy compression formats, while I agree that something like FLAC is going to ultimately (and provably) be more accurate than MP3, it really depends on the bitrates. Let's face it, your standard listener of downloads on cheap earbuds that came with their phone is not concerned with ultimate fidelity and lower bitrates are fine with them. And (in my *opinion*) 320kbps MP3s are pretty much indistinguishable from lossless, at least on any of the high end systems that I have listened to.
I really respect and appreciate what Mr. Weiss is accomplishing and the craftsmanship and attention to detail that goes into his products. He and his employees should be proud of the work they are doing.
@@sc51153826 Absolutely correct
@@cardtrix1970 I think we’re all in agreement. It’s a cheesy codec but again it represents nearly 80-90% of the audio spectrum versus what that guy said... 15%.
I am a musician born in the 60s. And this is a dream come true. 😍 I am looking for a live performance system, that is more pure and analog than any thing available now. I have even considered using two separate systems for one mix .
I absolutely loved this. However, I must add that Direct Stream Digital (DSD) is the best format for audio. It has none of the clinicality of regular digital and displays a dynamic range which vinyl only wishes it has.
"...only wishes..." he says.
Its all about the price. I grew up in the 60's where this kind of sound reproduction is common place and affordable. I relished my memories of that era as my uncle is an audiophile and built himself several sound system based on tube amps, horns, loudspeakers, turntables etc. No digital. But that was then, this is now. If I have unlimited funds, I will buy systems based on those " old-better sounding " technology. But the way these merchants charge for those old, gone-by technology, its unbelievable.
I bet that gear sounds amazing but for those on a budget, you can get a vintage hifi system together for less than $1000 that will also sound amazing. It's sad that so many people these days have never heard a high quality recording on a good system. They don't know what they are missing
@Đeath Vader -- did you have a point of some sort?
@Đeath Vader Plus you can get together a jug band and play down by the river.
Can you spec out such a system?
@@larryvaughn5843
Focus on the speakers. You can get speakers that where $1000-3000 about 20-30 years ago for just a fourth of the price.
There are too many to mention, see what is in your local area.
Then you will need a simple stereo amplifier, that can be had for as little as $200-300 brand new, but second hand is a great option.
The source can be your computer or phone, preferably through an external DAC (Digital to Analog Converter). One of those can be had for $100 and got near perfect sound.
The room is also VERY important. You dont want hard bare walls and lots of echo.
@Garvin K-- No, a vintage hifi system for less than $1000 that will NOT sound amazing. It may sound better than an mp3 player, but an mp3 player doesn't cost $1000, either.
I believe $1000 "recent" equipment(used) sounds better than a vintage system, for the same reason that a recent car runs better than a 1970-80s car.
This guy a good job to basically get them to do a commercial for his company.
Be nice if they had an interviewer that had knowledge of audio.
4:09 "It consumes you". Not well worded, but he now gets it!
High end audio with great displacement speakers will engulf and enthrall your whole body.
No Beats headphones can do that.
....it becomes three dimensional. A depth that is not there on little ear plugs and mp3.
I live in Fleetwood, PA four blocks away and had no clue.
Great to see Jeff Glor again. His enthusiasm for his profession and his stories are infectious. Best wishes to him, his wife Nicole and their two children.
Glor got shafted by Nora O'Donnell. She's terrible, like a robot. I stopped watching CBS because of her.
I love hearing my Ray Coniff songs on my 8 Track K-Mart sound design console stereo. I got it at the K-Mart blue light sale! Sounds amazing and not bad for $27.98.
This guy is a true lover of music. He wants people to really hear the music and I appreciate him. Too bad I will never be able to afford those speakers.
Plenty of other speakers out there that do a much better job at reproducing the music and costs much much less.
He's a good salesman, that's for sure.
Streaming is not a step back in audio. That is false when streaming high res. Quality of recorded music has gone to chit for a while, but seems to be making a return to high quality. LPs are not superior to digital, just different. Some prefer it, some don't.
I feel the same way about high quality reel-to-reel. It sounds different. I do feel the LPs & R2R sound closer to unamplified live music.
Digital sounds antiseptically clean, which is what most people want in a sound system.
having a good sound system for music and movies is the best thing ever.
I’m a child of the 1960s . This super high end audio equipment reminds me of the days of true muscle cars, the sound they made and memories of them, and nostalgia of them. But, we often forget messing with ignition points, carburetors that fouled up, cold start problems, etc. I guess it is great to be nostalgic about the past, but in reality, it is about what goes on today. Again music is in how it is mastered and recorded that makes the ultimate difference. I don’t think a reissue of a bad recording on any media is gonna sound lousy,, even if it played on a billionaire hifi system made of unuptainian.
What a great segment. 💚💛👌🏽
It’s a paid advertisement you fool...it’s not a “segment”
@@Maxumized not all press is paid for. Besides, my comment was regarding the fact they made this in accordance to guidelines I wrote for an art movement of mine a fool like you wouldn’t know about. & no; I didn’t pay them to do it.
Listening to live acoustic music is even better and less expensive.
I would agree but I hate crowds and sadly, in my experience living here in Vienna and having a wonderful choice of venues to choose from the sound is exquisite live but I loath having to sit in a room with hundreds or thousands of people in uncomfortable chairs then having to get home afterwords. I will trad a bit of that live experience any day for a well recorded album played on a decent reproduction system in my comfortable chair and a short walk away after to my bathroom and bedroom.
As for less expensive, I beg to differ on that one. I listen to music every single day, the equivilent of around two concerts worth of music a day. At current live venue rates plus travel in a very short order one can aquire a decent sounding sound system and large collection of music and have it not just for an hour or two but for decades in less than a year of going to two concerts a day 365 days a year.
Sound awesome through my iPad mini speaker
This was really awesome
I wish I personally knew Mr. Weiss. Sound is everything to me as well
Go meet him .. he will PAY YOU to listen to him and his crap that plays almost well on a computer ! LOL CBS cares !!!
he's clever to play Será una Noche by La Segunda. that first track of the album really out of this world. easily impressed, but it's recorded digitally in DSD/BWF (176.4kHz) using 2 omni mics. he should play it digitally for an actual sound
Let's just say that there is a lot that he didn't include in this segment regarding the various mastering formats, vinyl, speaker types, tube amplifiers, etc. Obviously, it's was far too big a topic to cover here. I'm happy to see a local, handcrafted speaker line in that part of the US. But, it's a competitive market out there. We live in a golden age of audio.
@@brentwalker3300 yes you're right. but I'm jealous that you can always go for an audition of the full setup anytime. I'm way far from America. they need distributors in SEA.
Listening to music is great. From concert halls to iPods. MP3 and cassette. CD and vinyl. High definition and mono AM radios. It's always been greater than any hi-fi product. It still is. Compressed or not
This Cat makes gorgeous art for sound, and I still want that red chair
As an audiophile and music enthusiast, I have to agree with most of what Mr. Weiss is saying......makes me want to put on my headphones right now and start a listening session. :)
how about some speakers too? enjoy!
Great listening 🎶👌
This is something beautiful !!!! ❤️❤️
Kudos for CBS Morning for doing a piece on audiophile equipment. But people don't really get it until they hear it. Then it all makes sense. The public has been hoodwinked into thinking newer is always better. As this segment said, it ain't necessarily so.
This hits home perfectly. I used to work with people who would have their I-phone playing via its speaker , it was just a compressed noise. I cant listen to music like that , it either has to consume me or its turned off. However this guy is selling overpriced stuff that hardly anyone can afford
Absolutely true
Agree about the size of speakers being small and causing headaches !
I'm old, i built my dream car (truck) audio system, i haven't heard ANY format that can match my CDs with Pink Floyd or Alan Parsons
Thanks for showing us what's possible only if we can afford it.
what a wonderful video!
He makes some interesting points about the role of music in society today, equipment and formats aside, which can all be debated. But, I feel we've become so busy, so consumerised, that music too often indeed, becomes mere background to our busy lives. So, I like this if only for the idea of making musical experience more of a priority. Also, I wish it could return to a more shared experience instead of everyone isolated to earphones.
It stands to reason that resonant woods are going to color sound. It's why everyone else uses particle board and plastics.
People who listen to the latest top 20 pop hits from Rihana or Adele or Putbull will have no idea, no clue, and no interest about this equipment. But anyone who really enjoys listening to music, or furthermore is a true musician - even in rock n roll - you would die for some of this. I hope to one day just make the trip to his showroom and listen to Miles Davis Kind Of Blue, Dave Brubeck Take 5, and Queen’s Night At The Opera on 180 gram vinyl.
Looks nice.
Wish I had that setup
I sold my turntable years ago due to its hi maintenance and expense.. I want to listen to music without having to clean the record, clean the needle, lift and move the needle and chase down the low pitch humm you get when the ground wire is not connected well. I'm not saying analog doesn't sound good, if you have the budget it can sound amazing, but digital can sound better for less.
Sound is everything listening to music and movies.
Should've interviewed the guy from Zu audio.
Sean casey, yeah that would be interesting, proud owner of omens. Also richard vandersteen would be good to see here.
The equipment is important, but the experience more so.
Try listening alone in a darkened room, as the music envelops and takes you away for just a bit as the artist performs in your room.
The only uses I have for mp3s are music in the car, @ 320k and audio books @64k on my phone. Don't really notice the difference unless the car is off.
BLESS THS MAN
great video.
~70% to 90% of the sound we hear in a performance or in a room is reflected sound. Ranking room+speaker combinations In order of sound quality:
4. Large/Expensive speakers + untreated room.
3. Small/Cheap speakers + untreated room.
2. Small/Cheap speakers + treated room.
1. Large/Expensive speakers + treated room.
Yes. Cheap speakers sound less "bad" in an untreated room, often because more expensive speakers reproduce everything faithfully, which is completely destroyed by the room. For smaller rooms, treating the room is often a matter of filling the space with furniture & bookshelves (with books of course).
Personally, I prefer room treatment well before "upgrading" speakers. Why? Because the room dominates. You get the most significant improvements in sound quality by improving the listening environment (which includes speaker placement, listening position & room treatment). Upgrading speakers or upping amplifier power only makes matters worse in a poor listening environment.
Digital compression does not lose a large portion of the music if you do it right with high data rate. Old age looses a large part of the music - the highs. When CDs were introduced it was the destruction of High Fidelity. The sampling rate meant that any sound at 20khz was a square wave. For those of us with high quality tweeters (and young ears) CDs sounded like crap compared to the records we had collected. At least now you can buy the high res music files and enjoy if your ears are young.
You're mistaken, go read about the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem. Sampling at the CD's 44.1 kilohertz data rate will in theory _perfectly_ reproduce a 22 kilohertz signal. All the distortion from the stair-stepping, that clueless audiophiles triumphantly point to in diagrams of digital signals, is mathematically at higher frequencies then you can hear.
Audio engineers quickly realized that errors in sampling accuracy and frequency jitter would prevent achieving this, but they've had 40 years to improve digital music electronics. I'm willing to believe that higher sample rate and DSD encodings can in the absolute limit sound slightly better, but if so it's a tiny improvement and completely swamped by the quality or not of the original recording and mastering.
i was trying to figure out what cart he was using, LOL
And now we got another record collector lol
Vinyl is colored sound, in the sense that it doesn't give the most accurate representation of the audio being produced. It may sound a bit more natural in ways, but it isn't nearly as perfect as what you'd get with digital signals put through a decent solid state DAC. It also really depends on what your purpose is when it comes to the audio you are trying to reproduce.
For me, I'm all about digital signals being thrown into DACs and then into solid state amplifiers. Of course, all lossless. Tubes and vinyl have their place, but I wouldn't use it for professional usage, as it distorts the sound from reality. I am definitely a bit more keen on having accurate reproduction rather than colorful reproduction. Like I said though, it depends on what your goal is with the music.
Every reproduced music is colored. Unless of course you were the music engineer and mix the music the way you like it and consider "accurate"
@@pedrocols my point is, vinyl is significantly more colored due to purposeful distortion that is inherit to the style, that otherwise wouldn't exist if you were listening to the same digital reproduction.
@@luximperium4164 Essentially correct. Or, at least I essentially agree. That said, I prefer a little distortion. Sounds odd to hear someone say that right? My mother (PhD Audiology) did an experiment. I'll spare the details, but essentially she fed clean and then slightly distorted tones to subjects. Many subjects. Many different styles of tones, etc. Slight different styles of distortion as well. In a nutshell, the majority (72%) preferred ALL of the distorted signals. 90%+ preferred some. Obviously I am leaving out the gritty details, but the conclusions were that the human ear mostly preferred a "softer" or less etched sound. This was in the 90's. She is gone now, but I wonder how that would fare with the digital vs. analogue debate??
Heard them, they have no stereo separation. Sounds like really big horns.
Perhaps a bit wonky but worth mentioning would've been how recordings are engineered these days. The podcast 20,000Hz did a couple episodes on how since we're listening on devices in settings with competing background noise, sound engineers tends to mush the dynamic range of music. I think there's a lot to be said about dynamic range and one's experience of music. But thanks to compression, we're able to access so many more kinds of music. It's double edged sword... Finally, that people can afford a sound system that costs more than a house in the US with so much inequality is a big problem.
@Tse-Sung--"Inequality" ...Have Bernie Sanders & Patrisse Cullors (BLM) the Marxists explain why they have so many homes.
Or why Xi or Li live so much better than the rest of China.
I agree with your audio points.
@@ronmcmartin4513 Sure you can defend union busters like Bezos or other clueless billionaires like Zuck. Why even bother with Cullors' $1M house- her net worth is not even a rounding error of the plutocrats who keep peddling their anti-marxist pablum. Uh, hello? it's the 1930s, we'd like our plutocratic talking points back.
@@pinechild-What about the other THREE "dachas" Cullors bought recently??
You prefer Hypocrite Marxists, because you sound like a Hypocrite Marxist, yourself!
Where can I buy a fleetwood loudspeaker. I live on Marietta Georgia
Finally.... a man after my own heart... I love horns..
Great video. Im certainly not the demographic, starting at 10k for bookshelf speakers, but Im sure they're dope. lol
I am sure the affordable Wharfedale Evo 4.2 (under a 1000 dollar) will do really well against the Fleetwood Sound DeVille in terms of quality of sound on all accounts. But I also think it is not the point. The point is that Jonathan Weiss is a character who loves what he is doing and his products are pieces of art. When buying a Fleetwood you also get his vision and story and a great handcrafted item with care for detail. As pieces of art for an artist one loves they justify their price.
No I would probably not buy a Fleetwood speaker but I can imagine that people just buy it for the same reason people buy cars or motorbikes that they love.
i like that music to them translates to just jazz. or one of those opera/classic. which makes them like the music equivalent of ASIC machines. designed to be good at playing just one very specific genre.
i want him to do a double blind test between mp3 and wav just to see
It would be quite embarrassing
The only blind listening test anyone could nail is vinyl vs anything else (except maybe cassettes, limited form factor), just because of lack of dynamic range and the pops and crackles.
That was cool. Some of the info was ehhh, but I understand he was dumbing down his explanation for the masses.
Amazing stuff, but DSP can also do some amazing things. I love his craftsmanship and hope to one day hear a pair of his speakers.
Very interesting 🤔
There is absolutely nothing wrong with the current state of audio, loud speakers and amplification. There are many affordable options that can reproduce recorded audio accurately. I've gone through many options ( consumer, prosumer and expensive professional equipment) in the last two decades and recorded my own material. What I put in, comes out and sounds exactly like I recorded with a vast majority of the gear. The science and tech has long been able to do this without issue. What this guy is hawking is basically sound processing and better is extremely subjective. Don't buy into the hype and waste money. Your wallet will thank you.
Funny thing about the intro of this report is nobody uses ipods anymore like that. It's all phones
He’s a business owner, selling a product-of course his audio system is “the best”.
I am a trained musician. I own some expensive audio gear. To me, the point is that if you buy the right stuff it will last 20+ years. Can you say that about anything else you own? Will anything else you own bring you the pleasure of a high end audio? So is it that expensive?
Typical "high end" components require more maintenance than consumer gear. Tube amps make lots of heat that shorten the life of resistors, caps but make great heaters in cold climates. A lot of so called "high end" audio audio components aren't that well made in some cases.
❤️❤️❤️
This is amazing
I want two
The interviewer seems not convinced 😂 look at his face
Remember Pono? If I win the lotto, I am so there!
Im a vinyl collector, while it may sound good. The price may steer people in a different direction
Yes, but hopefully too a more reasonably priced analog system...
@@AnalogPlanet You seem to hate digital. Too bad you are stuck with a medium from the early 1900s with all it's inherent defects.
@@AnalogPlanet good to see you here Mikey..
@@davidlong1786--Too bad you're stuck on a medium that sounds worse than early 1960s analog, with 2000s equipment.
@@ronmcmartin4513 You logic has a level of ZERO. Anyone that thinks vinyl is superior to digital/CD is living in the Thomas Edison era. Try educating yourself before opening mouth and inserting foot.
A modern flac file is objectively better than any vinyl, but nowhere near as much fun.
yeah, what's the fun in oversampling and finding the right noise shaping filter LOL
Objectively? Uh no. A great vinyl pressing will smoke a digital version with the same mastering. But this is just my opinion.
@@tanyet A great vinyl will compress the dynamic range, color the sound, introduce loads of noise, distortion, crosstalk, possibly some adjacent-groove pre-and-post echo, and probably some wow and flutter, which all may sound “better” than the boringly accurate digital sound. But you could get the same damn effect by recording the vinyl record to cd or even 320kbs MP3/256kbs AAC and nearly nobody would be able to tell the difference.
@@matthewv789 Make that NOBODY could tell the difference. These overpriced systems are snake oil. They never do double blind testing. I wonder why.
I can easily tell the difference from itunes to my CDs with a decent pair of headphones. A lot of the quietest parts go away.
🙄
@@AmazingJayB51 hey not everyone has the same ability of perception. Unless you have never tried it yourself and you try to say "oh but the science" it's BS, we don't know exactly how the E field effects sound. We can measure some of the easy stuff.
Great sound isn't that difficult when cost is no object.
What a dull Throw away comment to the art of audio recording and the science.
Due to covid I bought a pa system big enough for a 300 seat church. Cheap. Want big sound need big speakers.
All it takes is 16 scanspeak midranges, 1 raal ribbon and one servo open baffle sub per column to have a better sound quality than OMA. Cost? $11k per column plus woodwork and active crossovers. 15x chaaper than his gear ;)
I smell some marketing here. As Joe N Tell stated lots of misinformation here. BTW a properly encoded 320kbps mp3 can sound very good. The information being removed by the algorithm in not audible. Yes there are very poor quality mp3 and lots of very poorly recorded music. Most music today is highly compressed and even this guys SUPER expensive speakera can't fix that. They engineer music this way today because studies show overwhelmingly the masses prefer it. It also allows music to sound better in a broad range of environments. Notice the music they were playimg in these speakers. Its simple low distortion music sounds awesome on A LOT of speakers. Put some Linkin Park on and crank it up bet things change. I like what this company is doing but its just like all the other pretentious ones out there. Half of what your paying for is a great story and some costly materials not required for great sound. But hey if your into it whatever.
You’re spot on by saying “pretentious”. A lot of pretentiousness in the audiophile world.
This is why I prefer FLAC files
I noticed a Leonard Cohen album in one of the crates on the floor. Mr. Weiss has taste as well as knowledge. No KISS albums I suspect.
Please never mistake me as a fan of Kiss, quite the opposite, but I recently revisited their 1st record from '74 and rather enjoyed 3 songs in particular. 👍👍👍
The irony here is that recorded music of any form/format is merely a simulation of actual live musical performances which is about much more than just sound alone. When compared to live music as played by actual living musicians, recordings of any sort are leaving out an even greater percentage of information than what Mr. Weiss is all worked up over with regards to MP3 recordings.
My father was in the business, so I have been into high fidelity since I was a kid. I've spent the last 45 years in professional audio as a recording engineer and technician and have worked on several Grammy nominated records. The more I listen to live acoustic music, the more I realize that we only get about 10% of the whole experience.
It’s also funny that he’s so pro-vinyl when even a 320kpbs mp3, from a proper master, sounds better than vinyl
@@mundie33--Says the guy with an mp3 and White Apple earbuds or Beats, who's never heard a great record on an excellent sound system.
And no, were not including Cerwin Vega with a Sansui receiver and a BIC record player.
Ron McMartin lmao you really are a loser troll. I’ve spent more time in record studios behind the boards than anyone in a 1000 mile radius. I’m not stupid enough to buy these poorly engineered speakers though, so I guess you have that over me
@@mundie33-Perhaps you should spend less time in the studio, and more time with live Unamplified music. Then you wouldn't have to explain how "This one goes to 11", Crybaby.
oh look it costs a million dollars, must be great and perfect, yeah, for the owner of the company
I was once told that the actual size of the speakers doesn’t matter it’s the driver size so I’m not not sure if you could make an argument saying that the bigger the better. And it’s not like if you put some huge drivers in some bookshelf’s they will sound great. But like Elac debut references I have a pair of those and I love them they sound amazing they are not huge at all.
That guy is just trying to sell product. His "facts" are poor at best. Floyd Tool published several papers showing what is important in speakers and music reproduction.
@@davidlong1786 yes a lot of the facts seem out dated too when it comes to iPods because nobody uses MP3 players anymore. Although I believe many people still stream mp3 files.
Horn speakers like these require a specific size that’s not arbitrarily drawn. The same is true of your ELACs. These horns do things your ELACs can’t do like fill an enormous space effortlessly at high SPLs. Whether or not you like the sound is something else.
@@davidlong1786 Floyd Toole also expresses opinions grounded in facts as does Weiss. The biggest con job is “accuracy”. There’s really no such thing. Accurate to what? Digital “perfection” in the mid 80s was the biggest con job in audio I’ve experienced.
@@flanhalen3000 most people today listen to compressed low resolution digital audio. That was his point and it’s true. It’s also why as he points out music has been relegated to background wallpaper.
Well. It also is about the quality of the recording itself.
Beautiful spacious sound can be had for cheap or expensive. This is dependent on your listening room and acoustics. A pair of speakers that cost $100k vs $1k is not going to sound 100x times better.
The picture on digital television (HDTV, satellite, etc.) is just as compressed as MP3 audio and throws away just as much data. So that was a rather poor comparison.
Most people cannot tell the difference between a 320kbps MP3 or 256kbs AAC compared to the original uncompressed sound, so the whole “throwing away 95% of the data” line was effectively hyperbole. If you threw it away and nobody noticed, did it really have value? Did it really need to be there? I wouldn’t be surprised if someone could make a top quality mp3 recorded straight off his record player, then switch the inputs without him knowing it was playing back the mp3 instead (with the levels carefully balanced), and even the guy who designed the turntable and speakers might barely be able to tell the difference and probably wouldn’t notice unless someone told him. (That would certainly be true if you burned it to an uncompressed audio CD, as carefully-run double-blind A/B tests have demonstrated.)
Very expensive audiophile equipment is mostly snake oil, in the sense that similar results can almost always be achieved far more cheaply. A $300,000 turntable is no better than a much much cheaper turntable because once you can get stable, quiet, vibration-free rotation, appropriate tracking force, etc. (which doesn’t cost a fraction of that amount), the only thing that matters is the cartridge, which also doesn’t cost a fraction of that amount. All the rest is just eye candy, exclusivity, and bragging rights for the few who can waste their money so senselessly.
Audiophiles criticize iPhones, Spotify, etc not so much because they are really that bad, but because they make good audio so accessible and cheap - sound quality that audiophiles and sound engineers would have killed for 50 or even 40 years ago, that today everyone carries around in their pocket or streams easily from the internet. An iPhone’s sound quality, even their microphones, have gotten surprisingly good, just as their cameras have.
"I want people to realize what's possible"...
We the people realize we'll never afford what's possible, but thanks anyways. 🤣
How about a little fact checking CBS. 95% of sound is missing from an MP3? I call BS. MP3 audio files can be created with many configuration options to specify file size and resolution. To simply say they are all compressed garbage shows ignorance and doesn't tell the whole story. Also the premise that audio has been in some kind of down hill slide could only come from someone who has been living under a rock. The really scary thing is just how good some of the very affordable ChiFi gear has become. Yes, there is a lot of junk out there but there are also some really remarkable well engineered values out there too.
Also funny that a tv broadcaster wouldn’t see fit to point out that, uh, their own tv picture is just as compressed as mp3.
I love my marantz and jbl l-100s.
@Josh C- Then you're 40 years behind. You're comparing a 1960s muscle car(suspension, bias-ply tires, carburetors) with a 2020 Ferrari(or Honda Civic type R )
@@ronmcmartin4513 you are comparing things in completely different price ranges. Of course someone would choose the ferrari suspension over the 60s muscle car if they had the same price tag...
@@joshc6080--Thanks for the reply. That's why I added the Honda. Those are comparable in "price". Quicker 0-60mph. Possibly faster top end, and still better gas mileage.
Can't fit as many in the front or rear bench seats, though.
It's great that exotic hifi is getting coverage on mainstream. I have to call out though the 99% loss of detail as on purpose BS for talking point hype.
I enjoy following high end audio because unlike high end cars, some principles & ideas are easily copied by consumers & DIYers like me. Of course unlike cars, snake oil is not immediately apparent.
Neodymium magnets are something normal consumers can look out for in speakers, that is so far, under appreciated. Compared with Alnico magnets which hv gone up absurdly in cost because of the vintage crowd.
Amazon Alexa 3rd & 4th gen have great neodymium magnets.
300k for a record player is pure hilarity, your records are flawless & mint from factory?! Best is to get beautiful high quality players from 70s 80s Japan.
Realistically most of the time I'm listening to TuneIn app radio. Sometimes you can choose the bitrate & format to play the stream. AAC sounds really good even at 64kbps. MP3 is ok at 192 kbps.
Bottom line is that this guy is selling something & like exotic coffee, there's a grain of truth, & nice story, & great if you hv the money & space.
But we like live in a time where we can have quality sound anywhere & at any price point, & its great. It used to be you had to wire the whole house or lug a lot of heavy equipment everywhere, no more.
People should talk more about basic ingredients of good sound rather then price or specific brands.
Silk dome tweeters, Neodymium magnets are basic ingredients.
So because roads are bad, I guess in your opinion buying an exotic sports car is also “pure hilarity”?
I like silk dome tweeters. Others like Beryllium. Some prefer horns. Your lecture is bitter.
@@AnalogPlanet $300K to play a dated medium with so many built in flaws regardless of the pressing quality is madness. Heck that $300K record player isn't even linear tracking either, so like every pivoting tonearm the stylus will only be tracking the groove correctly at 2 points on the disc at most. Yes buying an exotic sports car to drive on awful roads is pure hilarity. Thanks for pointing out that bad roads are comparable to vinyl.
@@AnalogPlanet Bitter? He isn't the one getting all flustered and being snarky.
@@AnalogPlanetThis is truly tragic as I love reading hifi reviews from the likes of Steve Guttenberg & AVShowrooms & I own over a hundred LPs & I hv a Denon DP37F turntable . Vintage hifi is a passion for me but I don't pay hilarious prices nor do I peddle nor stand idly by while others sprout outrageous BS. My opinion of journals such as yours has just plummeted drastically. You repulse me & can return to ruling yr little elitist cult snake oil kingdom.
RIP audio. We want free MP3s and streaming.
The room makes a difference too. I prefer smaller, near field listening. My favorite era, when commercial audio was at its peak? Late 70's.
don't underestımate the beauty of a large soundstage and imaging
What makes it better than an airforce 1?
You can rest now... its a BENCHMARK AHB2.
Bruno Putzeys PURIFI close second