If you’ve spoken with me over the past fifteen years or so, we’ve had this conversation – what a musical playback system means to you, and whether you’ve fallen into the trap of configuring a system that limits your musical enjoyment.
Steve Guttenberg covers this in his “The Audiophiliac” YouTube video.
Do you ever find yourself going to your music library, selecting one recording after another and then deciding not to play it? I’m willing to bet that this is primarily due to your system being biased toward a particular musical genre and that you have a subconscious memory of that recording (or genre) not being enjoyable.
We’ve all been there …
At one point, I ran a single driver, full-range speaker system. Over time, I found myself listening to less and less “dense” music – large orchestral works, opera and such. This system rendered small ensembles beautifully, but fell on its face when attempting to navigate what I refer to as musically dense works.
If you accept the premise that a playback system should expose you to new music and new (to you) musical genres, then this is a trap to be avoided at all costs.
Everything we do at Galibier is oriented toward treating all musical genres equally, and without bias.
The key takeaway … observe your behavior over the next month, and what sort of music you select. Are you favoring parts of your recording collection over others?
Lynn Olson and I frequently comment on the simple (unchallenging) music played by many exhibitors at audio shows. Beware of this trap when people are demoing a system to you.Â
At one show, I was shocked to see one exhibitor positioned at the back of the room, with his remote control in hand – reducing the gain during musical climaxes. His system didn’t have the dynamic range to handle the music.
Yes, there are exhibitors who are like the butcher who puts his hand on the scale. Buyer beware!
