A skeptical interlude.

The header for this column has always been "Skeptimania," meaning that your writer is inclined to be suspicious about a lot of things relating to audio, particularly when it comes to hyperbolic high-end audio claims and products. Unfortunately, for the past few months the column really has not been much more than a traditional audio-commentator enterprise. Consequently, it is time to get a bit skeptical again, and I want to do this by ranting about a handful of old and new audio misconceptions.

Those misconceptions, in no particular order.

Number One: CD players have a definable "sound." OK, we read about this one all the time, both in manufacturer ads and in enthusiast magazine test reports, and of course we hear it proclaimed by numerous high-end boutique sales people.

Reviewers are particularly bad. One may get hold of a "super-duper" (and expensive or even super-expensive) player, and after discussing its sometimes arcane features and maybe even doing some rudimentary measurements (or spouting manufacturer specifications), he will engage in an almost poetic monologue regarding its sound quality. Often, he will do this while comparing it to other units (expensive and super-expensive) that he has on hand or has had on hand. He may not "hear" profound differences, but he rhapsodizes about the subtle ones he does hear.

Comparing the test unit to one he "had on hand" in the past is of course absurd, particularly when it comes to subtle differences, because there is no way anyone could do a meaningful comparison between units that were not set up and listened to at the same time. However, even when he has another "reference" unit on hand to compare with the player being reviewed the confrontation may be seriously flawed.

First, the time lapse between listening sequences is often still too long. Usually, this is the case because the reviewer may have only single copies of any "reference" discs on hand and so the kind of quick switching needed for really tight evaluating is impossible. Second, even if the reviewer has two copies of a disc, the players are almost certainly not level matched (tedious to do, even with the right ancillary hardware) and time synchronized (very tedious to do, period). Not doing either of these makes any detailed "comparison" between items as borderline perfect as CD players, or DVD players playing CDs, a joke.

What's more, in order for even a properly level-matched and time-synchronized comparison series to be fully unbiased the procedure should be double-blind, or at least blind. Unfortunately, few if any reviewers (or boutique sales clerks) bother to do this kind thing, because the results will nearly always show that good, modestly priced players sound the same as the good super-costly jobs. Note that some expensive but not-so-decent players may be intentionally configured to sound different from subjective perfection: perhaps a subtle treble rolloff will be dialed in to make tinny-sounding CD reissues sound a tad mellower.

Actually, few of those who get involved with CD player reviewing do a blind comparison even once at the beginning of their reviewing careers--just to see just how revealing it will be of similarities. There is no audio-fun romanticism to be had in that kind of brass-tacks behavior.

Interestingly, some "reviewers" go beyond commenting upon imagined subtle differences and will instead make proclamations about the vast differences between the player under test and one or more reference units. The comments are often absurd in the extreme, with the commentary going on and on about soundstaging, depth, focus, transparency, dynamics, and the like. The problem is that without close, level-matched, and time-synched comparing opinions of that kind are not only a big joke they are also misleading the readers--and misleading readers, no matter how entertaining the report's text, is not the job of a product reviewer.

I have done a fair amount of comparing between players (often with many different pairs of identical discs), using some pretty good ancillary hardware, and with careful level matching and synchronization. Let me tell you that although some players might be very, very slightly different sounding from the mainstream, nobody is going to be able to pinpoint such differences without doing some very close listening and precise comparing. What's more, a player that does sound a tad different from mainstream players is probably going to not be as accurate a playback device as those others. Ironically, many of those mainstream players can be purchased at places like Best Buy and Circuit City for under a hundred bucks--or under two hundred bucks if the device is also a DVD/CD player.

OK, now fantasy is sometimes fun and I do not begrudge any reader who wants to fantasize about his audio components. I rather enjoy fantasizing myself when I am off line. However, when reviewing, reviewers should be different. They should deal with brass tacks and not speculations--even if speculations make for more poetic literature. I suppose that enthusiast consumers who want to be involved with something special feel obligated to spend big bucks so they can fantasize about how great things sound. Fine for them, but the $ensible consumer will not be self-suckered, nor should he be duped, into overspending on a super-duper CD player.

Number Two: amplifier "sound" is also definable. OK just about everything I said about CD player "sound" applies here. Some reviewers do the same thing when they report on exotic amps as they do with exotic CD players. Sometimes, poetic descriptions rule the day.

Amps can be compared just like CD players, only easier. Indeed, the only thing that does not apply about doing proper comparisons with amplifiers involves the time-synchronization issue: you obviously do not have to time sync two amps under comparison. In any case, up to the limits of their outputs, every amp I have ever auditioned (aside from one old receiver that blew up shortly after a comparison where I heard it sound slightly different from another unit) has sounded just like all the others I have auditioned.

When a reviewer (or sales clerk) starts rhapsodizing about the "sound" of an amplifier he is either kidding himself or the reader (or the customer), or is reviewing an amplifier with some serious performance deficiencies. Yep, I said deficiencies, because it is not unusual for some exotic amps (usually tube jobs, single-ended configured or otherwise) to have frequency-response aberrations or distortion levels that make them sound different from mainstream models.

The point to remember is that the mainstream jobs, at least up to their power limits, are doing what amps are supposed to do and the different sounding jobs are screwing things up.

Number Three: the "sound" of wires is definable, too. OK, now I have to confess that this one remains a real sore spot with me, as anyone will realize who read the "Audio Malarkey" column in issue 89 that was put together by me and engineer Fred Davis. (Fred has also published several articles on speaker wire in the JAES, as well as the now-defunct Audio magazine.)

I also have done several comparisons between varying lengths of 16 AWG lamp cord and speaker cables as exotic as a Dunlavy LCR Ultra wire set that cost nearly a grand (they were thick as battery jumpers) and Dunlavy Z6 wire (designed for specific impedance and capacitance behavior). I have also included some heavy 12 AWG, fine-stranded wire in these comparisons. In no case did I hear a difference between any of these wires, even with runs up to 24 feet. And, hey, with most of those comparisons I was using Dunlavy speakers, NHT speakers, or Waveform speakers. Not exactly chopped liver ancillary hardware.

Consequently, I am done with reviewing wires for test reports or even comparing wires for the heck of it. As far as I am concerned, wires are wires. Unless there is something really, really wrong with an item being auditioned the thing should be no better or worse than any others with resistance, capacitance, and inductance characteristics that are not out in left field. This goes for speaker wire and power cords as well as any of the shielded stuff.

Yes, you do need speaker wire that is thick enough to minimize resistance losses, and the inductance and capacitance characteristics of said wire should not be outrageous. And of course you certainly want your interconnects to have jacks on the ends that do not fall apart when you unplug them. However, it is overkill in the extreme to spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on something as mundane as wire.

As for power cords, it is preposterous to think that the straightforward AC cables that come with your typical component are not able to cleanly carry current for three, four, five, or six feet from the wall jack to that component. Opting to purchase a special power cord is an absolute waste of time and money. Nobody ever has proven that super-duper power cords do anything any better than the standard versions.

Incidentally, the best bang-for-buck wire I have seen for speaker hookups is the multi-stranded, low-voltage wire designed for outdoor use with the kind of lights you see running along walkways, driveways, and landscaping borders in front of houses. It not only can do the job, but its outdoor-use construction makes it durable as hell. You can run it through attics or inside crawl spaces and not worry about it falling apart. Its only drawback is the black color, which makes the thick 14- and 12-AWG versions rather conspicuous when they run along the floor/wall junction to your speakers.

Number Four: big speakers automatically trump small (meaning medium sized and not micro-sized) speakers, even if the latter are helped out by a subwoofer. I love it when a reviewer talks about the big, enveloping sound of a big pair of speakers that each have only a tweeter, midrange and woofer. This implies that a sub/sat package is going to be inferior, particularly in terms of dynamic potential, soundstaging, and, well, "bigness."

Some of the sub/sat combinations I have reviewed in the past (spanning a price range from modest to substantial) have been equal to or even superior to any number of full-range systems I have also reviewed. This sub/sat group includes the Triad Silver array and Ascend Acoustics/Hsu combination (issue 93), the Waveform MC array (issue 84), the Atlantic Technology System 270 (issue 75), and the NHT Evolution combination (volume 8/5 of The Audiophile Voice). For a look at what these packages and others (including some big full-range jobs) can do in terms of flat power input to a room check out the curves I printed in issues 94 and 95.

Not only can the sub/sat systems equal larger full-range versions when it comes to linear input to a room, they can also equal them in terms of maximum-output impact. And they sound just as big, too. Bigness has more to do with the spacing between the systems, their dispersion characteristics, and their relationship to room boundaries than the size of the box.

After all, most full-range speakers have a tweeter, midrange and woofer in each cabinet, and this is not much more than what you get with good sub/sat packages. Each satellite will have a tweeter and for that matter may have even two midrange drivers that are as solid from the middle bass on up as what you find with bigger systems. The sub/sat package will of course have an outboard subwoofer (or subwoofers, since some may have two of them), and that low-bass section may be considerably more potent than the pair of woofers in two full-range systems.

Yes, sub/sat systems can have problems with the satellite and subwoofer interface--often right in the midbass, where some very important instruments do a lot of work. However, this can be handled deftly with proper placement and the use of a good measurement device and test-disc combination--something all serious enthusiasts should consider obtaining.

Going further, a good equalizer (like the Rane THX-44 I reviewed in issue 98 and THX-22 and ME-60 I reviewed in issue 83, or the AudioControl C-131 I use to equalize the center speaker in my main system) can work wonders with any sub/sat set up. (They can also be major-degree helpful with even the best full-range models.) With the subwoofer and satellites properly located a package like this can deliver the best of both worlds: smooth, powerful bass and wonderful imaging. On the other hand, with full-range systems it may be impossible (at least without an equalizer helping out) to place both systems so that both the bass (particularly the middle bass) is smooth and the imaging is what it should be.

So, while a pair of huge full-range systems may be able to fill a large home-listening room with fabulous and dynamic sound, a good sub/sat stereo package may do the job just as well, and might be able to do it even better. Indeed, add a few more satellites for ambiance and center-focus work and I guarantee it will do it better.

Number Five: Analog beats digital. Frankly, I find it hard to believe that this "controversy" still exists, but I suppose there are also people out there who still think the earth is flat.

Now, don't get me wrong. If someone has a large collection of LP recordings and needs to have good equipment to play them then it is obvious that they should obtain the finest analog playback hardware they can afford. More power to them in their efforts.

However, there is no way that even the best analog beats up-to-snuff digital. The LP record has way, way more distortion of all kinds (speed errors, surface noise, harmonic artifacts, phase anomalies, etc.) than the CD. This is particularly the case when it comes to loud passages, and especially so when the stylus tracks the inner-groove area. The linear speed is at its slowest here, and so most of the inherent distortions are magnified.

As noted, the LP also has more background noise (mainly important to classical/baroque lovers like me), and it also has way, way more problems with speed errors. The latter will be particularly annoying to piano-music enthusiasts, and will be the result both of recording problems (the analog recorders and cutting lathe) and playback problems (turntable speed stability and things like off-center holes and warp wow).

And of course we have the play-durability issue, which is a non-problem with the CD, but is a serious problem with any LP that is so loved that it gets a whole lot of use. Old, repeatedly played LP recordings will sound, well, old. An old CD (my oldest one is 20+ years old and after much use still sounds fine) still sounds like a new CD--or at least as good as it did when it was new. While not cleaning a grimy CD might cause skipping, a grimy LP will self-inflict surface damage that cannot be repaired. Even a few specks of dust can foul up the sound of a normally pristine LP recording--and keep it fouled up even after cleaning. Clean the CD if you let it get dirty (properly, with radial strokes of a good cleaning device), and you are back in business.

Number Six: DVD-A and SACD sound better than the two-channel CD. OK, to an important extent this is correct--or at least potentially correct. After all, these two newer formats, at least if they are done right, have three additional channels: a center and two stereo surround feeds. How could they not sound better?

Well, for starters many recording engineers leave off the center-channel feed, or at least present it at such a low level (with not much more than a simple, overlaid L+R mix) that it is inconsequential--thereby eliminating the soundstaging advantages of having three channels up front.

Usually, the center is left out of the picture, or almost left out, for one, two, or three different reasons.

First, the engineer simply may not know how to blend it properly with the left-right mix. This is a more concrete excuse than it first may seem, because there may be soundstaging and dovetailing issues that vastly complicate doing a proper center blend, particularly if a centered soloist is involved or the material involves an older recording being re-mixed. The weird thing, however, is that some pop-music engineers will put vocal or instrumental soloists into either or both of the surround channels, while at the same time being loath to put them in the center channel. Go figure.

Second, the engineer may believe that a phantom center is more realistic sounding with home-listening oriented audio systems--both high end and mundane. The ersatz spaciousness and depth of a phantom center may automatically insure that it blends with the broader stereo soundstage better, particularly from the sweet spot. Don't laugh. There is something to this, although doing the center feed correctly should deliver an equally good sweet-spot blend and much better stability from off-axis listening locations.

Third (and this is the most allowable excuse in my opinion), your typical center speaker may be inferior to the left and right channel speakers it is working with. It may also be mounted too high or too low (above or below a TV screen), or angled wrong (left-to-right, instead of vertical) to dovetail with them properly. The recording engineer may downplay the feed to the center in order to keep the soundstage from being pulverized by an inferior or inferior-mounted center speaker.

So, yes, DVD-A and SACD have that center-feed potential as an advantage, but the feed is often not used very effectively--if at all.

On the other hand, with the good DSP surround manipulations we can have with an upscale receiver or processor a two-channel derived and steered center can be very well blended into the left-right mix. Properly steered three-channel DSP can make a two-channel compact disc soundstage as well as nearly any multi-channel recording. Of course, with good multi-channel SACD and DVD-A recordings even a mundane audio receiver can deliver very good three-channel soundstaging. Unfortunately, you have to go pretty upscale with DSP processors to get similar-quality results with two-channel sources.

I have had very good luck with Yamaha's Classical/Opera mode (at least with the center temporarily backed down about 3dB below the set-up reference level), and continue to use it for a lot of my listening. And of course, I think that nearly everyone will agree that Dolby Pro Logic II (now we have the IIx iteration, which supposedly is even better) and the DTS Neo: 6 program offer a faux three-channel effect up front that is superior to any straightforward center-phantom version. (Again, this assumes that the center speaker is a good one and is located well.) This has certainly been my experience with a whole raft of two-channel program sources, and for the most part the soundstaging we get with these steering systems is equal to anything I have encountered with the DVD-A recordings I have also auditioned. For the most part, the steered CD versions worked better.

OK, DVD-A and SACD do have those surround channels, and they do enhance the listening experience. However, my encounters with good DSP ambiance synthesis, working with two-channel CD source material, has proved to me that this technology can simulate a live-music, concert-hall effect as well as what we get with any number of multi-channel releases. Yes, it does take a good DSP device (receiver or processor) to do this, but it can be done. Best of all, the processing allows most of one's entire CD collection to immediately have the sonic impact of the new multi-channel, 5.1 formats.

Admittedly, if one wants discrete sound or sound effects from the surround channels (SOP with a lot of multi-channel rock recordings) no DSP program working with two-channel sources will be able to compete with multi-channel. However, for acoustic-music hall simulations I see no reason why SACD or DVD-A should have an edge over DSP-enhanced two-channel material.

Unfortunately, the problem is that certain reviewers and PR word-spinners laud these new multi-channel technologies not just because of the "multi-channels," but because of the supposed per-channel improvement. That is, they profess that the measurable expanded dynamic range and greater bandwidth (as well as other, mysterious characteristics that cannot be quantified) somehow deliver cleaner subjective sound than the CD. For proof, they may refer to the various reissued older recordings some outfits are offering.

Going further, and regarding some of those reissues, a handful of enthusiasts (including some pop-music performers and recording engineers) indicate that SACD and DVD-A finally allow digital to sound as good as analog. They say this in spite of the fact that LP-style analog is already inferior to the CD, particularly when it comes to bandwidth, speed errors, distortion, and background noise. How can the new super formats do a better job of simulating analog when analog is already inferior to the CD? Oops, it must be those above noted "mysterious characteristics that cannot be quantified."

Now I need to be candid. While I have yet to audition any SACD releases on my own home systems, I have listened to quite a few DVD-A reissues on them, and for the most part they were not much more than space-enhanced or gimmick-loaded versions of the two-channel versions that came before. Given that recording and mixing engineers may be encouraged to diddle with and soup up the sound of the reissues (trust me, this can be done), there is no way to know for sure if the supposed improvements are the result of the new technology or the diddling.

Ironically, I have diddled with a few CDs myself on my home systems: applying (1) dynamic range expansion, (2) subharmonic bass synthesis, and of course (3) DSP surround enhancements. These tricks often delivered results that were considerably more impressive than what I heard with the unprocessed original versions. Incidentally, while it is productive to apply the first two processes with some pop/rock material, with classical and acoustic jazz music anything other than the application of surround enhancement will usually result in a mess.

So where does this leave us? Well, I think that SACD and DVD-A could work very well indeed if they were implemented properly, and in many cases we have ended up with some very good material. However, they often are not all that impressive. (See my Skeptimania column in issue 91 for some observations regarding DVD-A vs DD and DTS.)

Yeah, in terms of per-channel perfection all of them (CD, DD, DTS, SACD, and DVD-A) have the potential to sound pretty much equally clean--with the CD only falling behind if you consider the number of channels. And if you apply some good DSP ambiance synthesis to a two-channel CD all bets are off.

--HF