Hi-End — Part I
I am a long life music listener, here’s what I’ve learned over time and (my) priorities for great listening:
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1) A room with requisites: there are no ideal rooms and all have to be treated more or less. It is useless to spend a lot of money on excellent systems to fit them in an untreated room, the sound will still be mediocre and the economic investment will not give the desired return. Often the aesthetics of the room conflicts with the need for its correct treatment and we have to choose (accepting few compromises). The music room is for listening to music with your ears (maybe with eyes closed), design and aesthetics are not priorities. I built a music room fitting the Bolt area and then treated it to get the best sound.
2) Correct positioning of equipment. The speakers must be positioned to reproduce the sound scene as faithfully as possible (it is always a matter of psycho-acoustics, therefore personal). It would be better to avoid placing hi-fi equipment between the speakers, the turntable certainly should not be placed there. I have placed the equipment on the longest side of the room beyond the listening point.
3) Everything else: devices, loudspeakers, cables, DSP filters (which must be managed very carefully to not introduce distortions and unnatural listening), and so on. More than the value of the individual devices it is a balanced sound chain that makes the difference… a lot for those who know how to listen.
