Sorrrry, me very very bad inglish speaking

Posted by: Cheese on 21 February 2001

Hi,

In this forum, I've often read the term "flat-earth". The significance of this remains a total mystery to me. Does any good soul want to explain me the meaning and the way it is used in Hifi-World ?

Many thanks.

Bernard

Posted on: 21 February 2001 by Arye_Gur

Here is a story - everyone can understand what he wants.
Eizer Vaizman, The Israely former president, was the commander of the Israeli air force.
In his book he tels, that when he was a commander of an Air force base, and of course he was then a
very experience pilot, he took a flight (as a pilot of course) on a Votur air craft.
Wile flying, he had a failure on the plan - and he had to emty at once the fuel of the wings.
There was a procedure to do it - but he forgot how.
As time went on, the problem became more and more critical - but he didn't have the brave (as an experience pilot and a commander of an Airforce base) to ask how to emty the fuel.
Lucky he was, at the same time, a young pilot that had a similar problem, asked the air control how to empty the fuel - and Eizer could listen and act to the instructions the young pilot recieved.

Arye

Posted on: 21 February 2001 by Cheese

Me not only bad inglish speaker but me probabbly also fool bikoz me no see the point confused

Bernard

Posted on: 21 February 2001 by Cheese

Many thanks for the clear answer and the links. Something still doesn't look clear to me: does the term "round-earth" implicate surround-crap gear or can you consider a well-staged system (and where it becomes difficult to locate the speakers) already as "round-earth" ?

The thing is, I'm quite happy with my (virtually unknown) belgian Holophone speakers. They are slow, have no bass and have decidedly nothing to do with the accuracy of Naim gear. They sound far better than actual surround-crap (and they are not "omnipresent" like it). A church organ sound brilliant on Holophones, for instance.

Now, can I consider myself being a "round-earth" aficionado or did I catch it wrong ?

Bernard

Posted on: 21 February 2001 by Ron Toolsie

The application of 'Flat Earth' to audio reproduction was a self deprecating term used by exponents and users of the Linn/Naim systems of olde, who espoused that anything BUT a linn/naim system was unmusical when judged by certain parameters that had only just began to be recognized. I remember when the wow/flutter specification of a turntable was the sole criterion for selecting one table over another. For adopting such a limited and seemingly tunnel-visioned perspective a parallel was drawn to the luddites who refused to believe that the earth was round even in the face of compelling evidence.

What is ironic that the 'flat earthers' ran into great inertia when attempting to convince the objectivists (round earthers) that a turntable (ie the Linn) could have fundamental subjective superiorities over any other, including those with better w&F specifications. By refusing to believe or to listen with their ears instead of their eyes, those round earthers had taken on a flat-earthean and closed-minded disbelief.

The importance of having imaging and soundstaging has both been over and underestimated. Suffice it to say it is nice when they are well done, and that a system that times like a bastard cannot have a decent soundstage. A great deal of what enables those round-earth properties is the speaker design and the speaker/room interface. Naim electronics can allow a very seductive soundstage as I found out when I used them with Sonus Faber Extremas- and without the expense of poor flat earth attributes either. You CAN have a system that does both very well. I have even heard Kans producing a very credible soundstage. Isobariks by design however were incapable of even suggesting a soundstage. Their strengths, like those of the DBLs were the ability to sound fantastic and compelling irrespective of the listeners position, and in so doing being able to entertain more than one person at a time.

Where all-naim systems 'fail' in round earth attributes lies almost entirely at their range of speakers. The baffles of DBLs are way, WAY too wide for them to act as a point source, except from extreme distances. Likewise using speakers in a wall-loaded installation will cause certain predictable interferences that, um, intefer with the soundstaging properties.

Any one heard ESL57s on the end of a naim system.

Ron
Dum spiro audio
Dum audio vivo

http://homepages.go.com/~rontoolsie/index1.html

Posted on: 21 February 2001 by bam

Hi Bernard,
What a great question. I'm sure all the replies are right. I must admit I thought the term derived from the days when explorers reckoned the world was flat and that if you ventured beyond the edges you would fall into oblivion. There was the "round earth" herectics who claimed we live on a ball. I guess it took Columbus' bravery to venture forth to the West Indes to prove it.

I think the self-depricating, modesty of flat-earth audiophiles is to be praised. Personally, I believe the earth is in fact round and so a flat-earth sound is a distortion of reality. To my ears it is. That's not to say it's not enjoyable to listen to. To me having the most realistic sound is to be round-earth.

BAM
(I want it all - and why not?)

PS: I have no idea what Ayre is on about either!

Posted on: 21 February 2001 by Steve Toy

Here is a great myth playing on some silly semantic argument. The two are not mutually exclusive in terms of what equipment can offer. I suppose it is a question of priorities where there is a genuine trade-off and an ensuing sacrifice has to be made, the one against the other. I would put musical cohesion first, I.e: so-called Flat Earth. But it is wonderful to hear pace, rhythmn and timing also have some 3-dimensional movement in space, as with certain types of dance music for example, which uses synthesisers etc, where rapid rhthmic effects move around in front of your ears/eyes!
I go for TARDIS, TIMING and relative dimension in Space. Naim CAN do it, and does, so let's lay to rest one very, very SILLY argument!!!
PS: Vinyl has very 3D qualities, and so does the CD5, which is why I bought it. So why the crap absolutist debates on this subject!!!

[This message was edited by steven toy on THURSDAY 22 February 2001 at 04:16.]

Posted on: 22 February 2001 by Ron Toolsie

quote:
Has any fundamentalist flat-earther ever set up a completely mono single speaker system for the ultimate in PRat at the expense of imaging?

One of the reasons why vinyl 'soundstages' better than CD is the fact that the channel separation is at best abysmal. When the azimuth is perfectly adjusted you would be lucky to get 20dB separation (as compared to 90-plus dB on a $100 CD player). This degree of cross talk between channels floats an image that can enhance the listening experience.

Using the mono button too can make many recordings sound 'better'. I guarantee you if you sat a bunch of audiophiles down infront of a decent system with the mono button engaged, they would all be very complimentary as to how well the system imaged, because the sound would appear to be coming anywhere but from the speakers.
Having a single speaker placed centrally probably would have much of the same effect, but for some reason having 2 speakers mono-ed lends the extra dimension of 'depth' probably because of slight phase inteferrences between the speakers- an artefact, but a nice one at that.

Ron
Dum spiro audio
Dum audio vivo

http://homepages.go.com/~rontoolsie/index1.html

Posted on: 22 February 2001 by Eric Barry

Using your senses instead of measurements.

Following the tune instead of prioritizing imaging or tone (thus the music produced is 2-D (plus time) instead of 3-D in space with poor timing.

Clinging to a dogma (in this case Naim/source-first/PRaT) against prevailing "rational" opinions.

--Eric

Posted on: 22 February 2001 by Tim Jones

This is all well and good - but I'm really dying to hear WTF Arie was on about with his Israeli Air Force anecdote....

Tim J

Posted on: 23 February 2001 by Rico

quote:
Sweet spots are for nerds who can't dance.

Pigsie - That is most quotable!

Rico - musichead

Posted on: 23 February 2001 by Arye_Gur

Arye

Posted on: 23 February 2001 by Cheese

Thank you, Patrick. I'd never thought I could one day save someone else's life.

Reminds me of "Forrest Gump".

Bernard

Posted on: 23 February 2001 by Cheese

... because when I look at the quantity of incoming posts regarding the topic title I've set,
I wonder what would have happened if I had simply chosen the title "flat-earth vs. round-earth" !!! I think it would have wrecked the infopop server.

Thanks for all answers. But I am now somewhat confused about what I should think about flat-earth vs. round-earth.

I know, I will upset many people. But given the results, I'd just say: does it really matter if you have a pair of ears, a heart to feel and a mind that enables you to decide for yourself ?

Thanks again.

Bernard