SPEAKER_02 0:16

Hi, Kimmy.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Hi, Lou.

SPEAKER_02 0:18

How are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 0:20

I'm great. How are you?

SPEAKER_02 0:21

How are you hearing things?

SPEAKER_00 0:23

I I'm hearing them fine. Why does this feel once again like one of Lou's very like uh not at all obvious segues to what we're about to talk about?

SPEAKER_02 0:37

It's like we're probably just not a great segue, but that's okay. It's I'd love it.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

You know, I'm here. I feel like this is your this is your um, this is just like who you are. This is like your brand is so you're just accepting. I'm accepting of it. Yeah. That's that's fantastic. I love that. I really I really accept it. Oh, that's wonderful. Just accepting you.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

Um, so I interviewed Taryn, who is the British audiophile, and he's the quintessential person that we'd love to have on the show because he left his job after starting this YouTube channel and does a YouTube channel full time. His attitude is amazing, his knowledge is extensive, and he's the most chill person I think I've ever interviewed. He's really, really cool. Um as you were just saying offline, his ethos is you don't have to spend a ton of dough, you just have to have it set up properly.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Yeah, which I love, you know. I think that's I think most people think they need to have the most expensive equipment. It's the same thing goes for music. People think they need to have like so much money to start, and it's really just like about making use of what you have.

SPEAKER_02 1:52

Absolutely right. And and buying a few key ingredients.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

And the what I like also about Taryn is that he is very non-judgmental. He's very, he he's not a snob.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Let me tell you, in the audio world, that is actually a unicorn. That is what we call a unicorn. A guy, a guy specifically in the audio world that is not a snob. That is a unicorn.

SPEAKER_02 2:20

No. Um, and and he and he goes deep on the really expensive stuff. I mean, I saw one of his videos and he unboxed a $15,000 turntable.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Casual.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

Casual.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

You're like, that's like that's my rent for the year.

SPEAKER_02 2:35

100%. But um, but he he has um he has a very approachable nature. His it's almost meditative to watch him talk about stuff because he he delivers it in a way that anybody can understand, and he delivers it in a way that gets you excited without feeling like you're being judged, which I think is amazing. And and also uh just and and again, the fact that he has created this space and he makes a living off it now. He left his other job. Uh, is he is our people, completely our people.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

100%. So cool. Well, how about we listen to the episode so everyone can knows what we're talking about?

SPEAKER_02 3:15

Absolutely right.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

This is a real treat to be able to talk to you because I've uh found your information just amazing.

SPEAKER_03 3:31

Well, it's a pleasure to be here, actually. So uh like I say I don't do podcasts very often. I'm a bit of a newbie, but uh excited to be here.

SPEAKER_02 3:39

Yeah, I know. This is it's it's really good. The um uh I but I have to this is sort of almost a confessional because I have to tell you about my childhood a little bit. So we're gonna go deep into my childhood. You can do my therapist, it'll be great. That's fine. When I when I was eight years old, um I found my a real to real tape recorder that belonged to my uncle. And he had, for whatever reason, a real to real version of Mozart. And so I set it up in my closet and had this whole studio set up that did nothing except play this one Mozart tape. But it was my first introduction to putting on headphones and listening to sound really well, and it was very exciting to me, but I didn't know why.

SPEAKER_03 4:20

Well, what a way to start, real to real. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

Exactly, right? And then after that, I like when I was a teenager, my um, or I guess I guess this is about yeah, 14 or 15 years old. My friend's older brother, who was the cool guy, um, got a pair of do you remember this brand, Soundcraftsman?

SPEAKER_03 4:40

No, I'm not familiar with that.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

It might be, is it exclusive to the USA? It might have been exclusive to the USA. I think they were out of Washington State or something like that. And they sent you a kit and the speakers, and you assembled the cabinet yourself, and then you glued the speakers in with silicon. And we listened to Black Sabbath on these speakers with an Ankyo integrated amp, and it was amazing. And that was my sort of first introduction to really good audio. And I, you know, continued to pursue it a little bit, had a nice little setup during college, and then I, you know, then my life became very, very busy, and I started traveling all the time. And then I found you because I I wanted to set up another stereo system. And it the thing is, is that you present information in a way that is so accessible, and you're not a snob, and I love you for that.

SPEAKER_03 5:38

Oh, thank you. That's very kind. Yeah. So yeah, go ahead. I was hoping it'd come across like that. You never know how he how you've perceived, but right. You hope it comes across like that. It's um there is a lot of snobbery in in uh hi-fi. I don't know where it comes from. Um, but uh there shouldn't be. There's no reason for there to be.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

There's no reason for it. No, I mean, and and do you think it's because you can get into gear that's so ridiculously expensive? Or you know, I always wondered about the the socio, the the sort of like psychology behind people get really snobby about hi-fi gear. What's your take on that?

SPEAKER_03 6:16

There's certainly a demographic of people that are attracted to hi-fi. Generally, we we we it's generally male, it's not exclusively male, but I think um certainly, I mean, women here generally better than men. So uh you know, my wife's got a fantastic ear. She just couldn't care, she couldn't care less about all the audio gear. So I think people people are attracted. I mean, as much as people say they're not, they're attracted by the gear as well. Right. Um, they like the toys, it's you know, it's um it's so uh it's a very boy. Yeah, and yeah, and I think it's the it's traditionally been a lot of middle-aged men who, you know, once their kids have grown up, they've got a spare room and they think, okay, we'll spend some money on some hi-fi, and then it gets a bit bit serious.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

It's sort of like the middle-aged crisis. Yeah, it shouldn't be. Yeah, some people buy um, some people buy convertibles and other people buy uh very high-end amps. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that, but I think No, no, it's not. It there should it should appeal to a much broader demographic than that. Yeah, I think it should too. And and that's part of why I'm I uh I like your channel a lot because um I showed it to my wife and she immediately understood what you were saying. She was not to say that she's not she's very, very smart, but this isn't a um uh uh zone of interest or passion for her. But the way you present things in a very sort of calm considered way, it's it's lack of a better way to put this, is like you're very attractive to watch because you you uh immediately come off as very trustworthy.

SPEAKER_03 8:00

Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

Yeah, and so she got intrigued by what you were saying. And I think that's a big part of the overall is as we're talking, this is gonna be the third part in a series about sound. And I think that with the advent of technology, people are listening to music and movies on various subpar equipment. And I'm not saying that and you present this very well, you don't have to go out and spend a fortune to do that, but you should up-level a little bit. And how did you get into it? Let's let's start there, actually.

SPEAKER_03 8:36

Yeah, so I've um my father took me down to a hi-fi shop when I was, I think, about 13, 14 years old. And he's I was I was interested in music. I had a ghetto blaster in my room. Right. I was listening, I was listening to the chart show, and uh, you know, basically bootlegging my my little cassettes, trying to, you know, the tracks that I I like when they used to come on the top 40. I used to try and try and record those on this little ghetto blaster, play them. So he he he saw that there was an interest in music, and um we come from an Indian background, and he had an interest in uh Indian classical and semi-classical music. We've got we've got um some people in the family who are who are classical musicians, uh my mum's my mum's uh cousin. Oh and uh and uh so they they used to come around and visit, and uh they got eventually became very rich and famous, and so we saw less of them. But when they when when when they when they weren't quite so big, uh they used to come around and we used to see them quite regularly. And uh and uh so so there was an introduction, an interest there from my dad, there was an interest there for me. He took me down to a hi-fi shop, I listened to a decent hi-fi, and I was hooked. Oh wow. It was just like, oh my god, this is what music can sound like.

SPEAKER_02 10:00

Yeah, no kidding. And and I want to talk to you a little bit about um the art of listening. Okay, so um when you listen to music on really good gear, and it doesn't have to be spectacular gear, it just has to be good. Um, it can really change your relationship to the music. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_03 10:21

Yeah, for me it's kind of it's transformative. Um you I can it it is sometimes quite a solitary pursuit because you're doing it by yourself if you're kind of critically listening. Um although it's really fun to do it with friends, um, but I can put on a recording and it takes me somewhere else. You know, absolutely turn the lights down low, and if you've got a system that's good enough, and you're absolutely right, you don't have to spend fortunes to to get there, right? Um you're just you just feel like you're much closer to the performance. Absolutely uh and you know, sitting on your couch, you're transported around the world with all these different experiences.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

Well, I also find that in in the age of of all this digital stuff and phones and things like that, now that I've uh we were very lucky a friend of ours gave us some um LPs to um to play, and I didn't have uh uh uh turntable. And I bought one, and my wife was so caught up in the magic of like putting an LP on and turning the turntable on that we we now watch less TV and just sit and have listening sessions. And we'll sit there and we'll kind of chat a little bit, but not a lot, and listen to the music, and it's really quite an experience. So I'm interested in you just started getting into um um LPs, right? Is that accurate?

SPEAKER_03 11:51

Yes, that's right. I so I'm I'm the generation that grew up with um with CDs. So are you? Okay, so you you're a lot younger than me. Okay, got it. Yeah, so I'm kind of I'm in my mid-50s, so uh I grew up I grew up with uh CDs, and if I had been 10 years older, I'd have grown up with vinyl. Um so it was just it was just always friends that had it and other people who had it, but I I never really got involved in it. And um obviously vinyl went away in the 90s and the early 2000s, it's it started to late 2000s, maybe in the last 10-15 years, I say it's come back in a big way. And and I think it's partly because everything's so fast and so immediate. Yeah, uh, you know, streaming is very accessible, very convenient. And I still stream, I still listen to a lot of the digital. But what I'm enjoying about the vinyl is it's forcing me to well, it's not forcing me, it's guiding me to be a kind of listener that I wasn't before. CDs, you could get away with skipping tracks quite easily. I don't think I'd play that many CDs from start to finish. I'd play the tracks I wanted to play and then skip to the next one. I see. And um I've got about 600 CDs that I accumulated over to that time. And then about 10 years ago, what I did was I um transferred all of them onto a hard drive and plugged them on the back of my streamer.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 13:19

And and then started putting together playlists because some of the stuff you can't get on streaming. So um, and that was I found that once I did that, I was listening to music more and more. I see. Because then you've got the music that you like, uh, it's immediately available, you can skip endlessly without having to even get up off your backside and swap out a CD. Um and that's that's what my experience for the last 15 years has been listening to music and spent a lot of time listening to music uh and and doing that. Vinyl has forced me to appreciate what the artist has done. And it's not I've been selective about the albums I've chosen, yeah, but you get you get a sense of of that whole record, which I've never really listened to for 30, 40 years. I've very rarely listened to old records apart from the ones which are absolute favourites.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

Right. That's interesting, okay.

SPEAKER_03 14:17

And it forces you to slow down, it forces you to engage, and and you give things a chance that you wouldn't have given a chance because it's so immediate. Right. And and the biggest surprise, or one of the biggest surprises, is that actually some of those things that you would wouldn't possibly have given a chance to turn out to be very enjoyable, and you could start enjoying those rec um those tracks on the record more. Yes. So not not the big hits that you always thought, oh wow, well, okay, everybody knows those, I know those, and those, you know, and and because you're forced to listen to the whole thing. And then there's an appreciation.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

And and I think it also brings an appreciation for the narrative um the narrative path that the artist wanted you to hear. Because if you listen to uh an album now, you there is a there is a madness or there's a the there's meaning behind the selection of the tracks in the order that they appear in according to how the artist made it. Um and it's fascinating to me that a lot of that that that gets skipped over, but artists are still making, like Kimmy will definitely vouch for me on this, artists are still making albums in their head when they're putting series of songs together. And whether they get enjoyed that way or not is out of their control, but I think that's how they think. And I think that there's um something to be said for um listening to that and and listening to the album and then flipping it over. I it is it was a little bizarre for me though that like when the album ended, it was only 20 minutes or something.

SPEAKER_03 15:55

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, no, the certainly I think I hope that's still the case. I mean, Kimmy will obviously be able to to inform us a lot more about how much that goes on in the industry now. But certainly in the age of analog, before digital took over, when records were much shorter in span than you could get probably maybe eight tracks typically on a record, whereas you get eleven or twelve onto a CD. Right. Um, there was a lot of thought that went into how those tracks were arranged. And I think uh I'm sure I'm sure it probably still goes on today.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

I think so too. I was reading, I've just finished a book by Kim Thyle, who's the um uh guitarist for Soundgarden, and his his book is fascinating on the creative process of creating the songs, and they have so much more, even as Soundgarden broke up and before Chris Cornell passed away, he said that they had just a mountain of songs that they were trying out and things that they would lay down and four-track, and and and there's so many songs that are out there that are almost looking for a narrative home in a weird way that I think that happens to a lot of bands. And I think as listeners, there's something to be said for listening to it in order at least once, and then sort of picking out your favorites and making them playlist. I think there's a happy medium between the two. What do you what are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_03 17:19

Yeah, no, I think um, yeah, there's there's a lot of appeal to vinyl. There's the appeal of the physical media itself, you know, the actual record itself, the cover art, um, reading the liner notes, all of that. The fact that you you you know you you can't skip so easily, slowing down forces you to engage, um, listening to the whole album. It's the whole experience, it's quite different. And and you do get a generally a greater appreciation for what the artist intended.

SPEAKER_02 17:50

Let's talk about the technical aspects of of vinyl. Do you find that it I now this is I'm clearly not as skilled at you in in understanding the gear and how what it can offer, but do you find it's richer? Do you find it what what's your take on on the on how it sounds versus digital? And you and you have very high-end digital stuff. So when you're streaming digital, you it's it's beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 18:16

Yeah, so I'm I'm still early on, so I don't want to um pre-judge it too much, but I've been exposed to vinyl all my life, even though I'm not necessarily had it in my home. I've heard all kinds of vinyl systems from from you know a few hundred pounds to you know ridiculous ridiculous figures. There's turntables out there that cost half a million pounds, you know. Oh my god. So so so uh so it gets it gets crazy. And there's not one sound. Um, you know, they all can sound very different, how the turntable sounds, how the tonearm and cartridge, the phono stage, all of those are very critical components that influence the sound in particular directions. So there's not there are but I think there are certain things that vinyl and digital do well easily. And then it's and it's harder, it you have to put a bit more work in to get the other things. Right. Um to you know, so digital does some things very easily. Um, so most digital systems, you know, even ones which haven't been very carefully put together, will do some things very well. Um and I think that's also true of vinyl. They they and my general view is that you get a very crisp, clear sound from digital, yes, but it can sound if you're playing acoustic instruments um and listening to vocals, it can sound a little artificial.

SPEAKER_02 19:45

I see. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 19:48

So so that's not to say that all digital systems sound like that. The work is so is it fairly easy to get a quite resolving digital system? Yes. Is it easy to get one that has very good spatial dimensions and natural tonality? Not quite so easy. I see. Um so um, and then vinyl kind of is the opposite. There is a little bit of it naturally tends to soften the edges. Now there are some vinyl systems that don't do that, but um, naturally there tends to be a bit softer, um, a bit more uh there tends to be a bit more acoustic mass to things, but more in a realistic way. Um and it does spatial presentations. Well, I'm talking about spatial presentation is soundstage depth, soundstage width, the placement of performers within that. It seems to lend that, it lends itself to that much more easily than digital.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

Do you have to find it with digital? So I I love this idea of talking about soundstage, and and from my understanding of soundstage, it's it's if the if the cellist was up front and the paces is in the back. And is that sort of what we're talking about with soundstage?

SPEAKER_03 21:01

Yeah, so the performers in a good stereo system, because you've got you know, time delay between one ear and the other into oral delay. Right. And I and our we have evolved as a species, as a survival instinct, to be very you know, very attuned to uh placing sounds in space. Spatial awareness type of thing. Yes. So in a good system, you should be able to close your eyes and you should be able to almost reach out and touch where those performers are, and whether they're beh behind each other or in front of each other, it's all to do with how they're mic'd. And some of it can be done artificially through post-production as well. But but the but the manipulation of the signal, and there's a little bit of controversy about this. Not everybody necessarily agrees, but my view is the more manipulation that you do of the signal, especially in the digital domain, um that that that timing information is very fragile. And it's very much more easily corrupted in the digital domain than it is in the analog domain. I think there's probably very little dispute about that. So that's the reason why you can get a relatively modest turntable system that will have very good spatial width. So the sound will extend beyond performers will extend beyond the width of the speakers. There'll be depth to it. You'll see that you'll be able to hear that one performer is behind another. And it's because those those things aren't so fragile in the analog domain as they are in the digital domain. There's there's technical reasons for that. There's things called pre-ringing and digital filtering does all kinds of things. PCM signal manipulation does all signs of things. And there's artifacts that that um that uh interrupt that um timing information.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

Um and one of the things that I I would like to really emphasize as we're sitting here talking, that um a listening session doesn't have to be precious. You know, I think I think from sort of doing like a little survey among my friends about who who have stereosystems and don't have stereo systems, and I was gonna in my anticipation in talking to you that people say, Well, I don't have that kind of time to sit down and listen to music. And it it doesn't have to be so precious. It's like you know, go in the room, turn down the lights, turn the music on, and just sit for 10-15 minutes and then let the rest take you almost. Do you know what I mean? So you just have to take that first step and not and understand that it's not this big, huge ceremonial thing, right? Which I think has kind of followed the the audiophile space a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 23:47

Yeah, I think there are a lot of people in the audiophile space who you know who will sit down. Like I described earlier. I tend to sit, I don't exclusively sit on my own, but I I quite often sit on my own and listen. And for me, it's kind of like a spiritual experience. Right. I think there'll be probably plenty of audiophiles that will relate to that. Yeah. But I've got friends, but that doesn't mean that's all I do. I have three stereo systems in my house, and they're generally always music playing somewhere. And uh and you know, I like music playing in the background when I'm doing other things, and um and um I I enjoy that. So um so and I've got friends who spend most of their time doing that, and they you can design a system so that it sounds very good as you're doing that, as you're walking around the room. So you know, it's all to do with the dispersion of the speakers. So if you've got speakers that have what they call controlled directivity, so um they'll they'll they have provide a very even sound across the room, and they're they're you know, so for people who spend a lot of their time listening in that way, um, that's a beneficial thing to do.

SPEAKER_02 24:59

I think that leads us into another topic of conversation I wanted to touch on with you is speaker positioning, because you really talk about um if you've got a thick carpet and you position the speakers so they're sort of almost looking over your shoulders. That I think one of the things that I learned from you very specifically is like you get the subwoofer and it has so much power, and you said to tune it down to so it's barely existing. So if you're noticing the subwoofer, you're it's it's not doing its job. But if you're not noticing the subwoofer, then it's doing its job perfectly.

SPEAKER_03 25:36

That's right. Yeah. So there's two different requirements for a subwoofer. A lot of people have subwoofers for movies where where it's about SPL and rumble and you know, and you want the subwoofer, the subwoofer has to work quite hard. Yes. Um, whereas what you're doing in a hi-fi system is you're extending naturally that, you know, most speakers, most stand mount speakers will roll off at 50 hertz, and most uh floor standing speakers or tower speakers, I think um they're referred to in the US will probably go down to if you're lucky, kind of mid-30s. Um, there's not a huge amount of musical information. There aren't that many instruments that play down, I mean, unless you're playing electronic music, that play down below mid-30s. But there are some psycho-acoustic effects that come into play.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_03 26:28

And again, I'm not an expert on this area, but um time and time again, you know, people will tell you if you add a sub offer, it opens up the space. So that sound stage that we talked about opens up more. And I think there must be some low frequency ambisonics, that's all I can think of. Um, again, it'd you know be interesting to see if there was any research done on this. Um, so if the recording's in a big space, there must be some spatial cues or something that that we're not necessarily hearing directly that our brain then perceives as right, you're in a bigger space.

SPEAKER_02 27:09

That is interesting. It's almost like there's in in the visual medium, uh, people talk to me about glare and and and polarized lenses and all this type of stuff. And glare is non-imaging light, it's just light. It's just, and I think in the the lower 30s, um, as you're talking about, that's it's not really sound that's image, but it's it's important to the overall effect of the of the of the music. Does that sound about right?

SPEAKER_03 27:37

Yeah, so there's there's something. So again, so you know, I'm like I say, I don't I don't want to talk off the top of my head about it because I'm not an expert in this field, but um there's some kind of psychoacoustic effect of adding a subwoofer, even if the musical information, even if the bass drum isn't kicking at you know 20 odd hertz, right by adding the subwoofer, there's something about that that opens up the space. Um but um it wants to be subtle. You don't want it to be, you know, you don't want you don't want to hear any boom because then you you're trying to maintain fidelity. Right. And subwoofer has a hard job with music trying to keep up with the speed of the music. So you don't want also the subwoofer to play up too loud. So so I think a lot of people who have subwoofers tune them because they tune them for home cinema, where they where they play louder and they play up further up the range. And you know, there's some people who also what they tend to do is they tend to filter their main speakers off early. Right. Um so that's that's that's an approach that I don't particularly take. There's some people who do that because in order to filter your speakers off, you have to put a dig generally if you're talking in the digital domain, you're putting a digital filter in that you can do it analogly as well. And um, you know, as soon as you put a filter in any system, you're degrading the sound to some extent. Well, you're putting something in the way.

SPEAKER_02 29:05

Really? Yes. It again in reading this this um autobiography by um Kim Thyle, they were talking about how they have guitars backstage that are tuned for certain songs. And so there's a and then there were certain producers who would record drums in a one way which didn't fit with the sound garden sound, so to speak. And they they had a lot of problem producers and stuff like that. So as I'm reading that and I'm watching your videos, and you know, you go from the very high, high, high end. I mean, I think I saw you unboxing a 15,000-pound turntable or something recently. And I was looking at like, wow, just don't get that anywhere near me. I just I'm gonna just ooh, but it was very pretty. Um but as I'm looking at all this stuff, and and again, you have this incredibly approachable way to talk about these things that people it's distilled down to a language that anyone can understand, which I really appreciate because then it piques your interest instead of being off-putting. And but I thought about the way things are recorded and then the way things are listened to. That um where's is there any such thing as pure? Do you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_03 30:21

Yeah, there's a reference for pure, and the reference for okay, the reference for pure is listening in an acoustic in an acoustically suitable space to unamplified acoustic instruments.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 30:37

So if you go and listen to people where there's no electronics, there's no no, you know, no, uh, and you're listening in a suitable environment, that's as that's as good as it gets. So before hi-fi is invented, people want to listen to music, that's how they listen to music, didn't get purer than that. Right. And what we're trying to do is get as close to that as you possibly can. And all hi-fi systems fail at that. So it's just a question of the degree of the failure.

SPEAKER_02 31:06

That is amazing, and this is why you're so good at what you do.

SPEAKER_03 31:11

So um brilliant. Oh my god. And I think the um the trick is yeah, you don't have to spend a lot of money. The trick is to understand what compromises suit you best. So where what so knowing what you want is part of the battle, but also knowing what you're prepared to give up is a part of the battle.

SPEAKER_02 31:33

Well, and it also comes down to brand awareness and brand this and brand that and advertising. And you really have to sort of separate your own feelings from what you're being presented in a lot of ways in terms of marketing. Is that accurate, do you think?

SPEAKER_03 31:51

Well, it's very hard these days. And back in when I was getting into hi-fi, there were lots of dealers where you could go and listen. And there was good dealers, there were good dealers and bad dealers, but you know, plenty of good dealers where you could go and listen and learn. Now people, those dealers aren't there. Um, a lot of it's gone online. And people people have to rely on reviews or going to hi-fi shows if they have one accessible, even those aren't that accessible. Um and what you have to look for is consistency amongst the reviews. So not if something sounds there's no such thing as the best thing is the you know what suits you. Right. Um, but if uh you know, if three people say that this product has a slightly brighter presentation than another product, then you can conclude that it's probably likely to be on that brighter side. Right. So consist consistency amongst reviews, um, if they're picking up certain traits. Now they'll have certain preferences. I have certain preferences. When I first started reviewing, I tried to think, well, actually, I need to put my preferences totally aside. And I realize that that's an impossible undertaking. Your enthusiasm naturally comes through for some products more than others.

SPEAKER_02 33:01

Right. It's just like the photographer can never be the pure photographer, right? You know.

SPEAKER_03 33:05

Right. Right. Yes, yeah. And so you just you just have to be aware of your biases and then make sure that you let people know about them.

SPEAKER_02 33:15

And what what would you say to to now to call you out a little bit, what would you say is your bias, like when you're listening to music?

SPEAKER_03 33:24

So I tend to this, so I categorize sound in a number of much more complex ways, but three basic ways, three or four basic ways. So one is fidelity, how much resolution you're getting off the system, how much information is coming off the recording. Um, the other is tonality, how and then tonality is how close that sounds. So if you're playing a you know, an acoustic guitar, does it sound like an acoustic guitar? You know, how how natural the sound is, and the other is scale and dynamics, which I put in together. You know, can you explain scale and dynamics a little bit? So scale is the sound stage. Okay. So that comes into timing because as soon as you corrupt anything in your chain, it's not just speakers. Soundstage is not just about speakers, it has to be preserved all the way from the recording itself through your whatever you know, source material, whether it's a CD player or turntable, whether you're using external DAX, through your amplifier, anything that corrupts the timing information will will uh impact on the soundstage.

SPEAKER_02 34:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 34:32

The speakers have the biggest influence, but they're not solely responsible for producing a great soundstage. Um so um, so that's scale. So how wide, how deep the sound is, um, how precise the location of those sounds of what we call imaging, how close, uh, you know, how well how well centered those things are or how physically well located they are within the sound stage. Dynamics is the ability for it to shift gears between loud and soft.

SPEAKER_02 35:02

Oh, interesting. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 35:04

So generally I'll ask people what are those of those three, if you had to prioritize them, in which order would you prioritize them? And it can be a bit difficult because you ideally you want all three. Right.

SPEAKER_02 35:17

So you know why I can't have them all, damn it.

SPEAKER_03 35:20

Yeah, but there'll be one which will be more of a priority than others. Right. And um for me, I suppose it would be tonality ahead of resolution and then ahead of scalar dynamics. Interesting. And and why is that, do you think? I can listen to if something sounds um unnatural, I find that um I get very fatigued very quickly.

SPEAKER_02 35:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 35:48

Okay, so uh um no, no, don't get me wrong, I'm like everybody else, I'm trying working very hard to get all three. Right, no, fair point. But um I want I can listen to something which has got uh a nice tone and lacks resolution for a lot longer than I can listen to something that's got resolution and sounds artificial or sounds you know edgy or something hard. Right. So tonality comes first. I want things to sound natural, yes. Um, and then I want as much resolution as I possibly can. And then, you know, we we live in small houses in the UK, and right, you know, there's only so much scale and dynamics you can you can have. You're not really exactly you're not you're not gonna circumnavigate the laws of physics.

SPEAKER_02 36:32

Right. Um interesting, just to touch back on fatigue for a second. Uh when I was talking to Tom Myers, who's a sound designer for movies, he was talking about how he can get ear fatigue and suddenly he can't make any more oral decisions. And I think what I'm hearing from you is the same thing happens in listening to music, that if if your ears get fatigued, then nothing will sound good.

SPEAKER_03 36:57

Yeah, so it's to do with harmonics, I think, um, and certain types of distortion. So intermodulation distortion, which is, you know, frequencies that shouldn't be there in the first place. Right. Are very fatiguing. Higher order harmonics, so second harmonics are quite pleasing. You actually, you know, there are people who make a very good living in the hi-fi industry by adding second harmonic distortion into their equipment.

SPEAKER_01 37:23

Right.

SPEAKER_03 37:24

And and uh and I'm sure they do it in the recording industry as well. Yeah. But uh and third, you can get away with but anything once you go up to higher order and especially um even higher order harmonics, it's it's like those tend to be very fatiguing.

SPEAKER_02 37:38

Yeah, I could see that. So when would you say that you started calling yourself an audiophile?

SPEAKER_03 37:43

Well, I think it's probably pretty early on, because my category for an audiophile is only there's only two things you need to be to be an audiophile. Uh one is that you have to love music, right? And the sec second is you need to care about how it sounds. That's that's that's the only two criteria I think are valid for an audiophile. Now, if someone's listening on a pair of invested 80 pounds on a pair of I uh you know IEMs because it's an improvement over their 20 pound ones and they're enjoying the music more, they're an audiophile.

SPEAKER_02 38:18

That's great. That's great. And that's that's a a way to bring it to everybody, honestly. I mean, because yeah, it really just speaks to the emotion versus the the pocketbook aspect of audiophilism.

SPEAKER_03 38:29

Um there should be no bearing on Pocketbook because we don't all have the same means. Right. And um, and there are some fantastic systems for not a lot of money.

SPEAKER_02 38:42

So there's I I drink whiskey, I love good whiskies. Um but I've been at bars and I've seen the people who are showing off, it's like, well, give me a shot of that, and the bartender will say, Well, it's $90 a shot. And it's like, well, that's the one I want. And that becomes about him or her looking good to other people by saying, I'm willing to spend this much money on this whiskey, which doesn't necessarily it doesn't taste any better than that any better than the you know, shot a whiskey that's $18 or something like that. Um at what point does it get a little crazy in the audiophile world?

SPEAKER_03 39:24

It's a very relative. And it's um it all depends on how far you're prepared to take things and how far your appreciation. We we all hear probably similar things, and you know, if you've got your hearings in good order, you'll probably hear different things. Well, the difference is that the brain engaging, um knowing what to listen for. So it's like you're talking about whiskey, my dad's a big whiskey drinker drinker as well. So I could probably pick out four or five flavours. I can tell an Islay from a you know, from a lowland or a you know, a space side or something like that. But um, you know, there's a point where you're wasting your money putting putting uh more expensive whiskeys on me, uh you know, providing me with more expensive whiskies because I haven't developed my palate and taste. Got it, that makes sense. But if someone educated me and said, well, actually try this and try this and listen, can now look out for these characteristics. Right. I'd be there, I'd be there, and it's the same with the audiophile space. The law of diminishing returns, I think, is what you're asking. That kicks in very quickly. Oh, it does. Okay, got it. It it kicks in right at the bottom. Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_02 40:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 40:34

So so you get the best bang for your butt the less you spend. So so so so so what happens is I have I have a rule of thumb where um don't upgrade in bite sizes. So if you're it doesn't matter if you've spent £100 on a pair of speakers and you want to spend £150, you're probably wasting your time. You probably need to spend £300, and it's not guaranteed that even that £300 speaker is going to be better in every way, but the likelihood is going to be better in most ways. Gotcha. Um because you know you have to get the balance of the whole system right, but yeah, it kicks in. But there are levels to the game, and your system is only as good as the weakest part of it, and the room is part of that as well. And there's a lot of nonsense talked about rooms um as well, um, about the acoustics um and how much impact that pays. Speaker positioning is massive. Um acoustics is important, but acoustics generally gets spoken about from people who come from the professional space and from the studio space where where their priorities are different and their environment is different. Right. So if I was if I was developing a studio for recording music, I'd want it as pretty dead. Probably uh there's something called the RT60 time, which is how much time it takes for a signal to drop by 60 dB, which by a time I think 90 odd percent, 99% or 96% of it's gone. So that's the standard by which you judge the RT60 time. And they'll they're they're striving for an RT60 time in top studios of 0.2, 0.3. Oh wow, okay. But 0.2, 0.3 seconds. Uh so they're killing a signal within 0.2, 0.3 seconds um from the impulse. And most homes will probably not find that desirable. Most people for listening for their pleasure would want a little bit more reverb than that.

SPEAKER_01 42:31

Right.

SPEAKER_03 42:31

Probably looking at 0.4, 0.5 seconds.

SPEAKER_01 42:34

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 42:35

Well, if you have no acoustic treatment in your room and it's just a regular room, it's probably got a reverb time of 0.7 anyway. Right. So, you know, so it's it's not um, you don't have to, you know, you don't have to go as far as a studio would have to go, and you're and you're quite a bit of the way there already because you're not listening in a in a in an office environment. You've got sofas, you've got curtains, you've got you know furniture in there. So um the biggest influence is speaker and listening position. That's what people get. It's not the it's not the treatment, it's get getting that bit right. And it's also the easiest to achieve is putting your speakers in the right place. Yeah, people have um limitations, you know, they have to put them up again. I see it all the time because uh on my Patreon I have a consultancy tiers and they say, well, I can't pull my speakers out that far, I can't get them symmetrical with the listening position. And you know, if your speaker positioning and your listening position is compromised, then save yourself a lot of money. Don't spend a lot of money on Hi Fi. Right, right, exactly. Because you're not going to hear the differences that much.

SPEAKER_02 43:46

Well, another thing that you said um just a minute ago was balance. So um, you know, if you have this is going to be a very crass way to say it, but if you have like a very, very expensive amp and you have, you know, not so Good speakers, you're wasting the money on the amp at that point. Um, but if you have really beautiful, wonderful speakers, but the amp that you're using can't push them, then you're not realizing the full value of the speaker. So everything is really about balance and and not stabbing in the darkness to buy the right thing. You're looking for the right things together. Is that sound about right? Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:25

Yeah, absolutely. Um getting that balance is difficult. Um and it depends on you know what what you're using as a medium, what your uh size of your room. Right. If you've got if you've got larger rooms with larger speakers, you're gonna want to probably spend more money on speakers. Um and you know, the the traditional approach from Hi-Fi's was uh for for hi-fi was um to start with the source, spend as much money on the source as possible. Well that came from the 1980s when you know people like Lynn Um and or it was Ivan Tieferbrum, who's the the founder of Lynn, who advocated that approach, but then you know he had a vested interest in uh advocating that approach because he sold turntables, so spend as much as you possibly can on turntables. And and it's he he wasn't wrong, it's just that um you you know there's you have to get everything to perform at a similar level, and that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to spend the same money on everything at the same level because these days, for example, there are some digital to analog converters that are extremely good but not very expensive. Yes. I've discovered that actually. Yeah. So you know, you're probably better advised to spend perhaps a little less on your DAC than you would on your amplifier. And if you've got you know, speakers still probably contribute to quite a lot. They they definitely contribute to more distortion than anything else. Um you might want to spend more on speakers. The problem is if you're spending more on speakers, they tend to become a more demanding load, so they require a more expensive amplifier that can cope with that demanding load. Right.

SPEAKER_02 46:10

Okay. I and I think the reason that we even had this discussion today is to distill it all down to bring the emotional experience back to music is what we're looking for, is why you do what you do. It's like you want people to have I it it comes across in the way you speak. You want people to have a relationship with music that's very positive and full. I think.

SPEAKER_03 46:40

Yeah. Yeah, no, I think it's um I you know, I I've all I'm very sensitive to sound in general. Um and um you know, even if it's for movies, I have a TV connected to a hi-fi and all all three TVs in my home have got you know sound systems connected to it, even if I'm just watching the news because just the you hear things clear clearer, you don't have to turn it up as loud to hear uh things as well. But from a music perspective, yeah, no, uh it's always been a passion of mine. I just share my passion and you know, hopefully other people who see that passion engage with it and in a positive way as well.

SPEAKER_02 47:25

Well, you've done an amazing job with that, and I have such a deep appreciation for your uh your YouTube videos. They're they're magnificent, and I can't thank you enough for coming on the show to talk a little bit about this. This has been no, you're welcome.

SPEAKER_03 47:40

Yeah, it's been it's been absolutely my pleasure. Thank you very, very much.

SPEAKER_02 47:54

What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 47:55

Yeah, I loved it. I think he he just he's like my kind of people, you know, because I think as you know, I also teach people to make music. I teach people how to use dance and electronics. And I always just try to encourage people to just start, you know, and I love you can tell that he just really enjoys listening to music, you know, and that he really wants people to also enjoy listening to music. And there's so much I related to, like even like the he said that he's you know, he just started um listening to vinyl. And I'm like, yeah, I I just re-re-started listening to vinyl, and it does really shape the experience of your listening differently than listening to something that you can skip forward really easy.

SPEAKER_02 48:42

Exactly right. And I think what you just said is really important that he he extends his passion.

SPEAKER_00 48:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 48:49

You know what I mean? And he wants he he wants anybody who's interested to be also as excited about what he does and listening to music as he does as it's it's really it's it's a contagion almost like that. And again, it's because he's very chill about it and he's very, very approachable about it. And I think that's the critical thing because audiophiles historically have been really, really snobby and kind of look at you if you don't have the right stuff. And and I think Taryn's approach is much more let's just get into the music and this is how you listen and this is what you do with your stuff, and and and this is how you can get the full experience because he has an emotional attachment to music.

SPEAKER_00 49:32

100%. And I think like that is the people that I want to basically be audio influencers because like I said, the it is a unicorn in this field because just like in the synthesizer field and whatever, you're just gonna have people who are like they're so proud of the fact that they're the master at knowing about these things that it's almost becomes kind of gatekeeping rather than sharing. And I think you know, one of the joys is sharing your passions with other people and making them accessible to other people and not just ordering them over each other in a sense and being like, oh, look at look at my system. It's so much crazier than yours, rather than just being like, hey, here is how you can enjoy music at any, you know, on all these different ways. Like if you want to be a super audiophile that spends thousands of dollars in their system, great, here's how you can do that. But if you only have a couple hundred, here's how you can do that, and it still sounds good. And I think that kind of knowledge is really important to share. And I just really, I really love this episode because it is really I related to him a lot. I really related to his way to it. He's very relatable.

SPEAKER_02 50:34

He's very relatable. I I'm going to put in my system setup. I have one at the office and one at home, and I didn't spend a ton of dough on it. Um, and it sounds amazing, and it's all based on Taryn's advice from his videos. He also has a Patreon, which you can support, which I highly recommend, especially if you want to get into this at all.

SPEAKER_00 50:56

What's his uh channel name?

SPEAKER_02 50:58

Uh a British audiophile.

SPEAKER_00 51:00

A British audiophile.

SPEAKER_02 51:01

So if you are thinking about upgrading your system and want a little bit of advice, or if you want to create a system for yourself, a lot of people are listening on their earbuds, which is ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 51:12

Audio a British audiophile on YouTube. This is where you're gonna get the information that you need. I'm gonna go look at it because I I'm always, I mean, YouTube University has really taught me a lot about everything. And I probably for sure have watched one of his videos, anyways, already because I watch everybody's audio videos on YouTube. That's it's like my Netflix, you know, it's like audio file videos.

SPEAKER_02 51:35

Well, he also has a tier in the Patreon where you can communicate with him and he will consult with you to help you build out your system.

SPEAKER_00 51:42

So cool, such a deal.

SPEAKER_02 51:43

And it's it's it is such a deal. It is such it's not a lot of money. And the the thing that you can have access to his his knowledge, and you're every dollar by consulting with him, every dollar that you spend is gonna be maxed out. Do you know what I mean? Because you're not making mistakes and you're getting the truth about cables and various other aspects of putting together an audio system. So um I'm gonna reach out to him, and if he's got time, we'll ask him to put together sort of a beginning system. I'm gonna put up my system in the show notes and we're gonna have lots of details along with the links to to Taryn's channel and his Patreon, and I highly rem recommend it. And I think once you sit down and have a listening session with yourself or someone that you love, just listening to music on a on a reasonable system, it it kind of changes your world a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 52:36

Oh my god, I have actually an amazing date idea for anyone who has a system that my boyfriend and I do, which is that we go to a record store during the day, we each pick out a record, then we cook dinner, and then after dinner we just lay on the floor and we listen to the two records we picked out together. And it's like a really nice, it's really nice. It's like such a beautiful way to spend time together and it's really relaxing and it's really fun because neither one of us knows what the other one picked out. So it's just like um, yeah, it's it's like a really, I think it is like a really fun, cute date idea. Even with friends, I think it's a cute date idea. And I have one more really cool thing that I saw, which is if you have somebody who is an audiophile or who loves records, a really beautiful thing to do for a birthday party is that everyone, as their gift to the person, brings them their favorite record. So this person has like a new record collection of all of their friends' favorite record. And I saw my friends do this for another friend, and I was like, that is amazing because not only do you get like this special thing, and each person said why they love the record. I think that's so cool. There's so many ways to interact with music in this way of sharing and community that I think streaming has really like kind of taken away that I do actually feel people are returning to.

SPEAKER_02 53:58

So oh, completely, 100%. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely right.

SPEAKER_00 54:02

On over music.

SPEAKER_02 54:03

Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think Taryn is providing education and unbeknownst to him, he's building communities everywhere around the world.

SPEAKER_00 54:11

100%. Love that.

SPEAKER_02 54:13

Love that. All right, Kimmy. Good to see you as always.

SPEAKER_00 54:16

Okay, bye, Lou.

SPEAKER_02 54:17

Bye, Kimmy. This is our standard boilerplate. Chaos and Creativity is produced by Sherry Johnson.

SPEAKER_00 54:32

It's edited by Alexandra Covey.

SPEAKER_02 54:36

And we'd like to thank our sponsor, our only sponsor, and our fabulous sponsor, Blink Fid Software, Fitting and Producing Software for Creative People.

SPEAKER_00 54:45

And anyone who's cooler than anyone else.

SPEAKER_02 54:48

That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 54:49

Me too.