WHAT PRICE GLORY?

The year was 1943. I was in the army, attached to the 114th General Hospital in Fort Bragg, N.C. I was on night duty in the clinical lab, a lonely vigil, listening to a table-model radio. Tube, of course, with the sound emanating from a 5-inch speaker which might have cost 500. I was very frustrated, because all I could seem to tune in was the incessant twang and melancholic ballads of country music--not too surprising, considering my location. Country music, I freely admit, is not my cup of tea.

I nudged the tuning control a little and was stunned to hear the distinctive, instantly recognizable high-register bassoon passage that opens Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring." The radio had a frequency response of perhaps 200 Hz to 2 kHz, liberal quantities of distortion, and a dynamic compass of no more than 10 dB. Yet here was Stravinsky's gigantic orchestral canvas, evoking the primitive rituals of pagan Russia, reproduced through this absurd little radio. I reveled in every glorious moment.

More respite from country music could be found in the USO club, where a monster "Queen Anne" mahogany radio console sat. It had a 12-inch public-address speaker in its open-back cabinet, along with a puny little 5-watt amp tucked in a corner. A Webster-Chicago 78-rpm record player was included. Thanks to the generosity of RCA Victor and Columbia, a library of unwieldy, fragile, 78-rpm albums of classical music was available. We whiled away many an hour as the record player ground through such standards as the Beethoven Fifth, the Schubert "Unfinished," and the Franck D Minor, by the likes of Stokowski and Monteux.

Today's cheapest rack system is sonically far superior to that ancient radio, but at the time it was a godsend.

Remember: In those days high-fidelity sound was still a distant dream. If one was familiar with classical music, the only reference was the concert hall.

Needless to say, the old 78s we played in that USO club were a cruel caricature of the real thing. However, as always, the music survived the technology of the day. The structure could still be discerned, the melodies sweet on the ear; the beauty and spiritual exaltation of the music endured in spite of its electromechanical maltreatment... The foregoing was prompted by a letter from a reader upset by several columns I had written on very sophisticated and expensive high-end audio components. "No one needs this highfalutin', chromium-plated, overpriced equipment in order to enjoy music," he wrote, and then went on to describe the decidedly low-fi audio components he has used for 20 years. He ended: "People who really love classical music can enjoy it on a cheap radio." Of course, he is entitled to his opinion. I did not answer his letter, but perhaps if he reads this column, he will understand my views.

I can feel genuinely sorry for this fellow, and others like him, whose economic circumstances limit their choice of audio components. God knows I can empathize with this man, for I've always had a champagne palate and a beer pocketbook! But I'm forced to take issue with his berating of those who aspire to the better things in life.

We have an audio component industry offering an incredible diversity of devices whose common function is the reproduction of recorded music in all its formats. This equipment covers a price range from unbelievably cheap to astronomically expensive. Overall, audio equipment is one of the few remaining bargains in modern life: Even very modest component systems offer reliability and sonic performance as good as, or better than, far more expensive systems of a decade ago. The very rich, it is well known, are among the poorest sales prospects for audio systems-mid-fi, high end, or otherwise. Far more meaningful a question to put to a prospective audio buyer than "How much money do you have?" is "To what degree are you committed to, and involved with, music?" By no means are a system's price, or the size of one's wallet, the only criteria determining which components one chooses to buy. What about decor, space, and other environmental factors? Since audiophiles are mostly men, do the women in their lives resent audio's intrusive size and volume? The average audiophile owns from $5,000 to $7,000 worth of components.

For this kind of money, one can assemble a sound system that will reproduce music with quite remarkable fidelity.

Audiophiles soon learn that improving system performance is an endless, frustrating, and expensive undertaking. In his heart, every true-blue audiophile secretly aspires to an ultimate audio system, cost no object. (The trouble is, there are some widely divergent opinions on just which components would grace this dream system.) One assumes that many of these music-loving folks read Audio.

These people, then, along with engineers and other professionals in the audio field, are my audience, and I must present my columns and record reviews to please most of the people, most of the time. (Or at least stimulate them to vent their spleen through the mails.) After all these years, I can tell you that Audio readers have very strong opinions. Naturally, I like the letters that tell me what a great guy I am and what wonderful stuff I write! I can honestly say that what criticism I get is usually constructive, but I do get some doozies from people who abrogate the laws of physics or believe they've reinvented the wheel.

I get a lot of interesting mail, for instance, about my CD reviews. Of course, many other publications carry CD reviews, and many readers compare reviews of a particular CD. For the most part, the letters I receive on CD reviews are concerned with the technical aspects of the recording. The common denominator in most of the letters is, "I don't hear what you are describing in your review of CD such and such, and neither does the reviewer in Magazine X." Quite often, the writer goes on to describe his audio system, and this usually furnishes a clue as to what he is hearing. (Of course, there is no way of knowing what audio equipment the reviewer in Magazine X is using.) With their ultra-wide dynamic range and ability to reproduce the lowest bass fundamentals, some CDs have, for example, organ-pedal notes in the range from 16 to 32 Hz, sometimes at whopping volume levels. The majority (yes, I said majority) of loudspeakers on the market cannot reproduce those frequencies, no matter what inflated claims have been made by advertising copywriters. If a party who writes me indicates he has speaker X, which I know falls off rather rapidly below 50 Hz, I gently inform him of this; for the most part, this is accepted with good grace. On the other side of the coin are those who not only resent what I have told them but actually suggest that I should use a more "average" system rather than my own state-of-the-art components.

This attitude reminds me of the old days, when we had Hi-Fi Fairs. I always made a point of using the very best source material in demonstrating audio components. Most of the time, I was able to use 15-ips Dolby A master tapes or first-generation copies of them. Some people accused me of having an unfair advantage. "Well," they would exclaim in high dudgeon, "anything would sound good with those tapes." When I pointed out that my tapes' wide dynamic and frequency range would severely stress most equipment, they were marginally placated. The real enthusiasts would have sold their grandmothers for a copy! Of course, using a sound system that has subterranean bass response can be problematic, too. For example, most of the monitor speakers used in studios and on-location recordings do not have really extended bass response. As a consequence, the recording engineers don't hear many low-frequency sounds, such as hall rumble, mechanical noises, etc., which are faithfully reproduced on my system. There are also such problems as the more acrobatic conductors, like Bernstein and Solti, who stomp their feet on the podium for emphasis.

Using a less revealing component system that glosses over defects carries the penalty of submerging important musical detail. I am not willing to review CDs on equipment that cannot do full justice to the power and grandeur of the music. Yes, I can appreciate great music on a table-model radio-but the devoted music lover/audiophile wants the best!

(adapted from Audio magazine, Aug. 1989; Bert Whyte)

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