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Originally Posted by GregM
I have several problems with the premise of this thread.
1. Hiss is bad
2. You need to blast your system to determine audio quality
3. Listening in a parked car is indicative of stereo performance
4. The number shown on the volume display indicates the actual power or decibel level
1. Hiss is present in almost all recordings because of the analog nature of musical instruments and recording devices. When you hear no hiss in music, it is due to the use of digital noise reduction. These algorithms remove any content present at high frequencies that your ears perceive as hiss. The problem is that the noise reduction algorithms can't distinguish actual music content of these high frequencies, e.g., cymbals, overtones in female voices, percussion, etc., from unwanted hiss. In other words, you are losing valuable information that is audible from real instruments. As an audiophile, you should be horrified by this. It makes the music less realistic, thinner, and more "synthetic" sounding. Hiss is our friend, especially in older music that was recorded to analog tape.
2. The quality of your system can easily be determined without blasting it to the max. Simply listen critically to the tones, tone changes as a function of time, and stereophonic performance or imaging. How convincing is the music reproduction? All you will do by blasting it at earsplitting levels is damage your ears (which are very sensitive devices that cannot be fixed once the cilia or other delicate parts are damaged) and eventually your stereo system.
3. To get a real idea of how a car stereo performs, you need to listen while you're driving. For obvious reasons.
4. Remember that seen in Spinal Tap when the dude insists his amp is louder than anyone else's because it goes up to "11" instead of just "10"? The reason this is so funny is because it is obviously bullsh*t. Numbers on amps and receivers these days are simply a marketing gimick designed to appeal to complete morons. In my home system I use a tube amp rated at 80 watts per channel, but if you listened to it, you'd swear it was more powerful than transistor amps rated at more than a couple hundred watts per channel. Point is, the design of the amp and the quality of the parts used is the critical factor, not the number appearing on your display. The volume knob (yes it's a knob with no remote control and no LED display) on my VAC amp has no numbers, just little dots at 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 1, 2, 3 and 4 o'clock.
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1. Hiss IS bad if it is not present in the recording. There IS NO HISS in the Joan of Arc track I am referring to. They did make an
LP record player for the car at one time ... I imagine that only worked well in parked cars and I bet it reproduced hiss very well... <G> I do not aspire to be an audiophile. I'm a coffee snob, that's bad enough. I just like good clear music, but really am not finacially positioned to be a real live audiophile.
2. While I agree with you that music can be too loud, and I will add that a given system will likely distort the signals at its upper end of output power, but my goal here was simply to compare, as closely as I could, the two systems. I needed to answer the question to myself, "will this factory unit be as good, as clear, as loud, as the one that will likely get sold on eBay?"
3. I will argue with you that if the system does not perform to my liking while parked with the engine off, then it does not have much chance of satisfying my 'needs' while on the road.
4. Of course I know that. My comment was a joke; mostly poking fun at the human interface designers... Why does Eclipse go up to 74, Honda go to 30, Subaru to 24, and McIntosh leaves the numbers off? It is just silly in my opinion. What happened to 1 thru 10? Spinal Tap started something and I think it is silly. That was my point. What we REALLY need is a volume knob that goes up to infinity... Then it will surely be loud enough. (that was another joke...)
I do appreciate all of your comments. Thanks a lot.
-bearsfeat