Wednesday, 21 October 2009 Written by Julien Pelchat

International audio salons are always a learning experience…

 

Over the last two weeks, I had the chance to travel to Europe to attend the shows in Madrid and Paris. I very much enjoy being at foreign shows, meeting with audiophiles, and being enveloped by the local culture.  It’s also a nice occasion to get a taste of local food, and sometimes wines, which for those who know me well, will recognize this as one of my passions.

In doing these shows, it is interesting to learn how listening habits may differ throughout different countries and cultures.  Some cultures focus on the overall dynamic range capability of a system while others look for “inner detail” as a priority. As a manufacturer it clearly shows me how important it is to design a product that gives an appropriate balance of sonic qualities that reach worldwide unanimity.
 
Oh! And by the way, if you ever see me at shows, please come say hello and tell me what you think.

Tuesday, 30 June 2009 Written by Julien Pelchat

The best in the world????:

This expression is often used in audio to the point where it doesn’t mean much. Let’s “re-question” it. What means being “the best in the world”, not only for loudspeakers, but for any products? Performance criteria must be established to make such an evaluation.  Is it the one that measure the best? Is it the one that will sound the best? Will the one that measures the best be the best sounding one in your system? One might say it is “the one that reproduce the incoming signal as truly as possible without adding any sound of its own”. But how can we judge it? Which measurements shall we use? How to ponder these measurements? What if it is giving poor results in your setup? What does it means? Bigger loudspeakers, will offer their best in larger room. A certain distance is requires between them and the listener. Small loudspeakers, might give an amazing performance and great soundstaging, but in large room, their dynamic limitation and lack of low frequency extension will be a problem. Many things have yet to be found in loudspeaker design and measurements. In science, we cannot pretend to have reached the total knowledge. The actual state of our knowledge is just the “step stone” for making more discoveries. For loudspeaker measurements, how do we weight measurements is the issue.

As an audio manufacturer, audiophiles are asking us questions like: “what is your best loudspeaker”.  We can say the most expensive one, but even if it is the one that offers the greatest blend of dynamic range and wide bandwidth, it does not mean that it is the best one for your setup. Not every listening environment can support such dynamic and bandwidth. Each model in our product line IS our “best loudspeaker” for a given situation. Depending of your setup and room dimensions, one will work better than the others. This rule applies not only to Verity loudspeakers, but to any brand. The real question is what is the best loudspeaker for you? What will works best in your system and in your environment. In order to get the best, one needs to have a good understanding of his own need.

Good listening everyone!

SSI 2009

 

Verity Audio offered many good performances at the Montreal SSI as agreed by many professionals of the industry.

Take a look at their comments!

 

http://blog.stereophile.com/ssi2009/fidelio_in_hi-rez/

http://blog.stereophile.com/ssi2009/the_real_hi-fi/

http://blog.stereophile.com/ssi2009/verity_audio_finn/

http://blog.stereophile.com/ssi2009/the_verity_way/

 

http://www.ultraaudio.com/features/20090501.htm

 

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/salon_son_image_2009/becker3/

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/salon_son_image_2009/becker2/

Thursday, 26 February 2009 Written by Julien Pelchat

Looking at the big picture

Being an audiophile since the beginning of the 70’s, my quest for true music reproduction has always been a passion. From the beginning, I started to seek for sonically exciting musical work as well as experiment with a whole variety of audio equipment and devices. For loudspeakers, I have owned almost every type: from large horns to small mini-monitors including electrostatic and ribbon panels plus small to large electro-dynamic systems. I also owned many types of amplifiers: tubes, solid states, single-ended triodes and hybrids. Regarding sources, I followed the evolution of both, the analog and digital. In short, all the systems that I have owned had their strengths and weaknesses. As an example, a loudspeaker could be very dynamic while having a poor tonal balance and soundstaging capability and another loudspeaker could have a wonderful tonal balance but exhibit reduced dynamics. Sometimes loudspeakers were offering great sonic-imaging while lacking dynamic and timbre richness. At first, I was more impressed by the dynamic range than the overall coherence and tonal quality of a system. Soon enough though, the tonal rightness became of a prime importance.  Getting a perfect balance of all of these attributes is indeed an enormously difficult task.

Even though those years have brought me enjoyment, passion and constructive experiences, I must say that the new and innovative manufacturing technologies, the accessibility computer calculating power, the availability of high-tech materials, and the advancement of modern science have all contributed to the advancement of the high-end-audio industry. In other words, over the last years, the audio products got better to a point that we are more than ever getting closer to an ideal of sound coherence, dynamic range and tonality. For the most, this evolution happened in a progressive process that was barely noticeable. Such progress did not happen only for loudspeaker but for all audio products. Modern turntables became more accurate, most of the compact disk digital artifacts have been properly addressed, and power amplifiers have been made more accurate while offering an improved blend of musicality, transparency and reliability. In fact, I believe that the industry came a long way in making mostly everything superior. Because of the accuracy and revealing character of today’s components, the new challenge resides in matching and configuring the whole system to form a perfect balance.
 
This brings me to the following consideration: Audiophiles have always been passionate about “vintage” audio products, creating through the years, enthusiasm, passion and desire.  Some were unique enough to make them collectable pieces of engineering art.  However in terms of our actual advancements in the field of sound reproduction, we must admit that none of those can offer the level of accuracy or acoustic synergy (i.e. a perfect balance between tonal purity, dynamic range and transparency) of nowadays products.

The advancement of the audio industry is indeed far from stagnation and I foresee a great and exciting future full of memorable musical experience in the comfort of our homes.

Good listening everyone!