Pick up almost any record weight on the market, and the first thing you notice is the heft. Most are dense lumps of metal, 300 grams, 500 grams, sometimes more than a kilo. The Origin Live Gravity Two weighs 70 grams. Roughly the weight of a chocolate bar.

People reasonably ask why. The answer is the result of five years of prototyping, several hundred listening sessions, and a quiet revolt against an idea the hi-fi industry has clung to for decades: that heavier is better.

What does a record weight actually do?

There are only two honest reasons to put anything on top of a record.

The first, and most common, is to flatten a warped record, so the cartridge isn’t constantly chasing the surface, and the vertical tracking angle stays consistent across the side. This is uncontroversial and generally the goal of the majority of weights & clamps on the market.

The second is to improve the sound by managing the vinyl’s vibration. This is where every weight on the market gets it wrong.

Why does a record vibrate during playback?

Look closely at the contact point between a stylus tip and the groove wall. The accepted figures for the pressure at that point sit somewhere between 1.2 and 8 tons per square inch – numbers that sound absurd until you remember the contact area is smaller than a human hair.

Now factor in speed. A stylus tracking high-frequency information is moving back and forth at up to 50,000 cycles per second (20,000 in most cases). Momentum is mass times acceleration, and at those speeds, even a feather-light tip is hammering the groove walls with serious force.

The result is that the record surface is being mechanically excited into vibration every time the stylus tracks it. That vibration radiates outward across the vinyl in ripples. High frequencies as fast, tight ripples, lows as long, slow ones. These vibrations can reflect and travel back towards the stylus, which causes issue for the fidelity with which your cartridge can track the groove. And if we have something affecting fidelity at input, it’s a given that this will affect our output once the signal reaches the speakers.

The cartridge signal is amplified roughly 8,000 times before it reaches the speakers. So no, it isn’t a small problem, and it isn’t one the record player can solve on its own. Even a turntable with perfect isolation from floor noise, motor noise, and acoustic feedback would still face this problem, because it originates at the stylus itself.

Two schools of thought: Mass/Suction vs Transmission and Dissipation

Once you accept the record is vibrating, the question becomes what to do about it. Broadly, there are two approaches.

The suction approach. Pull the entire record flat against the platter with a vacuum, eliminating any movement. Rockport tried this 40 years ago. Some manufacturers still do — there are decks at £70,000 built around the idea. The problem is that perfectly bonding the record to the platter assumes the platter itself isn’t vibrating. It always is. The bearing the platter is mounted on has friction, motors make noise, and now you’ve created a rigid pipeline feeding all that energy straight into the vinyl and back up through the stylus.

The reputation of these systems bears this out. At a recent Munich show, an audiophile sought advice from Origin Live about his £70,000 vacuum deck. He described it as “dull, lifeless, sterile.” The verdict, regrettably, was that the problem was largely beyond fixing. Vacuum systems suck the noise out of a record. They also suck out the delicacy of the music.

Mass in the weight and platter essentially do the same thing as suction, coupling the vinyl record to the platter with a large weight. Make no mistake, we are not against mass in our design philosophy, but it has to be applied in the right places. The vibration created by the pressure of playback needs to travel away from the record. Many listeners think that coupling the record to the mass will sink the vibrations into the mass, but the truth is that the mass will not transmit the vibrations away fast enough and not across the entire frequency band. Mass is great at the end of a transmission chain, but not at the beginning. When excess energy doesn’t have a chance to escape away from the cartridge, it has no option but to travel back in. This may result in a benefit to bass – since the stylus may travel with increased force side to side, but it comes at the cost of diminished top-end openness and a dull mid-band.

The transmission and dissipation approach. Let the record vibrate, it has to vibrate somewhere – but absorb the vibration at the centre so it dissipates harmlessly rather than reflecting back into the stylus. This is what a properly designed record weight does. It gives the energy somewhere to go.

The trick is doing this without killing the music in the process. Which is harder than it sounds.

How we found light record weights improve sound quality,

For most of Origin Live’s history, founder Mark Baker dismissed record weights entirely. Every time he tried one, the bass would improve, and everything else would suffer, the midrange would close in, the timing would slow, the top end would lose its air. It always felt like a trade-off, never an upgrade.

The change came at a hi-fi show. Origin Live was sharing a room with Martin Brewster of Revelation Audio, the importer of Shun Mook, who had brought along their record weight, a small, comparatively light object that now retails for around £3,800. Listening to it for the first time was a shock. It made the record sound better with no obvious compromise.

Two things stood out. It was light. And it clearly wasn’t trying to flatten the record — it was conditioning it. That was the moment the assumptions began to come apart.

Why 70 grams is the sweet spot

Years of prototyping followed. Many of the early attempts were heavily packed with mixed ball bearings, exotic fillings, and layered metal. The temptation to chase mass is real because mass does deliver bass.

But across hundreds of listening sessions and prototypes, one number kept emerging: 70 grams. Go heavier, and the midrange compresses, the treble loses openness, and the music’s life drains out. Go significantly lighter, and there isn’t enough damping authority. Either side of that figure, the sound moved in the wrong direction.

This is, in retrospect, why so many heavyweights on the market sound the way they do. They’re optimising for the one thing that’s easiest to hear in a demo — bass impact — at the expense of everything else.

A useful test track during development was Minnie Riperton’s Lovin’ You. She has a five-octave range and reaches into the whistle register on that recording. When mass was added beyond 70g, the entire frequency spectrum shifted downwards. The bass got fuller, but Riperton stopped sounding like Riperton. The air and openness in the upper register — the thing that makes that recording extraordinary — collapsed.

That kind of loss isn’t subtle once you know to listen for it.

Layer technology: why no single material works

The second breakthrough came from working with industry veteran Tony Sharman, who pushed Origin Live toward an approach he called Multi- layer technology.

Hi-fi has a recurring weakness for miracle materials. Carbon fibre, beryllium, Delrin (known industrially as POM-C or to us Acetyl and treated by much of the industry as a near-mystical damping compound). All of them have good properties. None is a complete answer on its own.

The principle behind layer technology is straightforward: two materials that resonate at different frequencies, brought into contact, cancel each other’s resonance. It’s mechanical destructive interference rather than acoustical. The Gravity Two stacks multiple layers: lightweight metallic parts with precision-cut profiles, wood, composites, and polymers. Each is chosen for its resonant frequency and its interactions with its neighbours.

Crucially, it’s not relying on any single layer of suspension or absorption to do all the work. The energy passes through a sequence of mismatched layers, losing coherence at each interface, until what reaches the top of the stack is so dissipated that it cannot reflect back into the record.

This can’t be properly modelled. You could theoretically run Fourier analysis on every layer combination, but the simulation space is enormous and — in practice — the model and the listening result usually disagree. The only honest method is to build it, listen to it, and iterate. Which is exactly what happened, for five years between two versions.

From Gravity One to Gravity Two

The Gravity One did what it set out to do: it improved the sound without taking anything away. For a long stretch, it sat at the top of Paul Rigby’s The Audiophile Man comparison reviews, where he had pitted it against around 15 other weights.

Then Stack Audio released a rival lightweight design that briefly overtook it by a narrow margin, the Serene Stabiliser. As fortune would have it, Origin Live was already deep into developing the Gravity Two. Not as a reaction to the Stack Audio Serene, but because we knew the Gravity One still had headroom. At launch, the performance gains from our research and development enabled the Gravity Two to reclaim the top spot.

Several things changed between the Gravity One and Two:

Fewer components. The Gravity One had ten internal parts; the Gravity Two has eight. Every part is a potential transmission and reflection path for vibration, so fewer is generally better — provided each one is the right thing.

Fewer screws. Nine in the Gravity One, four in the Gravity Two. Same reasoning.

A new outer body. The Gravity One contacts the record only at the centre. The Gravity Two adds a refined outer body (made from an anti-resonant polymer that, unusually for the industry, isn’t Delrin), which also makes contact with the record surface and helps absorb vibration. The outer case is also made with additive manufacturing (fancy talk for 3D printing) with structural profiling that increases rigidity, as well as vibrational transmission and dispersion.

That last change was, frankly, an accident. Chief engineer Luke Baker was experimenting late in the prototyping phase and tried bringing the outer case into contact with the record. It went against the structural design philosophy that the rest of the design had been built around, but it also sounded clearly better. The team kept it.

What reviewers actually hear

In his review of the Gravity Two, Paul Rigby noted that music became “much more coherent” with a clear reduction in noise and vibration. High-frequency hash no longer filled the gaps in the music or distorted the presentation. Midrange and treble were clearer, with a slight edge removed from the upper mids. Guitars and secondary percussion sat in sharper focus. Vocals had better diction, lyrics that had previously slipped past were suddenly intelligible. The stereo image was solid and tightly focused, and the bass offered more impact.

The best result is the one most people find counterintuitive. A 70-gram weight has no business delivering a more natural bass impact with greater decay. But what it’s doing is removing the noise and resonance that mask low-frequency detail — so the bass that’s already on the record finally arrives intact, rather than fighting through a haze of upper-frequency hash.

Try it

The Gravity Two is £230 and comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Origin Live stockists across the UK and internationally honour the same guarantee. The price is broadly comparable to a modest cartridge upgrade, and the weight will outlast several cartridges.

Skepticism is the right starting position with anything in hi-fi. Order one, put it on whatever turntable you currently run, and listen. If it doesn’t do what we say it does, send it back.

That’s the only honest way to settle these arguments.

As Vinyl enthusiasts, we know the thrill when a turntable makes music feel truly alive.

Last week I shared my thoughts on why vinyl delivers better transients here. Because vinyl playback generates new electricity as it plays, the resulting signal doesn’t suffer the same electrical interference as digital playback. It does, however, suffer mechanical interference as the turntable’s platter rotates and the cartridge interprets vibration.

The best turntables handle vibration and friction to minimise mechanical interference, and let the cartridge produce transients that feel separated in three dimensions.

This week, we’re pleased to share the full English translation of the new in-depth review from Germany’s prestigious image hifi magazine of two of our greatest designs: The Mk5 Sovereign-S turntable with Enterprise tonearm

The reviewer, Josef Bruckmoser, spent weeks with the Sovereign and Enterprise and came away convinced that this turntable truly lives up to the Origin Live name. In the full article below, Bruckmoser describes how the OL design combines the best of mass-effective stability with the airy, expressive freedom of a sophisticated decoupling in the subchassis — resulting in music that feels startlingly present, dynamic, and live.

Key Quotes

“I had never heard my Benz LP, mounted in the Enterprise tonearm sound so full of energy. All credit to Origin Live – this was a proper upgrade compared with how the Benz sounds on my Kuzma Stabi Reference. While on the 40 kg Kuzma it lets itself be carried along by the turntable’s sluggish mass, on the Mk5 Sovereign-S with Enterprise tonearm it was as if awakened from Sleeping Beauty’s slumber and shone with refreshing playing joy.”

“The combination of Mk5 Sovereign-S, Enterprise tonearm and Umami Red followed every tiniest transient… with the highest attention.” “It presented every recording in a huge soundstage — keyword cinemascope.”

Full Review:

Image Hi Fi

Author: Josef Bruckmoser

Photography: Rolf Winter

Here the Music Plays LIVE

“Nomen ist omen” – the name says it all. If this applies to any turntable, it is the Origin Live Sovereign S MK5. There is a great deal of “origin” and “live” in it. But how does its subchassis actually work when it appears to sit completely fixed and rigid on its heavy plinth?

Many things about the Origin Live Sovereign S MK5 are surprising at first glance. For example, the nylon screws that hold the top layer of the sandwich platter are not supposed to be tightened firmly. Little by little, however, such peculiarities become perfectly understandable from the overall concept of this turntable: the priority here is not mass and rigidity, but airiness and delicacy. That is why the platter screws are not made of metal and are left slightly loosened. The platter bearing continues this basic idea with a unique combination of two concepts. On the one hand, the platter almost floats as if on a magnetic bearing. On the other hand, the platter spindle and bearing house have only a minimal point of contact. The British achieve floating the spindle with a precisely defined oil film that completely envelops the shaft inside the bearing house, reducing mechanical friction to an absolute minimum. At the same time, a very small tungsten-carbide ball bearing resting on the hardened thrust plate of the bearing house creates a minimal mechanical contact. This provides a kind of grounding for the energy coming from the platter. The crucial question – whether a platter should float purely like a magnetic bearing or have a minimal mechanical contact with the chassis – is answered by Origin Live in a “very sophisticated” way: “We combine the best of both worlds with our hydrodynamic Ultra-low Friction Bearing.”

Anyone who thinks the technical special features of the Sovereign S MK5 are exhausted at this point is very much mistaken. “The name says it all”: Origin’s turntable is bursting with its own “origin” -al ideas. The subchassis sits on a high mass plinth that accounts for the lion’s share of the 28.4 kg total weight. This sandwich construction of two acrylic plates with a steel plate in between is designed to give the turntable almost the same stability as a pure high-inertia turntable. At the same time, the different materials dissipate different vibrations – a fundamental principle of the high-end workshop run by Mark Baker in Southampton. The same principle applies to the three feet. Only the rear foot has a height-adjustable metal body that makes contact with the supporting surface. The two front feet consist of polyoxymethylene (POM), a dimensionally stable plastic that absorbs vibrations particularly effectively. Just as with the sandwich construction of the drive base, different materials are used on the feet to combat different types of vibration.

The real highlight is the subchassis, which has nothing in common with a conventional subchassis using springs or similar. It is actually a kind of seesaw that is fixed centrally at a single point on the heavy plinth and carries the tonearm base and platter bearing on its two cantilever arms. At the fixing point, a small ring of damping material is intended to absorb any vibrations. Here, too, the aim – just as with the platter bearing – is to combine the best of two worlds. On the one hand it really is a subchassis, giving the platter bearing and tonearm a certain freedom of movement. On the other hand, that freedom is extremely limited compared with conventional turntables of this type. At the same time the subchassis is firmly bolted to the plinth at its decoupling and contact point – not “bomb-proof”, but securely enough that it almost forms a single unit with the heavy plinth. So it can be described as a subchassis that simultaneously tries to exploit the advantages of high mass designs.

The idea of minimal coupling and contact points at the platter bearing and subchassis is continued in the tonearm. In the test version this was the Enterprise MK5, which incorporates many design features of the next model up, the Agile. The tonearm bearing for vertical movement is a two-point bearing with minimal mechanical contact surfaces. On the left and right of the yoke, a tungsten-carbide spike rests on a hardened and polished surface. Their tip profile grants the tonearm optimal vertical freedom of movement with the least possible friction. The pivot points of this dual-pivot bearing self-centre in the cups. According to Origin Live, this “pointed” two-point bearing comes very close to a single-point bearing, with the advantage that there is no instability whatsoever. Azimuth can be finely adjusted via the two tungsten-carbide tips. Horizontal rotation is handled by an extremely low-friction ceramic ball bearing. Exact VTA adjustment is made via a rotary dial with markings, each representing a height difference of 0.1 mm. This means the vertical tracking angle can be reproduced exactly even for individual records. A hex set screw provides locking. For counterweight adjustment the British offer a very practical solution. The coarse setting is achieved by sliding and locking the large weight directly on the tonearm shaft. A small additional weight is used for fine adjustment. Anti-skating is implemented with a metal ball on a thread.

The exciting question was therefore how much does the subchassis actually contribute in the Origin Live Sovereign S MK5 and how much does the foundation and structure of the high mass three-layer plinth contribute. So the player from Southampton was first put through the “foundation test” with concert grand piano and large orchestra. On the record Destination Rachmaninow – Departure (Piano Concertos 2 & 4) (DG 483 5362, D 2018, 2-LP) with Daniil Trifonov and the Philadelphia Orchestra under Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who had conducted the New Year’s Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic with great success this year. In the first movement of the second piano concerto, after dramatic chords from the solo instrument, a powerful melodic stream develops in interplay with the orchestra. This requires power, transparency and highly precise timing from the replay chain. The Origin Live met this challenge with exceptional composure, especially in the low registers of the piano and the deep strings of the orchestra. There was the familiar deep growl at the beginning of the first movement, but it never sounded indefinable or blurred – instead it was illuminated right down to the last detail. Equally impressive were the clearly perceptible timpani strokes, which set a powerful accent especially at the end of the first movement. With singularly audible strikes on the skin. At the other end of the spectrum the piano playing by the right hand popped brilliantly and with lively airiness from the loudspeakers. I had never heard my Benz LP, mounted in the headshell of the Enterprise tonearm during this first test phase, sound so full of energy. All credit to Origin Live – this was a proper upgrade compared with how the Benz sounds on my Kuzma Stabi Reference. While on the 40 kg Kuzma it lets itself be carried along by the turntable’s sluggish mass, on the Sovereign S MK5 with Enterprise tonearm it was as if awakened from Sleeping Beauty’s slumber and shone with refreshing joy in playing. This subchassis turntable with single-point suspension and minimal two-point coupling tonearm is obviously capable of extracting many vibrant nuances from a cartridge. Pleasingly, the Benz LP lost none of its calm poise and convincing midrange despite this wake-up call. This was evident in the calm accompaniment in the left hand, clearly set apart from the swirling runs. Equally faithful, full bodied, fine and balanced, with a wonderfully homogeneous blend of piano and winds, the Origin Live presented the second movement, the Adagio Sostenuto, which Daniil Trifonov shapes in epic breadth. Every single note had weight and meaning, of which the Briton, thanks to its fine-dynamic precision, let absolutely nothing escape.

The calm gliding of the second movement through the wide Russian landscape was even more impressive once the Hana Umami Red had been allowed to show its qualities in the Enterprise headshell after the necessary running-in period. Above all, this highly regarded Japanese product put the finishing touch on the already excellent timing of turntable and tonearm. The combination of Sovereign S MK5, Enterprise tonearm and Umami Red followed every tiniest transient, every tiniest pause that the pianist only hinted at for half a moment, with forensic insight. Therefore, for the remainder of the test, the Umami Red stayed mounted.

The British turntable demonstrated its sense of passion and tragedy with the sombre B-minor of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 Pathétique (Sony 88985404351, US & EU 2017, LP), recorded by Teodor Currentzis with his MusicAeterna in the Funkhaus Nalepastraße in Berlin. Black as night, the Origin Live created a backdrop of abyssal calm and stability. In the following slow movement, it let the string section fade out completely pianissimo in Andante tempo before the development exploded in stormy fugato and radiant brass in great dynamic contrast. Overall the British turntable pulled out all the stops on this recording of the Pathétique: stoic calm and epic breadth, powerful drama and cinemascope-like images, grippy macro-dynamics where required, ever-present micro-dynamics and a LIVE-like flow of playing that is in its blood. “Con grazia” the Origin Live followed the “crooked” 5/4 time of the second movement and was fully involving – even in the slightly brightening sounds that take a little of the Pathétique’s heaviness away. With its sensitivity for the finest details, it let one hear how the timpani unobtrusively but clearly drove the rhythm. It succeeded so well not least because it presented every sound track in a large soundstage – keyword cinemascope. This was striking on side 6 of Don Giovanni under Ferenc Fricsay (DG, SLPM 138 050/52, Reissue D 1965 (1959) Boxset 3-LP), one of my standard benchmarks in every test. Like an accordion the Origin Live pulled the stereo stage apart. This made every step of Don Ottavio from the middle of the stage back left to front left traceable. It was such a defined 3D image that I repeated the passage several times doubting what I heard. In the end every misgiving was ruled out. The positioning of Don Ottavio in the room was so pinpoint accurate that it seemed measured with ruler and set square. The Commendatore came, as usual, from far right, but with the British turntable he came a perceived half-speaker-width further right. The Sovereign S MK5 followed the thunderous bass playing sovereignly into the deepest notes conceivable. As with the timpani, it relied on a clearly structured bass and consistently avoided any appearance of overblown low frequencies. Others may lay it on a touch more heavily, but more differentiated, transparent and clear is hardly possible. The same applied at the other end of the spectrum to the highest highs, in which Donna Anna shone completely relaxed and stress-free, with a voice that always remained “beautiful” in the best sense.

The Origin Live knows what it wants, and it carries this through homogeneously from the very bottom to the very top. The entire sonic spectrum benefits from the generous spatial presentation, as could also be heard on Patricia Barber on the B-side of Modern Cool (Premonition Records – 90761-1, Remastered, US 2014 (1998), 2-LP). “Light My Fire” is an earworm for relaxed evening sessions. Of course the very dark timbre of Barber’s voice must not be lost. The Sovereign S MK5 solved this task sovereignly and made every word intelligible. Quite incidentally it gave Dave Douglas’s trumpet a cosy warmth. On track 2 “Constantinople” the percussion started filigree, short strikes working on clearly distinguishable different skins. With the bass the turntable gave insight to each powerful bow stroke on the strings. Patricia Barber’s voice came across well separated, in a clearly defined space at the middle rear, independent of the accompanying instruments. On “Silent Partner” the shimmering of a cymbal entered the ear as a multi-layered sound event. The muted trumpet textured with a deep note at the end. The Origin Live followed the rhythmic drive of “Postmodern Blues” entirely in the spirit of “here I feel right at home”. This “home feeling” of the Sovereign S MK5 generally applied to female voices such as Patricia Barber, Cecilia Bartoli or Ella Fitzgerald, whose vibrato it reproduced with as much finesse and tenderness as energy and emphasis. On Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Duke Ellington Song Book (His Master’s Voice, CLP 1213-14, Verve Series MGV4008, UK 1958, 2-LP Mono) there was so much vibrato and swing, so much playful and mischievous vivacity, so much emphasis and energy that wine connoisseurs would speak of a strong finish with intense and long-lasting impressions. The Origin Live extracts this added value from every voice. And while we are on the subject of vibrato: the solos of the various brass instruments on this double LP also fluttered and vibrated in a way that was pure joy.

That was an urgent invitation to lend the Briton an ear once again regarding pace, rhythm and timing. A friend had wished for Undercurrent by Bill Evans and Jim Hall for his birthday. Ordered twice, the classic finally also found its way into my own record collection (MOFI 1-031, Blue Note – 509997-04873-1-2, Reissue, US 2024 (1962), LP). On the first number “My Funny Valentine” the two jazz greats seemed to compete with each other as to who would have the better idea and how the other would react. Only a turntable that is razor-sharp on the smallest nuances of rhythm and timing can make this experienceable. On “I Hear A Rhapsody” the Origin Live excelled with a flow that let the notes float loosely and airily into the room. This number also benefited in particular from another feature of the Sovereign S MK5 that must be explicitly highlighted: the absolute quietness of the platter bearing, which is essential for such a calmly flowing piece.

The Origin Live Sovereign S MK5 spreads heart-warming satisfaction with refreshing “aha” moments. Its a great pleasure to listen to music with the grip, finesse and liveliness of this turntable. The British have packed as much high inertia turntable into the Sovereign S MK5 as necessary and placed the very best subchassis aspects on this foundation. The highlight is the unique, single-point mounted seesaw on which platter bearing and tonearm base find an airy, delicate, and wonderfully balanced equilibrium. The name says it all. With the original recording through Origin Live, the music really does play convincingly LIVE.

Introduction to Good Sound Quality

If you are interested in good sound quality, this article aspires to help. My thanks must go to the outside assistance given by four professional designers and reviewers who have contributed and proof read the ideas included. This was necessary in a subject which can be confusing for a number of reasons which will become clear as you read.

At face value, good sound quality seems like an easy thing to evaluate. We say things such as:

“I know what I like”

“My system sounds great”

“This item got a great review on sound quality”

“It’s either right or it’s wrong”

Most people want a system which gives you the feeling of “being there” at the original performance – of hearing the singers and instruments as if they were right there in the room in front of you. In the process of both hearing and conducting many equipment auditions I have found that what seems simple is far from it! 

Origin Live has won around twenty “product of the year” awards for their designs. This article seeks to pass on and distill over three decades of professional listening experience into easy to understand concepts:

1. 1. Things to watch out for when evaluating sound quality
   2. Knowing how people listen differently
   3. How to figure out your priorities in sound quality
   4. How reviews and recommendations may come from particular standpoints

I often discuss with clients how they wish to upgrade the equipment in their audio system. Many have great systems which they are happy with but are also aware that they have heard better.  This leads to interesting conversations involving the pros and cons of various options. One of the most common difficulties expressed is that the range of choice is massive and pretty much everything is recommended by one source or another.

There are many stories of clients trying different items of equipment in an effort to address a particular shortcoming in sound quality. For example in a search for more detail in the sound, you may have purchased a pair of speakers, thinking they had great clarity in the audition. However, after a while you recognise that there is no bass warmth and listening becomes a fatiguing experience – tonally these speakers have too much treble. So you duly acquire another pair of speakers without such an “insightful” treble – these are OK for a while but eventually you notice that the sound is not very exciting or involving. If truth be told, it’s boring because the dynamics are poor!  This story is the syndrome of swapping one set of problems for another. All part of the learning curve in achieving good sound quality. Whilst this may be fun for some, it is often too expensive and time consuming for others.

You can usually recognize good sound quality instantly. However it’s prudent to go further than initial impressions as there are many common pitfalls which need to be avoided. If you are relatively new to Hi Fi you may find it  challenging to describe in detail what you are hearing. It’s like learning about computers or smartphones – flashy looking products can have underlying issues, and there are  unfamiliar words and ways of describing the things which are not always consistent.

Why You Need to Evaluate Products to Your Own Satisfaction

Businesses are told by skilful marketing companies that it’s not about the product, it’s about the marketing! There is a lot of truth in this. Just because something is popular and marketed well does not mean it’s the best product out there. Putting claims to the test yourself through audition is the only way of knowing whether something really lives up to the hype. Opportunities to audition equipment may occur at a dealer, hearing a friend’s system, Hi Fi shows or products ordered on a money back guarantee. When these opportunities occur, it is extremely helpful to be on the lookout for key aspects of sound quality and know why they are important. 

Remarks on listening to Hi FI

I used to think that unless someone had severe hearing loss, most people had similar hearing. I put down variations in the way people respond in listening tests as a matter of experience. When new to Hi Fi, I myself used to find comparison tests of different systems quite demanding in terms of always understanding people’s comments. This was usually because I was particularly focused on one aspect of the music. Over time I have learned to tune in to things in a more holistic way rather than just being focused on certain aspects of the music.

Hearing varies from person to person in the same way that some have 20/20 vision, others are short sighted, others long sighted etc. It’s estimated that only 1 in 10,000 people have absolute pitch perfect hearing (meaning you can tell what key is played without a reference note). More commonly 1 in 50 have relative pitch perfect hearing (meaning you can tell whate
ver key is played relative to a reference Key played). 1 in 50 are tone deaf so everyone else is somewhere on the spectrum in between.

These facts tell you that designers, reviewers and listeners vary in their ability to hear tonal correctness. Some will pay a lot of attention to tonal quality and others will value different characteristics. Technical measurements are of value but have limitations when assessing sound quality for reasons that have been well documented over the years. 

People have differing preferences in what they like to hear in music. If you are not used to hearing live music (un-amplified), you might not be so aware of how things should sound. It’s then easy to simply accept mediocre sound quality. We quickly get used to the sound of our system without realising how much it can be improved. When you listen to a piece of familiar music on a different system, it can often shed a different light on things. It takes time, experience, and critical listening to improve how you identify what makes good sound. Reading reviews or listening to sales people doesn’t guarantee you will end up with the best solutions.

I for one, have made many seriously poor buying decisions by listening to the enthusiastic opinion of others before listening for myself. So when reading reviews or listening to recommendations it helps to have a charted map of what great sound quality really consists of. 

Three Main Categories in Good Sound Quality

At Origin Live we find that the elements which make up good sound quality mostly fall into 3 core categories: Clarity, Dynamics and Tonality. What follows is not necessarily the most perfect way of looking at things but it helps to simplify and clarify a complex subject.

The Winning Combination for Good Sound Quality

It is surprising how you can demonstrate 2 systems to a room full of listeners and there will be different opinions as to which is best. You can then carry out a similar demonstration between 2 other systems and the room will be unanimous on the winner.

The most likely reason for this is that in the first instance, one system appealed only to listeners with a given preference for clarity (by way of example) whereas in the unanimous verdict, one system appealed to all types of listener. This can be illustrated in the diagram below where you can see the sweet spot of truly good sound quality.

“Best Sound” which finds Universal Acceptance

An evaluation of good sound quality will not only look at individual aspects in the music but also appreciate things holistically.

One way to do this is to score the above diagram. The intersection of the 3 circles in area CDT represents the overall score. The perfect sound is one which would score 100% in all three categories. The score at intersection “CDT” would be averaged to  100%      [100C + 100D + 100T]/3 = 100%.  Where C is Clarity, D is Dynamics & T is Tonality

The value of seeing the individual scores 100C 100D 100T – is that you may have a particular preference for clarity (for example), and not care too much about tonality. So if the score was [100C + 100D + 30T] / 3 = 77% you would be happy and the system may come at much less cost.

Of course no such scoring system has been formalised but it gives a concept of how reviews on good sound quality could score things to arrive at their conclusions.

It is interesting to note that the quality of Clarity/ Dynamics/Tonality can be enhanced or diminished by every component in your system – from source to loudspeakers.

Basis of Observations

In 35 years carrying out listening tests, hearing demonstrations, giving demonstrations and sitting on professional blind test listening panels, it’s very clear that an understanding of what people like and why, is of supreme importance. This understanding helps avoid a myriad of pitfalls which may occur in:-

Design. Evaluation, Reviews, Your Choices etc.

Observations on Preferences

Everybody, even reviewers focus on different things when listening to music. Just as people prefer different genres of music, so we have particular preferences on aspects of what we consider to be good sound quality. Different aspects of sound draw different people in.

A  parallel to what people like in good sound quality, is the type of books or films people like. Genres such as thriller, detective, romantic etc, all have their equivalents in music and equipment sound. Some people are more analytic in their listening and looking for the fine details in playback. Others are looking for the thrill you get with quality dynamics. Some most enjoy great tonality and the pleasing effect on the ear of wonderful harmonics in the music. The all round listener will latch onto all three of these while listening to music.

If you  are not particularly sensitive to tonality, you will probably pay a lot more attention to things like dynamics or clarity. If on the other hand, you are sensitive to pitch and harmonics (e.g like a musician) then you may find tonal anomalies extremely irritating and will not rate equipment which is poor tonally. Tonal anomalies can include things like singers sounding flat, piano harmonics sounding unnatural etc. Knowing what you like in good sound quality is an important key to making the best equipment choices.

Magazine reviews are often very helpful in shortlisting products for audition as they often discuss sound quality in depth. However it’s worth recognising the following:

1. 1. A huge number of products all receive the same rating (number of stars or % score etc)
   2. Scoring systems don’t rate absolute performance of products. For example a £200 product will get 5 stars which means that it’s good in it’s class. What this score does not tell you, is how it compares to a £1000 product. The truth is that there are products which outperform others at over 10 times the price.
   3.  It’s natural that any review will be coloured by the reviewers hearing and personal tastes. Ignoring the overall rating, good reviews still give a picture of a product’s characteristics which helps.

Food for Thought on Good Sound Quality

Hopefully this article has provided food for thought in what makes good sound quality from a subjective point of view. This is a huge subject of course but sometimes new ways of looking at things can provide all sorts of breakthroughs.