Does Audio Need Tuning?

What constitutes good tuning and what makes tuning go too far?

Whether you are new to hi-fi or have spent decades refining your system, chances are you already have an answer. And that answer may be quite different from the next listener's.

Before attempting to settle the question, however, we believe there is a more fundamental one worth considering:
How do we decide whether a sound is good in the first place?

The first thing to consider is hearing.

By hearing, we mean the physiological ability of the ear to receive sound. And this ability varies considerably from one person to another. Some people are naturally able to hear across a wider range of frequencies, while hearing itself changes gradually with age. These are, to a large extent, objective physiological differences.

But being able to hear something and being able to judge whether it sounds good are two very different things.
The latter is considerably more complex.

Our understanding of sound, our listening experience, our musical background, and even whether we have received formal musical training can all influence the way we interpret and evaluate what we hear.

And for anyone deeply involved in hi-fi, there is another factor that is almost impossible to ignore: personal preference.

Some listeners prefer warmth and body. Others seek transparency and resolution. Some place greater importance on soundstage and image placement, while others are drawn to the weight, impact, and physicality of bass.

This is why discussions about whether a particular system "sounds good" can so easily go in circles.

We may not realize that we are judging the sound with entirely different yardsticks to begin with.

And once that happens, the conversation can quickly become an exercise in talking past one another. One listener has perfectly good reasons for what he hears; another has equally convincing reasons for hearing it differently. In the end, neither is necessarily able to persuade the other.

Before the birth of Nirvana Audio, we found ourselves equally fascinated and puzzled by this question.

Over the past several years, however, through extensive hands-on testing, development, and listening experiences in both domestic and international settings, we have gradually begun to see a more complete picture emerging.

And that leads to an even more interesting question: if our hearing, experience, and preferences are all different, can there nevertheless be a relatively objective standard by which we judge whether a sound is good or bad?

That is where we will pick up the conversation in our blog.