20 minutes ago, botrytis said:

I wonder if Fank can heart a dog whistle...

 

That may explain much.....

I suspect the opposite.

One of his goals appears to be getting his "rig" to a place where he can enjoy the Noise-Induced Hearing Loss caused by his favorite CDs cranked up to 11.

As someone who is less "confused" than most, your detailed post deserves a solid response ... as a general retort, the wide world of audio shows great excesses of "belittlement" of people who "don't think the same as I do!" - the MQA thread, here, is very much a rich seam of such - so, in that sense, I'm in good company, .

10 hours ago, Confused said:

Oh I can! Your posts provide a rich seam to mine when I am feeding my ever growing collection of generalisations. So who do you belittle? Audiophiles. Most of the world will care little about this, but belittling Audiophiles on a site called Audiophile Style does seem to be a curious thing to do, if you aim is to inform and take others with you on your journey. Basically you are belittling every member of this forum.

You start with trying to inform, and take others - but the withering levels of anger, and onslaught of insults for daring to suggest that their world isn't perfect, doesn't encourage one to be cutesy about things ... being tribal is all well and good, but I would suggest that the world is tending to demonstrate, right now, that this isn't a brilliant way of showing that the human race is a worthy creation ...

10 hours ago, Confused said:

 

And how about this fine generalisation:

 

 If ever there was a group of people who generalised more than audiophiles, I would like to meet them ... the pattern starts, and it sticks, like a wad of chewing gum to the sole of a shoe ... what's wrong with digital, what's wrong with digital ??! Hey, what about this jitter stuff, then ... Aaaahhhh!! Righto, it's jitter, jitter, jitter, jitter, jitter, jitter, jitter, jitter, ad nauseum ...year after year 😝

 

The great thing about the above, is that fas42 himself is worrying about jitter in his Edifier thread, so Frank, you have managed to belittle everyone on this forum, including yourself! (Although as a Brit, I do appreciate self depreciation)

Always a nifty thing to do, to miss the point, eh? The above was a comment that reflected no matter what was actually causing SQ issues in a digital system, the knee-jerk response was that, "jitter is the problem!!" Umm, my actives steadily improved, tweak after tweak, over many months, as I dealt with all the other weaknesses - leaving, finally, yes, pure jitter in itself to deal with - it's the last duck on the row, to knock over.

10 hours ago, Confused said:

Some examples from my collection of generalisations:

 

The audiophile crowd are definitely the worst of the "not getting it" side of things

 

What I see is a high percentage of audiophiles spending very large amounts of money, which cause them to whittle their record collections down to a small number of 'acceptable' albums

 

The ultimate joke is that nearly all audiophiles at some stage, some moment in all the years of their being interested in this hobby have heard a rig working at, or close to this level of SQ - and have been quite blind, err, deaf to what was happening.

 

Anyway, I am all for freedom of speech, so carry on Frank. But.....  If you really do want to convince people of the wisdom of your ideas, it might be best to tone down the rhetoric a bit. As things stand, right or wrong, it does look a little bit like your primary purpose here is to wind up Audiophiles, on a website populated by Audiophiles. Which is all good fun, but will never achieve much.

My primary purpose is to be a disrupter. Of ways of thinking that get in the way of achieving "best" SQ. I will never be Mr Happy, on the sidelines, when I hear pretty awful sound emerging from some incredibly expensive rig - unless consideration of what matters evolves, I can't see this changing soon ... I'm only "winding up" Audiophiles, because they don't want their comfortable box of thinking to be disturbed ...

10 hours ago, Confused said:

A while ago when exchanging some lively posts with Frank, I actually came to the conclusion that personally I simply do not hear things in the same way that Frank does. This perhaps poses an interesting question, in that just how much does personal perception of audio systems vary between individuals? I certainly would not consider my own perceptions to be the basis of some kind of universal truth. 

 

The above is also why I developed FrankFilter, which continues to work nicely for me.

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/66646-expectation-bias/?do=findComment&comment=1214944

 

Audiophiles do come in different flavours: for example, there are those who are certain that a high percentage of recordings are inferior, and hence will pursue a special version of some album; or those who enjoy seasoning what they hear by adjusting distortion generating areas of their rigs - the "tube rolling" thing. Which are perfectly good hobbies, in their own right.

However, I want to enjoy the presentation of music in a way that completely removes the sense of being aware that some contraption is doing it. For me, live music has the quality of putting 'texture' in the air, which retains its integrity whether you intensely focus on it, or completely ignore it - the dinner music pieces, in the classical world, are an example of how people have considered the latter. So, what I'm after is that a playback chain does the same thing - it never reminds you that "this machine" is doing it. Now, at least for me, evolving reproduction to this level has the side benefit of making all recordings you're vaguely interested in enjoyable to experience - which may, of course, not suit others .

42 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Yes, it's always the other person who's the problem in your world.

 

Please consider the underlying message of the following:

 

Dear me ... if I was a psychologist, I would say you have a problem ...

My problem, as I have said many times, is that I can't go to a show that I pay good money for, and be assured that the SQ won't be offensive ... looks like the "assholes" have holed up in the pro music world, from my angle ...

4 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

I suspect the opposite.

 

One of his goals appears to be getting his "rig" to a place where he can enjoy the Noise-Induced Hearing Loss caused by his favorite CDs cranked up to 11.

Which reminds me of a news piece of an experiment that was tried many year ago, in the UK if I recall correctly. Couldn't find it quickly via Google, so here's a summary:

The concept was to do "club music"; but at the highest SQ standard. Lots of effort was put into it by people who really knew their stuff, they had a setup of many, many speakers surrounding the floor area, each one with a dedicated, best quality, high power McIntosh amplifier; the source was a highest quality vinyl rig - everything was done to ensure maximum cleanness of the sound; no "going into the red" nonsense.

Which worked. They had way over 120dB sound levels "inside the circle", but it sounded, completely normal - you were aware of the intensity of the sound, but it had no sense of bombarding, or trying to deafen you. What it's about is that clean sound is very comfortable to the ears - yes, you will suffer damage if the high levels are sustained; so, knowledge of when "enough is enough" is needed ...

46 minutes ago, fas42 said:

My problem, as I have said many times, is that I can't go to a show that I pay good money for, and be assured that the SQ won't be offensive ... looks like the "assholes" have holed up in the pro music world, from my angle ...

I'm confused as why you think this is our problem.

8 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

I'm confused as why you think this is our problem.

The problem exists, because most people don't appreciate that the closer you get to optimum quality, and the higher the sound levels are, that the fussier you have to be ... until that changes, we'll keep getting PA systems, that can pump out the volume, that sound awful. Or, get trapped in Uncanny Valley land, where some recordings sound magnificent, but an 'ordinary' one is almost unlistenable ...

If the general thinking of people who are enthused about music moves to demanding that the standards improve, then they will. Conversely, if people continue accepting well below what's possible as being "good enough" - then, that's what you will get ...

Just now, fas42 said:

 

The problem exists, because most people don't appreciate that the closer you get to optimum quality, and the higher the sound levels are, that the fussier you have to be ... until that changes, we'll keep getting PA systems, that can pump out the volume, that sound awful. Or, get trapped in Uncanny Valley land, where some recordings sound magnificent, but an 'ordinary' one is almost unlistenable ...

 

If the general thinking of people who are enthused about music moves to demanding that the standards improve, then they will. Conversely, if people continue accepting well below what's possible as being "good enough" - then, that's what you will get ...

Again, this appears to be a problem that only you have.

37 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Again, this appears to be a problem that only you have.

Only I? So, you are assured that all other people are content with the standard of sound reinforcement systems, and the fact that their favourite recordings sound a bit unsavoury on some lauded audiophile setup? That "everyone else" just needs to be educated that much of recorded music is pretty awful, and nothing can be done about it - "don't worry, be happy!"?

1 minute ago, fas42 said:

 

Only I? So, you are assured that all other people are content with the standard of sound reinforcement systems, and the fact that their favourite recordings sound a bit unsavoury on some lauded audiophile setup? That "everyone else" just needs to be educated that much of recorded music is pretty awful, and nothing can be done about it - "don't worry, be happy!"?

I have literally never heard anyone else ever complain about most of things you complain about such as the need to improve the overall "standard" of audio reproduction.

This leads me to believe that they are issues that only exist in the Frankenverse. 

Garbage in - garbage out. An accurate system will show that.

2 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Only I? So, you are assured that all other people are content with the standard of sound reinforcement systems, and the fact that their favourite recordings sound a bit unsavoury on some lauded audiophile setup? That "everyone else" just needs to be educated that much of recorded music is pretty awful, and nothing can be done about it - "don't worry, be happy!"?

An awful recording SHOULD SOUND AWFUL as that is accuracy. So, you are not being , accurate with your system,  get it it.

7 minutes ago, botrytis said:

Garbage in - garbage out. An accurate system will show that.

 

 

An awful recording SHOULD SOUND AWFUL as that is accuracy. So, you are not being , accurate with your system,  get it it.

 

Which is why I will keep making posts suggesting that there is another standard. The analogy is, as I've used several times, a "beautiful" woman: with some very precise spotlighting, every slight imperfection and flaw will be emphasised - they will dominate, to make the individual very unattractive, even ugly - a 'balanced' view of her means that what makes the most impact are those qualities that do make her look special.

From my POV, so many rigs I've come across fit the former category; the answer is to evolve audio playback to the latter method - the human brain's ability to filter out what's unimportant comes on board; is taken full advantage of.

So, is The Truth, that the woman is, beautiful - or not beautiful ... ?

12 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Which is why I will keep making posts suggesting that there is another standard. The analogy is, as I've used several times, a "beautiful" woman: with some very precise spotlighting, every slight imperfection and flaw will be emphasised - they will dominate, to make the individual very unattractive, even ugly - a 'balanced' view of her means that what makes the most impact are those qualities that do make her look special.

 

From my POV, so many rigs I've come across fit the former category; the answer is to evolve audio playback to the latter method - the human brain's ability to filter out what's unimportant comes on board; is taken full advantage of.

 

So, is The Truth, that the woman is, beautiful - or not beautiful ... ?

The problem with this analogy is that it assumes that all women (recordings) are beautiful when the reality is that some are not.

A truly accurate "rig" doesn't make an ugly woman beautiful and vice versa.

44 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

The problem with this analogy is that it assumes that all women (recordings) are beautiful when the reality is that some are not.

 

A truly accurate "rig" doesn't make an ugly woman beautiful and vice versa.

Okay, to step into the next gear, what in the recording is "beautiful", is the music ... if that is ugly, intrinsically so, then there is no satisfactory outcome: the musicians hated what they were doing, and make it obvious, or they are just downright incompetent; or the musical ideas, the concept just does nothing for you; or, part of the concept is to distort the content, deliberately, so that it's unpleasant - to some listeners; etc ...

However, if the intent, originally, was to capture some event as best they could - it was done with "good heart" - then you should be a winner. Any technical shortcomings should be able to be made 'invisible' - because they don't stand in the way of connecting with the captured musical event; the ear/brain discards them as being of no interest, without you consciously registering this as happening

8 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Any technical shortcomings should be able to be made 'invisible' - because they don't stand in the way of connecting with the captured musical event; the ear/brain discards them as being of no interest, without you consciously registering this as happening

This may happen in the Frankenverse but not in the world I live in.

I have many "ugly" recordings in my collection that will always remain "ugly" because of the damage done by the inadequate equipment used for capturing the musical event, the incompetency of the recording engineers, or the poor choices made during mastering.

And guess what, every improvement in my playback environment makes them sound worse because this is what accurate equipment does!

You people have recently been given the clues, many times - the Dutch & Dutch speakers, working well, and heard in the flesh at a recent audio show, present the accurate sound I'm after - the demonstrator, a keen fan of them, said, "Anything you want to hear, I'll find and stream" - so heard a selection of tracks, from various genres. And it never put a foot wrong. There's a review on this forum,

which in the subjective bits nails what the positives are. Now, was it capable of handling all my difficult albums, etc? Was it capable of going completely invisible? Can't say, but all indications are that with minimal tweaking such is doable, with them.

The concept that so many audio people really struggle with is that a replay chain should be a transparent window onto the recording - well, as soon as two rigs sound a bit different, then at least one of them is not, accurate to this standard. Usually both aren't. A strange glitch occurs with this concept for most - my rig is accurate, but it sounds different! As in, I have 2 rulers; one says the length is 0.95 metres, the other 1.05 metres - but I know, they're both, er, accurate ...

22 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Few here are struggling with this simple concept. Almost all audiophiles I know recognize that the goal is to reproduce what's on the recording as accurately as possible.

If so, why has essentially every ambitious rig I've come across over the decades dismally failed at doing this? At times it takes my breath away at how much of what's on the track simply doesn't exist - replaced with silence, grunge, or other gradations of somewhat unpleasant or just annoying distortion.

9 hours ago, fas42 said:

Always a nifty thing to do, to miss the point, eh? The above was a comment that reflected no matter what was actually causing SQ issues in a digital system, the knee-jerk response was that, "jitter is the problem!!" Umm, my actives steadily improved, tweak after tweak, over many months, as I dealt with all the other weaknesses - leaving, finally, yes, pure jitter in itself to deal with - it's the last duck on the row, to knock over.

Yes, missing the point is bad. Although you did go on to say:

Luckily, I skipped the whole jitter craze ... to this day I couldn't give a stuff about jitter numbers - and that hasn't got in the way of the SQ I look for.

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

the Dutch & Dutch speakers, working well, and heard in the flesh at a recent audio show, present the accurate sound I'm after

Yet the Dutch & Dutch speakers use DSP to adapt its behaviour to the specific requirements of the room using their "RoomMatching" technology. Mindful that these speakers provided the sound that you are looking for, does this not make you rethink that DSP / room correction technology used wisely might be a good thing after all?

7 minutes ago, Confused said:

I sometimes think about what it must have been like for a medieval soldier going into battle. His side is horribly outnumbered, he does not have the best weapons, he does not have the armour that his rivals sport. Yet he still goes in and fights for his cause.

 

I feel a bit like this going up against Frank on an audio forum, but at least here I am not likely to have my gizzards sliced open.

Yeh , there is no winning against Frank. With Frank, you don't face the same "gizzards sliced open" existential crisis but it is an ontological crisis of sorts - you might question your faith in real audio. Best to turn away, down swords, and run for the hills ! 😁