Audiophiles lack of respect.

[Julf]

"I personally feel in the interests of a more free and robust overall discussion, we must guard against tendencies to pounce immediately when seeing something that might, but does not necessarily have to, be interpreted in a way we feel is incorrect. "

 

A good point - it is an issue that is all too common on internet forums. It is so easy just to quickly check for new messages, notice something, and shoot off a quick response. In doing so, it is also very easy to just remember things the person you are responding has stated in the past, and (often wrongly) assume the new post is a continuation of the old opinions/statements.

 

But as to this specific case,

 

"Yes, Julf, I thought that might be the way you were reading SandyK's initial note, but as you see from his comment above, that isn't what he meant. Rather, he is agreeing with your statement"

 

I am not entirely sure. Remember this started by sandyk stating:

 

"Even then [when *not* streamed], the highest resolution version is unlikely to sound quite as good as when installed on your PC from the DVD that is made to order and shipped to you."

 

That, to me, sounded like an interesting statement, so I followed up with "I'd love to hear why you think that would be the case."

 

Sandyk then stated "it is better to send them as UNCOMPRESSED ZIPS" and "Barry was talking about format comparison files available for downloading", and neither comment really suggest (to me) that sandyk is talking about streaming. I might of course have misunderstood, and in that case, it is easy for sandyk to set me straight.

 

[Jud]

Sandyk then stated "it is better to send them as UNCOMPRESSED ZIPS"

 

I took that to be discussing a separate subject, whether local playback is better with compressed (FLAC, ALAC) or uncompressed (WAV, AIFF) file formats. Just my own interpretation of course.

 

By the way, so as not to come off as too much of a pompous a**, it should be noted that perhaps the biggest reason I try to be sensitive to the things I spoke of in my previous comment is because I notice so many of these tendencies in myself.

 

[Julf]

"I took that to be discussing a separate subject, whether local playback is better with compressed (FLAC, ALAC) or uncompressed (WAV, AIFF) file formats."

 

I just can't figure out how the whole uncompressed zip bit would fit in in that case.

 

"Just my own interpretation of course."

 

Likewise. And it is of course pretty silly for us to debate what sandyk might or might not have meant, when only a clarification from the horse's mouth can ensure we get it right.

 

"By the way, so as not to come off as too much of a pompous a**, it should be oted that perhaps the biggest reason I try to be sensitive to the things I spoke of in my previous comment is because I notice so many of these tendencies in myself."

 

And likewise - just as I am the first to admit I have a tendency to overreact to possible signs of audiophile voodoo and superstition.

 

 

[Paul R]

It seems rather inappropriate to discuss this subject in this topic. I would expect both you guys to be sniping at the original article referenced in the topic, not each other.

 

Julf, everyone is aware you feel that it is your duty to correct what you perceive as misapprehensions, but can you not just go post your thinking in a CA blog? Or at least in a separate topic where you can "debunk" what you disagree with and not derail this and other topics please? It would be much more valuable there I think. And more easily available for everyone interested to follow and comment on.

 

Alex, however unintentionally, it looks a lot like you are baiting Julf. I'm sure you don't mean to.

 

-Paul

 

 

[bdiament]

Perhaps an appropriate tangent would be "audiophiles lack of respect for other audiophiles"? ;-}

 

That there would be different perspectives does not surprise me; in fact, it is what I would expect. But I do wish there was more tolerance of the fact that person A does not necessarily hear things the same way person B does.

 

Personally, I want to hear about what A experiences and about what B experiences. But I don't really want to hear about A's perceptions of B's experience or B's perceptions of A's experience, as neither can have (or logically defend the assertion of having) knowledge of the other's experience.

 

Sometimes I read things in posts on CA that make me wonder how on Earth the person can possibly be hearing what they say they're hearing. Other times, I wonder how they can possibly not be hearing what I find so obvious in my own listening. I've come to realize this is simply how it is; different folks have different sensitivities to different aspects of sound. Whether I agree or not, I still find all first hand perspectives of interest.

 

Best regards,

Barry

www.soundkeeperrecordings.com

www.barrydiamentaudio.com

 

 

[goldsdad]

"Sandyk then stated "it is better to send them as UNCOMPRESSED ZIPS"

 

I took that to be discussing a separate subject, whether local playback is better with compressed (FLAC, ALAC) or uncompressed (WAV, AIFF) file formats. Just my own interpretation of course."

 

To me, the statement regards the belief that:

 

1. Internet transfer can cause audible corruption to an audio file despite not changing the bits (binary digits) within the file.

 

2. This damage can be prevented by cocooning the audio file within a zip container , without compression, for the duration of its internet voyage, then the pristine audio file can be released within the haven of the recipient computer system.

 

3. The zip content must not be compressed because compression also can cause audible corruption to an audio file despite the bits within the file being unchanged from the original when the file is extracted from the zip.

 

 

 

[Mark Powell]

@Teresa

 

Quite. Have these 'professionals' ever heard of Blumlein's pair of crossed regular microphones for stereo, recording the whole band? All these 'drum' microphones, indeed, microphones for any one instrument, are totally unnecessary, as the Blumlein pair was used exclusivley for donkey's years and the recordings so made are every bit as good as the recordings of today. Many are better.

 

 

 

[Julf]

I think we have exactly the same interpretation of the statements by sandyk.

 

I am of course very curious about this "bit rot" that affects wav and flac files, but not zip files (and as we know, doesn't affect spreadsheets, program files, pictures, emails or web pages either). Does it affect mp3 files? Does it affect wav files that are part of an offline backup stored on a cloud server?

 

 

[bdiament]

Hi Mark,

 

In my experience over the years, most of the pros I've spoken with, who work in typical studios recording popular music, have never heard of Alan Blumlein. Unfortunately, neither have they heard of any of the other alternatives to multiple, monaural, closely placed, large diaphragm microphone techniques.

 

Even many audiophiles who have heard of Blumlein don't know he also experimented with other forms of stereo recording, a pair of omnis for example.

 

Blumlein also experimented with using a baffle between a pair of omnis. This idea was "awoken" several decades later by Jurg Jecklin.

 

In my own experiments, I've come to favor my own variation on this idea, as I find it offers (to my ears) several advantages over the more commonly known Blumlein technique. Among these are a more faithful rendering of images on the soundstage and their relative positions. Perhaps even more importantly, I find the use of well designed and properly implemented omnis results in less coloration of timbre - one of my pet peeves with regard to directional microphones. (It is my belief that in many regards, all microphones are in fact, omnidirectional. This can be easily tested by standing behind a so-called "directional" microphone and testing to see if one's voice is rendered inaudible in a resulting recording. Same is true for "directional" speakers: I've yet to stand behind one and be unable to hear the sound it makes. With microphones, the differences often amount to the sort and the degree of off-axis coloration they engender.)

 

I wrote a little about this in my Recording in Stereo article.

 

Best regards,

Barry

www.soundkeeperrecordings.com

www.barrydiamentaudio.com

 

[Julf]

Barry,

 

In general I try to stick to technical facts, and I have never doubted that the people who state that they can hear something aren't hearing what they state they are hearing. But I am aware that what we hear is affected by our brain, and is not always 100% caused by actual sound waves ("Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain" by Oliver Sacks is an interesting read).

 

I also feel that when somebody states with absolute certainty that there exists an audible effect that is hard to explain by current scientific and engineering knowledge it is fair to assume that, while it is quite possible that the effect is caused by something that we don't understand and can't measure yet, it might also be that there are other factors causing the perception, and it is a valid thing to ask for some objective verification. I know that not everybody shares my view.

 

This whole thread is about how audiophiles are perceived by non-audiophiles. I am afraid that the somewhat negative perception is not only caused by the rather obscene prices of "high-end" equipment, but also by some of the superstitions and beliefs circulated in the audiophile community. The test is to explain those beliefs to a non-audiophile friend, and see what the reaction is...

 

[Mark Powell]

Thank you, I now know more than I did. In fact Blumlein's crossed microphone technique is the only technique I have ever heard of, not his others or anything else. And that is purely because I am quite old, rather than I have any kind of expertise (I have never even seen a recording studio).

 

And I was not only seriously making a point, but also indulging in a bit of leg-pulling, which a weakness of mine

 

[Jeff In San Diego]

...there are a few of us here who would at least like to entertain your consideration for knighthood.

 

[Mark Powell]

"Does it affect wav files that are part of an offline backup stored on a cloud server?"

 

Well, obviously. And 'Cloud" servers have been used for over 40 years. Only the name has changed, though I don't think WAV files were invented then. The WAV design partnership (IBM and Microsoft) must have been unaware of the susceptibility of WAV files to bit rot. Surpising, as IBM was the major (may have even been the only) provider of 'Cloud' services then. Obviously nowhere near as familiar with such things as the guys here today.

 

PS: 'Facts' Yes. I an not going to comment on its validity but here is a recent one "My silver USB cable sounds brighter than my copper one".

 

[Julf]

Wasn't knighthood traditionally granted for participating in a crusade?

 

[Jud]

Wasn't knighthood traditionally granted for participating in a crusade?

 

Along with commutation of jail sentences, yes. ;-)

 

[bdiament]

Hi Julf,

 

I've read Oliver Sack's book (used to be a neighbor of mine) and found it very interesting.

 

As to what folks hear, while no doubt there are occasions when certain phenomena occur between the ears rather than in the source, my experience has been that astute and experienced listeners are much less susceptible to this than some Internet "experts" would contend.

 

Certainly anyone might be mistaken but on the other hand, my own take is that the calls for "objective verification" are often mistaken too. There appears to be an unspoken assumption that everything an experienced listener can perceive is, as of March 2012, within the realm of measurement. My experience tells me this is far from the case and if and when it does actually come to pass, I expect to be able to select the components of my system by using the spec sheets and not having to be "inconvenienced" by actual listening.

 

The same would go for my selection of microphones for recording and for the selection of the musical instruments themselves.

 

I find the search for measurements interesting and admirable. But I keep foremost in my mind that the measurements are not and will never be the experience, which after all, is the sole purpose (as far as I know) of listening to music, whether live or via a recording.

 

I think it important to remember that measurements are by definition an abstraction. Korszybski nailed it when he said "The map is not the territory."

 

There is, in Internet audio fora, another element to this too. I can fully understand someone saying something like "I listened and I don't hear that at all." What I can't understand is someone suggesting what another person does or does not, can or can not hear (i.e. that the perception was, for example, "imagined"). Unless one can demonstrate --show "objective verification" of -- (;-}) how they have access to another's perceptions, in my view, they have no logical foundation on which to rest any statements about others' perceptions.

 

This of course, is only my take on it. I'm reminded of an experience I had on the observing field many years ago, soon after I'd gotten my first really good telescope. I was seeking galaxy M31 and asked a more experienced observer to take a peek through my eyepiece to confirm or deny that I'd bagged my quarry. He took a look and said "Yup, that's it! Can you see the dark lane?"

 

I wondered "What dark lane?" and took another good, long look. All I saw, my eyes at the time being much less experienced at this than they are now, was a faint, oval shaped blob of light. Not a trace of that "dark lane".

 

Today, I often think of that experience because if it was audio, there would always be someone who would claim my friend was "imagining" the dark lane... or perhaps he only "believed" he saw it because he'd seen it in long exposure photographs somewhere.

 

Happily, that doesn't happen among amateur astronomers. Others will say, "I see it" or "I don't see it" but no one would suggest my friend was imagining what he told me he saw. They would realize the rudeness of such an assertion and they would realize the absence of any logical basis for such as well.

 

But in audio on the Internet, unfortunately for all of us, the story is very different. Instead of framing posts in terms of their own experience (yay or nay), we encounter the questions about "proof" - often from folks who won't even believe their own ears if they have a similar experience. And we encounter what seems to me to be a complete absence of awareness of just how such assertions come across.

 

I don't expect this to change any time soon but I do find that my experience of it is it tends to drag forums down rather than lift them up.

 

As always, just my perspective.

 

By the way, in the intervening years, with more observing experience, I've gotten to the point where the dark lane in M31 is quite obvious to me and I'm almost surprised that at one time, it was invisible to me. I just needed to hone my observing skills over time.

 

Best regards,

Barry

www.soundkeeperrecordings.com

www.barrydiamentaudio.com

 

[Julf]

Barry,

 

"Happily, that doesn't happen among amateur astronomers. Others will say, "I see it" or "I don't see it" but no one would suggest my friend was imagining what he told me he saw. They would realize the rudeness of such an assertion and they would realize the absence of any logical basis for such as well."

 

And I think that applies very well to music. I might not appreciate the musical taste of some of my friends, and they might go "can't you hear that brilliant syncopation?" and I would go "no", and then play something where I would point out some very interesting harmonic structures, and my friend would have no idea what I was talking about. We would still respect each other's views.

 

But imagine if one of your amateur astronomers would tell you he saw a flying saucer? Would you just accept it as a valid observation, and assume that over time, you too might start seeing them?

 

 

 

[goldsdad]

I'm wondering if the 1s and 0s of audio files are less elastic than those of all other files. Imagine the nearly countless bounces from computer to computer that can be involved in internet transfer of a file. A less than perfectly springy bit may become crumpled and permanently crippled, possibly. Poor elasticity could also result in audio files being damaged by the tight squeeze of compression.

 

 

 

[Mark Powell]

Actually, no. A knight had duties. One was to go on crusades and things. He had also to provide 'villeins' (peasants) to do most of the actual fighting. And to suitably arm himself and his villeins.

 

'Ordinary' people were not allowed to go. You had to be at the minimum a knight before you could even start.

 

In the UK at least. It was not called the 'UK' then of course. Don't think there were any American crusaders, despite the films

 

[Jeff In San Diego]

I beseech you...let us saunter forth and take the castle of the Monster (cable) in the name of our new KING!

 

(that we might be worthy of his consideration for knighthood)

 

 

[Julf]

That is the spirit!

 

 

[Julf]

But can bit elasticity be measured?

 

[goldsdad]

Measured!? Who needs measurements? Have faith!

 

 

[Paul R]

In general I try to stick to technical facts, and I have never doubted that the people who state that they can hear something aren't hearing what they state they are hearing.

 

I couldn't resist - is this a Fraudian slip on your part?

 

In any event, every hobby has it's oddities - dosing a reef tank with Vodka for instance. Rebooting a Windows machine every day. Looking for the "any" key... etc.

 

I doubt seriously "audiophiles" are defined by the masses as having odd beliefs. Probably thought of more like a "computer nerd" - obsessed with the technology, and willing to spend insane sums of money in the pursuit of it. But harmless in the larger scheme of things.

 

-Paul

 

[rlnt500]

I think you guys may be missing the point. I agree with most of the posts but I think most of you are getting sucked in to an argument and are being way to defensive. Like most, I have an issue with this comment.

 

I’m nothing more than a fan of the Patriots, and audiophiles have to realize the same thing. Do they actually think they know more than these professionals who have invested a lifetime of training into their respective fields? Do they think musicians say to themselves, “let’s make a sucky recording?”

 

First: "audiophiles have to realize the same thing". I don't have to do anything.

 

Second: "Do they actually think they know more than these professionals who have invested a lifetime of training into their respective fields?" Yes I do. And for 2 reasons. 1. I don't see too many people on this, or any other high end audio site, complaining about the recordings comming from Audioquest, Chesky, Stereophile and other similiar operations. There's your reference; proof that what we want not olny exists, but can be done as well. Recordings like this are what most of us find acceptable. They probably don't bring these recordings up because it is beyond what they are capable of doing. If you cant make a good recording, source it out to someone who can, or go back to school and learn to do it yourself. Which leads me to.. 2. It's my money and I don't give a rat's ass what your think. I'm not going to lower my standards to make your life easier. If you want my money, you have to compete for it just like every other business does.

 

Lastly, I see alot of the posters trying very hard to try and define what an audiophile is and is not; treading very carefully as to be fair and not to offend. It's just my opinion, but I don't see where you guys owe anyone an explaination for anything. It's your business and no one elses.