How do you know what sounds better?

[sdolezalek]

When you change a compenent, speakers, a DAC, a cable, etc. its one thing to say "I prefer A over B;" but how do you decide whether your preference is actually "better"? What is your reference point?

 

In my case, I'm always trying to compare how my system sounds compared to the last live event I went to that came close to playing the same music. In the case of a producer, like Barry Diament, who post here regularly, he can do the "is it real or is it Memorex" (sorry I'm aging myself by that reference) test daily (which is why I highly respect his choices of components, but it is still his ears, not mine, making that comparison).

 

Better measurement could be part of the answer, but every cable debate on this site either highlights the notion that we may not be able to measure differences that we can hear or that our ears are highly capable of fooling us as to what is or isn't better.

 

So what do you use as your "reference?"

 

a) I can just tell by listening.

 

b) Unless the numbers can prove it, I don't believe it

 

c) I do lots of A/B testing and whatever I prefer is "better"

 

d) I use "live music" as my reference

 

e) Other (please explain)

[mayhem13]

I listen for dynamic range capabilities, the ability to extend to 20hz with authority, sibilance, odd order harmonic distortions, phase integration in the 1-3khz range. The remaining factors are all room related

[wgscott]

Since I can't reliably resolve differences others claim are stunningly obvious, I have decided either my hearing/auditory processing/equipment is hopelessly inferior, or I'm in the midst of some sort of mass hysteria. Either way, I've decided it is kind of pointless to obsess on things I don't properly appreciate, and to spend more time on things I can appreciate.

[Garf]

A combination of listening, and subjective reviews. I mainly rely on subjective opinions of equipment, as I do not have a lot of cash to toss around to try various items. When I have upgraded (Voyage MPD to C.A.P.S., Audinst HUD-MX1 to Bifrost, Audio Engine A2 to Adam A3x) the difference in sound was readily apparent by listening. I don't have the time or patience to analyze or try to afix numbers to prove it. Whether I arrived at the conclusion to support my purchase, or it was truly "better" really doesn't matter to me, I am enjoying the sound from my system.

[Jsmith]

Since I cannot be in the studio, I believe that live performances are a great way to know what the artists intends the music to sound like. I know the venue, equipment, and setup can all play a factor, but if the artist is happy, then I am happy.

 

Finally, if you can capture some of the energy of the live performance and take that with you, well that is as good as it gets.

[Paul R]

Ibusually go the measurements route first,then a fairly quick a/b. if the gear is still interesting at that point, I go for long term listening.

 

It takes me weeks to really understand the sound of something, and decide if it is better, the same, worse, or merely different. But I can decide in a few minutes if I think I will like it or not. Sometimes, if I decide I really like one thing better than the other, I might get some better or more focused measurements, but that does not happen all that often.

 

Paul

 

If that makes any sense at all.

[sdolezalek]

I listen for dynamic range capabilities, the ability to extend to 20hz with authority, sibilance, odd order harmonic distortions, phase integration in the 1-3khz range. The remaining factors are all room related

 

Please don't take this the wrong way, but your comments remind me of the first time a wine connoisseur tried to explain to me how to choose between a great wine and an average one. The ability to study structure, aroma, finish, depth of flavors, ageing potential, was all far beyond my abilities, so I just picked what I thought tasted better. But many years later, I actually think (maybe I'm just fooling myself) that I can now pick up on some of those qualities. Do I enjoy the wine more now that I believe I can tell the true differences? Not so sure...

 

Maybe audio is like that, maybe we can teach ourselves what we should be listening for, but maybe it doesn't meaningfully improve our enjoyment. I guess I'm more on the side of JSmith when he says: "Finally, if you can capture some of the energy of the live performance and take that with you, well that is as good as it gets."

[Musicophile]

I'm always a bit sceptical comparing hifi to live. To me, they are two different animals.

 

I'm a regular concert goer, both classical and Jazz, and while many will consider me an heretic on this side in most cases the hifi actually sounds "better", in my subjective view. I've never ever been to a live concert that has the detail and finesse of a well recorded ECM studio disc, as Jazz clubs (and I've been to many around the world) usually have rather poor sound, not to mention the background noise of drinking, sometimes eating, or worse, people talking.

 

Same for classical. Unless you are in one of the few modern concert halls with excellent acoustics (e.g. the KKL in Lucerne by Jean Nouvel) and you're sitting in a prime seat, the experience is again "worse" bay most "objective" audiophile criteria than some of my hi-res Linn or Harmonia Mundi symphonic recordings.

 

Does this stop me from going to concerts? Not at all, to the contrary, the overall experience is just so different, and a good live performance can be an event your remember for the rest of your live (which hasn't really happened to me with a CD listening session at home). But this is not due to the "audiophile" experience there.

[mayhem13]

Please don't take this the wrong way, but your comments remind me of the first time a wine connoisseur tried to explain to me how to choose between a great wine and an average one. The ability to study structure, aroma, finish, depth of flavors, ageing potential, was all far beyond my abilities, so I just picked what I thought tasted better. But many years later, I actually think (maybe I'm just fooling myself) that I can now pick up on some of those qualities. Do I enjoy the wine more now that I believe I can tell the true differences? Not so sure...

 

Maybe audio is like that, maybe we can teach ourselves what we should be listening for, but maybe it doesn't meaningfully improve our enjoyment. I guess I'm more on the side of JSmith when he says: "Finally, if you can capture some of the energy of the live performance and take that with you, well that is as good as it gets."

 

Your wine reference is just the type of thing I'm completely against and have gotten into some really heated debates over.....just recently about words like finish, depth, or any other non related descriptor you choose.

 

The descriptors I used are all audio related by definition and if you know what they mean, all are easily identifiable in a relatively short listening test. Harmonic distortion is pretty easy to pick up as is sibilance.......when a vocal uses the S sound, but instead of sounding like SSS, it sounds like sssSssSSss.....like the vocalist is spitting on the microphone. Lower in the freq range, where bass guitar, kick drum and synths live, it's pretty apparent when a system is underpowered as the lower registers of these instruments pretty much roll off leaving only the initial attack much higher in the FR.

 

Notice I didn't mention soundstage, separation, clarity,....blah blah blah....because either these are room related issues or terms that don't translate we'll to audio.

[mayhem13]

Since I cannot be in the studio, I believe that live performances are a great way to know what the artists intends the music to sound like. I know the venue, equipment, and setup can all play a factor, but if the artist is happy, then I am happy.

 

Finally, if you can capture some of the energy of the live performance and take that with you, well that is as good as it gets.

 

As a live sound engineer for many years, I can't remember when an artist or group came off of the stage into the venue to listen to my mix so as to ' if the artist is happy' my practical experience tells me not so much. Personally, I believe the artists has much more control over the final outcome on studio material. First, there's an abundance of time to get it right....not a 1 hour sound heck and the mercy of an engineer and a room who's acoustics change vastly from that of the sound heck as it fills with reflective and absorbing materials......people. Secondly, the artists has access to just about any tool or instrument he or she may need, and believe me they use em....often more than they need to. I've been in sessions where over a dozen snare drums have been tried to get the right sound on a single track....maddening!

 

Oh...and let me add. Wanna know what the artists almost always ask me after a live show...How did it sound tonight?.......and guess what my response was?......lol...like i had a choice.

[mav52]

The specifications of the unit/speaker first, a demo with my material at the store, then a trail (if they the store has a demo period and/or a 30 day return) in my home. If I like what I hear, I keep it, if not it's going back.

[sjoc2000]

To evaluate a change I have made in equipment, first I need reference recordings, like "Sheffield Lab Drum & Track", good Bartok or Mahler frac files, etc.. I will have an initial judgement based on having heard these same recordings many times before with different setups and equipment. This is usually my best judgement.

 

If I try a/b listening, I will usually get hopelessly bogged down in trying to judge subtle differences. It is better here to listen over long periods of time to judge subtleties, if I will take the time to do so.

 

I believe that all sensory information and its neural processing can be measured and mathematically understood, but that our ability to do so is limited at this time. I like data, mathematical models, "Audacity" representations, but only get a crude confirmation of what I have heard with these old ears.

 

Jim

[Paul R]

Hi Jim -

I need quick A/B listening, perhaps in a store or at an audio fair, just to get an idea of if I want to spend time with a device at all. It's sort of like a pre-filter thing, the stuff I am not going to like at all is easily apparent, and so I don't waste my time, or the store's time moving further with it.

 

But even before that, I sort of pre-pre-filter based upon things like recommendations from people here, equipment specifications / measurements, who designed or built it, Stereophile measurements, reviews from people like Chris, Art Dudley, Jonathan Valin, John Atkinson, or a few - a very few - others.

 

But the final decision is always the answer to how much I enjoy listening to it. And that has all sorts of hard to define factors in it, such as "emotional involvement" all the way through to "do we like the color of the thing?"

 

I understand where Mayhem is coming from, but I don't think it make sense to judge and buy something for enjoyment based purely on the specifications or performance measurements. Sure they are important, and can rule out a hunk of gear from even being looked at. It makes a lot more sense to take that approach to something that is used in business, but even then, not always.

 

Example: New equipment I put into our computer room at work needs to be black. It has to look good for business and marketing reasons. Totally practical, but tell that to the IBM guy I had out in the parking lot spray painting a grey enclosure.

 

-Paul

 

 

To evaluate a change I have made in equipment, first I need reference recordings, like "Sheffield Lab Drum & Track", good Bartok or Mahler frac files, etc.. I will have an initial judgement based on having heard these same recordings many times before with different setups and equipment. This is usually my best judgement.

 

If I try a/b listening, I will usually get hopelessly bogged down in trying to judge subtle differences. It is better here to listen over long periods of time to judge subtleties, if I will take the time to do so.

 

I believe that all sensory information and its neural processing can be measured and mathematically understood, but that our ability to do so is limited at this time. I like data, mathematical models, "Audacity" representations, but only get a crude confirmation of what I have heard with these old ears.

 

Jim

[Jud]

I don't know if it "took" in the poll, but I selected both that I do lots of A/B testing, and that I use live music as a reference.

 

Now I want to clarify something about the term "live music." As several people have pointed out, live sound, particularly a band that's heavy on electronically amplified instruments, is not something that most of us are qualified to assess unless we were at the particular concert that was recorded, and even then the way the thing was mixed (how much direct to the sound board, how much hall sound, where you were located versus the hall mics) can make the recording sound very different than what we heard. So what I try to do when using live music as a reference is concentrate mainly on the "instrument" we're all most familiar with, the human voice, and listen for some really basic, prosaic things: Can I understand the words better with A than I can with B? Do I get more of an emotional impact with one than the other (which encompasses some really basic stuff like whether you can hear the singer's phrasing, subtle volume changes, all the little parts of the vocalist's art that are used to communicate with an audience)? There are other instruments I'm sufficiently familiar with that I can use their sounds as well - piano, violin, acoustic guitar, saxophone. (Though it seems to be damned hard to get a natural-sounding piano recording; may have something to do with what Barry always complains about re close-miking. Acoustic guitar usually presents a better basis for comparison.)

 

Then the next thing I do is listen with tracks recorded very differently - one with the singer produced to have a big soundstage, and one recorded to sound more "dry" (non-reverberant, sounds like a smaller space). The unit that helps these two recordings sound *most* different is the better one, because it is imparting less sound of its own and is truer to the signal it's being fed. (As I've mentioned before, I've got a track of Tom Waits singing the Seven Dwarves' song from Snow White, "Heigh Ho," that's got a severely squashed soundstage about 3 feet high. You feel like a dwarf in a coal mine hearing it. Any piece of equipment that opens up that song to the heavens and makes it sound like something performed by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir may be euphonic, but it is very, very wrong.)

 

So - When using "live" music as a comparison, I'm comparing certain qualities in what I'm hearing from the equipment to those qualities in what I hear from voices or acoustic instruments in a room or very small performance space. Then I listen to different-sounding recordings so I can be sure that a certain quality coming through a piece of equipment - e.g., sounds of fingers moving on guitar strings - isn't due to some distortion it gives to every recording, such as too much emphasis on the upper registers.

[Jsmith]

Personally, I believe the artists has much more control over the final outcome on studio material.

 

I would agree, but since I am not invited to the studio session, I have no way to use that reference as a way to tell if the equipment I am auditioning reproduces it accurately. I can go to live performances, so this gives me some way to benchmark.

 

I might need to add that I am not looking for a perfect reproduction from live to the equipment. I am trying to get a sense of the bass vs. vocals in general. Many of my favorite bands, that I use for auditioning, I have seen many many times live. So hopefully this helps to even out some of the anomalies due to the venue.

 

I know this is not perfect, or even close to ideal, but to me it is something to go by.

[Blake]

In a recent interview of Mark Levinson by Stereophile, Mark had some insightful comments on this topic. Initially I struggled with or rejected most of Mark's viewpoints as much of what he says goes against the most sacred tenets of our hobby. However, after further reflection I am not so sure that Mark is incorrect his views.

 

If one accepts the premise that we are destined to fail in our attempts at reproducing The Absolute Sound in our living rooms, and that with many recordings the sound recording itself is substandard, then perhaps the next best goal is to simply attempt to put together a system that sounds the best to our own subjective standards- measurements or ultimate accuracy be damned.....

 

If your ultimate goal is to have the most enjoyable experience possible while listening to your music collection in your home, rather striving for the utmost in measured accuracy, then I think Mark may be on to something (to go ahead and equalize/manipulate the sound with equipment to the point where it becomes more satisfying to your ears).

 

Here is a link to the interview:

 

The Gospel According to Mark Levinson | Stereophile.com

[mwheelerk]

I must admit I have never quite understood the "use live music as a reference". This is not a criticism of that statement but I in general really don't understand. I mean unless what you listen to are acoustic instruments, not amplified, played in a live environment (meaning all players together at the same time in the same acoustic space) then I don't get it. Most of the music I have and love was recorded in studios, probably multi-tracked with various parts recorded at different times or compiled from different takes and whatever else I cannot think of. How does live music become a reference for a home system for that?

[darascal]

By "better", I mean what sounds better to me, so mine's "I can just tell by listening" by definition.

[wgb113]

Two words: goose bumps.

 

Or should that be one word?

 

There's a sort of "gut" feeling I get when something's sounding good. There's also a feeling I get when things aren't quite so right. Then there are times where there's not much of anything either way.

 

The biggest thing is to stop worrying and try not to focus so much but rather take a step back and just get a vibe for it.

 

Bill

[Jsmith]

Most of the music I have and love was recorded in studios, probably multi-tracked with various parts recorded at different times or compiled from different takes and whatever else I cannot think of.

 

I guess I view it this way. When I listen to a track on a new piece of equipment I am trying to determine how true to the music that equipment is. To do this, I have to have a reference of what I think the music should sound like. If my only reference point is recorded music, then it is always subject to coloration or influence by prior equipment. So at this point it seems to be more of a comparison of component A to component B and not really to the source (since you don't know what the source really sounded like).

 

For example.... If I am comparing speakers and one tends to have more bass then then other. I listen to a track from a metal band I have heard many many times live. I go back to, which speaker seems to have the balance I heard in concert.

 

I love it when I see the word "transparent" used to describe something. How the heck can anyone know how "transparent" something is, unless they know exactly how it is supposed to sound to determine transparency, and how can you know that if you were not part of the recording process.

[Jsmith]

Two words: goose bumps.

 

I am happy someone else posted this, as I assumed I was weird in this way

 

If during a listening session I don't get goose bumps several times, I know I not really into it that day.

[mayhem13]

I would agree, but since I am not invited to the studio session, I have no way to use that reference as a way to tell if the equipment I am auditioning reproduces it accurately. I can go to live performances, so this gives me some way to benchmark.

 

I might need to add that I am not looking for a perfect reproduction from live to the equipment. I am trying to get a sense of the bass vs. vocals in general. Many of my favorite bands, that I use for auditioning, I have seen many many times live. So hopefully this helps to even out some of the anomalies due to the venue.

 

I know this is not perfect, or even close to ideal, but to me it is something to go by.

 

And what you describe works for me as well! Fundamentally, I think almost all of us share some common ground on what we love about reproduced music.

[Jsmith]

OK, another thought (Sorry flight delay in SFO and I have nothing better to do than post here).

 

I am trying to figure out a way to fairly and reasonably evaluate new equipment.

1) Some claim live music in most cases cannot be a reference due to a number of factors

2) I say if you are just comparing to the same recording on various equipment you are comparing component to component and not to source.

 

While I love my system and I am very proud of it, it is modest in terms of what is out there. So would it reason that if I listened to a significantly higher-end system that it could be thought to be more accurate than mine? I could go to the local hi-fi shop and listen to a 100K system in treated room specifically setup for audio. I could then use this as the benchmark and going forward compare all new equipment to this?

[highDef]

Some A/B tests before buying, and the one who performs better to my ears that's the one i choose.

 

Sound tests are not a bad idea either:

Sound Tests and Audio Test Tones

[sdolezalek]

I must admit I have never quite understood the "use live music as a reference"?

 

I have the advantage (perhaps disadvantage of having both a concert pianist and a concert violinist in the immediate family. As a result i get to hear a lot of live soloist acoustic music, including in my own listening room. I have already given up on the notion of being able to convincingly duplicate a Steinway Concert Grand at home; however, I do use the sound of a single violin or a single acoustic guitar (or as someone else in this thread has mentioned a single vocalist) as the standard against which I judge both my system and my source material.

 

So for me, the question is: "when I close my eyes, can I fool myself into believing that either (a) I am there in the auditorium with the solist on stage; or (b) the soloist is now standing in front of me in my listening room." They aren't the same, but if either is true, I am at the "goosebumps" stage.

 

There are obviously studio recordings that have entirely different objectives in mind, but I find myself listeing to those either in a "clinical" does this sound good" state of mind or the much more passive "do I find this pleasant and relaxing" state of mind.