Can TAS still be relevant today?

[trithio]

I have a question if one gets the sound of actual acoustic instruments playing in a real space correct, would not the sound of electronic instruments playing in a studio also be correct?

 

In theory if your equipment plays all the so called natural sounds correct, everything else will sound just perfect. Apart from acoustic instruments, things like applause and rain are considered by many to be tough tasks for present speakers. That's mostly theory, though because to my knowledge no one got that right yet.

 

P.S.

hope you are not a girl and offended by my previous 'chicks' comments. Last thing I need now is a trithio the sexist flame.

[alfe]

Surely a great recording. I even kind of liked it the first 100th times. Especially as it was good policy to like it if you wanted to hit on some chicks in clubs . At that time quite a hobby for me. Didnt care much how they did 'sound' either

 

He will not contradict you with the number of "wives" that he had.

[esldude]

First off the The Absolute Sound was never actually possible with two channel stereo. As something of a guiding philosophy it seems okay on its face. But it actually was always doomed to lead from fidelity to preference once you got into fully subjective measuring of sound reproduction.

 

Imagine way back when in the dawn of stereo, if you had unlimited funds for the world's finest two channel system and hired engineers to make it from end to end. They first would want the cleanest, quietest, flattest response microphones possible. Same for the mic preamps and recording devices. Then play it back as purely as possible on the highest possible fidelity front end feeding transparent blameless perfect amplifiers into loudspeakers as flat and clean and pure as possible (assuming they were naive engineers in regards to speakers).

 

This theoretically perfect fidelity system when used for music would have sounded tremendously horrendous. Why? Among other things it would be bright, on any close miked recording saw your head off bright. Brittle, sterile, just plain yucky in the extreme. What went wrong?

 

Well speakers don't need to be flat. They sound bright if they are. By happenstance most had a loose plentiful upper bass and drooping treble. Also many such were designed by ear, by rule of thumb etc. You need some downward response slope from low to high frequencies. That is where a naive engineer making a speaker will make flat and find out how wrong it is.

 

So in the mid to late 1960's my above scenario is something like what many engineers at least from mainstream companies had in mind (and prior to this there was no market large enough to have mainstream companies.) With solid state coming to fruition, and better speakers to work with along with a bit more measuring designs were making progress toward that vision of flat high fidelity systems. They still fell short by significant portions. JGH noticed as this was happening the equipment was getting better and better in a designed goal sense while sounding worse and worse. What he did in context of the time, his experience and his knowledge made some sense. Something else is going on, I can hear what is good and what is not and it doesn't match what is measured to be the highest fidelity gear. He never gave up on the idea of fidelity he just was using a listener's approach to determining what was fidelity to music and what wasn't. He had no other option at the time.

 

Then along comes TAS with their absolute sound philosophy more divorced from actual nuts and bolts than JGH was. They used to boast several PhD reviewers on staff. None of those PhDs were in a field remotely related to audio. So they were much more subjective only. Once you go fully that route all you have left is preference for a reference. Saying you are shooting for the Absolute Sound of acoustic music in real space is all well and good. But why does one design do it and another doesn't. Why does one amp do it with this speaker, that speaker and not another. You end up wandering blindly in the wilderness. As George said you have an "anchor-less" reference.

 

Now despite what I have said, I am not at all against preference. Just the reverse. But recognizing this situation you need to shoot for and achieve a good level of genuine fidelity first. Fidelity to the signal. Even fidelity in a speaker. Only then with this firm, reliable, and repeatable reference can you know what departures you are actually making. Then you can adjust the sytem response to your preference. It does become more understandable, repeatable, and sensible. Otherwise you are a dog chasing his tail. Happenstance interactions, and departures from fidelity to the signal forever leave you in a mirrored funhouse with distorted images with every move you make. That is why though I once used, and reveled in beautifully colored triode amps, I consider them a bad idea. They put severe limits on what you can achieve and make all the decisions of preference for you in a way you can't get around.

 

One final note:as flat in room speaker response is never right, satisfying audio will always at some point come down to a preference. Research by Harman on loudspeakers seems to have nailed down the kind of response slope that nearly everyone finds the best. It isn't too different from what others have suggested in the past. As recordings are not always flat, and monitors speakers either, you will nevertheless find yourself unable to say with any finality what a speaker's response should be. So preference will always figure into the final goal.

[trithio]

He will not contradict you with the number of "wives" that he had.

 

I'm not exactly the 'beginner' in that area either . But that's already too much personal info about me and I dont want to become some sort of darling around here . Not that there is much chance of that hapenning anytime soon.

[Teresa]

P.S.

hope you are not a girl and offended by my previous 'chicks' comments. Last thing I need now is a trithio the sexist flame.

 

I'm not young enough to be a girl, I'm a retired older woman.

[trithio]

I'm not young enough to be a girl, I'm a retired older woman.

 

That does not change my apologies in any way. The good bottle of henessy is just hard to stop

[livelistenlearn]

To me there's a parallel with "bit perfect."

 

Just about nothing in digital audio these days is actually bit perfect. But as a check on the ability of things like software not to monkey with the signal unless we ask them to, the capability of handling a bitstream in bit perfect fashion is a minimum criterion.

 

Just about nothing in music these days is "the actual sound of acoustic instruments playing in a real space." But *if* presented with that rare animal, the ability of a system to reproduce it is a minimum criterion for showing it won't monkey with the sound of the recording that's fed to it.

 

1. “bit perfect”: understand the concept, but as you say, nothing is quite perfect yet, audio-wise. if it were (in context of complete music capture + reproduction chain) then computer audiophilia (ADC + DAC) should have already made high-end analogue completely irrelevant. one hopes, someday.

2. TAS: understand this is an ideal. not realised yet(?). so, one has to settle for the “next best thing” as a reference… the best possible orchestral recordings to serve as a reference for evaluating a sound system/component. here, some of us who *know* what a violin, piano, guitar, flute, triangle, tambourine, drum, etc, sound like, may at least have a shot at some kind reference.

*know* comes with several caveats:

1) what can one hear of the instruments/performance from one’s seat? which may not be the same performance as the recording.

2) in what kind of environment did one hear the instruments? as in different venues.

3) how far one is from an instrument? i.e. an acoustic guitarist hears his/her instrument differently from the audience.

4) how long ago was one's “reference” live acoustic performance? "sound memory" and all that.

5) how “pure”/transparent was the recording/mixing/mastering process? as in multiple mikes vs just the two well-placed primary mikes, levels of post-recording tweaks, etc.

however, even with these caveats, imo, some reference should be better than purely preference.

3. "Winds of Change": "Another Day without You" is one of my fav ref tracks, from 0:01 plucking of the strings > 0:52 when Art Halperin starts singing > 2:46 when all the other instruments kick in. first listening of the album, nothing sounded special/dramatic. in fact, it sounded just “normal”(?). then it clicked/struck = normal = real or life-like. imo, Barry Diament is indeed a master of his art(s).

when auditioning last hardware upgrade (dac), listened with familiar reference music. but, not one track was a reference classical recording. fortunately, things did not turn out badly. was lucky. cannot always be. hence, looking to "stack odds" in my favour next time round… kind of like making it “easier” to be lucky.

cheers.

[alfe]

I'm not exactly the 'beginner' in that area either . But that's already too much personal info about me and I dont want to become some sort of darling around here . Not that there is much chance of that hapenning anytime soon.

 

Here is the man and we have the same view about hi-res

 

Dieter Dierks - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[trithio]

First off the The Absolute Sound was never actually possible with two channel stereo. As something of a guiding philosophy it seems okay on its face. But it actually was always doomed to lead from fidelity to preference once you got into fully subjective measuring of sound reproduction.

 

Imagine way back when in the dawn of stereo, if you had unlimited funds for the world's finest two channel system and hired engineers to make it from end to end. They first would want the cleanest, quietest, flattest response microphones possible. Same for the mic preamps and recording devices. Then play it back as purely as possible on the highest possible fidelity front end feeding transparent blameless perfect amplifiers into loudspeakers as flat and clean and pure as possible (assuming they were naive engineers in regards to speakers).

 

This theoretically perfect fidelity system when used for music would have sounded tremendously horrendous. Why? Among other things it would be bright, on any close miked recording saw your head off bright. Brittle, sterile, just plain yucky in the extreme. What went wrong?

 

Well speakers don't need to be flat. They sound bright if they are. By happenstance most had a loose plentiful upper bass and drooping treble. Also many such were designed by ear, by rule of thumb etc. You need some downward response slope from low to high frequencies. That is where a naive engineer making a speaker will make flat and find out how wrong it is.

 

So in the mid to late 1960's my above scenario is something like what many engineers at least from mainstream companies had in mind (and prior to this there was no market large enough to have mainstream companies.) With solid state coming to fruition, and better speakers to work with along with a bit more measuring designs were making progress toward that vision of flat high fidelity systems. They still fell short by significant portions. JGH noticed as this was happening the equipment was getting better and better in a designed goal sense while sounding worse and worse. What he did in context of the time, his experience and his knowledge made some sense. Something else is going on, I can hear what is good and what is not and it doesn't match what is measured to be the highest fidelity gear. He never gave up on the idea of fidelity he just was using a listener's approach to determining what was fidelity to music and what wasn't. He had no other option at the time.

 

Then along comes TAS with their absolute sound philosophy more divorced from actual nuts and bolts than JGH was. They used to boast several PhD reviewers on staff. None of those PhDs were in a field remotely related to audio. So they were much more subjective only. Once you go fully that route all you have left is preference for a reference. Saying you are shooting for the Absolute Sound of acoustic music in real space is all well and good. But why does one design do it and another doesn't. Why does one amp do it with this speaker, that speaker and not another. You end up wandering blindly in the wilderness. As George said you have an "anchor-less" reference.

 

Now despite what I have said, I am not at all against preference. Just the reverse. But recognizing this situation you need to shoot for and achieve a good level of genuine fidelity first. Fidelity to the signal. Even fidelity in a speaker. Only then with this firm, reliable, and repeatable reference can you know what departures you are actually making. Then you can adjust the sytem response to your preference. It does become more understandable, repeatable, and sensible. Otherwise you are a dog chasing his tail. Happenstance interactions, and departures from fidelity to the signal forever leave you in a mirrored funhouse with distorted images with every move you make. That is why though I once used, and reveled in beautifully colored triode amps, I consider them a bad idea. They put severe limits on what you can achieve and make all the decisions of preference for you in a way you can't get around.

 

One final note:as flat in room speaker response is never right, satisfying audio will always at some point come down to a preference. Research by Harman on loudspeakers seems to have nailed down the kind of response slope that nearly everyone finds the best. It isn't too different from what others have suggested in the past. As recordings are not always flat, and monitors speakers either, you will nevertheless find yourself unable to say with any finality what a speaker's response should be. So preference will always figure into the final goal.

 

Generally agree with you. Also think that flat sounds kind of 'crispy' in the highs. But I had these for a while

http://www.stereo.de/index.php?eID=tx_cms_showpic&file=1649&md5=a999ffc41e3ccc7b410c6c63de9bea48dd4dfc19&parameters%5B0%5D=YTo0OntzOjU6IndpZHRoIjtzOjQ6IjgwMG0iO3M6NjoiaGVpZ2h0IjtzOjQ6IjYw&parameters%5B1%5D=MG0iO3M6NzoiYm9keVRhZyI7czo0MToiPGJvZHkgc3R5bGU9Im1hcmdpbjowOyBi&parameters%5B2%5D=YWNrZ3JvdW5kOiNmZmY7Ij4iO3M6NDoid3JhcCI7czozNzoiPGEgaHJlZj0iamF2&parameters%5B3%5D=YXNjcmlwdDpjbG9zZSgpOyI%2BIHwgPC9hPiI7fQ%3D%3D

 

Pretty flat as you can see, even a bit elevated in the upper highs. And they did not sound harsh at all up there. On the contrary. Makes me kind of doubt that measurement.

 

PS

ooops that link looks crappy. should work fine though.

[trithio]

Here is the man and we have the same view about hi-res

 

Dieter Dierks - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

He surely looks the Scorpions part

And an impressive audio pedigree there, thanks for the link.

[livelistenlearn]

I cannot see how it wouldn't be just as applicable today, if not more so, as a metric for the ability of a system to faithfully reproduce applied signals. Its use is that of a standard/reference. With any amplified or electronically produced and processed signal one can never know the original.

 

tbh, Allan F, Daaudio + gmgraves' steadfastness in adhering to the original concept of TAS in the “What is the ‘Absolute Sound to you?” thread *seemed* to be (initially) out-dated.

 

but, the concept "stuck". made one think, re-think, re-sync one's view of how then to evaluate SQ... the listening way.

question is: should TAS be the primary reference in evaluating the SQ of a system or component, above every other piece/genre of music? generally speaking, of course. unless one happens to be a recording engineer, who was really there... listening live while recording a live session.

just wanted to know if others “see" this line of reasoning as being correct. or, even better, could someone take it to a higher level?

cheers.

[livelistenlearn]

Totally ready to share that laugh with anyone though. And my bottle of Henessy

 

am always ready to share laughs with a fellow CA. brandy is kind. even if one prefers wine/single malt. doing 2nd glass of taylor’s 2011 cab sav, going well with “A Gershwin Concert".

btw: cables aside, $45 for the 24/192 ver. of "Winds of Change" may be worth your listening time. as in the "Work of Art/Soundkeeper Recordings” 2015 version. but, hey, it’s your call...

[livelistenlearn]

I have a question, if one gets the sound of actual acoustic instruments playing in a real space correct, would not the sound of electronic instruments playing in a studio also be correct?

 

was thinking that. wonder if such reasoning could be sound.

interested in what others think. also, if such a line of thinking can be further refined/expanded.

cheers.

[trithio]

tbh, Allan F, Daaudio + gmgraves' steadfastness in adhering to the original concept of TAS in the “What is the ‘Absolute Sound to you?” thread *seemed* to be (initially) out-dated.

 

but, the concept "stuck". made one think, re-think, re-sync one's view of how then to evaluate SQ... the listening way.

question is: should TAS be the primary reference in evaluating the SQ of a system or component, above every other piece/genre of music? generally speaking, of course. unless one happens to be a recording engineer, who was really there... listening live while recording a live session.

just wanted to know if others “see" this line of reasoning as being correct. or, even better, could someone take it to a higher level?

cheers.

 

I think the original reasoning is sound. Very sound. Still needs to be proven though. Those same-as-live speakers arent even built in a lab anywhere, let alone for sale. I'd love to be proven wrong on that.

 

And single malt is at least same as good as my brandy

[gmgraves]

imo, these posts by esldude + gmgraves in the “if you could go back in time…??” thread highlights an interesting issue/conundrum.

 

one can understand where gmgraves is coming from re: TAS = The Absolute Sound = “the actual sound of acoustic instruments playing in a real space.” works well for him. because his focus/passion is classical music.

however, hope he, and many of you, can/will agree that things have moved on somewhat since TAS was coined/adopted.

current status = audiophiles listen to classical music (or not). but, other genres of music are now more popular. latest hits are more likely to be recorded in a studio, and not feature exclusively acoustic instruments (if any).

my question is this:

* Do you think TAS should still serve as a reference for computer audiophiles whose tastes in music are more ‘Catholic’? *

...as in: evaluating potential system upgrades by listening to reference live classical recordings as a primary consideration, regardless of whatever flavour of music one may (mostly) favour.

motive: as one strives to upgrade audiophile hardware (and software) for the enjoyment of music, would be good/comforting to have some form of reference.

 

 

You bring-up an interesting point. I suspect strongly that if the vast majority of people who purchase audio equipment hadn't started, at some point, to listen, overwhelmingly, to musical genres that have no natural sound outside of a studio, then the path of high fidelity would not have been perverted from the task of providing ultimate fidelity and onto providing equipment that caters to public and private sonic taste, instead.

 

For instance, everybody can tell a live violin or trumpet or piano when they hear one, and they know when they hear one being reproduced incorrectly. They can hear when the frequency response is not linear or when large amounts of IM or THD are introduced. These errors in playback are readily apparent to most everyone and anyone would say "That doesn't sound right". Or, "That's distorted", so it's relatively easy to stay on the straight and narrow and there's not much room for ambiguity. But with studio music, consisting as it does of mostly electronic sounds, the only people, ostensibly, who know what the performance is supposed to really sound like are the people who were actually in the studio when the music was being performed and recorded. The rest of us have no way of knowing what the performance is really supposed to sound like. We don't even know what brand and model of speakers the participants were listening to the playback on when they mixed the balances for the finished work. Without knowing what the music is supposed to sound like, the best that can be done is to make it sound good to *us* personally. The notion of making it sound faithful to the original is irrelevant in these cases because, if you think about it, there is no "original" in the accepted sense of the term.

 

The question then becomes one of drawing that thin line (with this kind of music) between reproducing music and actually re-creating it in your own listening space! If you are doing the former, it is important that every component in the playback chain add as little and take away as little from the original signal as possible. In fact, ideally, our audio playback chain would add or subtract nothing from the original performance, and that's a real goal or ideal because we actually have at least a rough idea what that actual performance really sounded like as it consists of familiar instruments playing familiar sounds and we know when it sounds more-or-less correct. In the latter case, where we have no frame of reference for a performance that never actually took place in real space, we are completely rudderless. There is no point in trying to recreate the original performance because nobody other than those involved with it know what that sounded like, and I would say that even they would argue that this type of accuracy isn't even important to this kind of music. It's no stretch, then, to understand that when one is re-creating a musical performance, rather than reproducing one, that getting it right is really only a matter of making it sound good to you, the listener, and that's taste (both individual and collective), not accuracy.

[livelistenlearn]

By the way:

 

As I mentioned in the other thread you referred to, TAS was originally intended as a consumer magazine, accepting no advertising and telling consumers which of the expensive pieces of equipment with the fancy faceplates and marketing specs actually sounded like crap (which was most of them). A part of the marketing and listening experience in those days - what both dealers demonstrating the equipment and consumers using it did - was the "sonic spectacular." Listen to those cannons from the 1812 Overture rock your chair!

 

What consideration of "the absolute sound" was meant to do was to take the focus off the "sonic spectacular" and put it on real sounds. Did Frank Sinatra sound like a person singing, and did his backing band sound like real violins, trumpets, trombones? Did Miles' trumpet sound like the way *he* played, or like every other trumpet, or not even like a trumpet at all? Could you even stand to listen to a record, or did that expensive solid state amp with the fancy specs put an unlistenable "edge" (TIM distortion) on everything? Because if you found a system that would reproduce real sounds accurately, it could handle the "sonic spectacular" too.

 

So *that's* what "the absolute sound" was all about - a better way for dealers to demo and for consumers to evaluate equipment, to help consumers avoid the effects of the dominant marketing technique of the time.

 

did not know this. thanks for summing it up succinctly, Jud.

makes you wonder what music/sound most dealers are using to showcase the “explosive” capabilities of their chosen equipment these days?

btw, when you host people for listening sessions (if you do), what music do you play to highlight differences?

cheers.

[livelistenlearn]

First off the The Absolute Sound was never actually possible with two channel stereo. As something of a guiding philosophy it seems okay on its face. But it actually was always doomed to lead from fidelity to preference once you got into fully subjective measuring of sound reproduction.

 

esldude,

your viewpoint on developments in 1960s inevitably leading towards preference/subjective (post #28) is interesting. and, i agree with your statements re: valve amps and system synergy.

and, yes, much as one loves pets, “a dog chasing its tail” is the last thing one wants to be as an audiophile who is interested in the concept of high fidelity.

 

if one accepts the point that "measurements are important but do not tell the whole story”:

iyo, what kind of music/sound/album should be used today when evaluating the performance of a playback software/hardware component?

cheers.

[livelistenlearn]

I suspect strongly that if the vast majority of people who purchase audio equipment hadn't started, at some point, to listen, overwhelmingly, to musical genres that have no natural sound outside of a studio, then the path of high fidelity would not have been perverted from the task of providing ultimate fidelity and onto providing equipment that caters to public and private sonic taste, instead.

 

The question then becomes one of drawing that thin line (with this kind of music) between reproducing music and actually re-creating it in your own listening space! If you are doing the former, it is important that every component in the playback chain add as little and take away as little from the original signal as possible. In fact, ideally, our audio playback chain would add or subtract nothing from the original performance, and that's a real goal or ideal because we actually have at least a rough idea what that actual performance really sounded like as it consists of familiar instruments playing familiar sounds and we know when it sounds more-or-less correct. In the latter case, where we have no frame of reference for a performance that never actually took place in real space, we are completely rudderless. There is no point in trying to recreate the original performance because nobody other than those involved with it know what that sounded like, and I would say that even they would argue that this type of accuracy isn't even important to this kind of music. It's no stretch, then, to understand that when one is re-creating a musical performance, rather than reproducing one, that getting it right is really only a matter of making it sound good to you, the listener, and that's taste (both individual and collective), not accuracy.

 

gmgraves2,

well stated for the record.

imo, you would be correct to say the majority of 'hi-fidelity' audio equipment purchasers today do not listen to well-recorded live acoustic performances, especially of classical music.

majority = men. so, at best, they are likely to audition with female vocals which are familiar to them = Rumer, Jessie Ware, Christina Perri, Amy Winehouse, Patricia Barber, Diana Krall, Alison Strauss, Stacey Kent, Norah Jones (earlier recordings), Mariah Carey, etc., and hopefully not Adele or Whitney Houston.

many would then choose the component/system which makes the ^ performance more attractive.

hopefully, audiophiles, including the younger generation of, do bring along some "suitable" classical, and make an attempt (conscious/unconscious) to evaluate with TAS as a reference. personally, i did not (brought classical recordings but not the kind that focused on concept of TAS) for my last purchase... but it sounds like i should in the future.

speaking of which, could you recommend one or two classical recordings that one could purchase as a reference?

cheers.

[trithio]

if one accepts the point that "measurements are important but do not tell the whole story”:

 

I am all for "measurements are important but MAY not tell the whole story".

Before I go any further than that I would like to see some serious proof. And I havent in spite of asking in many places. Not a popular point of view around here. Not at all.

Hope you dont mind. I just dont like changing my opinions very often. And when I do it I wanna know the change is there to stay.

[Jud]

did not know this. thanks for summing it up succinctly, Jud.

makes you wonder what music/sound most dealers are using to showcase the “explosive” capabilities of their chosen equipment these days?

btw, when you host people for listening sessions (if you do), what music do you play to highlight differences?

cheers.

 

I play very simple stuff, then anything they ask for or I think they'll like. A favorite is The Beatles' "I'll Follow the Sun." Here's the lineup:

 

• Paul McCartney – lead vocal, bass guitar, acoustic lead guitar
  
• John Lennon – harmony vocal, acoustic rhythm guitar
  
• George Harrison – lead guitar
  
• Ringo Starr – percussion
  

 

(The "percussion" is Ringo slapping his knees/thighs, see I'll Follow the Sun - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia .)

 

The song is less than two minutes long, with Paul singing a simple vocal lead, John on harmonies, and the instrumental accompaniment in the background. Regarding "the absolute sound," everyone knows what people singing and acoustic guitars sound like. It was recorded 50 years ago, so there aren't any fancy effects. It's very cool to see people who start out expecting some "sonic spectacular," then this simple little song comes on with a couple of kids singing and playing acoustic guitars, and then after a few seconds their eyes go wide and they say "It's so clear​...!"

[Jud]

This theoretically perfect fidelity system when used for music would have sounded tremendously horrendous. Why? Among other things it would be bright, on any close miked recording saw your head off bright. Brittle, sterile, just plain yucky in the extreme. What went wrong?

 

Well speakers don't need to be flat. They sound bright if they are. By happenstance most had a loose plentiful upper bass and drooping treble. Also many such were designed by ear, by rule of thumb etc. You need some downward response slope from low to high frequencies. That is where a naive engineer making a speaker will make flat and find out how wrong it is.

 

So in the mid to late 1960's my above scenario is something like what many engineers at least from mainstream companies had in mind (and prior to this there was no market large enough to have mainstream companies.) With solid state coming to fruition, and better speakers to work with along with a bit more measuring designs were making progress toward that vision of flat high fidelity systems. They still fell short by significant portions. JGH noticed as this was happening the equipment was getting better and better in a designed goal sense while sounding worse and worse. What he did in context of the time, his experience and his knowledge made some sense. Something else is going on, I can hear what is good and what is not and it doesn't match what is measured to be the highest fidelity gear. He never gave up on the idea of fidelity he just was using a listener's approach to determining what was fidelity to music and what wasn't. He had no other option at the time.

 

Then along comes TAS with their absolute sound philosophy more divorced from actual nuts and bolts than JGH was. They used to boast several PhD reviewers on staff. None of those PhDs were in a field remotely related to audio. So they were much more subjective only. Once you go fully that route all you have left is preference for a reference. Saying you are shooting for the Absolute Sound of acoustic music in real space is all well and good. But why does one design do it and another doesn't. Why does one amp do it with this speaker, that speaker and not another. You end up wandering blindly in the wilderness. As George said you have an "anchor-less" reference.

 

Now despite what I have said, I am not at all against preference. Just the reverse. But recognizing this situation you need to shoot for and achieve a good level of genuine fidelity first. Fidelity to the signal. Even fidelity in a speaker. Only then with this firm, reliable, and repeatable reference can you know what departures you are actually making. Then you can adjust the sytem response to your preference. It does become more understandable, repeatable, and sensible. Otherwise you are a dog chasing his tail. Happenstance interactions, and departures from fidelity to the signal forever leave you in a mirrored funhouse with distorted images with every move you make.

 

 

Great stuff, Dennis.

 

I bolded a couple of sentences for two reasons. First, I agree completely, and believe I've heard the same from every designer and developer I respect. (There are interesting issues if/when improving fidelity to the signal in one aspect degrades it in another.) Second, I do think the intent at TAS-the-magazine was originally to achieve greater fidelity to the signal. After all, if you went to a concert by a good orchestra in a good hall, it didn't sound awful, so how could these systems that measured so well (at least according to the usual measurements of the day) sound so bad? Must be lack of fidelity in some aspect that the usual measurements weren't covering. As you say, though, the lack of audio engineering expertise at TAS (felt originally to be a good thing - "Look where 'those guys' have got us," was the attitude, I suppose) meant that progress in determining and measuring what was actually responsible for the bad sound was lost on them. Without a firm foundation in the technology, there was little to stop all sorts of audio imagination from entering into the listening experience and the review done afterward. That became a particular problem when the magazine began relying on manufacturer advertising for its revenue, and manufacturer loans for products to review. Beyond any specific quid pro quo, there's got to be a natural feeling of appreciation toward someone who's been nice enough to lend you equipment and in many cases help you set it up.

[livelistenlearn]

I play very simple stuff, then anything they ask for or I think they'll like. A favorite is The Beatles' "I'll Follow the Sun."

 

LOL. The Beatles forever!

thanks for reminding me of this gem = got it somewhere on CD = must now find, rip, listen.

“trade" you one-for-one: “Homeward Bound” from Simon & Garfunkel’s The Concert in Central Park.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Concert_in_Central_Park

press play, and it’s hard not to listen to the whole album to the end.

cheers.

[livelistenlearn]

anyone up to weighing in/taking on this one?

cheers.

 

I have a question, if one gets the sound of actual acoustic instruments playing in a real space correct, would not the sound of electronic instruments playing in a studio also be correct?

[realhifi]

imo, these posts by esldude + gmgraves in the “if you could go back in time…??” thread highlights an interesting issue/conundrum.

 

one can understand where gmgraves is coming from re: TAS = The Absolute Sound = “the actual sound of acoustic instruments playing in a real space.” works well for him. because his focus/passion is classical music.

however, hope he, and many of you, can/will agree that things have moved on somewhat since TAS was coined/adopted.

current status = audiophiles listen to classical music (or not). but, other genres of music are now more popular. latest hits are more likely to be recorded in a studio, and not feature exclusively acoustic instruments (if any).

my question is this:

* Do you think TAS should still serve as a reference for computer audiophiles whose tastes in music are more ‘Catholic’? *

...as in: evaluating potential system upgrades by listening to reference live classical recordings as a primary consideration, regardless of whatever flavour of music one may (mostly) favour.

motive: as one strives to upgrade audiophile hardware (and software) for the enjoyment of music, would be good/comforting to have some form of reference.

 

My take is pretty simple. If you like reading The Absolute Sound and like how they work as reviewers and conveyors of information about the hifi industry then you should keep reading it, if not, then stop reading it.

[realhifi]

anyone up to weighing in/taking on this one?

cheers.

 

She's right.