CA Readers Are, "clueless, equally bitter and uninformed"

[esldude]

I wish someone would explain to David Robinson how digitally sampled audio works well enough he wouldn't make a fool of himself. The talk about drifting phase and above 10 khz it becomes random in phase is simply an indication of not knowing what it is capable of though I am guessing he and Fremer (who agreed with him) determined all of this by ear. I wonder if they also might be interested in knowing some of the later, and best reel to reel machines used in pro studios for these recordings when in a high state of tune were spec'd to have interchannel phase values between +/- 20 degrees at 10 khz, and it was worse as frequency goes higher?

 

I also think it is a very good illustration of basic bias. LP's are so important to them they can't even acknowledge without rancor that while growing in percentage terms it is a tiny bit of the market. What got them so upset about Chris saying it was a fad, is they are so wound up in the idea it is superior quality and that is why LP is growing. I suppose no one knows definitively why it is growing. I am pretty sure it isn't because 'kids' immediately get it and hear that quality. It is most definitely some kind of fad even if one powered via multiple sources as most are. It might even be a fad that sticks around long term, but at best it started as a fad. I don't know that I have read or seen interviews with newer musical groups in a total cross section of the current music on offer. Out a few dozen I haven't heard one say they released on vinyl due to sound quality. I think I have heard a couple say something similar to , "according to some people it has a basic sound digital doesn't".

[Allan F]

I'm certainly not defending Fremer's written attack but, unless it can be attributed to Fremer's editing, I would sadly have to say that Chris does come across as rather argumentative and unpleasant in the clip.

[gmgraves]

I wish someone would explain to David Robinson how digitally sampled audio works well enough he wouldn't make a fool of himself. The talk about drifting phase and above 10 khz it becomes random in phase is simply an indication of not knowing what it is capable of though I am guessing he and Fremer (who agreed with him) determined all of this by ear. I wonder if they also might be interested in knowing some of the later, and best reel to reel machines used in pro studios for these recordings when in a high state of tune were spec'd to have interchannel phase values between +/- 20 degrees at 10 khz, and it was worse as frequency goes higher?

 

Good point. If you've ever tried to align a stereo record head, you will find that above 10 kHz, the Lissajous pattern dances about so badly due to tape-to-head contact issues, that it's almost impossible to measure the phase angle between them with anything other than the crudest guesstimation!

 

I also think it is a very good illustration of basic bias. LP's are so important to them they can't even acknowledge without rancor that while growing in percentage terms it is a tiny bit of the market. What got them so upset about Chris saying it was a fad, is they are so wound up in the idea it is superior quality and that is why LP is growing. I suppose no one knows definitively why it is growing. I am pretty sure it isn't because 'kids' immediately get it and hear that quality. It is most definitely some kind of fad even if one powered via multiple sources as most are. It might even be a fad that sticks around long term, but at best it started as a fad. I don't know that I have read or seen interviews with newer musical groups in a total cross section of the current music on offer. Out a few dozen I haven't heard one say they released on vinyl due to sound quality. I think I have heard a couple say something similar to , "according to some people it has a basic sound digital doesn't".

 

Yeah, a large portion of the resurgence is a fad among the young, the rest can be attributed to older audiophiles who got out of vinyl when the CD came out (some even sold or gave away their vinyl collections) and are now coming back to it as they realize that many LPs will never be released on digital. While LPs can sound great, I doubt whether quality has very much to do with the resurgence of vinyl.

[esldude]

Good point. If you've ever tried to align a stereo record head, you will find that above 10 kHz, the Lissajous pattern dances about so badly due to tape-to-head contact issues, that it's almost impossible to measure the phase angle between them with anything other than the crudest guesstimation!

 

 

Hey, maybe that is the missing factor in good tape and LP plug in emulators. They don't scramble the phase in the upper octaves. I haven't used any pro RTR, just consumer models. I have aligned tape heads and just looked at various signals. Indeed a Lissajous pattern was never stable. I thought perhaps pro decks were considerably more stable. Still the wavelength at 20 khz and 15 ips is less than a thousand of an inch. Obviously visibly moving tape contact will play havoc with that.

[speavler]

I'm certainly not defending Fremer's written attack but, unless it can be attributed to Fremer's editing, I would sadly have to say that Chris does come across as rather argumentative and unpleasant in the clip.

 

Connacker was bailed out by the other two. Fremer had every right to hand him his ass on that extraordinarily weak argument. He was being kind in that exchange.

[firedog]

I'm certainly not defending Fremer's written attack but, unless it can be attributed to Fremer's editing, I would sadly have to say that Chris does come across as rather argumentative and unpleasant in the clip.

 

I basically agree, but Chris was not unpleasant on the level that justified Fremer's original post. From that post you would have thought that Chris was the most ill behaved panelist in the history of audio panels. I don't think Chris' demeanor even rose to the level of something that demanded a response. I think it says something about Fremer that he felt compelled to berate Chris in print.

[YashN]

Well, that escalated quickly

 

Chris, you'll need to be more 'PR' next time

 

A couple of interesting things in that clip:

 

1. Robinson saying that with Quad DSD and needle-drops, we tend to get to the sound characteristics loved in high-end analogue ('indistinguishable').

 

2. Darko paying attention to what Fremer and Robinson are saying relative to what they like or hear in different formats/media.

 

I think asking others 'what do you find interesting' or 'what are you listening for', or 'what is it that spoils your enjoyment in that rig' is much more fruitful.

 

If those questions were asked between Chris and Fremer, preferably around a few drinks, while listening together to different types of music and systems, lots of good things can happen.

[wgscott]

At this point, I think Chris's primary mistake was thinking you can negotiate with religious fundamentalist terrorists who care far more about their ideology (the inherent superiority of vinyl) than reality (no appreciable stereo below 200Hz, snap, crackle, pop, wow, flutter and large stupid ugly discs). People who believe that an archaic medium like vinyl is better, but that you have to construct a $150K turntable-based temple (system) to properly venerate it just aren't going to listen to reason and logic. Belief trumps reality, and justifies any behavior, regardless of how obscenely rude and manifestly psychotic it is.

 

"Subjectivists" or whatever you want to call these ideologues, whether they are of the vinyl is superior variety, the digital is inferior variety, or the variant that hears unmeasurable differences, are just plain nut-jobs who can justify any crazy behavior, including their creepy and illegal stalking behavior, like some of us have been subjected to here.

 

We all have to stand up against this sort of fundamentally uncivilized behavior. Even the suggestion that Chris brought this on by being insufficiently diplomatic is a grotesque exercise in apologetics that should be dismissed with the ridicule and contempt it truly deserves.

[BobSherman]

At this point, I think Chris's primary mistake was thinking you can negotiate with religious fundamentalist terrorists who care far more about their ideology (the inherent superiority of vinyl) than reality (no appreciable stereo below 200Hz, snap, crackle, pop, wow, flutter and large stupid ugly discs). People who believe that an archaic medium like vinyl is better, but that you have to construct a $150K turntable-based temple (system) to properly venerate it just aren't going to listen to reason and logic. Belief trumps reality, and justifies any behavior, regardless of how obscenely rude and manifestly psychotic it is.

 

"Subjectivists" or whatever you want to call these ideologues, whether they are of the vinyl is superior variety, the digital is inferior variety, or the variant that hears unmeasurable differences, are just plain nut-jobs who can justify any crazy behavior, including their creepy and illegal stalking behavior, like some of us have been subjected to here.

 

We all have to stand up against this sort of fundamentally uncivilized behavior. Even the suggestion that Chris brought this on by being insufficiently diplomatic is a grotesque exercise in apologetics that should be dismissed with the ridicule and contempt it truly deserves.

 

Wow what a load of BS... LOL I guess you watched a different video... How about people that have some history and credibility in the audio field expressing their opinions.

[new_media]

Well, I skimmed through most of the video, but Chris looks pretty bored with Fremer listening to himself talk until 14 minutes in; and when Chris finally has something to say, Fremer interrupts him and cuts him off multiple times. Anybody would have gotten frustrated there, and in my opinion Chris kept himself in check pretty well.

 

Fremer is absolutely trying to say that sound quality is what is drawing young people to vinyl, and I completely agree with Chris that it is more about faddishness than fidelity. Most young people are playing vinyl on a $100 turntable with built in speakers from Urban Outfitters.

[firedog]

Bill-

 

Fremer is a bit extreme and a big vinyl proponent, but he isn't as extreme as you make him sound.

He does say hi-res sounds good, does sometimes say a digital version is better than a vinyl version (not often).

 

I don't get his whole riff on preferring a digitally sourced vinyl the actual digital source. He says he prefers the additions that vinyl makes to the sound and so what? I guess that's okay if that's his preference, but I find it hard to understand how he prefers vinyl in such a case to well reproduced digital.

 

At this point, I think Chris's primary mistake was thinking you can negotiate with religious fundamentalist terrorists who care far more about their ideology (the inherent superiority of vinyl) than reality (no appreciable stereo below 200Hz, snap, crackle, pop, wow, flutter and large stupid ugly discs). People who believe that an archaic medium like vinyl is better, but that you have to construct a $150K turntable-based temple (system) to properly venerate it just aren't going to listen to reason and logic. Belief trumps reality, and justifies any behavior, regardless of how obscenely rude and manifestly psychotic it is.

 

"Subjectivists" or whatever you want to call these ideologues, whether they are of the vinyl is superior variety, the digital is inferior variety, or the variant that hears unmeasurable differences, are just plain nut-jobs who can justify any crazy behavior, including their creepy and illegal stalking behavior, like some of us have been subjected to here.

 

We all have to stand up against this sort of fundamentally uncivilized behavior. Even the suggestion that Chris brought this on by being insufficiently diplomatic is a grotesque exercise in apologetics that should be dismissed with the ridicule and contempt it truly deserves.

[new_media]

I don't get his whole riff on preferring a digitally sourced vinyl the actual digital source. He says he prefers the additions that vinyl makes to the sound and so what? I guess that's okay if that's his preference, but I find it hard to understand how he prefers vinyl in such a case to well reproduced digital.

 

I am quoting him here from his own website...

 

I am also willing to accept that the transfer to vinyl produces an "additive distortion" that the ear finds more pleasing. Every step in the mastering tacks on "additive distortions". When digital recording first was adopted, studios were quick to add tube microphones and tube compressors and equalizers---and NOT because they were more "accurate", because we know they are not. They were added because using them helped to "warm up" and cold, sterile recordings and make them sound more pleasing to the ear and more like "live". If one more "signal processing trick" (cutting lacquers) also helps in that process, I'm all for it. "Accuracy" is overrated! In audio there's really no such thing: every recording is mastered on different speakers so "accurate" to what? On the other hand I don't like high coloration electronics or speakers....

[InfernoSTi]

So Fremer says quad DSD is "indistinguishable" from vinyl yet does not like the same "sound" from DSD (and worse, PCM) transferred directly from analog tape? So truly the thing he likes, as quoted by new_media, above, is the distortion from a high quality vinyl rig. So much for "high fidelity" as a goal. That said, if the "sound" is more pleasing to him with greater distortion, so what?

 

On the other hand, it is never appropriate to interrupt or attack a fellow panelist as he did cutting Chris off. That isn't professional for an "experts" panel. Perhaps somebody has forgotten the basic rules of civility. Even if Chris said the opposite of what Fremer believed, it was wrong for him to jump in with a personal attack.

 

If you watch Chris for the first 10+ minutes, he clearly doesn't agree (no body language like head nodding) but he allows Fremer to speak uninterrupted.

 

So when you ask "who started it" review how long Chris professionally allows Fremer and others to speak something he disagrees without interruption or attack. Then see how long it takes Fremer to interrupt and attack Chris. That is the test, not what happens after the attack.

 

The video demonstrates grandstanding and childish unprofessionalism and attacks by Fremer and great restraint and courtesy by Chris. Unbelievable.

[senorx]

At this point, I think Chris's primary mistake was thinking you can negotiate with religious fundamentalist terrorists who care far more about their ideology (the inherent superiority of vinyl) than reality (no appreciable stereo below 200Hz, snap, crackle, pop, wow, flutter and large stupid ugly discs). People who believe that an archaic medium like vinyl is better, but that you have to construct a $150K turntable-based temple (system) to properly venerate it just aren't going to listen to reason and logic. Belief trumps reality, and justifies any behavior, regardless of how obscenely rude and manifestly psychotic it is.

 

"Subjectivists" or whatever you want to call these ideologues, whether they are of the vinyl is superior variety, the digital is inferior variety, or the variant that hears unmeasurable differences, are just plain nut-jobs who can justify any crazy behavior, including their creepy and illegal stalking behavior, like some of us have been subjected to here.

 

We all have to stand up against this sort of fundamentally uncivilized behavior. Even the suggestion that Chris brought this on by being insufficiently diplomatic is a grotesque exercise in apologetics that should be dismissed with the ridicule and contempt it truly deserves.

+1

 

Sent from my SM-T700 using Tapatalk

[senorx]

Wow what a load of BS... LOL I guess you watched a different video... How about people that have some history and credibility in the audio field expressing their opinions.

Guess I saw the same video as Bill. Fremer has always been an arrogant blowhard, and it seems to get worse as he gets older.

 

Sent from my SM-T700 using Tapatalk

[Allan F]

We all have to stand up against this sort of fundamentally uncivilized behavior. Even the suggestion that Chris brought this on by being insufficiently diplomatic is a grotesque exercise in apologetics that should be dismissed with the ridicule and contempt it truly deserves.

 

Unless intended to be ironic, as Bill is wont to be, what a load of absolute crap!

[Allan F]

If you watch Chris for the first 10+ minutes, he clearly doesn't agree (no body language like head nodding) but he allows Fremer to speak uninterrupted.

 

With respect, John, to each his own interpretation. IMO, nodding your head in disagreement with a frown on your face when someone else is speaking in a public forum is the epitome of rudeness. Not to mention the condescending dismissive tone he used when he did speak. None of which, I hasten to add, justifies Fremer's vitriolic reaction in print. That was certainly very atypical of the Chris I saw when I attended seminars or panels in which he participated at RMAF. For whatever reason, the vinyl "love-in" seems to have set him off.

[Paul R]

At this point, I think Chris's primary mistake was thinking you can negotiate with religious fundamentalist terrorists who care far more about their ideology (the inherent superiority of vinyl) than reality (no appreciable stereo below 200Hz, snap, crackle, pop, wow, flutter and large stupid ugly discs). People who believe that an archaic medium like vinyl is better, but that you have to construct a $150K turntable-based temple (system) to properly venerate it just aren't going to listen to reason and logic. Belief trumps reality, and justifies any behavior, regardless of how obscenely rude and manifestly psychotic it is.

 

"Subjectivists" or whatever you want to call these ideologues, whether they are of the vinyl is superior variety, the digital is inferior variety, or the variant that hears unmeasurable differences, are just plain nut-jobs who can justify any crazy behavior, including their creepy and illegal stalking behavior, like some of us have been subjected to here.

 

We all have to stand up against this sort of fundamentally uncivilized behavior. Even the suggestion that Chris brought this on by being insufficiently diplomatic is a grotesque exercise in apologetics that should be dismissed with the ridicule and contempt it truly deserves.

 

Yep - I was pretty sure that was the case before seeing the video. After seeing the video, I don't think Chris was overly aggressive. In some ways, quite the opposite. (shrug) One does not negotiate with someone who has a religious fervor going on like that, you *manage* them. For your own sanity, and in a small part at least, for theirs!

 

-Paul

[Paul R]

With respect, John, to each his own interpretation. IMO, nodding your head in disagreement with a frown on your face when someone else is speaking in a public forum is the epitome of rudeness. Not to mention the condescending dismissive tone he used when he did speak. None of which, I hasten to add, justifies Fremer's vitriolic reaction in print. That was certainly very atypical of the Chris I saw when I attended seminars or panels in which he participated at RMAF. For whatever reason, the vinyl "love-in" seems to have set him off.

 

Oh give your political correctness judgement meter a rest Allan. Chris was not rude by doing that. Mikey was almost certainly setting that confrontation up.

[Allan F]

Oh give your political correctness judgement meter a rest Allan. Chris was not rude by doing that. Mikey was almost certainly setting that confrontation up.

 

Political correctness has absolutely nothing to do with it, Paul. I question whether you understand the meaning of that term. I call things the way I see them. IMO, your speculation about Mikey's intention to set up a confrontation, without any evidence to back it up, shows your bias. If you can't accept divergent opinions, perhaps you should give your keyboard a rest.

[YashN]

So Fremer says quad DSD is "indistinguishable" from vinyl

 

I don't think Fremer said that. Rewind the tape.

[Allan F]

I don't think Fremer said that. Rewind the tape.

 

You are correct. It was David Robinson of Positive Feedback.

[BobSherman]

You are correct. It was David Robinson of Positive Feedback.

 

You win the prize. :-) To be honest maybe Chris was just having a bad hair day as he definitely looked uncomfortable on the panel. I think his first comments were also as he realized incorrect, and also out of place. It's not just a numbers game I think they were saying that there is just something about vinyl that a small group of people still love. Even if it's the distortion that it might add that was clearly stated also. I think to make this into a confrontation, vinyl versus digital is really doing a disservice.

[Allan F]

To be honest maybe Chris was just having a bad hair day as he definitely looked uncomfortable on the panel.

 

I agree. That is why I wrote that his demeanour in the clip was atypical of what I have seen on many previous occasions at RMAF.

[wgscott]

nodding your head in disagreement with a frown on your face when someone else is speaking in a public forum is the epitome of rudeness.

 

Perhaps. But where does saying that CA Readers Are, "clueless, equally bitter and uninformed" reside on your scale? Where does calling for a boycott of the CA website reside on your scale? Where do his various tantrums in response to insufficient veneration reside on your scale? Why is your sense of outrage so selective?