Jump to content
IGNORED

Recording Methods and Fidelity


semente

Recommended Posts

Some Binaural recordings are also capable of similar through headphones. Chesky has at least one Binaural album available .

 

Chesky sells a number of high-rez binaural albums:

 

http://www.chesky.com/genres/binaural

 

All of them sound amazing. Personal favorites are the ones by Alexis Cole, CC Coletti, Wycliffe Gordon, The New Appalachians, and Amber Rubarth.

Sometimes it's like someone took a knife, baby
Edgy and dull and cut a six inch valley
Through the middle of my skull

Link to comment
Chesky sells a number of high-rez binaural albums:

 

Binaural | Chesky Records

 

All of them sound amazing. Personal favorites are the ones by Alexis Cole, CC Coletti, Wycliffe Gordon, The New Appalachians, and Amber Rubarth.

 

How do you find them with headphones ?

 

How a Digital Audio file sounds, or a Digital Video file looks, is governed to a large extent by the Power Supply area. All that Identical Checksums gives is the possibility of REGENERATING the file to close to that of the original file.

PROFILE UPDATED 13-11-2020

Link to comment
Articles I have read said Bell Labs (Harvey Fletcher I think) at one point did this with 64 microphones and 64 playback speakers. Their idea was wavefront reconstruction. I also have read slightly different info on the channels. What I recall, perhaps incorrectly, is they were able to keep much of the benefit as they reduced channels to 3. Couldn't get it to work to their satisfaction with just 2. Concurrently Blumlein was working on his method with coincident mics and that used of course only 2 channels. I wish more detailed info on the specifics of the Bell research were available. If anyone knows of it would be nice to point to a link if one exists.

 

 

Yes, I too would like to see more info on this. I was unaware that there were as many as 64 "channels'.

George

Link to comment
Your words and unfounded condemnation of other peoples taste and what they consider ART has just once again put the nails in your coffin for being a elitist and having a superiority complex . We'll have to add that as the 11th commandment, "George is to be the sole arbitrator of what kind of music is and is not ART". Never mind he never listens to anything except that which his preconceived ideas tell him is ART. Maybe your right and know what is ART, but you have no idea about MUSIC

 

 

I don't know what suddenly put a bee in your bonnet WRT me and made you suddenly attack me, but the truth is that I don't care what others listen to, I don't care what you listen to. Music is a personal choice. Do I think that classical music (and jazz) is superior to pop? Absolutely, they wouldn't be my music of choice if I didn't. But you think that pop is superior to classical because the latter isn't "popular" and that classical is boring, so what does that make you? That's elitism too because you attack me for my choice and denigrate me because my choice isn't yours. But you notice that when you said that you don't "get" classical music, I didn't cluck my tongue over what you "are missing" like you did with me. See, I don't judge people by the kind of music to which they listen or what kind of literature they read, or who they consider great painters and sculpturers. I also never said that pop music can't be art. It's not my kind of art, but then neither are the paintings of Jackson Pollack or Marc Chagall, yet they are regarded as art by the art establishment and who am I to argue? What is art is in the eye and ear of the beholder. And saying that I know nothing about music is hitting below the belt. I probably knew more about music as a 10-year-old than most lay-persons will ever know in a lifetime.

 

Don't write anything back on this subject, because I won't dignify your hate by responding. Now go ride your Harley and continue to ruin your hearing! :)

George

Link to comment
Chesky sells a number of high-rez binaural albums:

 

Binaural | Chesky Records

 

All of them sound amazing. Personal favorites are the ones by Alexis Cole, CC Coletti, Wycliffe Gordon, The New Appalachians, and Amber Rubarth.

 

sandyk, looked up your profile, you need better hardware to hang with me. :)

 

Binaural are special cases, had some many years back done with the dummy heads.

Can't think of the name now but there's also some recordings out there submitted to special DSP processing that I heard was interesting.

"The gullibility of audiophiles is what astonishes me the most, even after all these years. How is it possible, how did it ever happen, that they trust fairy-tale purveyors and mystic gurus more than reliable sources of scientific information?"

Peter Aczel - The Audio Critic

nomqa.webp.aa713f2bb9e304522011cdb2d2ca907d.webp  R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press.

 

Link to comment
Aren't headphones the only way to listen to binaural? I have a number of binaural recordings (some I made myself) and I must say that they aren't very satisfying on speakers - almost mono sounding, in fact.

 

From Chesky website:

 

Our Binaural+ Series recordings sound great on headphones and speakers, and capture the sound of music as you would if you were sitting in front of the band. The Binaural+ Series sessions were recorded in high-resolution 192-kHz/24-bit sound with a special Binaural head (a "dummy" human head with specially calibrated microphones where the ears would be).

 

You can see the head here:

 

Binaural+ Series | Chesky Records

Sometimes it's like someone took a knife, baby
Edgy and dull and cut a six inch valley
Through the middle of my skull

Link to comment
sandyk, looked up your profile, you need better hardware to hang with me.

You have N.F.I. of the capabilities of my DIY gear, several items of which have also been constructed by quite a few members of a U.K. based , worldwide forum , even to them designing special PCBs for both the DC coupled Class A Preamp/HA that I designed, and a highly modified DC coupled 15W/Ch. Class A Amplifier design from Silicon Chip magazine., which use closely matched dual metal can transistors in both the differential pair and current mirror areas, and also use my special front end balancing as verified to improve performance in the DIY Audio "Current Mirror "thread of Nov.2008. The Class A amplifier was nicknamed by a friend as "The Holo Amp", as in Holographic.

P.S.

Both the Class A Preamp/'HA and the 15W /ch. Class A amplifier are fully D.C. coupled.

 

Many of the DIY C.A. members have gear that would leave most affordable commercial designs well behind.

 

65h0yb.jpg

 

How a Digital Audio file sounds, or a Digital Video file looks, is governed to a large extent by the Power Supply area. All that Identical Checksums gives is the possibility of REGENERATING the file to close to that of the original file.

PROFILE UPDATED 13-11-2020

Link to comment

With absolutely no disrespect intended I totally can't understand the whole classical thing. How people can retain interest and excitement in hearing the same 200-300 hundred year old pieces of music being performed over and over and over just by different musicians I just don't get. I've watched it die a slow agonizing death over my entire lifetime?

But each to their own I guess.

Merry Christmas All and God Bless

 

... and yet you don't seem to tire of listening to the same three chords over and over. :) ... most musicians would like to play newer pieces which may be challenging for audiences used to "oldies" e.g. SILFRA: HILARY HAHN & HAUSCHKA Constella Festival . In my experience it is the paying audiences which keep up the demand for the mozart, beethoven etc. ... personally I don't limit my own musical tastes to a single genre. you should get out more often because ther is a whole world of outstanding music out there!

Custom room treatments for headphone users.

Link to comment
I don't know what suddenly put a bee in your bonnet WRT me and made you suddenly attack me, but the truth is that I don't care what others listen to, I don't care what you listen to. Music is a personal choice. Do I think that classical music (and jazz) is superior to pop? Absolutely, they wouldn't be my music of choice if I didn't. But you think that pop is superior to classical because the latter isn't "popular" and that classical is boring, so what does that make you? That's elitism too because you attack me for my choice and denigrate me because my choice isn't yours. But you notice that when you said that you don't "get" classical music, I didn't cluck my tongue over what you "are missing" like you did with me. See, I don't judge people by the kind of music to which they listen or what kind of literature they read, or who they consider great painters and sculpturers. I also never said that pop music can't be art. It's not my kind of art, but then neither are the paintings of Jackson Pollack or Marc Chagall, yet they are regarded as art by the art establishment and who am I to argue? What is art is in the eye and ear of the beholder. And saying that I know nothing about music is hitting below the belt. I probably knew more about music as a 10-year-old than most lay-persons will ever know in a lifetime.

 

Don't write anything back on this subject, because I won't dignify your hate by responding. Now go ride your Harley and continue to ruin your hearing! :)

 

It is very difficult to discuss the subject of pop/rock vs. classical music without being called a snob or an intellectual or an elitist.

 

There are lots of different musical genres and all of them have their own merits, and we can find examples of examples or good and bad music in all.

It's up to each one of us to choose which genres most suit our taste, culture, etc.

I like classical music (mostly romantic period), jazz from before the mid 60's, ethnic and traditional, a bit of world music, minimalist, some rock (motley alternative) and a tiny bit of pop.

 

I agree with George that most pop and a bit of rock is quite simplistic melody wise and rather empty of emotional and intellectual content; after all it's meant to be easy and entertaining, and the target audiences are mostly teenagers and young adults.

But some bands produce very good work, with complex melodies and high density content.

 

Unlike him, I do listen to a tiny bit of pop and some rock/alternative music and enjoy it, mostly in the car or on youtube.

I also play it in the living room as background music (I hardly ever sit and listen to it exclusively) or when the kids wish jump about to some music; I find it important to teach them that there are much better things out there besides Shakira, Riana or Katie Perry.

I like the sound of electric bass and guitar, but can't stand electronic generated sounds or music.

 

Since you mentioned literature, I think it might be fair to compare pop and rock to comic strip books and classical music to literature.

Whilst most comic strip books are rather simple and infantile, some of them contain a solid narrative and can be almost be described as illustrated literature.

 

It's the same with music, books or even the cinema: some people go to the movies to be entertained whilst others like to be provoked, stirred, challenged...

 

R

"Science draws the wave, poetry fills it with water" Teixeira de Pascoaes

 

HQPlayer Desktop / Mac mini → Intona 7054 → RME ADI-2 DAC FS (DSD256)

Link to comment
... and yet you don't seem to tire of listening to the same three chords over and over. :) ... most musicians would like to play newer pieces which may be challenging for audiences used to "oldies" e.g. SILFRA: HILARY HAHN & HAUSCHKA Constella Festival . In my experience it is the paying audiences which keep up the demand for the mozart, beethoven etc. ... personally I don't limit my own musical tastes to a single genre. you should get out more often because ther is a whole world of outstanding music out there!

 

You have no idea what you're talking about or the variety of music that's in the 2500 or so albums in my collection. I have music from all genre, just very little of the so called "classical" vein. Most of which has been bought over the last 50+ years for the purpose of testing my audio system because of magazine reviews. I even drag out my Telarc 1991 Michael Murray Organ Blaster Sampler to show off the effect of my dual subwoofer system. But to listen to any of it for musical pleasure, I'll pass.

 

Id rather listen to B B Kings Live At The Regal Theater as I did last night. Recorded in 1964 a truly stellar performance by The King of the Blues at the peak of his age. For tonight I have Sinatra's 1957 Where Are You in the queue unless my mood changes, then I just might pull out Pink Floyds Meddle..

All great musical compositions performed by some of the greatest artist of OUR lifetimes.

"The gullibility of audiophiles is what astonishes me the most, even after all these years. How is it possible, how did it ever happen, that they trust fairy-tale purveyors and mystic gurus more than reliable sources of scientific information?"

Peter Aczel - The Audio Critic

nomqa.webp.aa713f2bb9e304522011cdb2d2ca907d.webp  R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press.

 

Link to comment
You have no idea what you're talking about or the variety of music that's in the 2500 or so albums in my collection. I have music from all genre, just very little of the so called "classical" vein. Most of which has been bought over the last 50+ years for the purpose of testing my audio system because of magazine reviews. I even drag out my Telarc 1991 Michael Murray Organ Blaster Sampler to show off the effect of my dual subwoofer system. But to listen to any of it for musical pleasure, I'll pass.

 

Id rather listen to B B Kings Live At The Regal Theater as I did last night. Recorded in 1964 a truly stellar performance by The King of the Blues at the peak of his age. For tonight I have Sinatra's 1957 Where Are You in the queue unless my mood changes, then I just might pull out Pink Floyds Meddle..

All great musical compositions performed by some of the greatest artist of OUR lifetimes.

 

It is all good :) Good choices although my kids think rock is for old folks. Just trying to point out that in the classical vein there is 20th century music as well as "New Music" https://www.bgsu.edu/musical-arts/maccm/NewMusicFestival.html ... there are actually living Composers (gasp :) :) Some of this can be challenging as in not all that is new is good. Just so.

Custom room treatments for headphone users.

Link to comment
First a couple people seem to have lost the concept that much of the ideas esldude and I were throwing out were tongue in cheek. For sure my post on a whole front wall of soundbars was a complete bit of sarcasm and a LOL thing.

 

Second I agree with you on multi channel sound. There are some amazing sounding 5.1 recordings out there and personally I find it sad that the audiophile community for the most part have turned their noses up to the whole idea. BluRay offers just about any HD audio option you could ask for, with or without video. Sometimes I'll watch my live concerts with video. other times I leave the flatscreen off and keep the room dark. It's a win-win situation that you can enjoy any way you please.

Stubbornly insisting on 2 channel stereo only is just cheating yourselves out of a wide range of possibles.

 

I could not agree more.

Link to comment
It is all good :) Good choices although my kids think rock is for old folks. Just trying to point out that in the classical vein there is 20th century music as well as "New Music" https://www.bgsu.edu/musical-arts/maccm/NewMusicFestival.html ... there are actually living Composers (gasp :) :) Some of this can be challenging as in not all that is new is good. Just so.

 

 

Who was it that observed that "...the avant-garde is the haven of the no-talent..." Not necessarily true, but often so. Funny thing. Yesterday's avant-garde compositions tend to become today's "war-horses" (Stravinsky's Rite of Spring).

George

Link to comment
It is all good :) Good choices although my kids think rock is for old folks.

LOL, Kids, what do they know about rock. The only rock I hear today is the old rock chopped up into little pieces by "rappers" and glued back together on top of a drum machine back-beat, they call it sampling. They can't sing, they can't play any instruments, all they can do is steal others intellectual property and talk in a rhyme to that drum machine beat. Then they have this thing they still call Grammys and call these guys on stage and give them awards. I want to puke. I thought there were laws on that stuff?

"The gullibility of audiophiles is what astonishes me the most, even after all these years. How is it possible, how did it ever happen, that they trust fairy-tale purveyors and mystic gurus more than reliable sources of scientific information?"

Peter Aczel - The Audio Critic

nomqa.webp.aa713f2bb9e304522011cdb2d2ca907d.webp  R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press.

 

Link to comment
You have N.F.I. of the capabilities of my DIY gear, several items of which have also been constructed by quite a few members of a U.K. based , worldwide forum , even to them designing special PCBs for both the DC coupled Class A Preamp/HA that I designed, and a highly modified DC coupled 15W/Ch. Class A Amplifier design from Silicon Chip magazine., which use closely matched dual metal can transistors in both the differential pair and current mirror areas, and also use my special front end balancing as verified to improve performance in the DIY Audio "Current Mirror "thread of Nov.2008. The Class A amplifier was nicknamed by a friend as "The Holo Amp", as in Holographic.

P.S.

Both the Class A Preamp/'HA and the 15W /ch. Class A amplifier are fully D.C. coupled.

 

Many of the DIY C.A. members have gear that would leave most affordable commercial designs well behind.

 

 

I don't know what this SAL1950 is talking about. If you look at his gear, it's certainly nothing special. I'm sure it sounds fine (there are many paths to high-end audio, and not all of them are paved with dCS, Pass Labs, Walker Proscenium, and Magico) I, for one, admire DIY audiophiles. When I first got bitten by the audio bug back in the 1950's as a pre-adolescent, DIY was a force majeur in the audio world, and I've watched it dwindle to the point where kits and DIY components (other than speakers) are almost extinct. Glad to see some people are still at it, and keep up the good work Alan!

George

Link to comment
I don't know what this SAL1950 is talking about. If you look at his gear, it's certainly nothing special. I'm sure it sounds fine (there are many paths to high-end audio, and not all of them are paved with dCS, Pass Labs, Walker Proscenium, and Magico) I, for one, admire DIY audiophiles. When I first got bitten by the audio bug back in the 1950's as a pre-adolescent, DIY was a force majeur in the audio world, and I've watched it dwindle to the point where kits and DIY components (other than speakers) are almost extinct. Glad to see some people are still at it, and keep up the good work Alan!

Have you ever heard any of my gear or are you just talking out of the wrong end again?

Why you stickin your nose in something that had nothing to do with you.

"The gullibility of audiophiles is what astonishes me the most, even after all these years. How is it possible, how did it ever happen, that they trust fairy-tale purveyors and mystic gurus more than reliable sources of scientific information?"

Peter Aczel - The Audio Critic

nomqa.webp.aa713f2bb9e304522011cdb2d2ca907d.webp  R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press.

 

Link to comment
I don't know what this SAL1950 is talking about. If you look at his gear, it's certainly nothing special.

Hi George

An experienced DIY person can also take many commercial products to a much higher level, due mainly to skimping in the all important PSU area. This includes the DSD capable W4S, and the P.W.T.

Unlike the USA, DIY kits and components are still readily available in Australia, mainly from designs by Silicon Chip magazine, whose projects also appear by arrangement in the U.K. publication "Everyday Practical Electronics"

Jaycar for example , has over 90 Stores located throughout Australia and New Zealand.Add in stockists and there are over 200 in total.

 

"Twisted Pear" ïn the U.S.A. also designs many high end DAC kits and PCBs which are regularly featured in DIY Audio forum.Barrows and 4est can tell you much more about those designs.

 

Regards

Alex

 

How a Digital Audio file sounds, or a Digital Video file looks, is governed to a large extent by the Power Supply area. All that Identical Checksums gives is the possibility of REGENERATING the file to close to that of the original file.

PROFILE UPDATED 13-11-2020

Link to comment
I don't know what this SAL1950 is talking about. If you look at his gear, it's certainly nothing special. I'm sure it sounds fine (there are many paths to high-end audio, and not all of them are paved with dCS, Pass Labs, Walker Proscenium, and Magico) I, for one, admire DIY audiophiles. When I first got bitten by the audio bug back in the 1950's as a pre-adolescent, DIY was a force majeur in the audio world, and I've watched it dwindle to the point where kits and DIY components (other than speakers) are almost extinct. Glad to see some people are still at it, and keep up the good work Alan!

 

I grew up on Heathkit and our high school physics lab was chock full of electronics parts. Nowadays software which isn't entirely a bad thing, but there are also robust DIY resources. Eagle has a free and student version for designing PCBs and there are scores of sites which can produce PCBs from such designs. Order at Mouser and/or Digikey and you are good to go. Element14 etc aims to further integrate the process such that you can have boards built and so really DIY means different things to different people, from buying built boards and plugging them together (ala a computer) to buying a kit and soldering, to designing a circuit from scratch, modeling with LTSpice, and building from ground up.

 

I frequently sit and design boards while listening to music and so here are a few from the DAC I am building... the DSD side is balanced DSC1, the PCM side balanced PCM1704uk based (R2R), I-V sen modified for BF862 cascoded J111, and the filters are SK built around Pass B1. For clocks will compare Tentlabs, Neutron D and andrea mori's DIYAudio project. All of the USBtoI2S including Amanero, JL have come out of DIYAudio. Pass, Curl and Cordell are all active participants in DIYAudio. So I'd say that DIY is quite robust these days, surprisingly so.

 

Here are a couple of boards that I'm working on: 2 versions of a balanced DSC1 (derived from Jussi/Signalyst):

FullSizeRender_1.jpg

In any case these are SMD boards that will get slathered with solder paste and then layered with components and cooked in a toaster oven/reflowster :)

FullSizeRender.jpg

Custom room treatments for headphone users.

Link to comment

Yes, we should respect the talents of rock band players and their audience, for example, Beatles, Pink Floyd, Eagles etc.

But if we talk of using as reference a recorded sound to assess audio equipment, we should use the sound of acoustic instruments without amplification. Take for example, the Fender Stratoscaster used by many. It has its own tuning knobs, as does it amplifier. There is no "absolute" sound of this guitar as it may sound different from player to player.

Link to comment
Hi George

An experienced DIY person can also take many commercial products to a much higher level, due mainly to skimping in the all important PSU area. This includes the DSD capable W4S, and the P.W.T.

Unlike the USA, DIY kits and components are still readily available in Australia, mainly from designs by Silicon Chip magazine, whose projects also appear by arrangement in the U.K. publication "Everyday Practical Electronics"

Jaycar for example , has over 90 Stores located throughout Australia and New Zealand.Add in stockists and there are over 200 in total.

 

"Twisted Pear" ïn the U.S.A. also designs many high end DAC kits and PCBs which are regularly featured in DIY Audio forum.Barrows and 4est can tell you much more about those designs.

 

Regards

Alex

 

 

I agree. We used to have such publications. Two that come to mind are "Popular Electronics" and "The Audio Amateur". Sadly, as far as I can ascertain, neither are still being published.

 

I also agree about modifying existing commercial gear to get higher performance. I modded a pair of Dynaco MKIII mono-block power amps to William Z. Johnson's "Audio Research" specifications, Upgraded the caps and resistors in a Hafler DH-110 preamp, and the most ambitious project I ever undertook was to restore and upgrade a Harman-Kardon Citation I preamp with a new power supply all modern audio-grade caps, metal film resistors, and Alps plastic-film potentiometers. In all cases, the mods resulted in significant improvements in performance.

 

Also, I grew up in an age where kits were big in this country. Not only were there Heathkits (the biggest electronic kit manufacturer of them all) and Knight-Kits (from the then giant Allied Radio in Chicago) but there were also Eico (the Electronic Instrument ​Company) Kits, and big audio players like McIntosh, Harman Kardon, and H.H. Scott made kits of many of their products. (I built a pair of Knight-kit amplifiers, an Eico tuner (one of the best available at the time), a Knight stereo FM demodulator, and Knight-Kit record/playback electronics for a Viking tape deck, as well as a Harman-Kardon Citation 12 dial mono power amplifier. Sadly, there are only a few kit manufacturers available here in the USA these days and they are far from mainstream. Hafler was about the last "big-name" audio manufacturer to offer kits. I built a DH-101 preamp and DH-100 Power amp when they first came out.

George

Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now



×
×
  • Create New...