Those who own Audioquest cable...what do you think?

[Sal1950]

Have they been replaced by "if it sounds good (to my ears) do it"? Sometimes it seems like it. But in defense of that attitude, with most of today's recordings, the listener has no idea what the original source actually sounded like, so is that goal really even relevant these days? The idea of accuracy is really only important to listeners of classical and other unamplified, acoustic music.

 

I argue that unless the listener of pop and rock has the exact make and model of the speakers upon which a given recording was mixed, any semblance of accuracy to the original in impossible. The listener will never hear what the musicians, producers and engineers heard on playback without having the same monitor speakers, so accuracy is pretty much a moot point. The performance doesn't really exist without the electronics and the playback monitors, so, without the same ones, the listener is just hearing an approximation of the performance as it was intended.

 

George, I do have a problem with that generalization. Does not classical music go thru the exact same processes during the creation of a recording. Is there no recording engineer, or mastering engineers at the console twisting the dials? Where they not listening to a specific set of speakers in the production?

Didn't David Gilmour & Roger Waters sit in on the creations of the Pink Floyd classics and have a performance/sound in their heads that they wanted to present to the listener? They were their own producers.

The only time classical music is acoustic is when the sound hits the mikes. After that most everything else is pretty much the same. Accuracy to what the producer intended the listener to hear has the same value for all types of music.

[esldude]

Every point you make is absolutely true, and there is little that you can do about it. Sure, you can buy an expensive mains filter, and that surely helps, but your electricity is running around in your walls and is connected to the microwave, the fridge, electric razors, the Cuisinart, the computer, etc and that interference has imposed itself on the mains feeding your audio system. Some people have gone to the trouble to have an electrician wire in a separate circuit for their audio systems, but I've never talked to anyone who did it who found that it helped enough to be worth the cost. Maybe in some cases it helps a lot, but, it must be pointed out that at some point in the house, even a separate line has to rejoin the incoming power line. even if it's on the other phase from the rest of the house.

 

I think Jud makes a good point. I did at one time swap all my circuits so all the noisy stuff was on one phase and my stereo, with simple loads like incandescent light bulbs were on the other phase without a big imbalance in power required per phase. I did hear my AC and my fridge make momentary noise through my stereo at the time, and this removed that. You also could see the cleanliness on the waveform when certain things were running.

 

Jud also makes a good point that power coming into your home is pretty clean in general these days. And gets dirtier in some ways once in your home. I don't have incandescent light bulbs anymore instead having a mix of CFL and LED lighting for one instance. On the other hand it seems to me recent gear has power supplies that do a better job isolating themselves from the power than the norm historically.

[Jud]

Every point you make is absolutely true, and there is little that you can do about it. Sure, you can buy an expensive mains filter, and that surely helps, but your electricity is running around in your walls and is connected to the microwave, the fridge, electric razors, the Cuisinart, the computer, etc and that interference has imposed itself on the mains feeding your audio system. Some people have gone to the trouble to have an electrician wire in a separate circuit for their audio systems, but I've never talked to anyone who did it who found that it helped enough to be worth the cost. Maybe in some cases it helps a lot, but, it must be pointed out that at some point in the house, even a separate line has to rejoin the incoming power line. even if it's on the other phase from the rest of the house.

 

Generally agreed. So then the question remains, how will your system react to this stuff? (Remember your components are *producing* noise and putting it into the circuits the rest of your system will use, too.)

 

There's where interaction between your cables and the rest of the system could potentially become important. For example, what if, in your system, a cable with thinner conductors and higher resistance might offer a less hospitable path for ground noise to enter your DAC than a well made cable that happens to have heavier gauge conductors?

 

I think we need less absolutist rhetoric about why cables must or can't make a difference, and more thorough investigation into the behavior of cables in systems and what particular factors may affect the system as a whole. I personally feel we're going to be able to learn some things that won't require any new physics, and that may make a lot more sense than cable marketing does now.

[semente]

George, I do have a problem with that generalization. Does not classical music go thru the exact same processes during the creation of a recording. Is there no recording engineer, or mastering engineers at the console twisting the dials? Where they not listening to a specific set of speakers in the production?

Didn't David Gilmour & Roger Waters sit in on the creations of the Pink Floyd classics and have a performance/sound in their heads that they wanted to present to the listener? They were their own producers.

The only time classical music is acoustic is when the sound hits the mikes. After that most everything else is pretty much the same. Accuracy to what the producer intended the listener to hear has the same value for all types of music.

 

I agree.

There's a huge chance most rock/pop recordings were not made in a documental manner or from a single musical event and that the mic feeds were mixed, EQ'ed and reverb'ed to taste.

But the resulting master is akin to a classical music performance, it's the reality and the fidelity or accuracy in it's reproduction is the same as what's required for classical recordings; at least that's how I see it.

Some of them might sound bad when played back through an higher-fidelity system but that's another story.

 

R

[semente]

Generally agreed. So then the question remains, how will your system react to this stuff? (Remember your components are *producing* noise and putting it into the circuits the rest of your system will use, too.)

 

There's where interaction between your cables and the rest of the system could potentially become important. For example, what if, in your system, a cable with thinner conductors and higher resistance might offer a less hospitable path for ground noise to enter your DAC than a well made cable that happens to have heavier gauge conductors?

 

I think we need less absolutist rhetoric about why cables must or can't make a difference, and more thorough investigation into the behavior of cables in systems and what particular factors may affect the system as a whole. I personally feel we're going to be able to learn some things that won't require any new physics, and that may make a lot more sense than cable marketing does now.

 

Since we are now moving to power cables, wouldn't these have to work as filters to make any difference in performance?

 

And can this filtering ability be achieved solely through the use of wires?

 

R

[mansr]

I don't want to be argumentative, but I'm not granting either premise (that shielding is the only difference, or that properly shielded cables should all sound the same).

 

A properly shielded cable can have a ground hum; it's less subject to hum induced *ex*ternally, but can still be subject to hum or noise being carried *in*ternally on one of the conductors, or crosstalk.

 

Nor is shielding the only thing that might make a difference. On a test bench yes, but as we've discussed, in a system something like the resistance of one cable versus another can determine how ground currents flow, for example, or how/whether noise flows through ground, and thus hum or noise behavior of the system.

 

Ground loops are caused by system topology, not by the individual components and cables. Typical cables have low enough resistance (fractions of an ohm) that whatever goes in one end comes out the other, and this applies to ground hum as well the intentional signal. If exotic cables made of carbon (e.g. Van Den Hul makes such things) or with super-thin conductors (WTF?) have enough resistance to cause trouble, why not replace them with $20 generics and be happy?

 

As for cross-talk, that's avoided by individually shielded L/R conductors. Why would anyone not do that?

[PopPop]

No, not at all. If for no other reason than the same speakers will sound different in your room vs my room. The size and quietness of that room may mean a different amp is needed even for the same speakers. BTW, I too am generally prone to prefer panel speakers.

 

There are plenty of other reasons we wouldn't all want the same system. I do think it would be helpful if we all worked from a base of excellent fidelity. A base from which we can season to preference. I feel the confusion of preference with fidelity harms the pursuit of satisfying sound in our music listening experience.

 

My favorite example being tube amps. Quite a few people come to believe tube amps are capable of some unmeasurable fidelity that is beyond and superior to SS amps. Then decisions are made to look for this missing ingredient, some claim to know what it is, alterations to SS amp design are sometimes made to make them closer to what tubes can do. For what it is worth I once believed this too. The truth is the better SS amps have a larger performance envelope than tube amps, have higher genuine fidelity to the source and are lacking nothing. The tube amps have some inherent coloration that often sounds better to humans than true fidelity.

 

Now this doesn't mean I think no one should own or prefer tube amps. I like them quite a lot myself. It means I think the whole industry is better off understanding what is going on rather than pursuing something that can't be found based upon a premise which is not true. There is no right or wrong preference. People should not be obligated to shoot for extreme fidelity if they don't wish to do so. That is all fine. Quite naturally people are aiming for maximum enjoyment. Max enjoyment and max fidelity are not always the same thing. Judging fidelity by enjoyment then is potentially a mistake.

 

I think I can agree with everything you said. Have I misinterpreted previous comments? My opinion is that fidelity is an attribute best assigned to a system and not a component. I have to rely on what I hear to judge whether system changes create a more "real" sound. I don't know how someone else could create a standard that would be relevant to my experience or expectation. Maybe you aren't saying there should be one.

 

Edit: I have yet to hear any serious music listener complain about the absence of tone, balance, or loudness controls on modern amplifiers. Somehow, the right word is getting out. [emoji1]

[CR250]

I think I can agree with everything you said. Have I misinterpreted previous comments? My opinion is that fidelity is an attribute best assigned to a system and not a component. I have to rely on what I hear to judge whether system changes create a more "real" sound. I don't know how someone else could create a standard that would be relevant to my experience or expectation. Maybe you aren't saying there should be one.

 

Edit: I have yet to hear any serious music listener complain about the absence of tone, balance, or loudness controls on modern amplifiers. Somehow, the right word is getting out. [emoji1]

 

I understand the point you're trying to make, but what I think you may be missing is that with the term fidelity, there are some hairs being split. Your view of high fidelity means that you want your system to sound as close as possible to real instruments and voices. I happen to fall in the same category, which is probably why I picked up on it when I read your post. The traditional view of high fidelity is to the source. So, for example, if a classical concert is being recorded, high fidelity to the source would mean to reproduce what you would hear if you were to be present for the recording. You want to reproduce the original event as closely as possible. The opposing argument, of course, is that its almost impossible to achieve. Unless you yourself were at the event, there's no way to judge fidelity.

 

Then there's fidelity to the master recording. This is a bit more achievable because the recordings can be accessed for reference. The problem I personally have with that, is fidelity to the tape doesn't necessarily mean fidelity to the sound of real instruments. You can easily come up with something that sounds bad, and not very musical, but still accurate to the recording.

 

Just to clarity your position, you want a piano to sound like a real piano. That's your definition of fidelity. It may sound nothing like the master tape, and you have no idea if the piano sounds like the live event where it was played. Its a matter of believable timbre. For me, I'm very picky when it comes to high frequencies. The example I use for myself is that I don't want a cymbal to sound like someone dropped a piece of metal on a concrete floor. It has to sound like a real cymbal or I can't listen to it. But I'm fully aware that they type of fidelity I strive for, is not the same as others. So, it becomes a matter of splitting hairs.

[semente]

In my view, there's either fidelity to the recorded signal or no fidelity at all; you can tune your system so that a certain recording or group of recordings in the same room with the same piano in the same position with the same mics in the same position with the same pre-amps and the same ADCs sounds like a real piano (which you cannot because a recorded piano played back by an audio system cannot reproduce a piano with realism) but your tuning will not sound good/tuned with any other recording.

 

That's the problem with "expressionist" or tuned playback, you'll create an effect that will "colour" all recordings in the same manner whether this "coloration" is adequate or not, a bit like looking at the world through some yellow-tinted eyeglasses.

 

The higher the fidelity of the recording and of the playback system, the bigger the chance your instruments will sound like real instruments...or at least the illusion will be more credible.

But unfortunately we are at the mercy of the people making the recording (thank you Mario).

 

R

[PopPop]

It would be a sad state of affairs to strive to assemble a system of components to accurately reproduce the sound of a piano recording that had no fidelity to begin with, wouldn't it? So, we have to rely on producers to do their job well, as well as component manufacturers. But how do you establish or measure a standard to assess the fidelity of what you have assembled? You listen, right?

 

By the way, one of my favorite pastimes is listening to live broadcasts.

[mansr]

But how do you establish or measure a standard to assess the fidelity of what you have assembled?

 

You play synthetic test signals and measure the response.

[esldude]

I think I can agree with everything you said. Have I misinterpreted previous comments? My opinion is that fidelity is an attribute best assigned to a system and not a component. I have to rely on what I hear to judge whether system changes create a more "real" sound. I don't know how someone else could create a standard that would be relevant to my experience or expectation. Maybe you aren't saying there should be one.

 

Edit: I have yet to hear any serious music listener complain about the absence of tone, balance, or loudness controls on modern amplifiers. Somehow, the right word is getting out. [emoji1]

 

You can assign fidelity wherever you wish. If each component in a chain is of sufficient fidelity then the result will be of good fidelity. The speakers are a place that is problematic. Stereo itself has some problematic aspects.

 

Now listening to a total system can tell you if you like the sound, or if the sound is believable. I don't consider your memory of live sound to be much more than a vague guide to fidelity. But such listening is an excellent guide to what you find pleasing or capable of letting you suspend belief which is what you are really attempting.

 

Now I find frequency response alterations to be the major over-riding thing which is audible. While there can of course be other effects which create a different sound FR effects seem the major difference. If you maintain excellent fidelity up to the speakers, you can alter speaker character by altering FR of the source. Puts much of your desired sound character at your own disposal.

[PopPop]

I attend 16 live concerts during the concert season and have done so for many years, in addition to performing. I have a very strong faith in my ability to remember live sound. I can't for the life of me understand the usefulness of a synthetic signal.

 

Sorry to keep bashing in about my opinion. I will sit for a while and absorb a few other ideas.

[sdolezalek]

In the context you are discussing, the role of the studio monitor becomes important. If the recording engineer is mastering the recording to sound the way he/she wants based on what he/she hears through those studio monitors then making them sound like a real piano on a very different home system is going to be that much harder. My big Maggie's plus subwoofers can move a lot of air and project a big soundstage but unless it is Barry Diament doing the recording, the sound in the studio is likely to be different than what I hear.

 

That being said, I like you listen to a lot of live concerts as well as solo performances in much smaller venues, including my own home and I'm always striving to make my system sound as much like those as possible. For me that means the right timbre, the right clarity of impact and the right level of decay. In most cases I end up having to trade one for the other, but it has been a great area to play with Miska's filters and choice of PCM or DSD up-sampling to make some of those trade offs myself.

[mansr]

I attend 16 live concerts during the concert season and have done so for many years, in addition to performing. I have a very strong faith in my ability to remember live sound. I can't for the life of me understand the usefulness of a synthetic signal.

 

Sorry to keep bashing in about my opinion. I will sit for a while and absorb a few other ideas.

 

Test signals let you characterise the system response more easily than arbitrary music. If you don't know the response, you don't know what to fix, whether by tweaking components or through DSP. A system that reproduces test signals accurately will also reproduce music with the same accuracy.

[esldude]

I attend 16 live concerts during the concert season and have done so for many years, in addition to performing. I have a very strong faith in my ability to remember live sound. I can't for the life of me understand the usefulness of a synthetic signal.

 

Sorry to keep bashing in about my opinion. I will sit for a while and absorb a few other ideas.

 

You aren't bashing by stating your opinion.

 

The usefulness of a synthetic signal is a greater degree of precision, and consistency as a reference. I am not knocking frequent concert attendance nor the idea you would have some idea of live sound better than most. There are simply limitations in memory and processing inherent to human brain functioning that make that a lesser yardstick in my opinion.

 

Your brain only keeps direct hearing data a few seconds, then processes and discards some of it for longer term memory. Does not mean such memory has no value nor that you don't benefit from frequent exposure to provide a better memory of live. Your brain functions in a way to make it seem you can fully recall the event. That is an illusion however. The limits of that illusion your brain provides you in the form of memory is less consistent, precise and repeatable than synthetic measures done well. That memory is obviously very far from useless as that is how we all manage to function in the world. Nor is it surprising that repeated experiences give us faith in how useful that memory is.

[gmgraves]

George, I do have a problem with that generalization. Does not classical music go thru the exact same processes during the creation of a recording.

 

It can, and the industry went through an era in the late '60's and the early 70's where it almost invariably did. But most of the better classical recordings these days are picked up by two or three mikes in a stereo array of some sort, and then go directly through an ADC and then onto CD/SACD, or digital download. So, the simplicity of the capture coupled with the minimal electronic manipulation, means that with a good playback rig, you are apt to get much closer to the sound of the original performance than you can get with most pop music which is almost all electronic, and some cases, the entire performance isn't even laid down at the same time or even in the same studio.

 

 

 

Is there no recording engineer, or mastering engineers at the console twisting the dials? Where they not listening to a specific set of speakers in the production?

 

While I'm not saying that there aren't incompetent classical recordings being made out there, I will say that in a properly made classical recording, there shouldn't be any knob twiddling because well made stereo classical recordings aren't "mixed". The engineers and producers will be listening through speakers, yes, but there is no dial twiddling, no mixing going on. A true stereo classical recording is made by the levels for the two or three mikes being set, the recorder started, and nobody touches anything until the piece is finished. Ideally you have a right channel and a left channel, and nothing else. The addition of soloists or perhaps a chorus, might complicate that scenario somewhat. But EQ shouldn't be needed, gain riding is generally totally unnecessary, and editing is done simply to eliminate gaffs in the playing.

 

Didn't David Gilmour & Roger Waters sit in on the creations of the Pink Floyd classics and have a performance/sound in their heads that they wanted to present to the listener? They were their own producers.

 

Perhaps, I don't know anything about Pink Floyd, but I'm sure it has nothing to do with symphonic music. The sound in the producers heads is the sound of the symphony orchestra playing the piece to be recorded in a real concert hall - or at least that's what it should be. Competent classical recordists are capturing a performance, not creating one. and most classical music aficionados wouldn't want it any other way.

 

 

The only time classical music is acoustic is when the sound hits the mikes. After that most everything else is pretty much the same. Accuracy to what the producer intended the listener to hear has the same value for all types of music.

 

I think you are misinterpreting my use of the word "acoustic", Sal. The music is acoustic because it comes from acoustic instruments, as opposed to from electronic instruments, and as long as the signal is recorded directly from the ensemble to the recording medium and from the playback medium to the speakers, it is a reasonable facsimile of the original performance. The instruments blend in the air between the orchestra and the microphone and not in a mixing console. The violins are on the left, because they are being picked-up by the left channel microphone, not because some recording engineer pan-potted the separately miked violins to that location across the stage using his mixing board.

[PopPop]

Mansr:

 

 

I'm going to trust you there, I don't have those tools.

[gmgraves]

 

I agree.

There's a huge chance most rock/pop recordings were not made in a documental manner or from a single musical event and that the mic feeds were mixed, EQ'ed and reverb'ed to taste.

But the resulting master is akin to a classical music performance, it's the reality and the fidelity or accuracy in it's reproduction is the same as what's required for classical recordings; at least that's how I see it.

Some of them might sound bad when played back through an higher-fidelity system but that's another story.

 

R

 

 

Well, I respectfully disagree. In most pop recordings, the performance and the recording are inseparable. One cannot exist without the other. In a classical performance, no electronics is required at all for people to hear the performance the way the composer and the conductor meant for it to be heard. Don't believe me? Attend a rock concert. Tell me what you see and hear. The band has to take their recording studio with them. If they, don't their performance doesn't exist. This is not an attempt to belittle this type of performance, but merely a statement of fact.

 

Accuracy of playback means fidelity to the original performance, if that performance doesn't exist outside of a studio, then only in that studio where it was actually made will it sound like those creating the performance (on both sides of the "glass") heard it and meant it to sound. They actually tweaked it sound that way in that venue on those monitor speakers. Only there will it be faithful to the original. Playing that recording anywhere else is, then, just an approximation and the word accuracy has no meaning because there's nothing to be accurate to, and the listener wouldn't know the difference if it were because they, most likely, weren't there when the recording was made. I'm not saying that it won't sound good, and be very satisfying, it's just that it's hard for a fully artificial sound to lay claims to "accuracy". It's the meaning of the word that I'm arguing about here, not the differences in musical types, or the tastes of those who like one or the other.

[mansr]

Mansr:

 

 

I'm going to trust you there, I don't have those tools.

 

To be clear, listening is also important, if for no other reason because perfection is impossible to attain, so you need to pick whatever compromise sounds best to you. Now by measuring the effect of each change, you can ensure that you're actually homing in on a solution rather than running around in circles.

 

Anyone spending tens of thousands on gear should consider spending a few hundred on a reasonable microphone and ADC. It will make the selection and setup process much easier, even if the ultimate decision is based on listening.

[jabbr]

To be clear, listening is also important, if for no other reason because perfection is impossible to attain, so you need to pick whatever compromise sounds best to you. Now by measuring the effect of each change, you can ensure that you're actually homing in on a solution rather than running around in circles.

 

Anyone spending tens of thousands on gear should consider spending a few hundred on a reasonable microphone and ADC. It will make the selection and setup process much easier, even if the ultimate decision is based on listening.

 

+1

[Jud]

To be clear, listening is also important, if for no other reason because perfection is impossible to attain, so you need to pick whatever compromise sounds best to you. Now by measuring the effect of each change, you can ensure that you're actually homing in on a solution rather than running around in circles.

 

Anyone spending tens of thousands on gear should consider spending a few hundred on a reasonable microphone and ADC. It will make the selection and setup process much easier, even if the ultimate decision is based on listening.

 

Don't know about an ADC, but measuring system response in your room doesn't have to be expensive (though I'm sure much better equipment and software are available for the purpose):

 

https://www.minidsp.com/products/acoustic-measurement/umik-1

 

https://www.minidsp.com/applications/acoustic-measurements/umik-1-setup-with-rew

[PopPop]

Those are certainly cheap enough to experiment with but I'm not sure I would know what to do with the results. You have my curiosity peaked.

[CR250]

A while back, I listened to a test that was done using several different pairs of microphones. It was a simple test. The mics were brought into a studio and they recorded the exact same thing using each one. When the recordings were played back, the differences were huge. And that's just the first component in the recording/playback chain. The signal still has to pass through everything else in order to reach the speakers. Who knows how much more the signal is distorted by the time it comes out your speakers?

[esldude]

A while back, I listened to a test that was done using several different pairs of microphones. It was a simple test. The mics were brought into a studio and they recorded the exact same thing using each one. When the recordings were played back, the differences were huge. And that's just the first component in the recording/playback chain. The signal still has to pass through everything else in order to reach the speakers. Who knows how much more the signal is distorted by the time it comes out your speakers?

 

I have seen or rather listened to several similar tests. It is my opinion, you can now render an effectively transparent result from the output of the mic to the input of the playback amp. So yes mics vary very noticeably. So do speakers. However to draw the conclusion that is only the start of differences is to make a mistake. The correct conclusion is other than those two parts, if you don't mess with the signal in between it is only those two parts on each end that matter.

 

There are tests where mics were fed to multiple mic pre-amps varying greatly in price. It wasn't possible to differentiate them. Same set up with ADCs and it wasn't possible to differentiate them. Same for DACs. I don't much see the need for an analog pre-amp anymore. Amps come very close to this transparency though there is still some interaction with speaker loads. It is rather minor vs speakers or microphones.

 

Of course it is very difficult to get recordings that simply get passed on without tons of processing. It is possible whether it is usually done or not. Superb reproduction in every part of the chain other than transducers at each end is available. Good time to be an audiophile.