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Vinyl v Digital: The Thirty-Five Year Con


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I have not listened to a vinyl record since I was told that CDs promised "perfect sound forever."

 

Shortly thereafter, perhaps not coincidentally, I more or less stopped listening to recorded music.

 

Last night, I listened to vinyl LPs on a friend's modest headphone setup for the first time in 35 years.

 

To say I was thunderstruck is an understatement.

 

Only a week or so ago, after much research and effort and expense, did I finally cobble together a digital system that approaches the swing, the punch, the effortless musicality I heard on his modest pile of gear playing circa 1960s LPs.

 

What a con Redbook has been.

 

This is what's known as "throwing the baby out with the bath water". The problem is not digital (red book or better), it's the mastering and production that's the problem. As a sometimes recording engineer, I record in digital exclusively, and I can tell you that no analog recording, either new or 50 years old, can come anywhere near the quality of competent digital recoding. However that doesn't mean that the CD made from that digital master will sound anything like that master. I agree that most CDs sound terrible. Why this is so is not clear. It may be indifference on the part of the producers and engineers, or perhaps we have several generations of young people who grew up listening to terrible sounding MP3s. But I must say that while many vinyl records sound far superior to their digital remastering (the Classic Recods release of Stravinsky's The Firebird comes to mind. The vinyl sounds magnificent, the CD sounds terrible by comparison. Here's the interesting thing - they were both mastered by the same person - the original producer, Wilma Cozert Fine!). But, on the other hand, I have a JVC XRCD (red book) of Prokofiev's Lt. Kiji, on RCA Victor, recorded in the late 1950's. I also have the same recording on both original release vinyl, and RCA/BMG SACD. Neither the vinyl nor the SACD can hold a candle to the red book JVC XRCD release of the same recording. It sounds spectacularly good! So don't judge all CDs by the fact that many are indifferently recorded, mastered or manufactured.

George

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Well, yes, point well taken. But those who say that Redbook is "good enough" and that high res is some kind of gimmick are...well, just wrong.

 

I don't remember anyone saying that redbook was "good enough". The question here was whether or not the best vinyl was superior to the best redbook. My point was that to come to that conclusion after listening to a few LPs the way you did it was to jump to a hasty and erroneous conclusion. Done correctly, redbook can sound incredibly good. That it often doesn't is not the fault of any inherent limitations of the medium, but rather limitations on the source material itself or the indifferent or incompetent processing used in the mastering and production of many CDs

 

One of the LPs we listened to had never before been played. Interestingly, it was a Telarc pressing of a Telarc/Soundstream Redbook recording of Beethoven's G Major piano concerto (Rudolph Serkin, Seiji Ozawa, Boston Symphony Orchestra). It was clear from the liner notes that great care had gone into the production of this recording: It went on at length about the equipment used, assurances that this, that, and the other thing (it listed those things) were not in the signal path, so there was no dynamic compression, etc. Then went on to extol the superiority of digital recording over analogue.

 

In other words, a pristine copy of a hard core audiophile effort, circa 1981.

 

And how did it sound?

 

Like a Redbook CD.

 

Well, I was never a fan of Soundstream. It was very early digital using a process that, while the best at the time, was fraught with problems. The recording equipment was full of early operational amplifiers, the analog section was coupled using aluminum and tantalum electrolytic capacitors - which sound awful. About the only thing that early Telarcs had going for them was stupendous bass. I'll never forget that first Telarc/Soundstream LP of Frederick Fennel doing Holst's Two Suites for Military Band. I remember the first time I heard the recording. Soundstream had set up a room in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in NY for the Audio Engineering Society convention. They played that Holst piece over and over again, and I went back time and time again for another listen. The bass drum whacks were so spectacular that if you held the resulting LP up, you could see the widened groove width for the drums all the way across the room! CDs didn't tart to really sound decent until the industry stopped using those Sony1600 series ADC/video encoders to capture and transfer 16-bit/44.056 KHz audio.

 

The life that I heard in those other recordings was just gone. Sure, it was well produced. The balance was great. The soundstage was there. The performance was marvelous...but the recording itself was dead. I just didn't care.

 

You just described early rebook to a "T". Nowadays we can do much better, but now there are other problems such as too much audio compression, and slipshod production methods.

George

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For me it has been just 12 years or so. Me too I am in a never- ending process to "cobble together" a digital system and still my memory tells me that it would not take much in analog to overtake those efforts quite easily in terms of - well, just what you say - musicality, flow, directness, aliveness - which for me is more important than dynamic range, frequency response etc.

 

Without being a specialist in acoustics or electronics, I still tend to assume that it has to do with things like micro or nano-timing that are not yet truly understood in music listening and reproduction.

 

Guess I will end up with a turntable side to side with the digital convenience machines. Each ones it's place.

 

My opinion is we go where the music is. That may be Hi-Res audio (if we're lucky - and if vendors like HDtracks checks the quality of the digital copies supplied to them by the record companies), it might be redbook CD, it could be vinyl, it could be mono, it could even be cassette or reel-to-reel tape, or even 78's! If you want that performance or that particular interpretation of a piece, you go to the medium where that artist or performance is located. Not everything has been converted to digital, just as not every pre-LP performance was ever transferred to vinyl in it's heyday. I try to practice medium agnosticism. The best fi is great and all, but to me the music comes first.

George

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"Notice I didn't say better, I said different. The numbers don't lie and in every measurable senseRedbook is superior."

 

What are you measuring that leads you to that conclusion? Also, don't forget the stuff you can't measure.

 

well, frequency response:

redbook - DC to 22kHz +/-<1dB

vinyl - ~30 to 20 KHz +/- 3dB ( some are slightly better, some are worse. Lots of variables at work.)

 

S/N

redbook - 96 dB

vinyl - ~56 dB

 

Wow & flutter

redbook - none (if source is digital master. If source is analog, then w&f is same as round-trip of tape deck).

vinyl - additive of all tape machines from capture to disc mastering. Then add the w&f of the cutting lathe turntable, and finally the playback turntable.

 

Distortion

redbook - -96dB

vinyl - varies but generally >-60dB

 

Those are generally which measurements are bettered by redbook.

but there are others, like tracing distortion (as in digital has none). :)

George

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Yes, but what about the stuff you can't measure like timbre and resolution? Are we supposed to pretend they don't exist just because you haven't figured out a way to measure them yet? That's way too subjective for me. I need to consider all of the factors, not just the ones that are easy to talk about so I look smart in an internet chat room.

 

As far as Redbook itself goes, I clearly remember the entire industry screaming for a better digital format. There were a few exceptions, but the opinions on this were almost unanimous. What happened? Redbook has gotten better over the years, but not enough to make it a completely different and better sounding format that makes high res not necessary.

 

Hold-on, there Matey! Your question was: "What are you measuring that leads you to that conclusion (that Redbook was better than vinyl)?" That was the question I was answering. The things I mentioned were the things that the industry is measuring that tells them that the MEDIUM of Redbook CD is better than the MEDIUM of the vinyl LP. The stuff you "can't measure" is what makes some LPs sound astounding while some Redbook CDs sound simply awful. The incompetence, indifference and improper recording venues, coupled with poor mastering and/or playback equipment on the part of either medium notwithstanding, Redbook CD at it's best is technically way better than vinyl at it's best. That's my only point.

 

And by the way, I have thousands of LPs. I didn't dump mine when CD came out like many audiophiles did because I realized that a good portion of my collection would never be represented on CD. I also have thousands of Redbook CDs and a growing collection of downloaded Hi-Res files as well as a growing collection of SACD and Blu-Ray music-only discs. Also, a portion of my "ripped" music was ripped from 78s, which, due to the convenience of the computer and the availability of programs like 'Audacity' which are available either for free or very inexpensively, I can now listen to without side-breaks. Another advantage is that I get to listen to these timeless performances without actually having to physically OWN the those heavy, fragile, and bulky 78 RPM albums any longer!

George

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What fiasco? What embarrassment? There is controversy by some naysayers, most who have never tried CD Stoplight.

 

Actually, the CD Stoplight green pen works and improves everything I said I does. From my article you posted The Greening of SACDs, (gulp) CDs and other digital madness

"The first thing I did was play one of my favorite SACDs: Virgil Thomson's The River and The Plow That Broke the Plains - Leopold Stokowski conducting The Symphony of the Air. Then I removed the SACD, treated it with CD Stoplight and waited the required 5 minutes for the ink to dry and put it back in the player. Right away I noticed a considerable increase in volume! Once I lowered the volume to a level comparable to the before treatment level I also noticed the bass was warmer, the performing space was "airier", the outline of the instruments seemed more defined and the dynamic attacks were sharper. It appears to smooth out the sound, increase ambiance and make percussive attacks more exciting. All this from a green ink ring around the outside of the disc, amazing!
"

 

Also the SHM-SACDs and other Japanese green discs, I've heard sound excellent.;)

 

What about those discs in which the silver coating that's on the top of the disc, wraps around to the edges. Lots of CDs are made that way you know...

 

OTOH, when the pen first appeared, I did a bunch of DBTs using identical CD players with two identical CDs; one is treated with CD Stoplight, and the other was a normal, straight-out-of-the-box copy. When that was done, the great, and profound differences I had heard when I first treated my discs disappeared in an instant!

George

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I have one of those. Are you saying the green pen would be unnecessary on those?

 

No. Teresa, I'm saying, assuming that the green pen actually absorbs the scattered laser light inside the plastic of the disc itself, if the edges of the disc are covered in that reflective aluminized layer that covers the label side of all CDs, then painting that aluminized edge would be ineffectual because in that situation, there would be a reflected area between the edge of the disc and the green paint and the paint would never come in contact with the scattered laser light inside the disc substrate. It would be like painting the outside of your windows black to keep people from seeing in, when you already coated the insides of the windows with aluminum foil!

 

 

Interesting, George. Could it be AB'ing where the problem is? I know I'm not able to hear most differences, even some very large ones when AB'ing, sighted or blind. I have read that some people can train themselves on what to listen for in an AB test but for the majority of people they just don't work.

 

Well that's possible, I guess, but there were at least five people in the room each time we tried it and we used my totally bored and dis-interested girlfriend to do the switching, so it was truly double blind and nobody heard the slightest difference between any of the "painted" discs and the virgin copies of the same discs.

 

Since I appreciate improved sonics when casually listening to them over a period or weeks, I don't believe I have a tin-ear, so I tried to find out what was amiss in AB'ing and discovered that our brains are at odds with us comparing one sound against another.

 

I was pretty convinced that the green pen didn't work. But initially, before the DBTs (I convened the tests, initially, to share my enthusiasm with the "amazing" results I had been getting) I went through two whole pens because I was sure that it was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

 

BTW, even if the green pen did work, it wouldn't work on DVD-As, SACDs or blu-rays because those use a different color laser than do CDs, a color that is NOT the complement of red.

George

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Ah well, my 20 cents worth: There are other variables in the chain that goes all the way from performance to listening. The same music is mastered differently for vinyl compared to digital so this difference will come out in the finished product. Maybe better for vinyl, maybe better for redbook or hi-rez. The playback equipment is different (in type and probably in quality). (1) Turntable, Arm, Cartridge, Phono Stage; vs (2) PC, DAC. So the difference in material of source can never be exactly compared. A $20 k vinyl rig is likely going to sound better than a $2 k digital rig. So it is still difficult to say a "vinyl rig" is better / worse than a "digital rig".

 

My experience, which I will offer, does not prove anything but still is a single voice. It is this: Where I have the same music digitally (DVDA, SACD, CE, Hi-rez, DSD) or vinyl more often I prefer the vinyl - maybe 2:1. In reality I play: (1) Vinyl 10%, (2) Oppo 105 (SACD, DVDA) 5%, (3) PC 85%. BUT when listening with friends the vinyl rig comes out, not the digital.

 

No doubt vinyl can be very beguiling. Many of us have fallen under it's spell, but we must not forget that making "product" is an interpretive process. How well or how poorly that the art of music making is interpreted for recordings determines whether or not those recordings satisfy on a SQ level. Very often gifted engineers and producers make glorious recorded sound. There is no doubt that this seemed to have happened more often in the early days of stereo than it has in the digital age, and this is perhaps because the process was simpler then, and recordings were made in a more "natural" way (even "pop" music). To me there's little wonder that to many, vinyl sounds best. Remember, when these older recordings are remastered for digital, that too is an interpretation. This might explain why digital reissues of iconic recordings as well as new ones don't satisfy the way we would like them to.

George

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I simply believe this:

 

"If your system doesn't make every recording, 'sound' great to listen to, there is work to be done on your system"

 

When the subject material is great and the recording not so great, you should still be thrilled to listen to it - it should impress and excite, not many systems get near managing this, which leads to inevitable seeking of audiophile recordings.

 

Listener fatigue, regardless of format, is the product of systems that need attention.

 

;-)

 

I dunno, about that. I own recordings both analog (on vinyl) and digital, that a million dollar (or more) system couldn't make sound acceptable! One LP, in particular, a Hungaratone recording of Smetena's Ma Vlast, that sounds so bad, that were it not stereo, I could easily be convinced that it was recorded in the 1920s! On the digital side, I have an early CD on DGG of Strauss' Alpine Symphony that sounds so bad that it will make your ears bleed!

 

Don't forget, there are two sides to every recording. We, as consumers, have some control over the playback, but we have no control over the record-producing side of the equation. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and no matter how strong the subsequent links are, there is no making up for the weakest link. The best system in the world can't make a bad recording sound good. Sorry about that.

George

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That's why I put 'sound' good.

 

Obviously you can't un-master or re-record something via playback but my system genuinely never throws anything at me that I want to turn off in terms of unpleasant presentation / fatigue, subject material is another thing and is of course down to taste.

 

Again: "If your system doesn't make every recording, 'sound' great to listen to, there is work to be done on your system"... building such a system is supposed to be the whole point of this hobby - finding great recordings isn't listening to music, it is finding great recordings.

 

;-)

 

 

I'm sorry. I find that to be totally wrong nothing can make garbage sound good! I find that the better the system, the more sensitive it is to a recording's faults. It is definitely not the other way 'round. IOW, garbage-in-garbage-out usually becomes more true as the resolving power of an audio system improves.

George

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It is clear that you love the Boston Symphony, and for good reason. It is a remarkable institution, a great orchestra with a great tradition that also has the good fortune to play in one of the world's greatest concert halls.

 

Local fan boy that I am, I am just as impressed, if not more so, with my own Philadelphia Orchestra, which I believe has traditions just as deep and comparable to, but different from, the BSO. Those were developed in a long span starting in the early 20th Century under only 4 Music Directors: Stokowski, Ormandy, Muti and Sawallisch. I think you will find consistent references in out-of-town concert reviews to a unique "Philadelphia Sound", even today under Yannick Nezet-Seguin, who we all absolutely adore. That nuanced sound, primarily of the strings, owes a great deal to the Orchestra's long traditional ties to the great Curtis Institute of Music in downtown Philly. A majority of our players, especially string players, went to school there.

 

 

I agree with you about the BSO. I suspect that they are probably one of the two or three best orchestras in the world, right now. Luckily, we all have a chance to hear them live via the internet in 192 kbps for every concert during the season, and from Tanglewood in the summer over WCRB. The station keeps an archive of performances available 24/7 on their website also at 192 kbps. I am constantly amazed at how absolutely perfectly they play. The performances sound like you are listening to a recording that has been edited to be perfect. They play that well.

 

I haven't heard the Philadelphians play in many years, The last time was when Muti was Music Director. When Ormandy was at the helm, I'd have to say that the Philadelphia orchestra was tops. Their string sound was both unmistakeable and unparalleled! I have heard PO recordings made under Stokowski in the 1930's, and while 78's are not the ideal media to judge an orchestral performance, one certainly could tell that their ensemble playing and general level of musicianship was nowhere near as good as it would become in the 1950s under Maestro Ormandy.

George

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Well, I'm sorry, It has taken me 25 years to finally build a system that brings out the best in everything. I've been through much of the major kit, most of which does what you say, make good recordings sound great and bad ones unlistenable.

 

The fact remains that my current system no longer does this, everything sounds perfectly listenable and I can now finally focus on the content, rather than picking holes in presentation and avoiding bad recordings.

 

You are not really in a position to tell me that my system cannot do this, best to chill out and focus on making your system achieve the same results. My system is optimised to within an inch of its life, not many others are.

 

Again, the best system is one that brings out the best in everything, an ordinary one, at any price, is one that only plays audiophile recordings.

 

Anyone in the Midlands UK is welcome to hear it.

 

It isn't garbage in, garbage out, it is beautiful presentation, regardless of what's 'in'.

 

 

I didn't mean your stereo system. I meant that the lousy recordings are garbage. And if garbage is what goes into a fine audio system, it's what's going to come out of a fine audio system. And I reiterate, a system that makes lousy recordings listenable, would have to be very euphonically colored. In that case, it's also coloring good recordings, which is just exactly what I would expect that we don't want.

 

And unlike what the poster in response #142 said, I'm very glad that your stereo system makes you happy, and I'm doubly glad that it makes all recordings, good and bad sound great. I don't see how it can make a purse from a sow's ear, but I'll take your word for it. :)

George

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Now we're getting somewhere.

 

George, you're one of the few on here who knows where to place a microphone and that gives you huge credibility with me as a fellow pre/current recoding pro on certain subjects. I just wish you weren't so set in your ways and would be a bit less sceptical.

 

Euphonic is the exact word I would use to describe the sound, but not at the expense of punch and detail. I adore it, some like neutral, but that is horrible to me a most likely to induce fatigue.

 

Why does this euphony have to be purely the result of huge colouration, could said glorious potential be locked in the recording and few systems be able to retrieve it, or is it most likely a combination of the two?

 

Either way I'm not changing a thing. I spent well over 20 years not listening to great subject material because I couldn't stomach the production of it (for the benefit of the dimwits on here (not you) who appear not to know the difference between these two completely separate subjects), being able to enjoy the whole library has to be a better outcome for me. It might mean that the best recordings are being coloured, or just that they 'sound' even better, I'm not going to loose any sleep over it.

 

Again those that are trying AOIP are saying similar things on other forums. The last year in digital has been incredible IME.

 

;-)

 

I think that perhaps we're talking at cross purposes here. What I'm saying is that a truly transparent system will pass on exactly what's on a recording, good or bad. The meaning of the term High Fidelity is a "high degree of faithfulness to the original source". Now, to me, that means that if the source is a good recoding, one's stereo will present it in all its glory. But, if the recoding is lousy, like so many are, one's stereo should be faithful to that lousiness as well. The idea that a system could at once be so transparent as to make great recordings shine in their greatness, and at the same time make junk sound euphorically acceptable goes against everything that I know about how music reproduction works. Now, it's possible that there is something about your system or what you are doing with it that I don't know about, and if so, I apologize for my earlier criticism.

George

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One of the things I could never figure out from reading your posts, is how do you judge a systems accuracy? If you sat down in front of r_w's system what exactly would you do to test it? Also, I think it would be important to note that you use a different standard than most others. Traditionally, the stated goal for fidelity is to reproduce the original event as close as possible. You're goal is to get as close as possible to the original recording itself, not the event.

 

Nobody can really get close to the live event, because none of us were there. However, what we can do is listen to certain characteristics of a recoding, and extrapolate from those characteristics how good of a job the producers and engineers did at capturing the performance. For instance, how are the instrumental balances? Do the violins sound like a string section, or do they sound like a dozen individual violins (believe me, there is a difference)? Does the orchestra have depth, or is it flat, two dimensional, like a line of musicians stretched from edge to edge across the stage? If there is a solo instrument like a piano, is it localized in space where a piano would be on a concert stage (usually just stage left, and downstage near the apron), or does it take up the entire soundstage (40 ft wide pianos are, unfortunately quite common nowadays)? This test holds no matter what the solo instrument. Classical orchestral music is pretty much de rigure here. The reason is simple. I, like many audiophiles, know what real instruments and real orchestras actually sound like in a concert situation. There are strict protocols for instrumental deployment in a concert setting. This makes it easy to conjur in one's mind's eye what the visual picture of the ensemble will be. It is then a fairly simple matter to match what one is hearing to that template. With Jazz, OTOH, the classic way of recording is so-called "three-channel-mono" where everything is located either in stage-right group, a stage center group, and a stage-left group, but one can still judge the accuracy of the individual acoustic instrument voices. With rock, unfortunately, the only way to judge accuracy is to have been in the control room (not the studio with the musicians) where the album was mixed. Only then will the listener hear the performance the way the musicians and the producers envisioned it. That's probably why rockers aren't as much of a stickler for accuracy that classical music buffs are. Since there is no real way to know what the performance is really supposed to sound like, people tend to focus on what sounds good to them. In that case, that's as reasonable a criterion as any.

George

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I understand what you are saying, and believe it or not, for the most part, I agree. I just don't see how you can call yourself objective. Here's an example.

 

"Do the violins sound like a string section, or do they sound like a dozen individual violins (believe me, there is a difference)?"

 

 

Of course there's a difference. You pick this issue out as an area of importance (subjective). You compare the instruments to what you consider they should sound like live (subjective). And then you assess the results to see how good a job the system and/or recording lives up to your reference (subjective). I agree with the whole thing. But what you're really doing, is using subjective judgement in a common sense way to assess how something sounds. I do pretty much the same thing.

 

 

Of course it's subjective! How can one measure what something sounds like? One can measure pitch, one can measure loudness, one can even measure (with a spectrum analyzer) the frequency content of a musical performance, but one cannot use any of those to ascertain either the quality of a performance or the quality of a recording of that performance. The examples I gave are just that; examples. By themselves none of them are sufficient to ascertain the quality of the recording. I used violins because they are always a dead give-away that a recording has been multi-miked and recorded to a multi-channel recorder. If you place a microphone in front of every violin in a string section, and then, mix those individual violins down into one channel electronically, and then pan-pot it to the left (either in real time or at a later date), they will never sound like a string section! they will sound like what they are; a group of violins all playing at once. To meld into a string section, a group of violins must mix in the air between the stage and the ears of the listener in the audience or between the violins and a microphone hung at a distance to attain the qualities of a string section.

George

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All true but I believe you over generalize stating that rockers don't care about accuracy. I do and a large number of rocking audiophiles I know have been trying to assemble rigs as good as possible running on 50 years now. The high end was built on the wallets of guys attempting better hear the inner details and imaging of Dark Side Of The Moon ;)

 

I meant that generally. I'm sure that there are some rock aficionados who are interested in accuracy, but my question would be accurate to what? I've been down this particular rabbit hole before, and nobody has ever given me a real answer. Since rock and pop performances tend to not exist in real-time and all are products of a studio. They need amplifiers and contact mikes and reverb machines and vocoders, as well as "fuzz boxes" and the like to realize a performance. In concerts they even have to take their studios with them in the form of sound reinforcement equipment and personnel to man it. Don't take this as a criticism, Sal. It's not. I'm merely trying to show that with so much manipulation, the performance has no sound until it emerges from a set of speakers, and with regard to a recording, to hear a rock, C&W, or most modern pop recording the way they sounded in the control room, one pretty much needs to at least have the same speakers in their listening environment as were present in the recording studio when the performance was "realized". At least that's the way I see it. Now it may sound spectacular on a pair of Magico or Wilson Alexandras or Martin Logan Neoliths, but it won't sound the way it did in the studio when the musicians heard the playback of the final mix. Luckily for serious aficionados of these genres, most studios have standardized on a single type of speaker (because many productions occur at different studios. For instance, part of the backup might have been recorded in Nashville, and the vocals and extra instrumentation added in LA. For this, reason the playback monitors need to be standardized. Mostly studios have settled on the JBL "Pro" series, mostly the "M" models or the 6300 or the 4300s for studio playback and the "Control" series for near field mixing. You will find these speakers in more than 75 percent of all studios in the US, Canada, and Great Britain. They all are voiced to have a very similar sound and that's their strong suit. They aren't particularly accurate, but if one wants their pop to sound like the musicians, producers and engineers who actually made the recording meant it to sound, then for well-heeled rock and pop fans to have a pair of the JBL Pro M speakers is probably not a bad idea.

George

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I think you would probably find more Yamaha NS10s than those JBLs, certainly in Europe, NS10s IME are positively awful.

 

Lots of top end studios use active ATCs, which are my favourite speaker, period.

 

No argument. I just know what seems to be in most North American and many British Studios (not EMI's Abby Road, or most of Decca's studios. They use bespoke monitors)

George

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But does it make sense to pursue accuracy if you don't listen to acoustic instruments and your pop and rock sounds nasty in an accurate system?

I don't think so...

 

Oh, I agree. I was just making an observation. I wasn't suggesting that accuracy need be everybody's goal. But I grew up in an era when the pursuit of accuracy was Hi-Fi's raison d'trait. So it is important to me.

George

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That includes us both.

So why do you continue to insist that it shouldn't matter to those who's preference is anything besides classical?

 

I don't insist it. It's merely an observation coupled with a deduction. In all studio-based, electronic music, no reference is possible, so how can one gauge accuracy? Even in classical, if all one listened to was Wendy Carlos playing classical music on a synthesizer, one couldn't use that to judge accuracy either and for the same reason. You can't know what it really sounds like because Good ol' Wendy can make it sound like whatever she wants it to sound like and you weren't there to hear it. All you can do put together a system that sounds good to you playing the music you like, and I have no problem with that.

George

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Totally agree... and it would be certainly possible for you to hear it far better than the people who made, recorded, mixed and mastered it, given some of the terrible monitors that get used in plenty of studios.

 

But the way studio-made music is produced, obviously what comes out of those lousy monitors is what the musicians, producers, and engineers settle on as the sound they are looking for. If you are rock, pop of C&W fan, I would suppose that the only accurate playback would be through the same make and model monitors that the performance was mixed on and used for playback in the studio because that's what the musicians heard and agreed upon.

George

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Looking at the systems of the three major agreeing contributors, all have radically different sounding systems, specially in the speaker department where things really count.

"Martin-Logan Vistas, Stirling LS3/6, ATC SCM 50 ASL"

 

Appears to me that's exactly what your doing too. :)

 

 

Of course, but what sounds good to me is a system that makes my recordings, the ones I made, sound as close in my living room, to what the actual musicians sounded like when the recording was made. I know when a system is accurate because I hear a lot of live, un-amplified music and I know when a system is close or when it just "sounds good" with certain types of music. But as I've said a number of times, a system which sounds "good" to it's owner when playing the genre of music he or she likes, is just as legit as is a system which is put together to be accurate to the sound of real acoustic instruments playing in a real space.

George

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I know little about the Vistas but the other two were designed for monitoring.

 

R

 

 

Martin Logan Vistas are electrostatics from roughly 400 Hz up to beyond 22 KHz. They are flat in frequency response and very low in distortion (because they operate push-pull) and very uncolored. When real acoustic instruments are played through them they produce a very high degree or realism. They would be better, obviously, if they were full-range electrostatics like Sound Labs, but those are about $40K/pair - which is a little out of most people's price range (and they require a ceiling height in the listening room of more than 8 ft!).

George

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Give it up bro and step out of the dark ages.

Now here's some real classical music to judge your system by. :)

Roll over Beethoven

And tell Tchaikowsky the news!

 

Sal, we agree on most things audio, but we established months ago that we have wildly different tastes and literally no common ground when it comes to music. With that in mind, I have to ask why you continue to pick on me about this difference? I don't denigrate your choices in music, why make fun of mine? This thread is about accuracy and I say that there is no way to judge accuracy with studio produced music, because it doesn't exist outside of the studio where it was assembled. Now, studio produced music is not just one genre, but incorporates many: Diana Krall, Frank Sinatra, Cal Tjader, Bob Marley, Tammy Wynette, The Who, Rolling Stones, Snoop Dog, Tomita, Carly Simon, Sarah Brightman, etc., etc., etc. The KIND of music doesn't matter. Just the way it was recorded and the kind of instruments used determine it's suitability as a test for accuracy. I maintain that you can not judge of a recording using electronic instruments because the technology gets between the instruments and their real sound. They tell me that it is possible for a rock aficionado to tell the difference between a Martin and a Fender electric guitar. I wouldn't know, but wouldn't things like the "fuzz" box used or whether the guitar is being amplified by a Marshall or other brand of instrument amplifier, or whether that amplifier was solid state or tube enter into that equation? It seemes to me like it would. It doesn't matter whether we're talking about a Fender Rhoads piano, a Yamaha, keyboard synthesizer, or a real tenor sax that's been captured with a contact microphone, it all goes through a mixer and an endless array of special effects electronics, and gets recorded to a multi-track recorder. How the hell could anybody possibly know what any of these instruments could possibly sound like, because outside of THAT specific recording session, they have no specific sound of their own due to the plethora of devices used to alter that sound in myriad ways.

George

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