IS EVERYTHING DEBATABLE, REALLY?

[fas42]

1 hour ago, sandyk said:

Ceramic capacitors are particularly troublesome in this respect.

I don't use extremely low ESR types specifically designed for Motherboard use .

Neither do I use Panasonic FM types that John Swenson appears to like. I don't have a problem with Panasonic FC, just not 2 FCs in parallel.

 

Hmmm .... I'm not quite sure what the issue with the FM caps would be - in past efforts the FCs have done their job, and I note in the current catalogue that we're up to FS! FC, FM, etc, electros in parallel should be fine - did you find a specific problem with the FM?

[fas42]

38 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

 

One would have to find a solo piano recording where the recording engineer did not put the microphones on a piano extension bar inside the piano before one could try such a test. The way pianos are miked nowadays, they end up, in playback, 10 (or more) feet wide with the treble end of the keyboard coming out of the right speaker and the bass end from the left speaker. First of all, no real piano sounds like a piano miked from inside the piano, and secondly, nobody is going to be fooled by a room-wide piano! Perhaps if one put right and left speakers together, next to one another...

 

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PianoMicSys

 

I have very recent recordings - classical or otherwise. So, maybe I've been lucky with my piano CDs ... I don't ever sense a room wide keyboard. Which reminds me of an absolutely appalling rendition of the piano in a dealer's showroom, by of all things, a system with the word Steinway in its name - http://www.steinwaylyngdorf.com/en/products/speaker-series/model-d.

 

This was egregious to the highest order - in scale terms, the bass notes were coming from a pipe organ, and the treble from a recorder instrument ...

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

1 hour ago, gmgraves said:

 

One would have to find a solo piano recording where the recording engineer did not put the microphones on a piano extension bar inside the piano before one could try such a test. The way pianos are miked nowadays, they end up, in playback, 10 (or more) feet wide with the treble end of the keyboard coming out of the right speaker and the bass end from the left speaker. First of all, no real piano sounds like a piano miked from inside the piano, and secondly, nobody is going to be fooled by a room-wide piano! Perhaps if one put right and left speakers together, next to one another...

 

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PianoMicSys

 

It is a matter of taste of course but jamming the microphone inside the piano or inside the saxophone bell can be argued not to be representative of the live experience.OTOH recordings done from what might be the real listener perspective, if he/she were there, seem somewhat lacking to me.Everything seems a little diffuse and well, distant.

 

It has been said many times that "imaging" and sound-stage are HiFi creations. I seldom get that same sense of imaging at a real venue where sounds just seem to be coming more or less from the stage....a little diffuse or distant depending on your row etc.

 

However, I do find it really enjoyable when at times I have been able to sit close enough to musicians to almost reach out and touch them. Maybe this is not the perspective one is supposed to have, or "realistic", but at those times I hear each instrument coming from a defined space. I hear a richness and immediacy of tone and timbre and all the intricate details like rubbing of the strings and keys of the sax clicking.For me that's what I like about well engineered Hi Fi sound - depends on your definition of lifelike I guess. Barry Diament seems to strike a nice compromise of lively sound that invites you in but doesn't make you feel your head has been jammed inside the piano.

 

So I guess I like a really really close perspective, just not closer to the instrument than the actual musician themselves,lol

 

 

[fas42]

47 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

I have very recent recordings - classical or otherwise..

 

Ummm ... I meant to say "I have very few recent recordings - ..."

[sandyk]

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

.... I'm not quite sure what the issue with the FM caps would be - in past efforts the FCs have done their job, and I note in the current catalogue that we're up to FS! FC, FM, etc, electros in parallel should be fine - did you find a specific problem with the FM?

Frank

 The Panasonic FM are VERY low ESR, and wherever I have used them ikn an analogue area they have resulted in a "hardening"  of the sound.

 Neither are they a good choice at the  output of some types of voltage regulators which don't like to see a low ESR capacitor at their output.

 

Alex

[sandyk]

4 hours ago, sandyk said:

4 hours ago, davide256 said:

Sandyk, magnetic tape can be analog but a HDD has no mechanism to capture an analog signal... data is always binary when recorded on a HDD, has to be decoded for time domain and amplitude

I am not disputing that. I am talking about the RECOVERED electrical waveform before processing.

Low battery warning.

 

I was going to add before my mobile gave me a low battery warning, and I had to shut it down, that primitive magnetic stores were used with the Processors (O.M.P. -  Operations and Maintenance Processor and T.C.P. - Traffic Control Processor) in the L.M.E ARE-11 Processor Controlled, Crossbar Telephone Exchanges initially.

I was well aware of how the data was stored magnetically, as we were taught this at Training School, complete with diagrams . Any resemblance between the 1s and 0s going in , to the pattern saved magnetically, and later recovered via the Read Heads is purely coincidental !

[mansr]

8 hours ago, gmgraves said:

One would have to find a solo piano recording where the recording engineer did not put the microphones on a piano extension bar inside the piano before one could try such a test.

Easy enough to find. For example, Cookie Marenco has some. The PlayClassics recordings, though not plentiful, are also good choices.

[davide256]

12 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 so I'm still seeing an analog representation of digital, as seen by the read/write heads, even when stored. Is that not fair to say. Digital is an abstraction.

No. digital is a methodology. Analog is an always on recording method.. between any two samples you can increase the sample rate and find another sample. Digital has a sampling frequency... you will not find recorded samples  between the frequency sample rate. Calling it analog because it has to use physical matter science  for sample storage is faulty reasoning

[SoundAndMotion]

14 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

 

Fixed that for you:

 

 

[mansr]

1 minute ago, SoundAndMotion said:

Fixed that for you:

 

 

That's not the waveform you'd get. Not at all. Whenever the magnetisation changes, the read head generates a positive or negative pulse depending on the direction of the transition. Contrary to what that drawing suggests, real hard drives probably use some variant of NRZ coding.

[SoundAndMotion]

10 minutes ago, mansr said:

That's not the waveform you'd get. Not at all. Whenever the magnetisation changes, the read head generates a positive or negative pulse depending on the direction of the transition. Contrary to what that drawing suggests, real hard drives probably use some variant of NRZ coding.

Thanks for the correction! But the voltage is analog and includes noise, right? It is NOT: 10100101

[mansr]

3 minutes ago, SoundAndMotion said:

Thanks for the correction! But the voltage is analog and includes noise, right? It is NOT: 10100101

So what? Once the signal has passed a pulse detector, demodulation, and error correction, the precise waveform coming from the read head no longer matters.

[SoundAndMotion]

2 minutes ago, mansr said:

So what? Once the signal has passed a pulse detector, demodulation, and error correction, the precise waveform coming from the read head no longer matters.

 

So! After the pulse detector, demodulator, and error correction, the signal coming out of the circuit looks more like my fake trace... put it on a scope and you’ll see analog voltages, not a series of 0’s and 1’s

[kumakuma]

11 hours ago, sandyk said:

I was well aware of how the data was stored magnetically, as we were taught this at Training School, complete with diagrams . Any resemblance between the 1s and 0s going in , to the pattern saved magnetically, and later recovered via the Read Heads is purely coincidental !

 

If the relationship between what you put on the storage media and what you got off it had been "purely coincidental", the technology would never have been adopted.

 

Digital communications and computers work because the physical representation of the digital data doesn't matter.

 

In other words, I can send you two identical files, one on a USB drive and the other on computer punch cards. Once the files have been read into your computer, they will be still be the same.

[fas42]

16 hours ago, sandyk said:

Frank

 The Panasonic FM are VERY low ESR, and wherever I have used them ikn an analogue area they have resulted in a "hardening"  of the sound.

 Neither are they a good choice at the  output of some types of voltage regulators which don't like to see a low ESR capacitor at their output.

 

Alex

 

FM is significantly lower, but it's no deal breaker - or shouldn't be. In a particular use, did you directly try FM compared with FC - same rating, same capacitance, like for like? Can you remember what the particular part was, specifically, at all?

 

FM may use a different chemical cocktail inside, which could change the way the parasitics alter with time and use - these are the type of things that can make all the difference, and it's always handy to get a better understanding of what's going on.

[gmgraves]

17 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

It is a matter of taste of course but jamming the microphone inside the piano or inside the saxophone bell can be argued not to be representative of the live experience.OTOH recordings done from what might be the real listener perspective, if he/she were there, seem somewhat lacking to me.Everything seems a little diffuse and well, distant.

 

That's just incompetence on the part of the recording's producer or engineer. Because it was done back in the early days of stereo, people keep insisting on using spaced omni-directional microphones to capture a symphony orchestra. Of course things are going to sound diffuse and distant. Spaced omni's are not phase coherent.

17 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

It has been said many times that "imaging" and sound-stage are HiFi creations. I seldom get that same sense of imaging at a real venue where sounds just seem to be coming more or less from the stage....a little diffuse or distant depending on your row etc.

 

Again, it's down to choices made by producers and/or recording engineers. I have three seasons of recordings of a large city symphony orchestra under a well-known maestro that I made using a single pair of Sony C37P microphones set to the cardioid pattern and mounted on a 7-inch stereo T-bar at 90 degrees to one another, and hung about 8 feet above the conductors head and when played back on a decent system, one can hear the exact location of every instrument in the orchestra. One can even hear that the brass are on risers and are behind the woodwinds, and the triangle floats above the left side of the ensemble exactly how it does when you are sitting in the audience. And when a pianist is playing with the orchestra with a piece like the Rachmaninoff Third Piano Concerto. No separate mikes on the piano's were necessary. The piano is down front to the left of the conductor, with it's top up and facing the audience. In playback, it's exactly where it should be, and the perspective is perfect; just the right size and the presence, vis-a-vis the orchestra behind it is very natural. The same with vocalists on works that have them such as Beethoven's Ninth. They are on either side of the conductor, and again, no vocal accent mikes are necessary or employed.

 

17 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

However, I do find it really enjoyable when at times I have been able to sit close enough to musicians to almost reach out and touch them. Maybe this is not the perspective one is supposed to have, or "realistic", but at those times I hear each instrument coming from a defined space. I hear a richness and immediacy of tone and timbre and all the intricate details like rubbing of the strings and keys of the sax clicking.For me that's what I like about well engineered Hi Fi sound - depends on your definition of lifelike I guess. Barry Diament seems to strike a nice compromise of lively sound that invites you in but doesn't make you feel your head has been jammed inside the piano.

 

So I guess I like a really really close perspective, just not closer to the instrument than the actual musician themselves,lol

 

Well, there is no accounting for taste. I'm the audience, not another musician, to me microphones are surrogate ears. But one thing one must keep in mind, when one is attending a symphony concert, where the listener is seated in the audience and the ensemble is in front of them, usually on a stage, is that the listener has his eyes to help him focus on what he's hearing. In a recording that sense is missing, and one has only one's ears.That requires that the microphones compensate for the lack of any visual aide in reconstructing the soundstage in one's mind's eye. That is why I feel it is necessary to get the microphones up on the stage (distance wise) for a "conductor's eye" perspective of the sound field. That way, one gets not only the pin-point imaging of real instruments being played in real space, but the close-up intimacy that compensates for not being able to "steer" your listening facility with your eyes. 

To my knowledge, I've never heard any of Mr. Diament's recordings but M. Waldrep of AIX records makes nice clean recordings and is good at capturing and mixing instruments, but in my opinion, he has absolutely no idea about how to use microphones to the best effect. He sticks a separate mike into every instrument using a different mike for each instrument. Does it sound spectacular? Absolutely. Does it sound like real music? Not to me.

17 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

 

[sandyk]

1 minute ago, fas42 said:

did you directly try FM compared with FC - same rating, same capacitance, like for like?

 

 Yes. I have tried both in a JLH PSU add-on as well as at the output of LM317T voltage regulators.

The LM317T does not like very low ESR capacitors at it's output, which may result in spikes with sudden changes in load.

 I have seen published info on the subject, but doubt that I could readily find it again.

[gmgraves]

11 hours ago, mansr said:

Easy enough to find. For example, Cookie Marenco has some. The PlayClassics recordings, though not plentiful, are also good choices.

 

Yes, I'm aware of that. My comment was the scarcity, these days, of pianos that are correctly miked. Sure, Cookie is a purist, like me and she knows how to correctly use microphones (and she also records in DSD). Ray Kimber and his IsoMike has recorded pianist Robert Silverman correctly as well; with the piano on the stage and the IsoMike in the audience (where it belongs and not IN the !@#$% piano!) but quite close to the stage. 

[fas42]

Have never used LM317, my experience is with LM338 devices, and I gave the output an extremely low ESR, using multiple paralleled electro's - no issues. Every circumstance is different - so, something I'll keep in mind ...

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

8 hours ago, davide256 said:

No. digital is a methodology. Analog is an always on recording method.. between any two samples you can increase the sample rate and find another sample. Digital has a sampling frequency... you will not find recorded samples  between the frequency sample rate. Calling it analog because it has to use physical matter science  for sample storage is faulty reasoning

 

I am not saying you are wrong or right, just not convinced. As said, I am not claiming any authority on the matter, never have.

If digital is a "methodology" then abstraction would appear to fit. The methodology of discrete sampling vs infinite/continous signal wouldn't appear to have any bearing on things. If the 'code' is stored on physical matter that represent 1's and 0's it just means there are no literal 1' and 0's stored as such or streamed. It's like saying a light switch is digital because it has two positions, binary yes, digital no. So yes, methodology makes sense to me eg biphase mark encoding that I first read about from Hawsford and Dunn many years ago ("Is the AES/EBU S/PDIF digital audio interface flawed?" at the 93rd Audio Engineering Society Convention, October 1992, in San Francisco.)

 

[sandyk]

36 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Have never used LM317, my experience is with LM338 devices, and I gave the output an extremely low ESR, using multiple paralleled electro's - no issues. Every circumstance is different - so, something I'll keep in mind ...

 

 Hi Frank

 I found the info. It may be of interest to some other members too.

Regards

Alex

 

http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/regulators_noise1_e.html

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

1 hour ago, gmgraves said:

I have three seasons of recordings of a large city symphony orchestra under a well-known maestro that I made using a single pair of Sony C37P microphones set to the cardioid pattern and mounted on a 7-inch stereo T-bar at 90 degrees to one another, and hung about 8 feet above the conductors head and when played back on a decent system, one can hear the exact location of every instrument in the orchestra. One can even hear that the brass are on risers and are behind the woodwinds, and the triangle floats above the left side of the ensemble exactly how it does when you are sitting in the audience. And when a pianist is playing with the orchestra with a piece like the Rachmaninoff Third Piano Concerto. No separate mikes on the piano's were necessary. The piano is down front to the left of the conductor, with it's top up and facing the audience. In playback, it's exactly where it should be, and the perspective is perfect; just the right size and the presence, vis-a-vis the orchestra behind it is very natural. The same with vocalists on works that have them such as Beethoven's Ninth. They are on either side of the conductor, and again, no vocal accent mikes are necessary or employed.

 

Are these commercially available (I looked at your profile and didnt find any links to recordings)?

Cheers

David

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

7 hours ago, SoundAndMotion said:

7 hours ago, mansr said:

So what? Once the signal has passed a pulse detector, demodulation, and error correction, the precise waveform coming from the read head no longer matters.

 

So! After the pulse detector, demodulator, and error correction, the signal coming out of the circuit looks more like my fake trace... put it on a scope and you’ll see analog voltages, not a series of 0’s and 1’s

 

If there is "error" correction it implies potential for error

[mansr]

1 minute ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

If there is "error" correction it implies potential for error

You're still grasping at straws. Or perhaps strawmen.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

2 minutes ago, mansr said:

You're still grasping at straws. Or perhaps strawmen.

 

If you cite "after error correction" then something "no longer matters" (insert something of your choice) it implies inherent fallibility. That appears to be a logical conclusion not a straw man fallacy.