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The misguided “success” of Computer Audio


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I presume that people who have interest in this site do feel that music severs are capable deliver a high quality sound. However what I think most people are missing is the fact that with PC audio not the quality of sound is the key benefit but the ability of a listener to get rid the parasitic contribution of industry. I wrote at my site:

 

“What astonishes me is that industry discover a new “gold manna” - the music servers but never told to people what to do with them and how to use them. The list of the companies the tosses on market music servers are growing. Many companies do 24 bit DACs with obvious aim to music severs. However, the industry still does not allow people’s access to live feeds – the only sources worth of use of music servers to begin with. The industry morons not try to fill the space on the sold music servers with pre-caned tape and LP transfers but it is truly laughable… I think the access to live performances is the key. I use FM but it might not be ONLY FM. Without having access to live music feeds and without being able to record live sound how the hell people would know if their music servers wroth any time and efforts? It reminds me a story as a guy instating a traffic light on an island that has the only one street and there are not intersections…”

 

Many audio people drooling when master tapes are mentioned and they fell that if they have access to high resolution master tape dubs then it is a some kind of “manna from sky”. What they do not know that master tapes are in a way also a surrogate as it is edited material, unless it is live-to-tape type of recording with no idiotic mastering of any kind involved.

 

So, building music servers is fine. To get better sound from them is fine, however to fill the terabytes of the music servers by coping to them pre-possessed music is a bogus thing to do. Audio people need to learn how to get access to “random music”. I hope is a few years the Symphony Halls would to download after concerts the soundchek of the performances in BWF format. THEN the music servers might serve the right justifiable purpose….

 

Rgs, Romy the Cat

http://www.goodsoundclub.com

 

 

 

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Two points, I think:

 

1. Hardware.

 

The HiFi Industry is starting to provide extremely expensive lumps of hardware that do no more and no better than components already available provided by the computer and pro- music manufactures

 

2. Software.

 

The record industry is still being obstructive (with a few exceptions) refusing to make 24/96 and better recordings available while continuing to play silly games with closed file formats and Digital Rights Management "spoilers". The broadcasters are going for quantity rather than quality, even though the bandwidth is available on Satellite, Cable and Internet distribution systems.

 

 

 

Brian

Squeezebox Classic - Beresford Caiman-Gator DAC - Quad 520f with Dada refresh - Quart 980s German Tower Loudspeakers.

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...that's why I love this site so much! AB

 

New simplified setup: STEREO- Primary listening Area: Cullen Circuits Mod ZP90> Benchmark DAC1>RotelRKB250 Power amp>KEF Q Series. Secondary listening areas: 1/ QNAP 119P II(running MinimServer)>UPnP>Linn Majik DSI>Linn Majik 140's. 2/ (Source awaiting)>Invicta DAC>RotelRKB2100 Power amp>Rega's. Tertiary multiroom areas: Same QNAP>SMB>Sonos>Various. MULTICHANNEL- MacMini>A+(Standalone mode)>Exasound e28 >5.1 analog out>Yamaha Avantage Receiver>Pre-outs>Linn Chakra power amps>Linn Katan front and sides. Linn Trikan Centre. Velodyne SPL1000 Ultra

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NO, what music servers and their better, less expensive bretheren, computer-as source systems, ARE, is a means to organize THE MUSIC THAT THE OWNER OF THE SYSTEM WANTS TO LISTEN TO, into what is often incredibly convenient, versatile cataloging software that allows fluid, easy access to the library of THE MUSIC THAT THE OWNER OF THE SYSTEM WANTS TO LISTEN TO. Done well, it also happens to sound good.

 

WHAT A MUSIC SERVER OR COMPUTER-AS-SOURCE SYSTEM IS NOT, is a tool of your quasi-political agenda. And try it in English next time.

 

Tim

 

I confess. I\'m an audiophool.

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I suppose everyone is entitled to their opinion, but gez..

Compare the quality and opinions of the 2 most recent initial posts. (Romy vs Daphne)

One informative, well researched, enlightened and useful. The other subjective, self opinionated, and provocative....

 

Q/ which is more useful?

 

A/ D....e

 

 

 

New simplified setup: STEREO- Primary listening Area: Cullen Circuits Mod ZP90> Benchmark DAC1>RotelRKB250 Power amp>KEF Q Series. Secondary listening areas: 1/ QNAP 119P II(running MinimServer)>UPnP>Linn Majik DSI>Linn Majik 140's. 2/ (Source awaiting)>Invicta DAC>RotelRKB2100 Power amp>Rega's. Tertiary multiroom areas: Same QNAP>SMB>Sonos>Various. MULTICHANNEL- MacMini>A+(Standalone mode)>Exasound e28 >5.1 analog out>Yamaha Avantage Receiver>Pre-outs>Linn Chakra power amps>Linn Katan front and sides. Linn Trikan Centre. Velodyne SPL1000 Ultra

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Yep, Brian, you are very much on target. What all that noise from the people are building better music servers, exercising better hardware and see to themes a semi-stupid notion of more friendly organization of music library the true meaning and the true power of PC Audio is not being employ by the industry. The problem as I see that it might never will as the true objective of PC Audio is actual elimination of the stupid industry from the chain of music destitution. The live analog or even 24/88 feed are so much advanced than anything that industry might offers of the preserved media that it is laughable. Pretend a situation when PC Audio users might have an access to live feed where sound stream was not exposed to DSP processing or to awareness of the audio editing person (who is mostly a Moron with a diploma of electrician). So, I feel and afraid that any embracement of PC Audio by audio industry will be ONLY that corrupted ways – providing different irrelevant opportunities but still keeping the ultimate control, being a leach between live event and listeners.

 

Rgs, Romy the Cat

 

 

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OK, I'm really struggling with what you're trying to say, perhaps even as much as you are, but if I get the gist of it, are you envisioning direct distribution of recordings from artists to the public without an entertainment industry in the middle?

 

A good idea. An old idea but a good one. Could it grow bigger? Sure. Will it eliminate the commercial music business? I seriously doubt it. Or maybe that's not what you're saying at all. I'm not at all sure. And by the way, I apologize for the closing remark of my first post if English is not your primary language.

 

Tim

 

I confess. I\'m an audiophool.

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Roman,

 

I think your classical music perspective is preventing you from seeing this issue in its entirety. For most traditional acoustic music, I think your desire for high-quality, live-to-broadcast streaming is justified. For other, more modern genres of music, studio edits are themselves forms of expression and are critical to the musician's final vision of how listeners should experience the music.

 

Mark Wieman

http://www.dailyaudiophile.com

 

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*** OK, I'm really struggling with what you're trying to say, perhaps even as much as you are, but if I get the gist of it, are you envisioning direct distribution of recordings from artists to the public without an entertainment industry in the middle?

 

Nope, I am not straggling. I just saying the new things the things that were not previously presold and prechewed and therefore you have difficulty to grasp it.

 

*** And by the way, I apologize for the closing remark of my first post if English is not your primary language.

 

I agree, it was damn on your side. The apologizes are accepted.

 

*** I think your classical music perspective is preventing you from seeing this issue in its entirety. For most traditional acoustic music, I think your desire for high-quality, live-to-broadcast streaming is justified. For other, more modern genres of music, studio edits are themselves forms of expression and are critical to the musician's final vision of how listeners should experience the music.

 

Mark, I have no interest in other then classical music and if tomorrow all none- classical CD will be burn I have no problem with it. Moreover, if it is some kind of audio site with high-end pretence that nothing besides classical music shell be understood when work ‘music’ is mentioned. Ironically my desire is not as much to live-to-broadcast streaming because high-quality but because this mechanics set a situation that no one barbarian would touch it. If you are familiar at which step of music distribution sound dies than you know that there are two major steps: “mastering” and porting the files to media disk. The live-to-broadcast streaming has none of those steps. Even the 20/44 live feed that was juts AD and then broadcasted row is capable to throw a stunning level of realism. Record it as change volume for .1dB of burn it to DVD - the sound immediately turn to crap. There are many other reasons but even those two are the deal breakers.

 

Rgs, Romy the Cat

 

 

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"Nope, I am not straggling. I just saying the new things the things that were not previously presold and prechewed and therefore you have difficulty to grasp it."

 

No, I was struggling with your English, and so were you. I truly am sorry about the remark in my first post and I know it must be difficult to have to communicate in a language you have not mastered, but a great place to start, I'd think, would be to understand that at times it will be pretty difficult for people to understand the point you're trying to make rather than assuming, when your choice of words, spelling and syntax is often quite wrong, that it is the reader's ignorance and not your communication abilities that are the problem.

 

I think I get it now. You want direct streaming of live classical performances, so you can hear, without going to the concert hall, the music untouched by mixing and mastering engineers. I think it's a lot more complicated than that, but ok.

 

For those very few classical music lovers who care, or even know, that their music is being effected by mastering, I hope this comes to a stream near you someday soon. But to assume that addressing this relatively minor issue for a tiny subset of a tiny subset of music listeners is the real purpose of computer audio is absurd. And pretty arrogant.

 

Tim

 

I confess. I\'m an audiophool.

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I would leave your English comments from now and on without attention. As far as I concern they are too bogus and I am not wasting my time to comment on them.

 

*** I think I get it now. You want direct streaming of live classical performances, so you can hear, without going to the concert hall, the music untouched by mixing and mastering engineers. I think it's a lot more complicated than that, but ok.

 

Are you experiences with live feed or you just exercises your typing, spelling and syntax…?

 

*** For those very few classical music lovers who care, or even know, that their music is being effected by mastering, I hope this comes to a stream near you someday soon.

We have it for dozen years via live FM broadcasts.

 

*** But to assume that addressing this relatively minor issue for a tiny subset of a tiny subset of music listeners is the real purpose of computer audio is absurd. And pretty arrogant.

 

Very much disagree. The computer audio offers an opportunity to preserve digital stream and then reinstate it. If computer audio is properly implemented then the perceptual problems of reinstituted stream are negligible. The problem that I see with computer audio is the context of the stream itself, the source of the stream. The people who practice computer audio juts do not have an access to the streams that are valuable to be the stream worth bothering. 99% of all DAWs out there are filled with backups from CD, DVD, SACD or the sources that are severely compromised to begin with (mastering + media). Therefore, with all appearing triumph of computer audio (as lease the way how people would like it to see) I recognize no real progress as most of the people still play on their machine the very same “enslaved music”.

 

The Cat

 

 

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