Article: Editorial: What's Wrong With You?

[4est]

32 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

So, we're in the world where everything that contradicts our viewpoint must have been fiddled with, eh ...

 

I've heard enough rigs, rare that this be, that get the sound right to know that there a few out there that are firing on all cylinders - trouble is, this is still regarded as some strange anomaly.

The way you seem to spout BS causes me to wonder if you are running on all cylinders. If you cannot understand how a recording made off a camera and played back via YouTube might not tell the whole story, then there really isn't much common ground to work off of. I imagine we would all love to think that "sleeper cars(gear)" will out perform bespoke high end ones. The truth is that it depends a lot on the actual implementations. I am sure that I am not alone is suspecting that you system is no where near as capable as you make it out to be- regardless of price or how well you have hard soldered your cables.

[Jud]

49 minutes ago, STC said:

 

It was in the interview. He made them for US Capitol. 

 

 

 

He made them so the band could listen back to themselves. Capitol originally released them without input from Martin or the band. Then it appeared the public seemed to like them (as we would anything by the Beatles at that time), so more were released in that hard-panned style.

[audiobomber]

10 hours ago, Richard Dale said:

Words ending in '-phile' just describe a person who likes or loves something, and 'audiophile' refers to someone who loves audio, which normally means music.

It would be more accurate to say that an "audiophile" is someone who loves audio, which means music reproduction.

[firedog]

5 hours ago, STC said:

 

I can't recall everything about Beatles now as I was gathering information on stereo development at the time. Anyway, here is something which may help to throw some light on this discussion which has now gone out of topic.

 

"

Martin: Four-track was the earliest thing we had and that wasn’t until 1965. From ’62 to ’65 we didn’t have four-track. We had mono--mono was the thing. Mono was all that pop records were. Stereo was reserved for classical. Stereo wasn’t considered to be in any way useful to pop record because it dissipated the sound...

MF: ...on the radio...

Martin: ...and pop had to hit you square on the nose. And so it was considered irrelevant. Very few people had stereo machines anyway. And if they did, they generally had them in cabinets where the speakers were about a foot apart, so you couldn’t really tell.

So mono was the thing. But I took a stereo machine and separated the tracks and made it into a twin-track machine. So when we recorded the Beatles live as we did, we didn’t overdub. I would keep the voices on one track and put the backing on another, so when they went home I could then mix it down and keep the voice forward--but at the same time get plenty of impact. I wouldn’t have to do it on the spot. So that gave me time.

MF: And there was some leakage between the two tracks because they were playing live...?

Martin: Of course.

MF: But it was amazing separation!

Martin: Yes, but then, in the instrumental where the voices stop, all the shit comes out on that track from elsewhere. When I first heard what they’d been doing, I was horrified. But they just did. And I didn’t find out 'till afterwards, and it was too late.

But the worst thing is: The people got used to this and loved it! They liked to be able to turn up the voices in songs. So I was hoisted with my own petard here. I couldn’t protest anymore. I was saying, “Why do you do this? It’s a travesty!” But then they’d say, “The people like it!”

MF: But that came out in England also—the stereo With the Beatles.

Martin: It did. By this time I’d left EMI, and I had no power there at all. I left EMI in 1965 to start my own company. Up to ’65 I was the head of Parlophone Records, so what I said went--as far as Parlophone was concerned. But once I left, I had no authority...apart from complaining.

MF: Back to those Capitol tracks: They were in mono, I assume.

Martin: Yes, "Baby, You’re a Rich Man," "Penny Lane," and "All You Need is Love" should have been mono.

Read more at https://www.analogplanet.com/content/sir-george-martin-interview-part-two-0#ZEV6pzrSh7tOpvJG.99 "

 

 

And 

 

Beyond this, working in true stereo the way the Beatles wanted to simply wasn’t possible through most of the 1960s. By the time of A Hard Day’s Night in 1964, for example, EMI had taken delivery of several new four-track machines, but that remained the state of the art for the next several years. And four tracks is far short of the number necessary to create what we might think of as a “modern” recording - with stereo drums, stereo instruments and stereo voices. Since early stereo attempts tended to sound clumsy and primitive, the Beatles gave up on the format until better times arrived. It wasn’t until 1968, when they began using eight-track machines, that they began giving real attention to stereo.

In the Beatles’ minds, we should remember, it was always more important for a record to be musically good than for it to be compatible with some new, gimmicky format. The Beatles had been raised on mono. All their early records were mono. The radio they listened to was mono. And so it’s natural that, as they began recording, mono remained their chief form of public expression. From 1962 until 1968 the Beatles would record their songs, create mono masters with George Martin plus either Norman Smith (1962-65) or Geoff Emerick (1966-67), and then go off on tour or holiday, leaving the stereo mixes to be done solely under Martin’s supervision. Stereo tapes were often couriered to Capitol in New York without the Beatles ever hearing them at all.

Wow, are your just trying to inform us of something you think we don’t know about  or are you arguing a non-existent argument? All of this is known.  They didn’t have the setup to do stereo the way we do it now. So what? In the 50’s a lot of tracks were recorded on only 3 tracks and then mixed to stereo. Even “Kind of Blue”. Doesn’t mean it isn’t stereo. 

It also doesn’t mean the Beatles songs weren’t  quite deliberately mixed and recorded to stereo. No one has said the Beatles didn’t have an orientation towards mono. But you are over interpreting based on seeing a few quotes. Yes stereo mixes were deliberately produced  also for release in the UK, not just for the US. All the albums were intentionally mixed to stereo and not just for the US. Nothing you quoted contradicts that. You simply are thinking you understand those quotes without knowing the context.
Sgt. Pepper is a good example. The Beatles spent 3 solid weeks working on the mono mix with Geoff Emerick and GM,  which was the most important one to them. When it was done, they basically said, “You know what we want now, so you can do the stereo without us”.  Doesn’t mean it wasn’t intentionally done and not just for the US market. 
 

And yes, there were some odd and fake stereo mixes made by Capitol. The were so desperate for Beatles songs to fill out all the “extra” albums they made  that they would even take mono tapes they were given and make fake stereo.

  Read “Recording the Beatles” or Mark Lewisohn’s or Geoff Emerick’s books and you will see.

Note: The 5  songs for the  Magical Mystery Tour TV special were originally intended for release on EP/45 only,  weren’t considered by the Beatles to be an “album” and so weren’t originally mixed to stereo.  

[The Computer Audiophile]

Enough Beatles. I love the music, but it's off topic. 

[Jud]

I guess it does show a certain tendency to be tendentious.

[Paul R]

7 hours ago, STC said:

 

Another phrase that never made any sense to me. Can we also say in live performance when the sound is so good the performers disappear from the stage?  

 

It's an east-coast kinda phrase. You could just as well say the equipment disappears and you have the illusion of the performers being in your room. If you close your eyes and pretend *real* hard.  

 

I don't typically say it that way, because a lot of the music I love doesn't meet the criteria of "The Absolute Sound."  Pretty much any Alan Parsons, etc. And the ASTribesmen have a lot of very sharp and pointy, if virtual, spears to jab people with. I think they are related to the MQATribesmen. 

 

Sorta like you have one definition of audiophile that isn't exactly the same definition I have. And yes, I am being silly labeling groups with silly names. Better silly names than arguing - over something equally silly.. Have a virtual beer on me. [Slides beer down virtual bar..] 

[Paul R]

2 hours ago, Jud said:

I guess it does show a certain tendency to be tendentious.

 

Darn, I meant to use my Beatles puns Yesterday, but now I gotta Get Back to being on topic! 

 

-Paul 

[ednaz]

Double amen to that. A whole lot of the anti-audiophile and anti-fancy gear arguments I see people tee up seem to firmly rest on the assumption that everyone's sensory capability is identical, and everyone's skills in using said senses are identical. "Because I can't hear a difference, there is no difference." "Bits is bits." Blah blah blah.

 

Everyone's ears are made differently. Everyone's hearing, which involves both the ears and the brain, is made differently. I was a card-carrying musician until my mid-20s, playing all manner of brass instruments. I could tell you whether a trombone player was using a regular or large bore horn. I could reliably tell whether a brass instrument's bell was yellow or red brass, or silver, by the sound. After thousands of hours playing and listening, I developed some pretty acute hearing skills even though I wasn't gifted with great hearing talent.  I have friends who can sing any note you asked them to exactly on pitch, and could tell you if a chamber orchestra was tuning to A440 or to one of the early music tunings (before everyone sat down and said, enough pitch madness...)

 

So yeah, I hear things in music, and in my system, that lots of other people don't. Sometimes it's because they can't - not gifted with sensitive hearing - sometimes it's because they won't - they didn't put in thousands of hours training the hearing they have to the best it can be. I also know a few people who can hear differences between cables at a much finer level than I can... because they've listened to hundreds of cables, compared to my several dozen, on systems that are better able to render nuance than my systems.

 

It's true about any senses. I know a couple of people who can take a sip of wine, and tell you what grape, what country, what region, what wine maker, and what year. I'm happy being able to tell pinot from cabernet. I've shot hundreds of thousands of photos, and when I teach in a field workshop, I hear over and over again "I was right next to you and I didn't see that picture!" Put in the work, and you might. Unless you're color blind, or have other visual differences that get in the way. I put in tens of thousands of laps on race tracks - which trains a LOT of senses - and got fast enough to get paid seats in some endurance races. But I've had students who, the first time they sat in a race car, were almost as fast as I was with all my years of training. I had skills, but they had talent... and if they developed their skills they would leave me in the dust.

 

When people want to argue with me that it's impossible for anyone to hear a difference between cables, or between 320kps and 16/44, much less 24/192 - that all the time I put in training my hearing in fine nuances of sound and music is irrelevant because we all have the same talents and skills - I still push back a bit, with the talents/skills analogies. Once it's clear they're "my senses are as good as anyone" people, I go with:

 

"Good for you! You'll save so much money on components and connects compared to me! You should be very happy!"

 

Yet that's never enough. They seem to persist from some kind of need to prove that there's no value in learning and training, no differences in physical capabilities.

 

We're all different. Because some of us choose to train different aspects of our native abilities, we get more different. I've been fortunate to have time to acquire skills to reach my personal apex in a few different areas. It has made me humbly admire the abilities of those with both talent and skills.

[Ralf11]

Triple amen to that. A whole lot of the anti-audiophile and anti-fancy gear arguments I see people tee up seem to firmly rest on the assumption that everyone's confirmation bias is identical

[christopher3393]

1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

Triple amen to that. A whole lot of the anti-audiophile and anti-fancy gear arguments I see people tee up seem to firmly rest on the assumption that everyone's confirmation bias is identical

 

Seriously, what do you think of CC's editorial? What do you understand his overall position to be and do you share it?

[accwai]

10 hours ago, STC said:

Another phrase that never made any sense to me. Can we also say in live performance when the sound is so good the performers disappear from the stage?  

 

Seems a little backwards to me. In a great performance, live or reproduced, the music's so good the sound disappears. Laozi called this 大音希聲 in Tao Te Ching so it's been known for more than 2,000 years. Old guard idea that's better off purged now I suppose?

[audiobomber]

15 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

As an example of how that "terrible A to D converter on the video camera and lossy YouTube compression" can actually demonstrate that a rig is doing the job of delivering the music, with no excuses - in the same series of "World's Greatest Audio Systems",

 

 

I'm sure the soundstage is amazing, as reported by the interviewer (are pianos supposed to float? 😯). However, listening to the YouTube / video camera version through another system, in a different room, cannot even remotely reproduce the effect.

 

I am always intrigued by systems with exotic or unusual sources, amps, and speaker technologies. I would love to hear this system, but I would not have made the same equipment choices... no bass!!!

 

@The Computer Audiophile said "I'll take Pearl Jam on an AM radio if that's all I can get, but on a beautiful HiFi system that sounds spectacular, all is right with the world."

 

To that, I say AMEN!

 

 

[Josh Mound]

19 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Is it possible he said it outside this single article / interview?

 

I understood your "infamous" preface to me "possibly apocryphal." It seems to be a Slashdot commenter's quip in reference to the 2012 Parsons interview, which somehow morphed into Parsons having said it himself. It's definitely more quotable than Parsons's actual comments! 

 

In any case, "I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You" sounds great on "audiophile" systems! Haha.

[The Computer Audiophile]

6 minutes ago, JoshM said:

 

I understood your "infamous" preface to me "possibly apocryphal." It seems to be a Slashdot commenter's quip in reference to the 2012 Parsons interview, which somehow morphed into Parsons having said it himself. It's definitely more quotable than Parsons's actual comments! 

 

In any case, "I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You" sounds great on "audiophile" systems! Haha.

Wow. Haven’t even heard the name /. in forever. 

[fas42]

10 hours ago, 4est said:

The way you seem to spout BS causes me to wonder if you are running on all cylinders. If you cannot understand how a recording made off a camera and played back via YouTube might not tell the whole story, then there really isn't much common ground to work off of. I imagine we would all love to think that "sleeper cars(gear)" will out perform bespoke high end ones. The truth is that it depends a lot on the actual implementations. I am sure that I am not alone is suspecting that you system is no where near as capable as you make it out to be- regardless of price or how well you have hard soldered your cables.

 

Again, what a recorded clip of music playing does is communicate whether there is something wrong with the sound - if there are incidental noises, like people talking in the background while listening, etc, this allows one to 'calibrate' the overall sense of the recording. If when the music starts it is jarringly out of kilter with the preceding sound picture, then something is very wrong with the playback being recorded.

 

The "whole story" is not the point - if it's easy to hear that you don't like the sound of the gear over a YouTube link, then it would be much worse in the flesh.

 

Yes, actual implementations are at the heart of getting good sound. And my rigs are all over the place in SQ, because I'm always in the process of investigating, and trying things out. One day it will be a bit of magic; the next day it will irritate the hell out of me - because I've made a wrong move, or something has come adrift; or an external factor has come into the picture.

[accwai]

22 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

I am still trying to get past the Ferrari thing.

 

There is currently a red Scion FR-S with prancing horse decal in the used lot of a local Toyota dealer:

 

 

The asking price is less than the carbon fiber drink holder option on the Ferrari F12 if I'm not mistaken. One heck of a motorized drink holder, with feisty Chihuahua attitude. Awesome 👍

[fas42]

34 minutes ago, audiobomber said:

😯

 

I am always intrigued by systems with exotic or unusual sources, amps, and speaker technologies. I would love to hear this system, but I would not have made the same equipment choices... no bass!!!

@The Computer Audiophile

 

 

 

And I alway ask the question - what is this thing about bass? When I go to the concert hall, I don't hear "audiophile bass"; when I'm sitting in a room with a rock band rehearsing, I don't hear "audiophile bass" ...

 

One of my tests for this is classic Boney M. tracks - there is a visceral, gut wrenching thud from the beat which is part of the magic - and listening to this on a rig with mighty woofers, this can be missing ... Fail!!!

[4est]

5 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Again, what a recorded clip of music playing does is communicate whether there is something wrong with the sound - if there are incidental noises, like people talking in the background while listening, etc, this allows one to 'calibrate' the overall sense of the recording. If when the music starts it is jarringly out of kilter with the preceding sound picture, then something is very wrong with the playback being recorded.

 

The "whole story" is not the point - if it's easy to hear that you don't like the sound of the gear over a YouTube link, then it would be much worse in the flesh.

 

Yes, actual implementations are at the heart of getting good sound. And my rigs are all over the place in SQ, because I'm always in the process of investigating, and trying things out. One day it will be a bit of magic; the next day it will irritate the hell out of me - because I've made a wrong move, or something has come adrift; or an external factor has come into the picture.

I completely relate to your last paragraph. It fits me to a tee. Whatever is in my signature is merely my LR stereo and the one that works! LOL

 

Your first two paragraphs baffle me though. I agree there should be some averaging, but there are too many variables for me to be comfortable saying anything concrete about it.

[fas42]

Just now, 4est said:

 

Your first two paragraphs baffle me though. I agree there should be some averaging, but there are too many variables for me to be comfortable saying anything concrete about it.

 

There is a fundamental difference between what one attempts to do with a car - and with an audio rig. With a vehicle there is no "absolute performance" - you can always give it a higher top speed, level of acceleration; in the extreme, land speed records and dragsters. With audio there is a set maximum - what is on the recording; the goal is to get as close to the track contents as possible; this is an https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymptote goal.

 

What I listen for are the signs that the gap is too large; clear "extra noises" that tell me the rig is 'rattling' too much, instead of quietly getting on with the job.

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, fas42 said:

 

There is a fundamental difference between what one attempts to do with a car - and with an audio rig. With a vehicle there is no "absolute performance" - you can always give it a higher top speed, level of acceleration; in the extreme, land speed records and dragsters. With audio there is a set maximum - what is on the recording; the goal is to get as close to the track contents as possible; this is an https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymptote goal.

 

What I listen for are the signs that the gap is too large; clear "extra noises" that tell me the rig is 'rattling' too much, instead of quietly getting on with the job.

If it makes you happy, that’s cool with me. If you think you can judge a system via YouTube, that may be handy and save you traveling to a dealer or audio show. You can demo online. If it works for you, I guess we shouldn’t care. 

[Ralf11]

1 hour ago, accwai said:

 

There is currently a red Scion FR-S with prancing horse decal in the used lot of a local Toyota dealer:

 

 

 

If I were to buy a newer sports car, I'd get a Boxster/Cay-thing or a Miata with a jaguar V-6 sound system (lighter & more hp than stock).

 

But, I would not try to evaluate them thru youtube...

[Axial]

You tube is getting pretty good; 4K picture and decent sound rendition. Yeah I know, it's not analog from a record (vinyl) playing. Still, you can make music sound very good.

 

It's easy to dismiss, and it's easy not to. 

  _____

 

Bonus (not for sound, not for picture, but for what's wrong, and right with us?)

 

 

 

[Josh Mound]

Chris, I love this editorial because it gets at the often implicit mixing of "objective" analysis with political/moral opinions and economic value judgments. 

 

It's perfectly reasonable for people to directly compare two pieces of gear, regardless of their relative prices. But one always needs to keep in mind that people value gear differently and have different budgets. We need to take potential interlocutors' monetary means and values into account when rendering opinions. It's weird and unhelpful to proclaim that your $1.5k pair of headphones smokes someone's $100 pair of headphones unless they're claiming otherwise. Without taking budgets/priorities into account, audio comparisons descend into pointless subjective value judgments. 

 

Likewise, it's easy to import political opinion into discussions of any hobby without realizing it. I completely understand the argument that an expensive pair of headphones or DAC is an extravagance when there are people in the world struggling to eat and make ends meet. (I agree with Rage Against the Machine's politics!) But except for people who live super frugally and donate every extra penny to charity, we're all guilty of indulging wasteful spending. Personally, I think charity is wonderful, but it's no substitute for policy. If someone thinks that we should redistribute money from the rich to the poor, great. I agree and think the government should do more of it! But insofar as people have extra money, they should be free to spend it however they want, including on audiophile jewelry that even other audiophiles might find wasteful. In other words, keep the political/moral judgements where they belong. Don't mix them with audio discussions.

 

Finally, as the recent Audio Fidelity remasters show, Rage albums can certainly stand up to audiophile scrutiny! 😉

[Josh Mound]

2 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Wow. Haven’t even heard the name /. in forever. 

 

Here's the thread: https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/12/02/09/195225/pink-floyd-engineer-alan-parsons-rips-audiophiles-youtube-and-jonas-brothers