The myth of "The Absolute Sound"

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TAS is not a "myth", but an ideal.  An ideal is never attained or reached, only approached.  It is a standard and measurement despite its paradoxical nature - it is in a sense "not real" because it is an ideal and not an actuality.

 

TAS is a realistic check on the radical subjectivism (in your arguement, almost entirely emotive) of:

 

"...Our systems should be evaluated on the basis of how much they allow each of us to connect with the music that is important to us, individually, and not on the basis of some impossible tp evaluate "standard" which does not even really exist or relate to most music in the world... "

 

 

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5 minutes ago, barrows said:

...The power of music in its essence is mysterious, as is where it comes from.  In the experience of a live music performance (and this is not always the case) there can be a relationship between the performers, the audience, and the third element which is unknown, likely unknowable (except in the moment of experiencing it).  We KNOW this experience in the moment when it appears, but when the experience ends, we do not know it...

 

Yet objectively the music happened.  Not only that, a pressure wave (i.e. sound) "happened", no matter if you were there to "experience" it. You subjective evaluation of your inner experience (i.e. physical, physcological, social, spiritual) is to be honest quite besides the point because the sound happened quite apart from your "experience".  It is this sound that is what is captured and reproduced by electronics and transducers and it is this that they are judged by in any rational sense.

 

In other words, the "power" of music recording/playback is not "mysterious" and we in fact know quite well where it comes from...

 

 

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16 minutes ago, barrows said:

To be clear, (again).  I appreciate the concept of the "absolute", my point is that the concept is entirely flawed in practice and cannot be reliably used in evaluation of playback systems (with the possible exception of some very rare cases).

 

For example, anyone who thinks that because they see live music regularly, that they can "remember" the EXACT qualities of a given (timbre, dynamic expression) instrument and then apply that memory to their playback system hours (days, weeks?) later is fooling themselves.  For example, one can take a violin,  and make it sound very different in a "pure" recording, just by the distance of the microphone to the instrument.  This does not even take into account the make/model of the microphone itself.

I call BS on anyone, including reviewers, when I hear statements such as "these speakers are so accurate;  they have a silvery tone on the violins just like heard at Avery Fischer Hall last night".  This is not to mention the unreliability of aural memory (try a Google search if you are not aware of this).

 

I will allow, perhaps some exception to my reservations: for example, if one has the opportunity to compare a live mike feed of a "purist" recording session (the actual stereo live feed being captured to a two channel recording) to that recording being played back through a system I would consider this a valid approach to a relatively "absolute" reference.  But note that this is different from the standard, accepted view of the "absolute", as the reference is the mike feed and not the sound of acoustic instruments in the space.  This approach takes into account the fact that the sound of the live acoustic instruments is ALWAYS changed by the recording process.  Even with this approach there are problems, most notably the quality (accuracy if one prefers) of the monitor speakers. 

 

This is a very strange argument.  Baseball must be an "entirely flawed" game because no one has yet to bat a perfectly.  Indeed, all human endeavor and art must be "entirely flawed" because nobody as of yet has ever created the perfect gizmo, the perfect artist expression, the perfect human act.

 

Also, the whole "aural memory" is used and abused by radical subjectivists.  If I can't remember what my wifes voice sounds like, or a violin, or even an artists particular playing such as Avery Fischer, how could I possibly hear and identify anything at all?  It's another truth taken to absurdity.

 

Radical objectivism is just as much a fallacy as radical subjectivism, but you have yet to properly identify radical objectivism. Hint:  It ain't "the absolute sound".

 

 

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4 minutes ago, semente said:

Stereo speakers are unable to reproduce the original soundfield.

 

What exactly is an "original soundfield"?

 

Just pointing out that the language leads the mind to a complexity and diversity that does not in fact exist.  There is but one waveform to rule them all... 😉

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1 minute ago, Jud said:

 

I suppose I am not getting how something can be used as a reference if you don't know how it's supposed to sound....

 

 

That's just it, we do know how it sounds.  The absolute (i.e. accurate) sound truly exists.  We "know" it by multifarious experiences of it, that gives us a precision if not 100% accurate knowledge.  The assertion that a 100% accurate knowledge of something is necessary to be able to use it as a measurement for precision (i.e. fidelity) is fallacious...

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3 minutes ago, Jud said:

The room response of the venue(s)...

 

Is captured in the recording to a greater or lessor fidelity depending upon several factors (technical, methodology, etc.).

 

These realities do not convict "the absolute sound" in any way...

 

 

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12 minutes ago, Allan F said:

 

Precisely!

  

 

Right!  Upstream @barrows admits (ironically) that his is an metaphysical critique, and taken on its own he is right in that we don't possess absolutely the Platonic ideal of "the absolute sound".  It's also quite besides the point because we do in fact possess multifarious experiences of it, even if these themselves are but shadows on the wall...taken together they allow us a degree of precision that itself is very practical and keeps us from falling into the relativism of emotive subjectivism...

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8 minutes ago, semente said:

 

When you are sitting in a venue there is direct sound from the instruments and reflected sound from the surrounding surfaces and room reverberation. You are immersed in sound.

 

At home both direct sound and the reflected sound and room reverberation are coming from the same plane between the speakers, thus the systems inability to recreate the original soundfield.

 

 

But but but...at 'L' there was a microphone(s) that did capture the waveform, which is but the sum of all the dotted lines (not only the 4 shown, but all the rest - too infinity and beyond!  ).

 

There is but one waveform to rule them all. 😁

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1 minute ago, Jud said:

What this scientific experiment shows is that people, even musicians, who believe familiarity with the sound of an instrument gives them a reference to compare the quality of high end systems in reproducing the tone of that instrument are fooling themselves.

 

Um, why?  It does test that at all...what's your reasoning to draw your conclusion?

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Just now, gmgraves said:

You still don’t get the concept, do you? Well, I can’t explain it any clearer than I have.

 

 

What part of "radical" do you not understand?  😋😉

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8 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

What the experiment shows is that attack and release are critical to instrument identification, tone surprisingly little. If differences in tone cannot even enable college music students playing and hearing these instruments every day to hear differences between oboe and violin, or between flute, saxophone and trombone, then exactly what audible differences are you relying on to distinguish the quality of two high end systems from each other? Attack and release? Even mid-fi and some lo-fi systems ought to be able to reproduce that. So again, what qualities are you evaluating to compare two high end systems if reproduction of the tone of an instrument (main tone and harmonics) is very plainly insufficient?

 

So you take a waveform and apply DSP so that your left with some inner "tone" quality, and this is then extrapolated to be some kind of golden indicator of reproduction?!  I can take the most intimate sound you know, let's for argument sake say the sound of your wifes voice, apply a little DSP, and make her sound like Daffy Duck or Donald Trump...and this means something significant to high fidelity?!?

 

Your making this up as you go along arent you...what are you smoking/drinking/popping, I want some 😋

 

If anything, the conclusion drawn from this test is the opposite from what you have it:  it shows the importance of non-distorted high fidelity playback of the entire waveform in the audio band...

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5 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Why no, that's exactly what it does not show. What it shows, again, is very precisely this: If you thought the tonality of an instrument was important to you being able to identify it, you were quite wrong. What is actually (and very surprisingly) critical are the attack and release of the instrument.

 

Thus if you thought accuracy in frequency enabling proper reproduction of fundamental and harmonics would enable you to distinguish between a violin and oboe, let alone a violin and viola, in your audio system, you would be incorrect.

 

 

Nope.  You are extrapolating, speculating, and asserting way beyond the evidence.  All it may show (further testing is required) is that some parts of the wave form are necessary but not sufficient in themselves for identification (within the confines of the test).  Anything beyond that is not in evidence.

 

I like to muse on the significance of this test for high fidelity as well so I like how it underscores the real nature of sound, in that there is but one waveform to rule them all on the one hand, and how easy it is to tinker with and distort on the other hand.  It reveals how arbitrary "audiophile" language such as "transients" can be (granting their usefulness at the same time), etc. etc...   

 

This whole discussion is but a proxy for a radical subjectivism, which states that if a tree falls in a forest it does not really make a sound and even if it does, it is an impossible ideal that never really exists in the universe as it is.  The truth in @barrowsand your subjectivism is that yes there is preferences and taste, even in the art of recording/playback engineering.  Yet you take it too far when you push the difficulties to an absolute subjectivism.  TAS as a guide and method is not only useful and real, it is necessary...

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10 minutes ago, semente said:

 

Good question. Perhaps instrumentalists are not trained or tuned into such aspects of sound...

 

Or perhaps the hypothesis is being poorly tested, or perhaps the wrong conclusions are being drawn.  Beyond that, Jud's conclusions are several degrees removed/speculated further.  The counselor is leading you by the nose... 😉