Article: Making Memories In Santa Monica

[fas42]

1 hour ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I don't want to go off into the weeds, but there's no way to know if the bad sound quality is from the terrible A to D converter in the phone doing the recording or the terrible codec used by YouTube etc... 

 

These days, the A/D converters in phones are actually very good - it's almost impossible for a manufacturer to buy a chip that doesn't have excellent specs, compared to say the 1980's, no matter how cheap. The microphone is something else, but should do an acceptable job except for the extreme frequencies. For YouTube, one can retrieve the Opus encoding if one wants to, which gives the full 20k BW, and entirely satisfactory encoding.

[LawrenceT]

I used to think I had a high-end system... Now the target has moved well beyond.  Funny to see the newer version of my original Kharma Ceramique 3.2 in your pictures.  Back in 2005 I went with those instead of the Wilsons....

[photonman]

That sounds like an awesome experience.  I love those times when you are so into moment that nothing else matters, not even food.  Those Van Halen and Van Hagar days were epic!  The Eddie and Alex Van Halen lead guitar and drum sound was so energetic and bold as well as those falsetto background vocals like in Jamie's Crying.  I am inspired to blast some VH this weekend while my wife is out of house but on a system that pales in comparison.

[The Computer Audiophile]

3 minutes ago, photonman said:

That sounds like an awesome experience.  I love those times when you are so into moment that nothing else matters, not even food.  Those Van Halen and Van Hagar days were epic!  The Eddie and Alex Van Halen lead guitar and drum sound was so energetic and bold as well as those falsetto background vocals like in Jamie's Crying.  I am inspired to blast some VH this weekend while my wife is out of house but on a system that pales in comparison.

Michael Anthony’s backing vocals are fantastic!

[PorkChop]

@The Computer Audiophile [knowing snicker] "I'll Wait" was a recent audio re-awakening for me too. I never thought much of that track until it came on in my newly installed, somewhat high-end car audio system. The sound of AVH's Ludwigs are just incredible against that super fat droning keyboard.

[The Computer Audiophile]

33 minutes ago, PorkChop said:

@The Computer Audiophile [knowing snicker] "I'll Wait" was a recent audio re-awakening for me too. I never thought much of that track until it came on in my newly installed, somewhat high-end car audio system. The sound of AVH's Ludwigs are just incredible against that super fat droning keyboard.

Completely!

[coot]

Thanks for sharing your wonderful trip with us. I felt like I was there by way of your great wordsmithing. Good job!

Always wondered what those monsters sound like - Now I don't have to go out and buy them.

 

PS: Whats that center rectangle - clear plasticky-looking thing?

[cjf]

A diffuser to help break up standing waves in the mid/tweet range

[coot]

The lighting reflections make me think it's a hard (therefore sound reflective) surface. Don't see how that can diffuse sound, but rather reflect it. Whatever, apparently the music was great regardless.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, coot said:

The lighting reflections make me think it's a hard (therefore sound reflective) surface. Don't see how that can diffuse sound, but rather reflect it. Whatever, apparently the music was great regardless.

 

Diffusion is more about shape and science (as you know). Absorption is much more about materials than diffusion. 

[botrytis]

On 10/21/2020 at 6:15 PM, fas42 said:

 

These days, the A/D converters in phones are actually very good - it's almost impossible for a manufacturer to buy a chip that doesn't have excellent specs, compared to say the 1980's, no matter how cheap. The microphone is something else, but should do an acceptable job except for the extreme frequencies. For YouTube, one can retrieve the Opus encoding if one wants to, which gives the full 20k BW, and entirely satisfactory encoding.

 

It is not the A/D converter it is the microphone that is the problem.

 

Youtube sound sucks - sorry.

[fas42]

Just found a testing website, for smartphones - these devices are getting better, and more careful evaluation shows that the better units do a decent job, https://www.dxomark.com/xiaomi-mi-10-pro-audio-review/

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

9 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Just found a testing website, for smartphones - these devices are getting better, and more careful evaluation shows that the better units do a decent job, https://www.dxomark.com/xiaomi-mi-10-pro-audio-review/

 

When considering the best audio systems in the world, I don’t think “a decent job” will do. 

[fas42]

30 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

When considering the best audio systems in the world, I don’t think “a decent job” will do. 

 

Again, we're not using the recording to determine how excellent the playback is, as in that somehow the quality of the experience can be be conveyed via the smartphone, video clip route. Rather, it has sufficient quality to pick up the faults of the playback; it's trivially easy to find YouTube videos recorded on someone's phone of very expensive rigs making a complete mess of some recording - when the playback of a 'difficult' track comes across with its integrity intact, in a casual recording, then it's a good sign that the system is working well.

[The Computer Audiophile]

4 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Again, we're not using the recording to determine how excellent the playback is, as in that somehow the quality of the experience can be be conveyed via the smartphone, video clip route. Rather, it has sufficient quality to pick up the faults of the playback; it's trivially easy to find YouTube videos recorded on someone's phone of very expensive rigs making a complete mess of some recording - when the playback of a 'difficult' track comes across with its integrity intact, in a casual recording, then it's a good sign that the system is working well.

This is faulty logic. 
 

You also can’t tell the impact of the largest part of the system, the room. 

[fas42]

49 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

This is faulty logic. 
 

You also can’t tell the impact of the largest part of the system, the room. 

 

Why is it faulty? Let's say you have group of musical friends over, and they decide to jam in your lounge, listening room - and you decide to record the event, on your smartphone - for posterity, 😉. And you decide to put it up on YouTube, to share - would anyone viewing it have the slightest doubt that the audio was the "real thing"; if you said, actually the sound was just coming from a hifi system, and the people in the video were just miming to the sound they heard - would you have any chance of convincing anyone of that?

 

I see the goal of replay to duplicate the quality that live acoustic sound in a space presents, and which can easily be sensed even in a relatively poor quality, amateur recording.

[botrytis]

4 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Why is it faulty? Let's say you have group of musical friends over, and they decide to jam in your lounge, listening room - and you decide to record the event, on your smartphone - for posterity, 😉. And you decide to put it up on YouTube, to share - would anyone viewing it have the slightest doubt that the audio was the "real thing"; if you said, actually the sound was just coming from a hifi system, and the people in the video were just miming to the sound they heard - would you have any chance of convincing anyone of that?

 

I see the goal of replay to duplicate the quality that live acoustic sound in a space presents, and which can easily be sensed even in a relatively poor quality, amateur recording.

 

It is totally faulty since how the room affects the acoustics in not recorded by a youtube video. Only in person does that happen.

 

You WILL NEVER duplicate that live acoustic sound in space. Sorry, no, one microphone does not do it and one that is mediocre at best.

[fas42]

12 minutes ago, botrytis said:

 

It is totally faulty since how the room affects the acoustics in not recorded by a youtube video. Only in person does that happen.

 

You WILL NEVER duplicate that live acoustic sound in space. Sorry, no, one microphone does not do it and one that is mediocre at best.

 

What's recorded by a microphone are the soundwaves at a particular point in space. Which is how everything works, whether recording some live event, or the playback of an audio system. The closer the accuracy of the playback to replicating the energy of what's on the recording, the more convincing will be what is captured by the microphone, irrespective of whether the the microphone is literally only inches away from the speaker drivers, or on the other side of a cavernous room - in the latter case, the acoustics of the room add to the sound, but don't detract from the experience - take a real piano ... it always sounds like a piano, whether you are leaning against the side of it, or listening from 20 feet away - it never fails to be convincing.

 

That's what can be achieved by a competent setup - the playback of say a piano never alerts the listener to it being, "fake". How the microphone picks up the sound is not relevant to how capable the replay is - but it can certainly pick up the giveaways that something is not quite right with the SQ.

[ShawnC]

Audiophiles are way to critical about sound quality, when it comes to recording live events.  I wish more sound bits were captured at events like this, where Chris was just at.  It's not about getting the best sound. It's about getting the vibe in the room.  I watch a ton of guitar, guitar amps and effects reviews.  No one is saying your hearing the absolute best quality while watching those video's on YouTube.  The nice thing is as guitarist go, they don't have to explain this every time they create a video.  It's just a rough estimation of what something may sound like.  They do have the benefit of recording through a DAW if they want.  A lot do both to give a sense of what in the room sounds like.    

 

It's like seeing a tv commercial for a new HDTV.  The only view of the that new tv your getting is on whatever quality of the tv you currently have.  So how are you suppose to judge how good the new color is if your watching on a lesser quality tv.  People don't freak about it, they just say maybe we should look for a new tv some time or not.

[Darryl R]

In speaking briefly with Maier (and other dealers) a few months ago, it seems COVID has not been detrimental to business.  I'm glad for them.

 

PS - I'd like to compare the Momentum and the Relentless with those speakers.

[stevebythebay]

Glad you were able to hear these speakers with electronics that do justice to what they can offer.  I'd heard them nearly a year ago, at a launch type event, using a reputable amp/preamp in a large room, with a dCS stack, etc.  Sounded bombastic and brutal to my ears.  Then, within the past few months, I heard them in the same room with the same setup but with with another preamp and amps and the difference was significantly better.  Far more musical and engaging.  This tells me a lot about these speakers, and in fact all well made speakers - upstream components are critical to successful sound reproduction.

[fas42]

5 hours ago, stevebythebay said:

Glad you were able to hear these speakers with electronics that do justice to what they can offer.  I'd heard them nearly a year ago, at a launch type event, using a reputable amp/preamp in a large room, with a dCS stack, etc.  Sounded bombastic and brutal to my ears.  Then, within the past few months, I heard them in the same room with the same setup but with with another preamp and amps and the difference was significantly better.  Far more musical and engaging.  This tells me a lot about these speakers, and in fact all well made speakers - upstream components are critical to successful sound reproduction.

 

Which is the way it always works ... It's The System, Stupid 😉. The weakest link of the setup will always dominate, as far as getting the best SQ. 'Revealing' speakers will merely reveal every tiny deficiency in the chain prior to that point, and may be a very bad move if the work hasn't been done to sort things earlier in the path.

[Foggie]

A bit OT - a cool story though for sure and I love Sammy + him in the VH years, but when I was reading this I immediately thought of my two VH albums that sound drastically different. 

 

Literally the same song sounds night and day.  Not a surprise in that different master/mixing et al make a difference.  I just wanted to point out this specific example for a point of reference if you're interested.  Per my pics, the WEA version absolutely smokes the WB version.

 

 

 

[shp]

I always wanted to stop in their shop but everything is so far out of my price range I've felt guilty asking for an appointment.  

 

How was that Del Taco?  

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, shp said:

How was that Del Taco? 

When everything else was closed and I was extremely hungry, it was a fantastic delicacy :~)