Article: Realism vs Accuracy For Audiophiles | Part 2: The Real Sounds Of Live Music

[The Computer Audiophile]

I absolutely love this one @bluesman! I only wish I could write this good :~|

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

 

Amen.

 

I've mentioned before a record collector friend years ago in Miami who would not open the shrink wrap on his albums since they would lose a tremendous amount of value as collectibles.  This being Miami, humidity had penetrated tiny holes in the shrink wrap of nearly all the records and caused the cardboard inside to swell against the plastic, bending the cardboard and severely warping the records inside to the extent that they certainly must have been unplayable.  But they were supposedly worth quite a bit of money as collectible "recordings."  I didn't (still don't) see the point.  My recordings (vinyl and otherwise) exist to be played.

I always tell people, if you want to make money on an investment, then invest your money. Don’t fool yourself into thinking there’s real money to be made in records, toys, cards, etc... Sure, there are exceptions, but they aren’t the rule. That said, I enjoy collecting and love when others enjoy it. I just don’t believe it’s an investment. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, ARQuint said:

 

There were.

 

I found 13 answer sheets, and these were the results:

 3/12 correct

 4/12

 5/12

 6/12

 6/12

 6/12

 7/12

 7/12

 8/12

 8/12

 9/12       (violinist)

 9/12       (violinist)

 12/12     (audiophile)

 

I don't pretend that this goes much beyond "anecdotal" but one other part of the experiment was interesting to me. The subjects were actually presented with two differently randomized series of files, the first encoded as 16-bit FLAC and the second as 145 kbps MP3. My "star"—the audiophile who got 12/12 correct with FLAC—got just 7/12 right with the MP3 trial.

 

Maybe you remember, Jud, I'd mentioned the idea of an online version of the trial. Originally, my thought was to do this via the TAS website but as the site is no longer "interactive" (a good thing, IMO, given the frequency of childish and totally OT posts) maybe we could do it here, if Chris was on board. Any interest?

 

Andy

I can embed WAV and MP3 if you want to do that test as well. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

8 minutes ago, bluesman said:

Better yet, leave it all where it is, put on your favorite music, fill a vessel with your favorite beverage, sit in your favorite listening spot with your favorite person, close your eyes, and savor the multisensory input.  There are few greater pleasures for us!

+1000

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 minutes ago, bluesman said:

I'm not saying that they're solved.  I'm just suggesting that technology is, at most, no more important than the music itself.  I believe that we're far more likely to benefit from critical listening and learning more about our music than we are from tweaking our systems.  I'm pretty confident that almost every AS participant has a system with more than passable SQ.  And I'm equally confident that our AS friends and colleagues will hear many of the things I've written about, once they start listening for them.  

 

Physics and engineering are both great knowledge sets and paths to further improvement.  But you can't engineer a solution until you've defined the problem and validated your measurement system.  The music holds the keys to defining new goals, and science has the tools to buld the paths to them.  I, for one, believe that many audiophiles cling so hard to the physics and engineering of audio that they leave music (the reason they have audio systems) relatively unexplored.  We need both.

I’ve increased my level of enjoyment in this wonderful hobby in many ways, including education. I sat with a musician once while playing some of my favorite music. I asked him about what I heard and thought I heard. He educated me each time. It was an experience I’ll never forget and one I’d love to duplicate over and over. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

6 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

 

Thank you kindly for the setup, I've been wanting to do this for ever so long. 🙂

 

Have a listen and see whether you can get Miles' little musical joke in this cookin' blues. (Musicians like @bluesman should get it very quickly, so no fair spoiling it for everyone else!)

 

 

I don’t get it :~)

[The Computer Audiophile]

24 minutes ago, Jud said:

OK, time for the reveal - skip to the second last paragraph if you're impatient, or you can humor me for a bit and follow along.

 

Pretty much every blues ever has 4 beats to the bar.  The lyrics have that iambic "foot" thing going (ba-DUM ba-DUM), which is the rhythm of Shakespeare (he wrote in iambic pentameter - 5 iambic "feet" to a line), so you can put on the blues, break out the Shakespeare, and they work perfectly together.  I remember Leonard Bernstein singing Macbeth to the blues on an old recording.

 

Because blues is the foundation of rock, you'll find the same there.  You can listen to any rock station, classic, alternative, whatever you like, for days or weeks and never hear anything but 4 beats to the bar (excepting the occasional run of triplets, as in Simon and Garfunkel's 59th Street Bridge Song, a/k/a "Feelin' Groovy").

 

There are small variations on this with big effects, like reggae's emphasis on the one and the three instead of the two and the four, or James Brown creating an entire funk industry with "on the one."  And then there is the inverse, big changes that almost pass unnoticed, like Dave Brubeck seemingly just playing along normally until you realize "Take Five" is actually a pun and that song is 5 beats to the bar.

 

If you want to get away from the tyranny of 4 beats to the bar, you can go to jazz, or, perhaps counterintuitively, some hip-hop, which can be incredibly creative rhythmically, different rhythmic lines running around and through each other.  (Though yes, some hip-hop stays strictly with 4 beats also.)

 

Now, Miles - "Red China Blues" is an example of what I was talking about with Brubeck, big changes that can easily pass unnoticed.  How many beats to the bar?  Listen, and you'll notice it's 6.  A blues that is very nearly in waltz time.  (Waltzes are 3 beats to the bar.)  Miles is saying "You think *you're* cool?  I'm playing a blues in g*ddamn *6* and making it *cook*, motherf**ker!"

 

(BTW @bluesman, I agree about the quality of the album.  Not one of his better efforts overall.  I bought it because he was coming back from one of his periodic illness/addiction bouts, and I wanted to hear what he was doing.)

This made my night. Thanks @Jud.