fas42 Posted September 10, 2021 Share Posted September 10, 2021 Yes, it is a concern - that's a peculiar logic, if you want the reproduction to both be 'transparent'; and at the same time have a flavour that suits you! Anyone who is in the business of making a piece of glass truly "transparent" knows that the goal is achieved when there are zero clues that the glass is intruding in your vision - if you want it to have a pink tint, or a touch of waviness, or to blur at the edges, well, that's fine - but don't delude yourself that you're getting closer to some type of perfect see through clarity !! The only type of veracity, for a recorded performance, that could make sense is if you set up with great precision a playback chain that perfectly matched what was in the mastering engineer's room at the time, in every possible detail - so that you heard precisely what they heard when creating the recording - a rather forlorn effort if you listen to hundreds of different types of recordings, from all around the world. The marvellous place you can get to if you constantly aim to eliminate all disturbing, audible flaws in any setup you can work on optimising, is that of understanding that the intrinsic nature of every recording not deliberately engineered to sound 'off' is quite special, and requires no injection of 'spice' to improve it. The end result can be, that completely different rigs sound identical - because only the characteristics of the recording, which stays the same, are apparent. Qhwoeprktiyns 1 Link to comment
fas42 Posted September 10, 2021 Share Posted September 10, 2021 7 hours ago, davide256 said: There are at least 3 variables at play here 1) ear training/experience... the more you have, the more demanding you get 2) bias... a clarinet player will weight things differently than a drummer for importance 3) pocket book...while one can appreciate audition of $10k + gear at shows, for most of us that’s not affordable, will not be a part of accrued listening evaluations You don't need, 'training' - when a system nails it, it's trivially obvious that the SQ is in a special place - I was most certainly more fortunate than most, in having a rig decades ago that pulled it off; from then on, the presentation of everything else I came across was mediocre, and I couldn't take them seriously. If you listen to sound like a person who has only ever experienced live, acoustic music, and never a hifi rig - rather than how many audiophiles do - then it is so obvious that much music replay is deeply flawed ... it just turns out that one can reduce these audible problems to a subjectively invisible level - which should therefore be the goal. Link to comment
fas42 Posted September 10, 2021 Share Posted September 10, 2021 6 hours ago, audiobomber said: Music type matters also. Reproducing a symphony orchestra is different than solo voice and guitar, or a rock band. A system that falls behind on one type could excel at another. Accuracy is a moving target. Preference is the main criterion for personal satisfaction. Nope. A system that is accurate can do Jimi Hendrix full bore, and a symphony orchestra at subjectively live levels - that's the sort of measure I use for assessing ... a competent playback chain will do a perfect mimic of a Marshall guitar amp for the duration of the track; 'cause that's what's on the track ... 😉. Link to comment
fas42 Posted September 10, 2021 Share Posted September 10, 2021 5 hours ago, Jud said: And yet, in another informal little blind test here at AS, when presented with three musical excerpts that had different levels of simulated jitter and asked to pick the best, he, as did I, picked the one with the highest simulated jitter. Makes sense to me ... the simulated jitter could have the effect of applying random dither to the track, and as is well known, the right type of noise added to audio will mask many types of regular distortion patterns - if the playback chain has some of such distortion, then the highest jitter could easily sound the best subjectively, from this masking. Link to comment
fas42 Posted September 11, 2021 Share Posted September 11, 2021 Part of it is habit ... could you imagine suddenly having your lounge room TV replaced by a 21" B&W CRT set, and being told that's the way it's going to be indefinitely, 🙂 ... eventually, you would adjust - but the initial shock of how much has been lost would be something - but the world lived with that, and 'worse', for decades. And it can go in the other direction - the audio equivalent of that low information video channel is replaced by something that gets a lot closer to being "immersive" - there's nothing really special happening, merely that the mechanism is doing a lot better job of feeding your senses with good, solid data ... then the habit of wanting to spice it up, etc, just evaporates; it serves no purpose. Link to comment
fas42 Posted September 11, 2021 Share Posted September 11, 2021 8 hours ago, mfsoa said: To those who are trying to accurately replay the sound on the disc -The disc has no sound. You are trying to replay what you think is the sound on the disc. Very different... Since no two people think that a disc should sound the same way, it then comes down to personal preference and boom - it's all subjective ultimately. Of course the disc has "a sound" - it is all the characteristics of the recording, meaning what was on the front side of the microphones, and everything behind them, including the peculiarities of the gear used for mastering ... if one wanted to forensically disassemble, dissect, analyse to the last bit every possible aspect to a track on a recording, it could be done - if you were dumb enough to want to waste your time doing this, 😁. And the result you would get now would be identical to doing the exercise in a hundred years time - the event was captured, frozen in time. Accuracy means that the highest level, percentage of that capture is audible, with the least doctoring of that by the playback chain ... nothing like a compilation of pop hits to hit you between the ears with how this works - every track takes to a "different world"; like hopping on different rides, at random, at an amusement park - each ride has its own message, its own integrity, its own identity. Link to comment
fas42 Posted September 11, 2021 Share Posted September 11, 2021 8 hours ago, PeterG said: The boom box guys are not doing this--they are simply listening for their own definition of best possible sound. Even more in contrast is that certain indie artists make a conscious artistic decision to go for a "lo-fi" sound. This is part of the aesthetic. One example: Lo-fi? ... This is actually rather nifty, and about as far from "low resolution" as most of my CDs - if you want the genuine article, I can point to a track of a 70's pop group competition CD, which was probably made by a family member of one of the players in the group, using a small battery operated cassette machine of the day, while sitting way back in the audience somewhere - done as a memory keepsake, most likely. Link to comment
fas42 Posted September 12, 2021 Share Posted September 12, 2021 6 hours ago, PeterSt said: My previous post springs somewhat from all the (very) old recordings I show to auditioners, be that The Buoys or The Beatles and so many more from that era. Without exception I am told that I show them cover bands. Not so. This obviously indicates that so many can change to the sound that all our references are trashed, but also that we don't know what reality is (I never talked to John personally, you ?). Still, because all gray cymbals from back then have turned to the most realistic cymbals as if recorded day before yesterday (but without the compression), you(r brain) will know that the voice is the voice you were looking for too. At least this is how I more explicitly deal with it. Unfortunately, those who haven't experienced setups that can retrieve all the detail, without significantly compromising such, will likely never understand the potential of competent playback - if one has a taste for extracting the most from these 'gray' recordings, then this preference can be satisfied ... but first one has to concede that such is possible, 😉. Link to comment
fas42 Posted September 12, 2021 Share Posted September 12, 2021 8 hours ago, John Dyson said: Again, no matter where the problem is -- it is about removing the distractions. If there are distractions in the recordings, then remove those. Most people accept the garbage in most commercial recordings. This is like speakers... Almost no speakers/environment are really super good from a technical standpoint, but there are some speakers in a controlled environment that are technically really good. It is all about avoiding the distractions, and trying to solve them, if possible. If you have good speakers, but they appear boomy -- there are a few possible solutions, one or two of them might help. Looking at the problems one by one will allow enjoying the system as it grows (if needed.) Yes, it's about removing the distractions ... 8 hours ago, John Dyson said: Trying to fix *everything* will drive you nuts. Trying to fix the problems as they come is the only way to enjoy music without being confused with trying to be an engineer. Frankly, most of the silly or extreme HW stuff being sold today is specious considering the (really poor) quality of most source material. Driving one nuts I certainly agree with!! 😵 ... . But, we of course differ on the matter of source material being poor - the magic emerges, every time, when all the critical stuff, in the playback chain, is sorted - and you always know when you haven't done enough, because ... you don't get the magic, 😉. John Dyson 1 Link to comment
fas42 Posted September 12, 2021 Share Posted September 12, 2021 8 hours ago, Rexp said: Yes i used to demonstrate good imaging to non audiophiles and even they could see palpable images of musicians playing in an almost 3d soundscape on a good recording. It is not subjective and not many speakers/systems are capable of delivering it. Doesn't even have to be "good recordings" - Robert Johnson tracks are a pretty good example of that; when a system is up to it, you can see the man in front of you, you're in the room with him, sensing how he's interacting with the guitar, and whoever is listening - the 'humanness' of the performance stands out ... this comes through, in spite of the very poor quality of many of the 78's used for the transfers. This is where true accuracy of the replay chain is paramount - every extra tiny bit of detail is so vital, because it gives the listening brain just enough to work with, to be able to extract what counts, the performance, from all the noise and media distortion ... the slightest doctoring, or dirtying of that precious detail will kill the illusion - and it reverts to just sounding like a crappy old recording ... Link to comment
fas42 Posted September 13, 2021 Share Posted September 13, 2021 3 hours ago, hopkins said: I think I have demonstrated at length that you and a number of other people here reviewing audio equipment do care about the "realism" of the reproduction they offer. Let's not go there again... The topic of this thread concerns whether the quality of audio reproduction can be assessed "objectively" and not whether there is a "purpose" to seeking higher quality audio reproduction. In fact, there is a very straightforward method of evaluating, and purpose, when progressing the standard of a replay setup - making the speakers completely invisible, as in, it is impossible using your hearing to locate the position of your speakers - even when your ears are only inches away from the drivers of one channel. Only a system working at a very high standard can pull this off, because human hearing is extremely sensitive to sound anomalies which "don't fit" - the latter give the game away, which is why essentially every normal rig, no matter how expensive, will always fail this test. This literally fell out of the air for me, for my first capable setup, decades ago; and has been the measuring stick ever since - current combo has got pretty close at times, but have not yet achieved this level. If I was standing right next to a set of live instruments going for it, I would have zero clues about the dimensions, and models of the items being used - but I would certainly be aware of whether it was obviously the real thing, versus being the output of a normal hifi, 🙂. jiminlogansquare 1 Link to comment
fas42 Posted September 13, 2021 Share Posted September 13, 2021 3 hours ago, Jud said: Heh, no, of course not. It really isn't a pass/fail sort of thing. (You may understand that remark a little better after you've had a listen to the track.) The point is that when we get down to very fine distinctions, it starts to become extremely difficult to tell whether what you are hearing is a true reproduction of the live performance, something that went into the production of the album, or some very slight form of distortion in the playback system. Disagree ... if one has spent some time focused on evolving the standard of a setup, where only the weaknesses of the parts of it are addressed, then it become quite easy to pick the distortions of the playback chain - the more those are removed, the more distinct the techniques used in the recording become clear; the layering of the sound elements, and effects, becomes more obvious. Link to comment
fas42 Posted September 13, 2021 Share Posted September 13, 2021 3 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said: If that's what you believe, I'm totally cool with it. But, suggesting that has anything to do with judging accuracy is preposterous. You're essentially using echoic memory to combine all violins you've heard into one violin sound, and using that as a baseline for accuracy of something that perhaps isn't supposed to sound at all like that amalgam of violins in your head. I have string quartet CD recording which is serving me right now very nicely with refining my system - if I'm hitting the spot, I get musicians putting their all into an interpretation of Schubert ... if I'm even a tiny bit off the mark, this very same recording is, Squeak, scratch, squawk, ... saw, saw, saw, saw ... squeeeeeal, squeal; scratchy, scratchy, scratch ... and so on ... For some reason, I prefer the first variation of perceived violin sound, 😉. Link to comment
fas42 Posted September 14, 2021 Share Posted September 14, 2021 3 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said: If people claim they can judge accuracy in a recording, then that's impossible without understanding what is supposed to be represented in that recording. Let's take a very simple recording of a solo violinist. It isn't possible to say one's home playback is accurate unless one knows the exact violin, the recording space, the mic position, the exact microphone(s) used, etc... Each of those change the recording. Once you have created the recording, what is "supposed to be represented" is completely irrelevant - the end product is all you have to work with, irrespective of what recording and mastering path was used to assemble it. The best you can do, in the first instance, is to perfectly, precisely reproduce the contents of that end point ... now, as a next step, if you wish to editorialise what you hear in some way, to exaggerate or hide some features of it, to make it seem closer to what you believe the artists, etc, wanted you to hear, or what they agreed on when listening over the monitors, there is no reason why you can't then add various bits and pieces to your playback chain, to manipulate what is actually there, to create a "new recording". But you are now another step in the mastering chain, inserting effects, and are creating your own, 'accuracy' ... it's not, the accuracy of the recording ... Link to comment
fas42 Posted September 14, 2021 Share Posted September 14, 2021 57 minutes ago, Jud said: Separate the frequencies simply means the instruments are playing very near a crossover point so that depending on what frequency each instrument is playing at, it jumps to one driver or another. Which driver a particular note played emerges from is irrelevant, if the system is working well - the auditory cues place the instrument well apart from the drivers, and speaker; the notes of that instrument appear to originate from a specific position in the soundstage; unless for some reason a mic for that instrument was literally attached to the body of it, and no artificial ambience was added. Jumbling of the sound of the instruments, in the mix, is a giveaway that the resolution of the system is not adequate; quite a bit of effort would be needed in the mastering to produce a 'jumbled' sound which never sharpened, no matter how good the replay was. Indeed, the recording studios rely on the lack of clarity of most setups to do the jumbling - saves them the work!! 🤣 Link to comment
fas42 Posted September 14, 2021 Share Posted September 14, 2021 12 minutes ago, opus101 said: I have visited concerts too and my experience concurs with yours. The 'instrumental separation' beloved of some reviewers isn't primarily about physical separation in the image, rather its about cognitive separation in our mind. The ability to follow the different musical strands (in ASA I think they're called 'streams') and switch focus from one to the other effortlessly. BTW - is there a missing negative in your last sentence - 'it wouldn't' ? Yes ... this is the point that I was intending - it's not that the outline of the played instrument is almost a 3D model that one can reach out and touch; rather, the sense of what each instrument is contributing can be clearly focused on. The Michael Jackson album Bad is a very different version of that concept - there is layer upon layer of sound in what's going on, in the tracks; with good replay all those layers exist as very distinct sound sources, each of which can be followed, with no effort. opus101 1 Link to comment
fas42 Posted September 14, 2021 Share Posted September 14, 2021 6 hours ago, Kimo said: I am listening to two different amps today. One has ultra low distortion and an SNR of 126, fully balanced, ultra clean. The other is a modern version of a traditional push/pull tube amp with respectable specs for its ilk. The former was designed for optimal measurements using lateral mosfets. The latter was designed to sound like real instruments. Well, they don't sound exactly the same, but I expect if anyone were to be fooled into thinking that actual musicians were playing in the room, they would be fooled by the tube amp. 6 hours ago, Kimo said: So, which is more accurate? Perhaps, "accuracy" is a matter of taste. The tube amp ... when the "ultra low distortion" unit is part of the replay chain, the latter either directly or indirectly allows the listener to be more aware of anomalies in the sound, which degrade the sense of realism. Directly, because in spite of those measurements the amp does in fact distort in audibly significant ways, or, its presence in the chain impacts the other components, interferes in some manner, for example, by the current waveform on the mains ... indirectly, by the absence of noise which in the case of the tube amp with higher values of random noise helps to mask the disturbing anomalies, which are always present from the other components in operation - here, think of the value of dither in masking noticeable artifacts, 🙂. If the presentation is subjectively more realistic, then it is more "accurate" - a beautiful girl can have lighting on her face which enhances her appeal; or, be set up to accentuate every imperfection of her complexion - now, which is the "more accurate" lighting 😉? Link to comment
fas42 Posted September 14, 2021 Share Posted September 14, 2021 4 hours ago, Iving said: Finally ... about that quip which makes fun of audiophiles supposedly using music to listen to their systems (instead of the other way around) ... one of my favourite recordings is Gene Vincent's "Roll Over Beethoven" from 'Town Hall Party' (1959). In audiophile terms it's a rubbish recording - as if made on an old tape machine held by someone at the back of the hall. I really don't care. If my expensive stuff got burgled or burnt - and the insurance company played hard ball - I'd still have mojo in my life. I wouldn't be concerned with "accuracy" or "realism" or "taste" or arguing the toss about this and that. Music first. Hi-Fi second. Even though most audio people can't comprehend that such is possible, a system working to a very high standard will make the absolute most of a recording like this - all the virtues of it, as in it being a capture of musicians having a great time, and being real people, will stand out; and all the technical issues will fade away, they will be 'masked' by what is of value, the live performance quality. A truly accurate setup will do this with ease - anything less than such a standard is in fact sub-par in terms of accuracy ... Iving 1 Link to comment
fas42 Posted September 14, 2021 Share Posted September 14, 2021 1 hour ago, Jud said: Well, but here's the thing: It's a fact that in many of the components of our systems, making one aspect of the sound less distorted will make another aspect of the sound more distorted. To my mind, this turns "accurately reproduces what's on the recording" into "reproduces what's on the recording with the forms of distortion that are less obnoxious to me." And that's the way we go from absolute accuracy to taste. That's how it seems a lot of the time ... luckily, there is an escape clause 😁 - a standard of accuracy exists which subverts that 'rule'; very, very few people reach it, which is why this principle is often mentioned. And the really good news is that the closer one gets to true, "absolute accuracy", the more that type of rule can be tossed out the window ... 🙂. Link to comment
fas42 Posted September 15, 2021 Share Posted September 15, 2021 59 minutes ago, Jud said: I know there are systems I've heard that have knocked me out, one at the last RMAF I'm thinking of in particular. Was that because it had levels of distortion so low they were inaudible to me, even subconsciously, fronted by speakers good enough that I didn't miss my Vandersteens? No idea - it could have been. 🙂 That's always a question for me: Do I think it sounds great to me because of low distortion, distortion that doesn't bother me, or even euphonic distortion? Since I don't have lab grade equipment to measure, I don't know the answer. Yep, that's how it works ... "levels of distortion so low they were inaudible to me" - subconsciously, the ear/brain discards the remaining distortion, and you only hear the good stuff, 😉. Unfortunately, I have never come across anyone who has worked out how to measure the levels of performance, to give numbers which mean that it's going to work its trick - however, if you are lucky enough to have a rig which can flick between the states depending upon what you do, then you have a means which can be subjectively used. 50 minutes ago, Jud said: Umm, not unless 2+2=5, because all I'm talking about here is math. Are there people very talented at working with the math? Sure. But no one's exempt from it. The human brain doesn't work in a clean, clinical fashion - take almost any illusion, typically visual, which is regularly used to demonstrate how the observing mind can fool itself, even when the thinking brain knows the real story. In audio, you can exploit this, the "sweet spot" is an obvious one - now, simply improve everything until the "sweet spot" is never lost, no matter where you listen, and what you listen to - you're not breaking Laws of Physics, you're just taking advantage of the fact that the mind wants to make sense of everything ... Link to comment
fas42 Posted September 15, 2021 Share Posted September 15, 2021 20 hours ago, GregWormald said: ...and that's why short auditions, trying to hear the "realism" can be quite useless. The harder the mind has to work to 'make sense' the more fatigued it gets. Depends upon how one goes about it ... I usually take about 30 secs to sum it up 😁 - that's how long it normally takes to hear a clear anomaly in the sound output; at which point your hearing will keep picking that same problem in the SQ, over and over again. If you have to work at the listening, then the system playback is a fail - "effortless" is a word that gets tossed around, and it's a good one ... 20 hours ago, GregWormald said: As had been said, perfection (in audio reproduction) hasn't been achieved yet, so our preferences choose our music and our reproduction. I've heard very 'accurate' (according to others) systems where my favourite music was ruined, and others where I didn't want to turn it off. That so-called accurate rig is far from it - anything that ruins the music has major issues. A 'perfect' setup, as said before, highlights all the positives, meaning that you enjoy whatever you listen to. Link to comment
fas42 Posted September 15, 2021 Share Posted September 15, 2021 There's a very simple definition of reproduction accuracy - it's where you are never aware of any distortion being contributed by the playback chain; as soon as you hear a 'tell' of something in the SQ that is contributed by the components of the rigs, then you have lost accuracy - a really special setup has absolutely zero personality; it never, never, never "makes it sound better!" - what it's doing is getting completely out of the way; something which turns out to be pretty difficult ... which is why many people just completely give up on such a goal ... 😉. opus101 1 Link to comment
fas42 Posted September 15, 2021 Share Posted September 15, 2021 Absence of distortion is the big one - I've said many times I've been amazed by how people calling themselves audiophiles can listen to rigs generating gross levels of distortion, seemingly in blissful ignorance of what's going on. And their wives, etc, just shake their heads, and get out of the room as soon as they can - they couldn't give a stuff for how amazing some of the bits of the system are supposed to be; they just know it's not pleasant to listen to - and move on, 😄. Link to comment
fas42 Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 3 hours ago, hopkins said: It did not sound like a "typical" guitar, but did not sound "electric" either, so I was simply not sure. It did not sound "distorted" and I did conclude that with headphones I thought that the "characteristics" of the guitar were even more evident (meaning the sound was even more "unique" to my ears). I simply had a hard time associating it with something I knew. Incidentally, I forwarded the file to some "audiophile" friends. One of them thought it was electric but was not really sure, the other acoustic but banjo, a third amplified banjo... So they were all a little confused. This means zero of course, but I couldn't pick anything in the tone, playing the YT video yesterday, which said, "electric" - very rich sound, but nothing that indicated it wasn't acoustic. Quote Now we have two stumbling blocks. (1) Jud telling us that a "zero distortion" (perfect) system is not possible, and that is all about compensating between different types of distortions, so we are left compromising... Forget about compensating or compromising ... the special stuff is available, if you achieve "low enough distortion". Quote (2) Everyone else explaining that even if we did have a "zero distortion system" we would not be able to know that because the recording itself introduces its own "distortions" (from microphones, the recording process, mastering, etc...) and we are never getting the true sound of musical instruments (even if we were able to know how each of them sounded) What's the problem? There is no "true sound" of anything, even if you listen to it live, feet away; the environment is always going to 'adjust' what you hear - the closest you're gonna get is in listening to it in a perfect anechoic chamber; which I'm told is a pretty awful place, 😜. Link to comment
fas42 Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 There is absolutely no point in chasing "what's that sound?" rabbits - I have a DG CD of Schubert string quartet pieces, which when the volume is up, and you choose to be obsessed about such, you are constantly aware of the musicians breathing, exhaling, etc - to be blunt, it sounds a bit like a gym workout, heaving away on some apparatus. Which has absolutely zero to do with music ... but if you want to play those games, your choice! 😉 Where it does get interesting is a set of "incredibly boring" meditation CDs I have - they're full of Easter eggs; only when the volume is right up, really high, then way, way in the distance now and again you hear that little mice are running around, making faint skittering noises; knocking over things; tapping on some object - at random, and always interesting, because you don't know what's going to come up next ... 🙂. Link to comment
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