Audio reproduction is a matter of taste?

[Bill Brown]

This is an age-old topic (well, since the beginning of the high fidelity golden era in the 50s) and has been written about extensively for decades.  It therefore can be instructive to look back, even though lots of it is from what has been described as the "old guard" on this site.  Some of them were very, very astute listeners.

 

JGH at Stereophile and Harry Pearson at TAS really ushered in the era of subjective assessment that is the foundation of subjective assessment of gear used on this site.  They were both dissatisfied when their listening impressions didn't correlate with fully objective (measurements) of the day and started their magazines based on this idea.  "The idea was of reality being the only valid metric when evaluating sound or systems that produce sound. Specifically, the point of your hi-fi was to recreate, as faithfully as possible, the sound of “the live event." The best hi-fi systems would freely cross the uncanny valley; playback would be indistinguishable from the original. Real instruments, played by real people, in real spaces — that was ever the barometer, the reference, and the aim. That was “the absolute sound.”  HP coined the phrase and JGH shared the goal.

 

https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2020/04/08/what-is-the-absolute-sound/

 

The other approaches, historically, have been "faithfulness/reproduction of what is on the recording" and "sound that I like" (the last a trend that increased over the last 20 years or so and that JGH decried, especially when it got into stereophile, Art Dudley being the main proponent, and apparently the majority belief here).

 

Pursuit of the "absolute sound" was also primarily focused on real instruments and real spaces (hi-fi listeners way back were primarily interested in the reproduction of classical music).  Many were also recordists who had the opportunity to compare what they heard at home to the halls.  JGH and JA in particular.  Or gmgraves, who reviews on this site.  Many times these days non-classical music never really exists as sound in a space so can't be judged in the same way. 

 

There was a thread here on the topic when HP died.  There are some nice thoughts from @gmgraves:

 

"Since HP coined the term, he certainly would have known what it meant. Gordon used it too, and his definition was the same as HP's. At the risk of being seen as repetitive, I don't see how it can be defined in any other way."

 

 

I'll stick with the absolute sound approach for me as my goal, especially with classical music and other music recorded with "real instruments in a real space."  If the other approaches make one happy I am fine with that (and their musical tastes might preclude any consideration of "accuracy"), but there are those who will pursue (though never reach) "accuracy," and I think it is a valid approach.

 

For those interested in the history of our hobby and how this road has been trod before:

 

It's the Real Thing!

https://www.stereophile.com/content/its-real-thing

 

The Absolute Sound of What?

https://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/363/index.html

 

The Acoustical Standard (with follow-up)

https://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/111

 

The Last Word on Fidelity

https://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/589awsi/index.html

 

Bill

[Bill Brown]

2 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

If a microphone adds warmth to a vocal, but the playback system doesn't sound warm, the listener may say it's more accurate without the warmth. However, that isn't what's on the record because the microphone added warmth that was selected by those involved in the recording. 

 

Thus, people may know instruments all day long, but without knowing the sonic signatures of microphones, they are still guessing what's accurate. 

 

There was a sampler years ago of a large collection of microphones made of a person speaking, the various mic colorations laid bare.  For the recordist able to compare the sounds via the mics on his reference system, and knowing the voice in real life, certainly accuracy/realism could begin to be honed in on (in at least some of the aspects of reproduced sound).  Then with very long-term listening, listening to additional recordings made by him in known acoustics, other "reference" recordings, opinions could be given on the accuracy of new components introduced to the reference system.

 

That is a subjective reviewer I highly value.

 

There are other subjective reviewers I value as well.  Typically, their reference is to recordings made of real instruments in real space.  They may love many genres, but this is not their reference.  Over time, I believe they too hone in on accuracy/realism/high fidelity (the last using the original definition).  The value in these reviewers grows for the reader over time as he begins to understand the reviewers biases, preferences, and has experienced/replicated the reviewer's findings in his own auditions of the equipment.  KR is a nice example here.  Probably HP to many.

 

Frankly, subjective impressions given on this site don't hold much value to me; I usually skim to the conclusion.  That's ok, it isn't the reason I read this forum.  Adding to this, I think that I have slowly begun to have a feeling for the subjective impressions derived from some measurement phenomena, so many times I speculate mentally about things that could be measured that would explain something described as "the new greatest" (in detail, soundstage, etc.), so discount the impression in the absence of those.  (Note this by no means suggests I am an ASR/measurements only guy).  An astute subjective listener that I know with accompanying measurements is where it is at for me.

 

Bill

[Bill Brown]

7 hours ago, hopkins said:

17 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

The value in these reviewers grows for the reader over time as he begins to understand the reviewers biases, preferences, and has experienced/replicated the reviewer's findings in his own auditions of the equipment.

 

Would you say that it would make sense to apply this to manufacturers as well ? Meaning, you would purchase equipment from manufacturers that have the same "preferences" as you ?

 

To clarify, when I said "preferences," it was in the context of people who are striving for high fidelity, but knowing the imperfect nature of reproduction tend to value and seek certain areas of realism as more important to them (soundstage, timbral accuracy, etc.).  This further informs the reader's interpretation of the review.

 

And yes, it is probably reasonable to assume that manufacturers have similar biases and this comes out in their equipment.  Hence, certain listeners will gravitate to certain manufacturers as preferred.

 

This doesn't preclude the pursuit of realism as I describe it, it just shows that we aren't there yet (and likely never will be).  You could think that if a manufacturer achieved realism that all others would go out of business.  Wouldn't be the case, though, as so many listeners aren't pursuing it.

 

Bill