Audio reproduction is a matter of taste?

[davide256]

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 

[mfsoa]

Glasses. Do we listen with glasses on or off. Makes a big difference.

 

Which is accurate?

[Iving]

40 minutes ago, mfsoa said:

Glasses. Do we listen with glasses on or off. Makes a big difference.

 

Which is accurate?

 

Folks say they can hear better when they put their glasses on.

 

I'd rather listen to my good system with my glasses on - if I want to dig in.

 

I'm not sure that it's an "accuracy" issue.

 

Nor "convincingness".

 

Nor "taste".

 

I have just have a more diluted sense of what's going on the auditory realm if I don't have the benefit of my glasses.

 

Probably got to do with the inter-relatedness of brain functions.

 

Not really a surprise looked at (sic) that way.

[audiobomber]

Say we have three digital audio systems, evaluated in the same room, each using state of the art components:

1. Powerful solid-state amps, full-range monitor speakers.

2. SET amps, large high-efficiency horn speakers

3. Push-pull tube amps, full range panel speakers

 

Let's assume all are reasonably accurate in frequency response. There could still be significant differences in PRaT, dynamics, microdetail, soundstage, imaging, impact, timing & cohesion, etc.. I highly doubt all members here would agree on which sounds best. I doubt we would even agree on which is more "accurate", since we would assign different weights to various sonic parameters.

 

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. 

[MarkusBarkus]

...interesting. I 100% remove my glasses to listen. That said, I only use them for reading and have only had them for a few years.
 

Perhaps they feel more of an annoyance than they would if I needed them other than for reading or if I had been using them for many years.

 

I would imagine there could be some reflective effects from frames and lenses, but that'll be fun to test.

 

FWIW, some developers locally have that very cool Neumann KU100 "head mic" device which friends say has multiple "ears" you can use for recording. Now that is attention to detail. Suppose you could put glasses on it too. 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

In my experience observing "audiophiles" they tend to switch camps depending on what suits them, sometimes affirming that an equipment is "objectively" better, but then saying at other times that it's all a matter of taste. Makes me wonder whether sharing opinions about audio equipment is not a huge waste of time. 

[Iving]

19 minutes ago, MarkusBarkus said:

...interesting. I 100% remove my glasses to listen. That said, I only use them for reading and have only had them for a few years.
 

Perhaps they feel more of an annoyance

 

Sure. To the brain infrequent or recent reading glasses much more an accessory compared with someone with lifelong experience of significant myopia.

 

Some say that if you lose a sense you become more acute in another. But that would another kind of challenge to the brain - a problem of real-world vigilance.

 

Another one - I wondered what listeners with good sight might say about the effect on the soundstage when they shut their eyes. For both well-sighted and poorly-sighted listeners, I would imagine that the soundstage would blur or collapse with deprivation of vision ... a subtle effect you wouldn't notice until you observed it - but then your attention would focus and spoil the effect. Some won't like the idea, moreover, and would just deny it - saying "ooh no - when I shut my eyes I am right there in the same room" etc. Guess we don't need tinder for another argument here on AS ;-)

[Jud]

2 hours ago, Iving said:

I do think it would be rich, to say the least, for a non-musician to attest that a musician couldn't discern a plausible sound for instruments. Someone on this Forum has a great reputation for this. As @Jud reminded us not an eon ago, @bluesman was able to discern the size of a Grand Piano from a recording. Something like that. I bet he didn't need an absolute reference to do it. Just lots and lots of experience playing in bands/with others.

 

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.

 

The recording on which @bluesman  identified the size of the grand piano was absolutely excellent sonically, done very carefully to present the performance as it happened, and he is a practicing professional musician with many decades' experience (as well as a medical doctor).  I'm a great one for humility: We shouldn't be so quick to transpose that sort of feat, the result of thousands of hours of experience, to situations with which we are not so familiar (as witness @bluesman's failure to identify the "sound" of jitter; I - obviously, since I made the same mistake - don't know what it sounds like either, but I bet people like @Miska, @PeterSt and @damien78 who have thousands of hours of practice can do so).

[Iving]

13 minutes 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.

 

The recording on which @bluesman  identified the size of the grand piano was absolutely excellent sonically, done very carefully to present the performance as it happened, and he is a practicing professional musician with many decades' experience (as well as a medical doctor).  I'm a great one for humility: We shouldn't be so quick to transpose that sort of feat, the result of thousands of hours of experience, to situations with which we are not so familiar (as witness @bluesman's failure to identify the "sound" of jitter; I - obviously, since I made the same mistake - don't know what it sounds like either, but I bet people like @Miska, @PeterSt and @damien78 who have thousands of hours of practice can do so).

 

Thank you for all the extra context Jud. I'm struggling with the link between his Grand Piano feat and the medical doctor credential! No matter whether one "dimensionalises" the case for discerning instruments, the point is that we acquire experiential references for our judgements over our lifetimes, and that we don't need an absolute or exact reference to make a good judgement on a particular listening occasion.

 

Isn't the jitter case a different one. The way you describe it - highly relevant to the Original Post. Didn't ancient discussions here relate this "taste" for jitter to the "taste" for valve amps etc. Some people like distortion. Some of those in turn may mistake it for "accuracy". Whatever that is!

[Iving]

[Jud]

1 minute ago, Iving said:

 

Thank you for all the extra context Jud. I'm struggling with the link between his Grand Piano feat and the medical doctor credential! No matter whether one "dimensionalises" the case for discerning instruments, the point is that we acquire experiential references for our judgements over our lifetimes, and that we don't need an absolute or exact reference to make a good judgement at a later time.

 

Isn't the jitter case a different one. The way you describe it - highly relevant to the Original Post. Didn't ancient discussions here relate this "taste" for jitter to the "taste" for valve amps etc. Some people like distortion. Some of those in turn may mistake it for "accuracy". Whatever that is!

 

All very good points.  I mentioned the medical credentials for two reasons: Here is a very careful, thoughtful person who can be expected to have considered the jitter question seriously.  I am assuming he, as I, picked the version that sounded most natural, though he had the benefit of vastly more general experience regarding what sounds natural in music.  Yet it didn't help in the specific context of a playback artifact he lacked great experience in identifying.  That's my point: Even people with vast general experience regarding what sounds like real instruments may lack specific familiarity with relevant aspects of the recording and playback chain.  One other interesting example is Mark Knopfler's recordings, reasonably famous for their good sound.  Yet if you read about his production process, he runs the music through various analog and digital decks to get specific colorations in the sound that he particularly likes.  And therefore it seems to me we ought to be duly humble about our abilities to discern what has accurately reproduced the natural sound of an instrument or vocals.

 

The other reason I mentioned he's a doctor and musician is that he's got to have great hands, and as a clumsy oaf I'm jealous.  😃

 

I do think your second point might help explain the result of the jitter test.  I picked the version in which the instruments sounded more "live," less "hi-fi."  Apparently this liveliness may have been due to distortion.

 

[Iving]

Nice! Lawyers can answer any question well!

 

[fas42]

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.

[fas42]

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 ... 😉.

[fas42]

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.

[NOMBEDES]

It is all taste.  If you like it -  then it is to your taste.  What is hard about this?  I like bass.  Some people may not like bass.

 

So my system to me is great, to others no so much.  Who cares?  If I am happy, I do not care what the original recording "sounds like".   And who knows what it sounds like anyway.  In my room?  in your room?  Unless we have identical listening spaces it is all going to be different anyway.  

 

 

[Rexp]

10 hours ago, hopkins said:

In my experience observing "audiophiles" they tend to switch camps depending on what suits them, sometimes affirming that an equipment is "objectively" better, but then saying at other times that it's all a matter of taste. Makes me wonder whether sharing opinions about audio equipment is not a huge waste of time. 

I agree with you, realistic (not accurate - can of worms) audio reproduction is not a matter of taste. The illusion of live music in our living rooms is our goal, different systems will deliver different shades but all good systems will deliver the illusion. 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

20 hours ago, mfsoa said:

Just thinking out loud - not directed at anyone-

 

Ooooh I hate the term "Accurately" or "Accuracy" in these discussions.

 

Accurate to what?  The sound on the recording medium?  Sorry, it has no sound, it is grooves or bits. No sound there. You have no way to know what those pits are "supposed" to sound like.

Accurate to what was heard by the recording or mastering engineer?  Unless you have the same speakers and room (not to mention ear/brain) etc. that's out the window.

Accurate to what the musicians heard in playback? In the studio? In their head? Which musician? The drummer? The bass player?  No source of accuracy there either.

Accurate to what the real instruments sound like in real space?  After sitting behind drum sets for 50 years believe me the last thing you want is to reproduce the sound of a real drum set in your living room. You would be running for the treble knob and volume too. What people think of as a "well recorded drum set" bears only a passing relationship to what the instrument sounds like in real space, if that. The thought of an accurate drum sound - you don't want it - you would run for cover. To see people discussing the accuracy of a recorded drum set when the recorded sound is sooo different from the true sound of the instrument, well I just don't get.

 

 

Years ago The Absolute Sound held an event for all the industry big-wigs and they had a solo violinist walking around. They couldn't believe the amount of HF energy coming out of the violin and said that if they made their systems to reproduce it exactly they'd be out of business - No one would ever want a system that sounded like that.

 

The accuracy chain is broken the instant sound hits the recording microphone far more than it is in your playback system.

 

Where does this leave me?  IMO we search to reduce persistent coloration - "Everything sounds wet-blankety" "there is sibilance everywhere" and that is what is really meant by accuracy - Lack of persistent coloration.

 

And then we have the physical differences in the listener to account for, and their individual preferences, none of which can be based on a search for Accuracy because there is no such thing unless defined in very specific terms ("I want to hear exactly what the control room sounded like"  "I want to hear it from the drummer's chair"  "I want to hear it from the trumpet section which puts the level of the sax section way low in the mix"

 

Sure, at some level, there needs to some accuracy. My brick and mortar-owning brother goes to a site survey and the guy's home theater is made up of all different speakers, many wired out of phase, and the guy doesn't realize he is not using Dolby Digital but instead is using some fake surround mode. But the guy is convinced that this is the best system he has ever heard. OK this guys needs some learnin' about accuracy.

 

Blah Blah word salad for breakfast...

 

 

 

 

 

Yet after all this is said, we spend thousands of dollars to set up systems like this (sorry for always providing the same "extreme" example..).

 

 

I guess no one sees the irony here, and the contradictions. You guys crack me up... 

 

 

[Iving]

27 minutes ago, hopkins said:

Yet after all this is said, we spend thousands of dollars to set up systems like this (sorry for always providing the same "extreme" example..).

I guess no one sees the irony here, and the contradictions. You guys crack me up...

 

?

 

Spending many $ a problem?

Long and intensive investment of personal time and money researching components and system architecture to achieve a satisfying ("convincing") listening experience?

Individual differences in same - I'm not a headphone user - I like somatic music - so what?

I don't see the irony immediately. What is it please.

Nor contradictions.

What's with the "you guys"? All of us?

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

From what I understand... 

 

We cannot judge accuracy because we were not in the recording studio, or some other version of that same idea. 

 

So we just put together systems that sound pleasing to us, or "convincing". 

 

So far so good? 

 

But we spend big bucks on low noise power supplies, low noise music servers and high-end DACs and speakers/headphones For what if not "accuracy"? Accuracy to the source material which is what we have to work with. 

 

And yet when we compare equipment it all becomes a matter of taste. I give up! 

 

[Iving]

18 minutes ago, hopkins said:

From what I understand... 

 

We cannot judge accuracy because we were not in the recording studio, or some other version of that same idea. 

 

So we just put together systems that sound pleasing to us, or "convincing". 

 

So far so good?

 

Sure - but not breaking news

 

18 minutes ago, hopkins said:

But we spend big bucks on low noise power supplies, low noise music servers and high-end DACs and speakers/headphones For what if not "accuracy"? Accuracy to the source material which is what we have to work with.

 

Well I think you edited the post at the end. Your first instinct was to ask why do we spend all these $ - for what? And I was going to suggest what we seem to have already discovered - satisfaction - "convincingness" - whatever. And there are individual differences in "taste" probably too.

 

I don't follow the relevance of low noise power supplies etc. They certainly make a difference in my system. A PH SR7 powering my PC sounds very different and much better compared with standard PC PSU. Takes off digital edge for starters. That's a big, big thing for me.

 

Are the "you guys" spending big bucks claiming they are chasing "accuracy". If so we are bent on the accuracy issue and a quote or two might help.

 

Otherwise it's difficult to see where are we going with this.

 

Isn't your OP about idiosyncrasies in taste vs. ... well what? Refusing to admit to "flaws" you say ... Even if we confessed readily to system shortcomings - don't we have the remnant of taste?

 

Edit: I posted before another edit of yours. Difficult to keep up. I don't see the problem or discussion point here.

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

My OP was to understand whether people really believed that its all a matter of taste, and that an accurate system is not a worthwhile pursuit. 

 

From the answers given:

- many think accuracy is not possible to evaluate because we don't know how the recording sounded like 

- consequently we set up systems that sound pleasing or convincing, and it's all a matter of taste. 

 

End of story. 

[Iving]

3 minutes ago, hopkins said:

My OP was to understand whether people really believed that its all a matter of taste, and that an accurate system is not a worthwhile pursuit. 

 

From the answers given:

- many think accuracy is not possible to evaluate because we don't know how the recording sounded like 

- consequently we set up systems that sound pleasing or convincing, and it's all a matter of taste. 

 

End of story. 

 

Agreed. I think that was achieved pretty quickly and this should be a short thread (although it looks ripe to Frank I imagine).

 

I still don't see why you posted Rajiv's system with "I guess no one sees the irony here, and the contradictions. You guys crack me up... "

 

Seems like time to move on.

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

The contradiction I find when I read reviews on this site of audio equipment. Here is Chris' review of the Denafrips Terminator 2, in which he states the following:

 

"I'm not joking when I say that I could completely picture Jordan striking the steel drum, ranging between medium speed to somewhat fast strikes with mallets in both hands. I'd never heard this level of detail previously. It gave me a whole new take on the track because it was just more real. A corollary to this is when people are used to one note bass, then they hear a great HiFi system and hear all the notes of the bass, with texture, and air. It's a different experience that brings one closer to the music and artist. This was the case listening to Jack Johnson's Flake. Something as simple as the percussionist playing the steel drum. I like the song even more now. "

 

"Another difference I heard right away between the Terminator and Terminator II was a sense of saturation or richness compared to a flatter presentation in the original Terminator. By flatter I don't mean in relation to frequency response measurements, I mean less lively or less three dimensional. The Terminator II has a better sense of real life. Perhaps it's just letting more real life through to the amplifiers, speakers, and one's ears as opposed to creating a richer sound by editorializing the music."

 

There are many more examples. But I guess whenever we use the term "real" it just means "convincing" :) I must have misunderstood.

 

[Iving]

19 minutes ago, hopkins said:

The contradiction I find when I read reviews on this site of audio equipment. Here is Chris' review of the Denafrips Terminator 2, in which he states the following:

 

"I'm not joking when I say that I could completely picture Jordan striking the steel drum, ranging between medium speed to somewhat fast strikes with mallets in both hands. I'd never heard this level of detail previously. It gave me a whole new take on the track because it was just more real. A corollary to this is when people are used to one note bass, then they hear a great HiFi system and hear all the notes of the bass, with texture, and air. It's a different experience that brings one closer to the music and artist. This was the case listening to Jack Johnson's Flake. Something as simple as the percussionist playing the steel drum. I like the song even more now. "

 

"Another difference I heard right away between the Terminator and Terminator II was a sense of saturation or richness compared to a flatter presentation in the original Terminator. By flatter I don't mean in relation to frequency response measurements, I mean less lively or less three dimensional. The Terminator II has a better sense of real life. Perhaps it's just letting more real life through to the amplifiers, speakers, and one's ears as opposed to creating a richer sound by editorializing the music."

 

There are many more examples. But I guess whenever we use the term "real" it just means "convincing" :) I must have misunderstood.

 

I can see some ironies now (prev. page refers). Not for me to answer!