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Topic: Article: Why We Need Audiophiles (Read 552422 times) previous topic - next topic
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Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #1150 –
Quote from: honestguv on
> Why do you claim to speak for all audiophiles?

I am unaware of having made the claim.


You seem to know what all of them think.

Quote
> How do you know their values and beliefs globally differ from mine?

Because they hold audiophile beliefs and you do not.



Some of them do. Some don't.  You seem to equate audiophile with what I consider audio*phool* (or when I am feeling generous, 'audiophile' in quotes).  One reason I rank on Stereophile is exactly *because* it has helped foster the view you hold.

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One gets to choose whether sound, sound perception and the performance of audio equipment is governed by magic or by rational scientific knowledge. Regardless of the label (no audiophile is going to call it magic) you cannot believe in both.


And one gets to call oneself an audiophile in either case.


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> Would you call J. Gordon Holt -- founder of Stereophile, and recent advocate of DBTs --
> something other than an audiophile?

I would describe him as an audiophile if he signed up for irrational audiophile beliefs and something else if he did not.


Then that's your totalizing definition of audiophile.  That leaves no place for those who 'love' the audio hobby but are also scientifically-minded.

This is a tedious debate as it now comes down to semantics.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #1151 –
Quote from: honestguv on
Quote from: 2Bdecided on
People have a right to be lied to?

Not sure about the right but it is close to the point I have been failing to get across.

If audiophiles want to believe in magic, do not want to believe in science and are happy not to push their beliefs onto others it is hard to see a problem. If people like Arnold B. go off to their forums and repeatedly post stuff about science they do not want to hear then he is out-of-order. Not because what he posts is incorrect but because they do not want to hear it.



What about those who want to 'believe in science', and believe they are being given 'science', but aren't?  ONCE AGAIN, let us consider the case of Atkinson's article on mp3s, please.  It's very 'sciency'.

I always wonder what people like you make of consumer watchdog/advocacy groups.  Do you think they should just shut up and wait for the invisible hand of the market to cull out the charlatans?  Yeah, that's always worked well.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #1152 –
Quote from: Stereoeditor on
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
However, that was 1986, which is about 4 years after the article I mentioned. Still irrelevant to the state of things at Stereophile at the time that I commented on.


Why? Did the design and function of the ABX Comparator change between 1982 and 1986?


Precise dating of important milieposts escapes me, but if memory serves, yes.

The major upgrade was the RM-2 relay module. One of the reasons why we designed it was our perception that people were frustrated by what our limited equipment switching faility prior to that. The fact that JGH had never actually used it as intended weighed heavily on our minds.


Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #1153 –
Quote from: honestguv on
Quote from: 2Bdecided on
People have a right to be lied to?

Not sure about the right but it is close to the point I have been failing to get across:

If audiophiles want to believe in magic, do not want to believe in science and are happy not to push their beliefs onto others it is hard to see a problem. If people like Arnold B. go off to their forums and repeatedly post stuff about science they do not want to hear then he is out-of-order. Not because what he posts is incorrect but because they do not want to hear it.


Big "if".

<in the following I'm using the word audiophile as 'honestguv' seems to - to mean the segement of audiophiles that believe in high end floobydust>

My impression from talking to literally thousands of audiophiles over a period of at least 15 years is that they don't want to believe in magic, and do want to push their beliefs on others. 

When then encounter someone who doesn't share their beliefs, they don't try to push magic. They do try to justify their beliefs on the grounds that Science doesn't know enough about human potential to verify or falsify their beliefs. IOW, they don't want to think that what they believe is anti-science but rather they do want to believe that high end audio goes beyond science.

Audiophiles do want to push their beliefs on others because they don't want to believe that they have been sold a bill of goods. They don't want to be the last kid in kindergarten who believes in Santa Claus when Santa Claus is a lie, so they believe that they have special knowlege that Santa Claus is real and everybody who disbelieves in Santa Claus lacks the special knowlege that they have.

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I also find it hard to see much wrong with earning a living from supplying nonsense to audiophiles if that is what they want to buy.


Audiophiles don't want to believe that they are buyng nonsense, which is why they protest so much.

Quote
Most of it looks like acceptable fantasy to me rather than unacceptable lie. This of course rests on where the line is drawn and people's judgment is obviously going to differ. I think the line, as expressed in current laws, is about right.


I see talking about the legal ramifications of the bogus segment of the high end audio market as an unecessary distraction. The problem is one of education. The problem with audiophiles is that they have become improperly educated. I'm a strong believer in effective education, because of its benefical effects on people's lives.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #1154 –
Quote from: honestguv on
Quote from: Stereoeditor on

It is relevant to point out that according the last readership survey, performed by a third party to avoid any suggestion of bias, 95% of Stereophile's readers have a bachelor's degree or higher. Doesn't that count as "educated"?


Probably if any of it stuck but I used the word intelligent.


I know. It is not unreasonable to assume that having the ability and work ethic to gain at minimum a bachelor's degree implies intelligence?

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The inability to reason in a rational manner is what enables people to adopt irrational beliefs.


Maybe, maybe not. Religious belief, which is by definition irrational, appears to have a Darwinian explanation, ie, it leads to a greater chance of the genes of the person possessing those beliefs being passed on to the next generation, at least in a tribal society.

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Quote
Why, 4 of my reviewers have PhDs in scientific or related areas. Perhaps they are not "audiophiles," as you would define them :-)


On the supply side there is no requirement to sign up for audiophile beliefs. I don't for a moment believe you hold most of the audiophile beliefs associated with your publication but it is nigh on impossible to know who actually believes what from the outside.


Okay, I believe I see where you are coming from: a combination hubris and logically fallacious reasoning. This what you appear to be declaring:

1) "I, 'honestguv,' am an intelligent, educated person."

2) "I, 'honestguv,' hold certain beliefs about audio."

3) "I, 'honestguv,' believe that those opinions reflect reality, ie are 'true.'"

4) "I, 'honestguv,' note that other people hold different and even opposed opinions to mine."

5) "I, 'honestguv,' note that those people often appear to have as advanced an education as I do, or an even better education, which would appear to suggest that they are not unintelligent."

6) But see "4." The opinions that I, 'honestguv,' have are 'true.'"

7) "Thus those other people are either 1) unintelligent, meaning that their education 'didn't stick,' or 2) they are dishonest."

8) "Because otherwise, their opinions on audio would align with mine. QED."

As I said, there is a fallacy in that logic. I'll leave it to you work out what it is.

And if this argument doesn't represent your view, please explain in what way it differs. Everything I wrote above stems from your own statements.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #1155 –
Quote from: Stereoeditor on
I note with interest some HA posters' tendency to construct castles with foundations of sand, vide, the recent agreement that Stereophile's inclusion of measurement data in its equipment reports is window dressing to delude the gullible into trusting the magazine. Yet might it just possibly be that the measurements sidebars that I work so hard to write perform a valuable function: that they allow readers to distinguish between those questionable products that are based on a shaky knowledge of audio engineering? That even if the readers are technically naive, the explanatory text I write about every product's performance allows them the necessary insight?


Can you provide a link to a review that states in unambiguous terms that the product in question is based on shaky knowledge of audio engineering?  I'm talking about a clear statement here, not wishy-washy statements along the lines of Salvatore's infamous The (Secret) Rules of Audio Reviewing.

It's difficult to take Stereophile's measurements as anything more than window dressing in light of some past and ongoing events.  It's been repeatedly pointed out to you that Stereophile's measurements of noise vs. frequency of CD players, SACD players and DACs are simply wrong.  They are based on analog bandpass filters that end up doing, in effect, frequency averaging.  This gives wrong data when the noise spectral density varies strongly with frequency, as it does above 20 kHz for noise-shaped DACs which now dominate the market.  It's also been pointed out that FFT-based measurements of this parameter correct this problem.  The justification I've seen for continuing to use this technique despite the known problems is that there's already a database of other players and that the existing method is being used for consistency.  No test engineer worth his salt would ever claim that it's better to be consistently wrong than inconsistent as you have (in effect) claimed.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #1156 –
Quote from: andy_c on
It's been repeatedly pointed out to you that Stereophile's measurements of noise vs. frequency of CD players, SACD players and DACs are simply wrong.  They are based on analog bandpass filters that end up doing, in effect, frequency averaging.  This gives wrong data when the noise spectral density varies strongly with frequency, as it does above 20 kHz for noise-shaped DACs which now dominate the market.


Yes, and I have acknowledged that in the magazine.

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It's also been pointed out that FFT-based measurements of this parameter correct this problem.


Yes, and you should note that I also publish FFT-based measurements.

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The justification I've seen for continuing to use this technique despite the known problems is that there's already a database of other players and that the existing method is being used for consistency.


Yes, I have explained that on many occasions in the magazine.

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No test engineer worth his salt would ever claim that it's better to be consistently wrong than inconsistent as you have (in effect) claimed.


As I have never made that claim or anything like it, your point is moot. What I have written is that when it comes to measurement in practice, the matters of consistency and absolute accuracy are 2 separate problems that can be addressed separately. Repeatability is achievable; absolute accuracy can only be approached asymptotically. Only in the limit do they converge.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile


Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #1157 –
Repeatable, wrong data are meaningless.  You've continued to repeat wrong data for the sake of consistency.  That's just plain wrong.

I noticed you've carefully avoided answering my first question.  I'll repeat it just in case you missed it.

Can you provide a link to a review that states in unambiguous terms that the product in question is based on shaky knowledge of audio engineering?  I'm talking about a clear statement here, not wishy-washy statements along the lines of Salvatore's infamous The (Secret) Rules of Audio Reviewing.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #1158 –
Quote from: andy_c on
Can you provide a link to a review that states in unambiguous terms that the product in question is based on shaky knowledge of audio engineering?

 
An example was recently posted in this thread, complete with some relevant graphs.

Quote
I'm talking about a clear statement here, not wishy-washy statements along the lines of Salvatore's infamous The (Secret) Rules of Audio Reviewing.


You do yourself no favors by referring to Arthur Salvatore as an authority. :-)

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #1159 –
Quote from: Stereoeditor on
Quote from: andy_c on
Can you provide a link to a review that states in unambiguous terms that the product in question is based on shaky knowledge of audio engineering?

 
An example was recently posted in this thread, complete with some relevant graphs.



It's fun watching John zig and zag, no?

I presume that the device in question would be the Harmonic Technology Cyberlight interconnects.

Here is what JA had to say about this product after listening to it:

"There was a coherence to the stereo image, a nice three-dimensionality to the sonic objects within the soundstage, and a vivid overall presentation."

Your challenge is to translate that into meaning "the product in question is based on shaky knowledge of audio engineering".

BTW, I dispute the idea that the Harmonic Technology Cyberlight interconnects do in fact represent a shaky knowlege of audio engineering. It appears to me that their performance is in the same range as LP playback, which we already know is holy ground over at Strereophile. Compare their imperfections to the audible thresolds that can be reliably determined by the sort of inherently biased and therefore relatively insensitive listening tests that Stereophile has staked its reputation on, and it is probable that they'd get a pass. 

The Harmonic Technology Cyberlight interconnects demonstrate a good understanding of audio engineering and what sort of numerically poor performance that Stereophile's outdated listening test technology can't detect without their listeners first pre-biasing themselves with the results of equipment-based testing. 

If you read all 10 pages of subjective tests, technical tests, and follow-on informal discussion as posted at http://www.stereophile.com/accessoryreview...arm/index1.html, and that's exactly what you see. You see Stereophile's expert listener and frequent damner of the use of test equipment to evaluate equipment performance, changing his story after being made aware of JA's techical tests:

http://www.stereophile.com/accessoryreview...arm/index9.html

"Do I recommend the Cyberlight cables now, having read the measurements? No. But I still find them enjoyable to listen to and I have received many supportive emails from readers who bought them and continue to listen to and enjoy them, despite the measurements. That said, I do not use the Cyberlight cables in my system when I am reviewing. I listen to them just for pleasure. They do "sound" good, however they measure."

"As I've written many times to other readers complaining about this review, if measurements held sway, I'd have chucked my turntable and records a long time ago. CDs "measure" better, but they surely don't transmit the sensation of actual music being made the way LPs do—for whatever reasons...—Michael Fremer, senior contributing editor"

Such Chutzpah! Fremer admits that he'd change his review if he knew about JAs  measurments of the product, but backs that up by denying that the better measurements of CDs are at all relevant to sound quality.

Can we all say "talking out of both sides of his mouth?"

But the writing is soooo beautiful... ;-)



 

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #1160 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Michael Fremer: "Do I recommend the Cyberlight cables now, having read the measurements? No. But I still find them enjoyable to listen to and I have received many supportive emails from readers who bought them and continue to listen to and enjoy them, despite the measurements. That said, I do not use the Cyberlight cables in my system when I am reviewing. I listen to them just for pleasure. They do "sound" good, however they measure." [Emphasis Added]

For me comments of this sort that music should be "enjoyable" or "vivid", or "pleasurable" rather than accurate, and HI FIDELITY goes back to J. Gordon Holt's criticism of what his magazine, and the hobby it documented, had become:
Quote
...Audio actually used to have a goal: perfect reproduction of the sound of real music performed in a real space. That was found difficult to achieve, and it was abandoned when most music lovers, who almost never heard anything except amplified music anyway, forgot what "the real thing" had sounded like. Today, "good" sound is whatever one likes. [Emphasis Added]

http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/1107awsi/

This is why I think magazines like Stereophile and its ilk have done an enormous disservice to the hobby, because they have stopped it from progressing, from new developments and discoveries to increase the fidelity of components.  As Holt says in another part of that interview, the major developments have been to make things smaller, cheaper, and easier to use. But perhaps there could've been faster development in these areas if there wasn't a weight of quackery and outright charlatanism weighing things down?

Maybe one problem is that this section of audiophilia simply ASSUMES that "good sound" (you can't really call it hifi) MUST be really, really expensive, so they just refuse to accept that equipment now sounds far better and is far cheaper than before. And if their multi-thousand dollar gizmos actually did work, then sure as hell there would be smart engineers / capitalists working day and night to make the same thing far cheaper anyway, which just proves that the expensive cables, and stupid audiophile clocks must by definition be nonsense.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #1161 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Quote from: Stereoeditor on
Quote from: andy_c on
Can you provide a link to a review that states in unambiguous terms that the product in question is based on shaky knowledge of audio engineering?

 
An example was recently posted in this thread, complete with some relevant graphs.



I presume that the device in question would be the Harmonic Technology Cyberlight interconnects.


You presume correctly, Mr. Krueger. Thank you for helping me make the case the measurements sidebars attached to Stereophile's reviews are not mere "window dressing." Here is the relevant text I wrote summing up the measured performrance: "If this review were of a conventional product, I would dismiss it as being broken. Ultimately, no matter what someone might think of its sound - and Michael Fremer is one the most skilled listeners I know of - I really don't see how the CyberLight P2A and Wave cables can be recommended. I am puzzled that Harmonic Technology, which makes good-sounding, reasonably priced conventional cables, would risk their reputation with something as technically flawed as the CyberLight." (See http://www.stereophile.com/accessoryreview...arm/index3.html .)

Only a simpleton would infer from this text that I was recommending the Cyberlight interconnect.

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I dispute the idea that the Harmonic Technology Cyberlight interconnects do in fact represent a shaky knowlege of audio engineering...


You will have your little joke, eh Mr. Krueger. Or perhaps you are demonstrating that you _are_ that simpleton?

Quote
Here is what JA had to say about this product after listening to it:

"There was a coherence to the stereo image, a nice three-dimensionality to the sonic objects within the soundstage, and a vivid overall presentation."

Your challenge is to translate that into meaning "the product in question is based on shaky knowledge of audio engineering".


Your selective quoting does HA a disservice, Mr. Krueger. Here is the complete quote, available at the URL above: "Even with me knowing how they measured, the cables surprised me with the general acceptability of their sound. There was a coherence to the stereo image, a nice three-dimensionality to the sonic objects within the soundstage, and a vivid overall presentation. Against those, there was a "hummy" quality to the sound of bass guitar, with the tonal emphasis shifted away from the fundamental to the harmonics, and closely miked voices, such as Willie Nelson's on "Stardust," took on a bit of a bark. Dynamics seemed exaggerated, with climaxes sounding louder than I was expecting. In the long term, I found the CyberLight's presentation rather relentless.

"I think that what the listener perceives with this cable is that at low levels, the sound is fattened and made more coherent-sounding by the dominant second-harmonic distortion. In addition, the presence of background noise cannot be dismissed, as there is some evidence that introducing small amounts of random noise results in a sound that is preferred by listeners. At higher signal levels, transients are accompanied by bursts of higher harmonics. However, these subside as quickly as they appeared. The overall effect is to render the system sound as being more vivid, I believe. However, the inevitable intermodulation products that are generated by the cable's bent transfer function leads, I conjecture, to the relentless quality I noted in my own auditioning."

Seems clear enough to me that I was being critical of the product, Mr. Krueger. But then, as you have  said and I have admitted, my intellectual capabilitities are not on the same plane as your own :-)

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile



Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #1162 –
Quote from: Stereoeditor on
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Quote from: Stereoeditor on
Quote from: andy_c on
Can you provide a link to a review that states in unambiguous terms that the product in question is based on shaky knowledge of audio engineering?

 
An example was recently posted in this thread, complete with some relevant graphs.



I presume that the device in question would be the Harmonic Technology Cyberlight interconnects.


You presume correctly, Mr. Krueger. Thank you for helping me make the case the measurements sidebars attached to Stereophile's reviews are not mere "window dressing." Here is the relevant text I wrote summing up the measured performrance: "If this review were of a conventional product, I would dismiss it as being broken. Ultimately, no matter what someone might think of its sound - and Michael Fremer is one the most skilled listeners I know of - I really don't see how the CyberLight P2A and Wave cables can be recommended. I am puzzled that Harmonic Technology, which makes good-sounding, reasonably priced conventional cables, would risk their reputation with something as technically flawed as the CyberLight." (See http://www.stereophile.com/accessoryreview...arm/index3.html .)

Only a simpleton would infer from this text that I was recommending the Cyberlight interconnect.


Nahh, John I was just having a little fun at your expense. Thanks for dropping your usual pretense of being a gentleman.

I hereby freely admit that I used a little selective quoting, knowing full well that anybody who chased the link I provided would see through my little charade.  Unlike your malevolent butchering of my comments about the engineering expertise found in the weird segment of audio's high end, I'll admit right up front that I did do selective quoting, and you won't have to beat me over the head 3 or 4 times before I come clean. Not only that, I won't follow your lead and try to change the scope of the discussion and address a different situation than the one that I was commenting on.

Of course John you still haven't addressed up the very serious issues that I raised in that post, namely the fact that one of your star reviewers was obviously completely and totally fooled until your measurements were revealed to him.  To this day I don't know if his frantic backpedalling was based on what he heard or your engineering test report.

John, by implication you've indicted vinyl because its performance is in the same general range as the Cyberlights. Actually, the Cyberlights might be a little cleaner than a lot of vinyl playback.  So  can we quote you as saying that  "If I ever reviewed a vinyl playback system, I would dismiss it as being broken."? ;-)

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #1163 –
What's so reprehensible about preferring a sound that's distorted in a strictly technical sense?

Even the best speakers still deliver everything else than an exact representation of a live performance. Add room acoustics and it gets even worse. You get a opera house's delay plus your own room's delay plus your speaker's non linearities plus usually a different speaker than microphone placement. It can make sense to mask some of those imperfections with a kind of pleasing noise and harmonic distortion. Such a system does not hide its nature of just playing back recordings and is optimized for other parameters than exact live reproduction - which doesn't work with real world speakers anyway.

You can tune a systems frequency response and SNR up to a point that you just reveal more and more what's still wrong in comparison to a live performance. It can be a distracting experience to expect your brain to merge two soundstages, your 30 qm room's and the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées', because your playback chain is so perfect. I'm not a vinyl proponent and I also don't purposely add distortion to my playback chain, but I aks myself on what grounds you base your presumptuous behavior as if all people who prefer other routes must be morons?

When I upgraded my system with very precise Elac speakers and a DAC1 a couple of years ago some records turned out to be pure gold (especially some old Telarc Soundstream recordings) but many others suddenly sounded like shit. They did not sound like shit with my older system that had much worse technical specs. It's not all black and white and people having other concepts of fidelity than you do might have acceptable reasons.

BTW noise isn't all black, anyway. For example, in lossy compression you don't just exploit masking by content that's already in the original signal, but purposely add noise to mask compression artifacts that would else be audible.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #1164 –
Could we not go off on a tangent about vinyl, please?

It's called 'euphonic distortion' for a reason.  That means some people like it.  No need to bring 'fidelity' into it.  Some people like how 78s sound too.  Fine.  So, can we get vinylphiles to shut up about how CD is 'missing' something?

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #1165 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Audiophiles do want to push their beliefs on others because they don't want to believe that they have been sold a bill of goods. They don't want to be the last kid in kindergarten who believes in Santa Claus when Santa Claus is a lie, so they believe that they have special knowlege that Santa Claus is real and everybody who disbelieves in Santa Claus lacks the special knowlege that they have.

I think, if we are being honest, the same is true for "us".

I'm currently 3 years into my PhD research, which involves phychoacoustic models, blind testing, etc. You can imagine that I put a lot of time and effort in that. If a guy like Mr. Atkinson comes by and tells me that blind testing is BS, psychoacoustic models are only there to cripple your audio the way pixelating an image does, and so on, that is quite, well, insulting. My first reaction is to try and convince him that he is terribly wrong (but since this is a 47 page thread already I have the feeling that that is pointless).

Our response to an audiophile who just spend $5000 on an audio cable will trigger the same reaction. And of course that is not really a surprise!

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #1166 –
Quote from: bug80 on
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Audiophiles do want to push their beliefs on others because they don't want to believe that they have been sold a bill of goods. They don't want to be the last kid in kindergarten who believes in Santa Claus when Santa Claus is a lie, so they believe that they have special knowlege that Santa Claus is real and everybody who disbelieves in Santa Claus lacks the special knowlege that they have.

I think, if we are being honest, the same is true for "us".

I'm currently 3 years into my PhD research, which involves phychoacoustic models, blind testing, etc. You can imagine that I put a lot of time and effort in that. If a guy like Mr. Atkinson comes by and tells me that blind testing is BS, psychoacoustic models are only there to cripple your audio the way pixelating an image does, and so on, that is quite, well, insulting. My first reaction is to try and convince him that he is terribly wrong (but since this is a 47 page thread already I have the feeling that that is pointless).

Our response to an audiophile who just spend $5000 on an audio cable will trigger the same reaction. And of course that is not really a surprise!


I've been fascinated by high fidelity audio since I built my first am amplifier in the late fifties and also by deafness, relatives around me were struggling with ancient hearing aids! I believe the two are related.

It is well know that the average male loses about 10dB of hearing sensitivity at 3kHz by the time he is 35 years old. This is a substantial amount and I believe that just as people need spectacles because they've become long sighted so, although they don't realise it, they'd be happier it if there was less background noise, less volume and more clarity. The result of this is that some men (more men than women because they have 6 dB less sensitivity anyway) start to look for better sound. I know from the calls and emails we get, that many of them are appalled by what they hear in shops and wondering what to do next if anything. The problem is that people subconsciously adapt to what they have (hi fi sales staff included) and no longer hear its faults, we call it Readers Wives Syndrome, so may not realise that they could enjoy more for longer if they had a better system. It seems to me that the industry has designed itself around this "flaw" in the human psyche to sell what it has (endless upgrades, ludicrous prices and often unsound engineering practice) and in so doing has forgotten the one major benefit that hi fi might offer people; Better, clearer, more realistic sound reproduction.

Somewhere in this massive and fascinating debate, I believe Gordon Holt was quoted as lamenting the lack of objective comparison or assessment of the current "hi end".

Ash

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #1167 –
Quote from: rpp3po on
What's so reprehensible about preferring a sound that's distorted in a strictly technical sense?


Two answers:

(1) Nothing rephensible about preferring to listen to great stuff, utter crap or anything in-between. The problem comes when vinyl bigots like Fremer tell innocent newbies crap like good digital recordings can't sound right because of the empty space between the samples, and weirdness like that. Preferences are personal and they are what they are. Technobabble and techno-lies are trash.

(2) Vinyl isn't just distorted in a technical sense. It's distorted in a real world audible sense. Nobody has ever come up with a straight-wire bypass test for vinyl that was hard to do well on. The LP fomat leaves big greasy handprints on everything it touches. And, it is all so unecessary, since we've had better technology in general use for over 25 years. Vinyl is even premium-priced!

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Even the best speakers still deliver everything else than an exact representation of a live performance. Add room acoustics and it gets even worse. You get a opera house's delay plus your own room's delay plus your speaker's non linearities plus usually a different speaker than microphone placement. It can make sense to mask some of those imperfections with a kind of pleasing noise and harmonic distortion. Such a system does not hide its nature of just playing back recordings and is optimized for other parameters than exact live reproduction - which doesn't work with real world speakers anyway.


The difference is that right now we don't know how to do any better than that with speakers and rooms.  Remember, the real-world comparison is between Fremer and his $40,000 turntable, and a $40 Sansa Fuze. the Fuze wins on technical and practical grounds.

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You can tune a systems frequency response and SNR up to a point that you just reveal more and more what's still wrong in comparison to a live performance.


Let's get down to the real facts. You don't need to introduce loudspeakers and room acoustics to the situation to find serious, serious problems. Any hope of accurate liveness is lost when the signal comes out of the microphone. You can make a mic preamp and a headphone amp that will pass a stright-wire bypass test. Headphones can be darn good. What even the best mics to do live sound is not right.

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It can be a distracting experience to expect your brain to merge two soundstages, your 30 qm room's and the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées', because your playback chain is so perfect.


I will dipute any claim, if that is what you are making here, that cleaner reproductiion makes good recordings create a poorer soundstage. Throwing 7 veils over a good recording does not improve the illusion of a live performance. Since we have comercial recordings with dynamic range on the order of 80 dB, playing them through a medium that tops out at 70 dB is not the road to audio nirvanna. I want to listen to music, not equipment.

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I'm not a vinyl proponent and I also don't purposely add distortion to my playback chain, but I aks myself on what grounds you base your presumptuous behavior as if all people who prefer other routes must be morons?


I don't call people morons for having different taste than I do, I call people morons for being fooled by and even spreading obvious pseudoscience and posturing, once they have reliable knowlege in their posession. For example, my oldest son's father in-law has a ca. 1957 and a ca. 2003 Corvette. If I ask him which is the better car, he does not give me a song and dance about hand-made replica shock absorbers filled with whale oil distillate. He says the 2003 whomps the 1957's @$$ every which way but loose. But sometimes he (and I)  prefer to take the 1957 out for some motoring fun, because of our sentimental feelings for it, and the fact that it is a different kind of experience. Why can't Fremer man up to that?

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When I upgraded my system with very precise Elac speakers and a DAC1 a couple of years ago some records turned out to be pure gold (especially some old Telarc Soundstream recordings) but many others suddenly sounded like shit.


That is actually something different. I think I know what you are talking about because I experience it very often.  The problem wasn't that the Elac speakers were too accurate but mostly that their spectal balance was different. The problem was almost entirely in the area of spectral response.

It is a simple fact of life that varous recordings are tailored by their producers for target systems with different spectral responses. If you want every recording to sound its best, you have to come up with a spectral adjustment for your system that facilitates that.  No speaker sounds its best with every recording, and no recording sounds its best with every speaker.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #1168 –
Arnold when you say all hope of accurate reproduction is lost when using even the best microphones and/or speakers, what exactly do you mean? Don't think you mean frequency, since that can be meddled with. Maybe soundstage? If so, how do binaural recordings fare? Some I've heard are amazingly accurate.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #1169 –
He means that neither mics or speakers can accurately replicate live sound without creating audible distortion. Which is entirely true: mechanically transferring physical sound waves to electric impulses and from electric impulses back to physical sound waves is not a process that we have yet mastered (although, we have mastered every step in between those two).

But in a modern world were "live sound" typically means something is being mic'd and sent through a PA system, we might as well not know any different.
elevatorladylevitateme

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #1170 –
Quote from: andy o on
Arnold when you say all hope of accurate reproduction is lost when using even the best microphones and/or speakers, what exactly do you mean?


Because I do so much (Over 1,600 recordings at this point) live recording of band and chorus festivals, much of it in really pretty good rooms (e.g. High School Auditoriums) I know what comes off the mics and how it compares to the live sound I hear in my choice of seats in the house.  My general choice of micing techniques is coincident micing, which is one of the more technically-defensible ways to mic performances like these.

That all said, there are what I find to be mind-blowing differences between what the mics pick up, and what I hear.

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Don't think you mean frequency, since that can be meddled with.


I've taken to *meddling* with frequency response going back some years.  I can do a lot of neat things with a 4-6 band parametric or a 30 band graphic. Close, but no cigar.

At this time there does not seem to be any such thing as an equalizer for spatiality. I can also do a lot of neat things with the multiple channels and channel delays on a digital console (e.g. Yamaha 02R96). Close, but no cigar.

It is easier to add spatiality than to take  some away. Unfortunately we need to be able to do both.

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Maybe soundstage?


For sure soundstage.

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If so, how do binaural recordings fare? Some I've heard are amazingly accurate.


Me too.  Two problems.

(1) You are pretty much restricted to earphone or earphone-like listening
(2) You can recreate the soundstage for just about one pre-selected location in the room with binaural.

What we need is the ability to recreate the soundstage at any reasonable place in the room. We need to provide the ability for the client to make the choice of soundstage as as many different times and ways as he wants, well after the he obtains the recording.


Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #1171 –
Quote from: shakey_snake on
He means that neither mics or speakers can accurately replicate live sound without creating audible distortion. Which is entirely true: mechanically transferring physical sound waves to electric impulses and from electric impulses back to physical sound waves is not a process that we have yet mastered (although, we have mastered every step in between those two).


Right on!

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But in a modern world were "live sound" typically means something is being mic'd and sent through a PA system, we might as well not know any different.


Now lets be nice about SR - it is near and dear to my heart.

I think of SR as being like recording, just in real time and with the problem of spil from the live sources.

The other difference is that the SR guy takes responsibility for the playback system, and the scale of that playback system is pretty huge.

Been there, done that about 800 times, so far. ;-)

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #1172 –
Just out of curiosity, could you please describe "coincident micing"?

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #1173 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
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But in a modern world were "live sound" typically means something is being mic'd and sent through a PA system, we might as well not know any different.


Now lets be nice about SR - it is near and dear to my heart.

I think of SR as being like recording, just in real time and with the problem of spil from the live sources.

The other difference is that the SR guy takes responsibility for the playback system, and the scale of that playback system is pretty huge.

Been there, done that about 800 times, so far. ;-)

Sure, it's just as soon as we involve recording and PAs into an environment we're introducing the limitations of our mics and PAs. You job as a sound reinforcement engineer is to minimize those distortions as much as possible and then shape whatever is left into something as pleasant as possible.

Of course, if we perfected mic and speaker technology to keep their distortions below audible thresholds, you'd be out of a job, the same way digital media and transistors have run most of the audio-quackery out of business.
elevatorladylevitateme

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #1174 –
Quote from: pdq on
Just out of curiosity, could you please describe "coincident micing"?


http://www.indiana.edu/~emusic/etext/studi...er2_mics5.shtml

"X-Y coincident pair: two cardioids mics aimed across each other at an angle between 90 and 135 degrees and less than 12 inches apart to recreate accurately the way a listener hears with directional cues. (A distance of more than 12 inches apart creates phase cancellation problems). This pattern is very useful for many situations,but it may not provide as wide a stereo image as some other techniques. The image, however, is extremely mono-compatible, and that is why it was very popular in the radio/television broadcast world."

I use cardioid pairs (e.g. Rode NT4) and various hypercardioid pairs composed of individual mics such as the Audix OM-6. My OM-6 pairs have the inner edges of their capsules nearly touching or bonded to each other with resilient material.  I use various included angles from 90 to 120 degrees depending on what sounds *right* to me.