On Thursday, 23 January 2014 01:29:18 UTC+8, ScottW wrote:
I never said that. I enjoy vinyl a great deal. But vinyl as a format is not
prone to some unique distortion that makes all vinyl appealing or realistic.
Neither am I. I am saying the sound reaching our ears is not perfect and probably more distorted than viny and therefore we need to rethink measurements taken at source and move closer to the ears to see what’s actually reaching us.
My old Quad 63s sung with vinyl, CDs...not
so much.
My Orions can bring live music into the room (something few rooms can handle and
mine is no exception) but they also bring all of vinyls defects up close and
personal.
Subjective preference at play again. Did you know all amplifiers sound the same?
) This is exactly the reason why I said the method of measuring audio performance at source is not accurate to reflect the reality of subjective preference. Under level matched AB, the PassLab and Classe all sound alike. But in reality I have a strong preference towards one. So why the Quad treats vinyl and CD differently?
Only the absolute best of the best vinyl passes that test. The quality you
probably heard in a demonstration is sadly, kind of rare and as the masters of
vinyl grow old and retire, it's not likely to change.
Not really. I was thinking my preference could be due to the past acquaintance. But after seeing more and more youngsters showing preference to vinyl I am not sure of anything anymore. The latest craze - here at (Daft Punk: CD versus vinyl comparison video).
Transparency isn't always ideal
for the finished product. I suspect Neil isn't happy with his voice being too
accurately reproduced .
That’s because we don’t listen to transparent sound. What was your first impression of your own recorded voice? Why? Does it sound natural to you?
On Thursday, 23 January 2014 02:08:53 UTC+8, KH wrote:
On 1/22/2014 5:14 AM, ST wrote:
But that difference has nothing to do with acoustic wave propagation.
I think we are not on the same wavelength here. Acoustic wave propagation is not the issue here. I am talking about the final product reaching the ears.
You'll likely encounter some strong opposing opinions on that one.
Absolutely. I would accept if they can show me the best of concert recordings made with just one or two microphones placed at the best seat in the concert where you seat. The trouble with audio recordings is that we are unable to record as how we hear them. I can take out a camcorder or even a 3D camcorder and shoot from where I seat and the playback seems to be natural. But I can’t do that with audio. I can’t take a microphone and place it where I stand and expect to hear the same sound on playback. What did the microphone miss or added and why the sound is so far away and fuzzy.?
This is where there is confusion. Air is not an "impediment" through
which the sound has to traverse. The movement of air *is* the sound.
Acoustical instruments are designed for their radiation pattern as well
as tone, and that is part and parcel of the sound that you hear. Hence
the argument against close-miking.
Please help me out here. Will the oscilloscope signal show note A as an exact 440Hz with the harmonics or is it going to be look different depending on the location of the microphone ?
(Please ignore other limitations for now. I know rec orded sound can never sound like live sound).
That brings us to another question; what was captured by the microphones?. We assume that all the sound emitted from the source is capable of being captured by the microphone.
In reality, they capture a great deal of the sound, as do our ears. I
don't know where you get the idea that they are so inefficient.
No. I said mics are more efficient than our ears. This is another part that I am not clear of. When you pluck the guitar string the kinetic energy converts to sound. The sound travels through the oscillation of air particle like an expending bubble getting bigger and bigger as it move farther away than the source. Just like a ripple in the pond. The waves loses shape and intensity as it move away from the centre. A microphone captures only a small area of the bubble/waves and misses more than 99% of it. So why are you saying it captures a great deal? If you compared to what our ears are capturing then you are right. The fact is both captures only a tiny fraction of the original energy.
Adding reverb does create a sense of
space by adding delayed sound simulating, to an extent, the reverberant
field in a live venue. Vinyl and vinyl playback systems do add, to
varying degrees, some phasiness that can create a similar effect.
We are getting somewhere here. Vinyl adds something. What it adds and how much it alters the original sound can only be measured near our ears to see how much it is closer to live event. Do you agree?
This "common argument" is likely what Scott was calling "Hogwash" on.
When you sit in a concert hall and listen to, just for e.g. a string
quartet, *nothing* you hear is "distorted" by the intervening air.
Air “distorts”. It damps the higher frequencies. Hotter air lifts sound higher. Maybe, a room filled with carbon monoxide will sound different from a room filled with oxygen due to density and weight of the molecules. All mediums “distort” otherwise the sound would travel at same loudness forever around the earth. The transfer of energy involves loses.
On Friday, 24 January 2014 01:08:14 UTC+8, ScottW wrote:
But these bizarre theories of distortion based upon a video are simply without merit.
The video was created by a strong advocate of the virtues of digital over analogue. He demonstrated what vinyl does to a 1kHz signal. It looked so bad as compared to the original signal which made me wonder how can vinyl even sound like how they do. You can see the video here at tinyurl.com/cdvsvinyl. Then a thought came to me the original sound reaching our ears may be too distorted that a vinyl inherent defects is not affecting it.
p.s. To mod, I thought there was some rules about including links in the posting but I cant find it in guidelines. Please delete the link if it is in breach of the guidelines. Thank you.