"Sonnova" wrote in message
On Sun, 18 Nov 2007 08:10:32 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):
"Sonnova" wrote in message
Seems to me that the question of "perfection" is mostly
irrelevant here.
Since perfection does not exist in the real world, the
question of perfection in the real world is always
irrelevant.
The human auditory sense
notwithstanding, most people can instantly tell the
difference between "live" music (with no sound
reinforcement) and canned, no matter how well recorded
or how well played back.
Canning music is a journey of many steps. Just because
the journey to complete and total realistic reproduction
is incomplete at this time, does not prove that each and
every one of the steps is flawed.
That's Irrelevant doubletalk, Arny and you know it.
What, you think that recording and reproducing music is not a journey of
many steps?
Nobody said anything about any steps being flawed.
So what does "most people can instantly tell the
difference between "live" music (with no sound
reinforcement) and canned, no matter how well recorded
or how well played back" mean, if not that the over-all process is flawed?
I said that most people can tell live music from recorded music
instantly, no matter how good the recording and playback
system might be.
Which has a common-sense interpretation that you think the overall process
is flawed. I stipulate that this is true.
If we assume that the goal here is
to recreate, in the home, the sound of live music, then
it would seem to me that "accuracy" in and of itself is
irrelevant.
Since reproduction is a journey of many steps, each step
can potentially be analyzed for accuracy. Since the
steps are different the means of analysis may well be
different.
More non-sequitur doubletalk because again, it addresses
my comment in no way.
Please explain what you mean, if ordinary, common-sense, generally-accepted
interpretations of it are irrelevant.
What is relevant is whatever path to that
goal achieves the most palpable results.
Well, words have meanings. Here are some
generally-accepted meanings of the word palpable, from
the online Merrium-Webster dictionary:
1 : capable of being touched or felt : tangible
2 : easily perceptible : noticeable a palpable
difference 3 : easily perceptible by the mind : manifest
It would appear that the word palpable can be applied to
any musical reproduction that at least middling in
quality.
Palpable as applied to music: The characteristic of
conveying to the listener the feel of the live event,
I.E. the excitement and passion of the musicians making
the music. In other words, what Gordon Holt used to call
the "goosebump factor".
Now I see the problem - there is some magical dictionary that is hidden from
the public, that redefines words from their dictionary defintions.
Anything that conveys more of the sense of live music
playing in the room with the listener, the better.
Of course I think we all agree with that. It is well-known that the
reproduction of the sense of live music is greatly hindered by adding
audible noise and distortion to the music. This has been known and
generally-accepted since the early 1930s, at the latest.
If this goal is better served by introducing inaccuracies in
the system, then I'm all for it.
The same logic suggests that muddying up bottled water would enhance the
degree to which it recreates the experience of drinking water from a pure
spring.
OTOH, we know that absolutely pure water does not please the palate like
water with certain impurities. Therefore it is generally recognized that
analyzing the water of highly pleasing springs, and duplicating the same
levels and kinds of impurities in bottled water does a better job of
recreating the experience of drinking water from popular springs. The point
is that the primacy of accuracy is still preserved, even though measurable
amounts of impurities are added.
In a similar way, the totally-pure sound of acoustic radiation from voices
and musical instruments is not as pleasing as acoustical signals that
include acoustic radiation from certain highly-regarded concert halls such
as Orchestra Hall here in Detroit.
If you can show that there is some logical connection between the rather
grotesque-sounding noise and distortion that the LP process adds to
recordings, and what a good concert hall adds, then I would be in favor of
using the LP process to sweeten improperly made recordings that are devoid
of a sense of the acoustics of a good room. Can you do that?
After all, most of us aren't listening to test tones or watching a THD
meter.
Talk about a straw man argument!
We're listening to music and want to get closer to the
real thing - at least that's always been my goal.
Occasionally, I get glimpses of the Grail.
Throwing veils over the grail has never been generally accepted as a good
means to improve our vision of it.
Many people
feel that a well recorded, well mastered LP conveys to
the listener, more of the psychological impact of live
music than does a CD or any other digital medium.
Many is a very vague word. Therefore it is pretty much
without meaning.
It's not vague at all except to someone who's object is
to obfuscate debates with meaningless semantics games.
In another post I showed that LP sales are a tiny, rapidly-shriking market
segment.
Many means a decent percentage, but not all. Like for
instance " Microsoft has 90% of the computer market, but
many computer users still prefer Linux."
The general problem is the same - that many is a very vague word. This is
especially true when we are talking about billions of people. None of us
would say that 100,000 people is a few people, unless we compare to that the
billions of people who listen to reproduced music. However, the RIAA only
logs about 600,000 LP sales. I suspect that people who still buy LPs buy a
few, maybe 6 a year. So we're talking maybe 100,000 LP buyers, more or less.
There's about 270 million people in the US, so almost all of them listen to
music other than that recorded on LPs.
In fact about 99% of all music lovers have abandoned the
LP. Only a tiny noisy minority bother with it any more.
A lot of recent LP sales were related to "scratching" in
dance clubs. Since digital means for simulating
scratching have become readily available, LP sales
dropped by about another 1/3 per RIAA statistics.
You need to get out more, Arny.
Childish insults don't change the relevant published facts from neutral
parties.
There are more high-end
turntables, arms, and cartridges made and sold today than
there were when LP was at it's peak.
That's absolutely ludicrous. Provide your statistics from an independent
source.
And NONE of those
end up in discos and dance clubs because belt drive
tables and $1000+ cartridges don't work very well for
that purpose. DJ tables are almost all direct drive units
with cheap, robust cartridges capable of handling the
stresses of being back-cued.
A trip to Jerry Raskin's Needle Doctor:
http://www.needledoctor.com/
or Music Direct:
http://www.musicdirect.com
will give you some small idea of how much new high-end
phono equipment is being sold and even that's just the
tip of the iceberg. And I'd like to see where you get the
99% number that you tossed out, above. A citation would
be nice. :-
Those are just niche web sites. They are not credible independent evidence
of LP playback equipment sales, whether large or small.
What does this site tell us about the sales of its niche products?
http://www.newfarmcarriage.com/Whips.cfm