| Home |
| Search |
| Today's Posts |
|
#81
|
|||
|
|||
Harry F Lavo wrote:
You've had closure...or at least a closed mind to vinyl...for as long as you've been here. Measured by recreating the emotional impact and sense of "realism" of the original performance, vinyl still has much to recommend it, given careful selection of the components reproducing it. Hello, Harry. The funny thing about this debate is your can replace the word "vinyl" with "CD" and it will still be applicable. Any format will sound wonderful provided the following two circumstances: it was mastered well and it is played upon competent hardware. The real question of a better format becomes one of price to performance. In terms of CD versus vinyl, CD sounds a lot better on less than vinyl on less. Yet, this, of course, is a moot point if the CD is from a terrible master, and likewise for vinyl. Yours truly, Michael |
|
#82
|
|||
|
|||
|
On 27 Mar 2005 05:43:58 GMT, Richard Dale
wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: At that time, vinyl was the standard, and I heard not one single 'serious audiophile' suggest that CD was not greatly superior in most respects. The definition of a 'serious audiophile' being someone who agrees with you. Nope, as previously noted, they were hi-fi enthusiasts I had known from the '70s, before CD existed. This has always struck me as a pretty unintelligent argiment, since we're all well aware that non-serious audiophiles *all* think that CD is vastly superior, which is why vinyl is effectively dead. This is to distinguish them from vinylphiles, who seem to take themselves all too seriously! :-) -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
|
#83
|
|||
|
|||
|
On 2 Apr 2005 19:33:55 GMT, "Harry F Lavo" wrote:
"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message ... About Gabe Wiener of PGM He is truly a great loss the recorded music community, he was utterly dedicated to the finest possible quality both of performance and of recording - and he was a digital fan to his fingertips. As were many other early classical recording engineers, because the medium at the recording stage offered solutions to problems that bettered analog...but when turned into a commercial playback vehicle, all kinds of problems crept in and the final commerical results in the early years were pretty dismal, with a few exceptions. So vinyl continued to be the preferred solution for many audiophiles. Also, from the standpoint of pop recording, analog multitrack offered a "sound" and a comfortable medium that took a long time to overcome. It's nice to see you acknowledge that digital done well betters analogue, and that only poor workmanship prevents it being universally superior. Regrettably, there is no technology that can't be screwed up by bad workmanship. -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
|
#84
|
|||
|
|||
|
On 2 Apr 2005 23:57:28 GMT, "Michael Mossey"
wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On 2 Apr 2005 00:50:00 GMT, "Michael Mossey" wrote: Do you admit to this possibility? Are you at least willing to say,"I could have failed to hear a difference because I was biased?" No, that's an incredibly wrong-headed suggestion, since I was always trying really hard to hear a difference, and often did. That's part of my *design* process. Let me ask one question: did you know what equipment was being compared? Say, in an ABX test, did you know what A and B were (though obviously not X)? Yes, of course. Perhaps when you comparing things that could easily be different within the bounds of your beliefs, you were open to hearing a difference; while in comparing other things, you were not. No, because it might surprise you to know that, like all the other 'objectivists' around here, I used to be a 'true believer'. The difference is that, when faced with null results from DBTs, I didn't try to find excuses, I simply accepted that I had been wrong. Musicians, martial artists, meditators, pyschologists, and practitioners of Alexander Technique and the Feldenkrais Method commonly report that "trying really hard" interferes with performance and awareness. That is correct, and since I used to fence, teach judo, and studied psychology at Aberdeen University, I'm aware of how to relax to achieve maximum focus. I think it is plausible theory that you often didn't hear a difference because you weren't conscious of how the test conditions affected your brain's conscious construction of musical experience. Is it far-fetched to suggest that you might not be aware of how you construct a musical experience or what factors contribute to that? Yes, very far-fetched, as are all your 'theories' to date. These same people commonly report becoming aware, gradually over time, of how their perceptual habits affect their conscious experience, and they regard it as a lifetime's work. And: can you prove to me that you were really trying to hear a difference? Can you prove it in an objective way? No one can prove what they are thinking. Why would I have to? You can be sure that you were trying, but then people are sure of a lot of things that aren't true. Indeed, for instance that that there audible differences among cables. Notice that your ability to know what differences you can hear is founded on your ability to know how you construct your conscious experience and what factors affect that. Knowing that "you were really trying" is one such factor. Actually, my ability to know what differences I can hear is founded on the results of blind listening tests. I suggest that your knowledge of these things is not as certain as you present here. As far as this "hard line" between the objectivists who use objective evidence and the subjectivists who don't---well, you are in the position of being unable to prove to me objectively that you really tried to hear a difference. There isn't such a hard line. It's a useful division which indicates a general approach to audio. If pressed, I will describe myself as a reliable and repeatable subjectivist. This is because I believe that what really matters is what can be *heard*, but under controlled conditions, so that you know you really did hear it. Don't response to this post as though it were saying "I know what's true and you don't." Oh no, I suspect that you *do* know what's true, but aren't willing to admit it! :-) BTW, don't try telling people what to do on Usenet, it's not very sensible and won't work. I don't really think that you are unable to know yourself. I think it is more likely that you know yourself enough to come to some valid conclusions about audio--for yourself. And that you have a different brain than I do, one that arrives at different conclusions about audio. It's not about drawing conclusions, it's about what you can *really* hear. I have yet so see *any* evidence that we differ in this respect. I also think that when James Boyk says that realism in audio goes in the order "live microphone feed," "good analog tape," "good digital tape" he is also knowing himself pretty well. Doesn't make him *right*, of course......... Maybe he and I like the euphonic distortions, The whole point about euphonic distortions is that *everyone* likes them. Hence the name. Did I leave a 'duh' out somewhere? but then why do we think a live microphone feed is the most realistic source of all? Presents a thorny problem. That would be because it is the source signal for everything else, and can only be degraded. Assuming the event is correctly miked and doesn't need EQ, of course. As to the rest, were the analogue and digital feeds comp[ated under level-matched blind conditions? If not, thehn forget any 'knowledge' you may think you took away from any comparison. -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
|
#85
|
|||
|
|||
|
On 2 Apr 2005 19:36:56 GMT, wrote:
"Michael Mossey" wrote in message ... I'm sure you've done listening tests in which the result came back null. Perhaps you've compared two amplifiers or inserted a digital processor into a live feed. And very likely you reported hearing no difference. Now, if I wanted to do the same thing you are doing, I could say that you didn't hear a difference because you didn't want to hear a difference. After all, it is far more comforting to live in a world that's logical, predictable, and can be understood via reductionism. To hear a difference would threaten this world. If what you say is true, then it should be possible to find at least one person who CAN hear the difference--and can prove it. This certainly would be embarrassing to Stewart and others that hold his point of view--including me. It wouldn't embarrass me at all, and I suspect that this is the main difference with the subjectivists - they won't accept any evidence which disagrees with their faith. I would take the evidence on board, and investigate *why* this audible difference came about. That's how progress is made. Here would be a bunch of people who claimed to hear no difference in signals that believers conclusively proved could be heard. The shame would be unbearable. The non-believers would be shown up as not only wrong, but for the worst possible reason; they didn't even try. And add to this this the money they'd have to pay the believers! Well, for a true Scot, this would make the teeth grind a bit! :-) This scenario makes my blood run cold. I can't bear to think of it. Care for a sidebet as to it happening this year? Decade? Century? :-) -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
|
#86
|
|||
|
|||
|
On 2 Apr 2005 15:59:06 GMT, Michael
wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: This has *nothing* to do with 'high-end' audio. It most certainly does. It simply states that equal base-points do not imply equal performance when contrasting two periods. Indeed not, and in the 21st century, 'high-end' audio gear has no practical value outside its build quality, speakers aside. It was greater. This is not conjecture, check out industry sales figures. It was more or less the same. That is simply not true. Less than there used to be............ Wrong again. Currently, consumers have more options than ever. Options are not sales. *High end* stores, however, are going out of business, and you can't buy high end gear in supermarkets. When one high end store closes, ten popup on the internet. That doesn't mean there are any sales. Would *you* buy a $10,000 amplifier without a demo? Not if no one is replacing their 'high end' equipment. That is the truly obvious outcome. That is flawed, because if it were the case, most audiophiles would be running antiques. Yet, most antique pieces are used more as commodities or good bargains. As time changes, technology does get better. If you're trying to argue that high end audio was better back thirty years ago, then you'll be alone in the audiophile world. I do not know of any antique users that would agree with you. Actually, my point in this regard would be that good mass-market electronics now achieves what was only possible with 'high-end' gear a couple of decades ago. Hence, the current 'high-end' market is only for the acquiring of male jewellery, not superior audio performance. Yes, I'd love an Oracle CD player, but I'll lay odds that it doesn't *sound* better than my Pioneer DV-575. Utter nonsense, and all the rambling and handwaving in the world won't change the *fact* that the 'high end' two-channel market is shrinking rapidly, which is why the brighter companies like Krell are rushing into the Home Theater market, which certainly is expanding. Sure, Krell left the market, but I know of a few companies that have since emerged: Maori, Audio Dominance, Lister Audio Systems, etc. All of these companies make only stereo gear, and their ads are usually found in audiophile magazines. Never heard of 'em................. Have they made any sales? With that aside, your post makes no sense. For people clearly are using high end multichannel audio gear for music, so your point is moot. Whatever the intended purpose of the gear is, people are using it to fulfill their required functions, and listening to stereo music is part of that. Whether you like it or not, those multichannel receivers have to be considered when looking at the audio world. And, as we all know, the passion for multichannel receivers is a force to be reckoned with. If you'd care to look up at the thread title.................... -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
|
#87
|
|||
|
|||
|
On 2 Apr 2005 16:06:04 GMT, "Michael Mossey"
wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: disagree, including the late, great Gabe Wiener of PGM, who also made many superb recordings. For some of the best music you'll ever hear, also try the JVC XRCD range, which are all made from analog tape masters. I was reading an old thread about Gabe Wiener and you mentioned his St. John Passion recording. I found it on Amazon, and I'm interested to hear it for the sound, but I wonder about the performance. As far as Bach interpretation and my taste, Leonhardt is just right, I can't stand Harnoncourt, and Klemperer can be dramatic but not really enough genuine Baroque in him. Does this give you any reference to describe the Milnes interpretation? I like it, I find it 'authentically dated', but matters of musical taste are irrelevant to this newsgroup. By the way, have you heard any of James Boyk's piano recordings? I think they are fabulous, and I've attended a couple of the live concerts that were being recorded. I would be curious to know if you think that a guy, who in your opinion is full of nonsense on the subject of engineering, created a piano recording that sounds lifelike to you? I haven't heard any, but I accept that he is a decent pianist and an excellent recordist, so I'm happy to stipulate that he has made good recordings. This does not exclude some of his pratings on the audibility of wire being utter nonsense. Boyk consistently states over and over that tubes and analog produce a more accurate sound, one that captures the details of the sound he hears at the piano, while digital generally falls down at this task. Fine, that's his opinion, to which he's entitled. Other fine artists agree with him, and many more disagree. Your explanation, no doubt, is that he loves the euphonic effects. So do you hear these in his recordings? As noted, I have not heard his recordings. In fact, do the distortions of tape, LP, and tubes specifically sound not lifelike to you? They do not sound lifelike to me. They do of course give a sense of 'warmth' and 'air' to the recording, which is seductive, but *not* accurate. I take it that you're aware that most studios keep an analogue tape machine for doing 'pass throughs' of previously made difgital recordings, in order to *add* those characteristic artifacts. Does that sound likely to increase realism, to 'put back' something mysteriously lost by digital - or just something that sounds nice? -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
|
#88
|
|||
|
|||
|
"Michael Mossey" wrote:
Musicians, martial artists, meditators, pyschologists, and practitioners of Alexander Technique and the Feldenkrais Method commonly report that "trying really hard" interferes with performance and awareness. I think it is plausible theory that you often didn't hear a difference because you weren't conscious of how the test conditions affected your brain's conscious construction of musical experience. Is it far-fetched to suggest that you might not be aware of how you construct a musical experience or what factors contribute to that? These same people commonly report becoming aware, gradually over time, of how their perceptual habits affect their conscious experience, and they regard it as a lifetime's work. (SNIP) We see this argument so often used against any kind of comparison test and it is rather silly because it flies in the face of reason. I do think it is not only possible but also likely that "trying really hard" probably does interfere with performance for some. The real question becomes "how long is one affected." Based on personal experience, I say that performance anxiety fades rather quickly as one becomes more comfortable in their new situation and "involved" with the task at hand. If this were not so then how could any _normal_ person ever successfully perform or compete? Athletes and performers and even those interviewing for jobs are surely a bit nervous at first, but a normal healthy human will overcome this and turn this nervous energy to their advantage. It seems to me that I am stating the obvious here, but you can NOT use this argument to negate all tests otherwise no one could EVER pass any kind of test or win any competition. This is just common sense! Richard |
|
#89
|
|||
|
|||
|
|
|
#90
|
|||
|
|||
|
Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On 2 Apr 2005 23:57:28 GMT, "Michael Mossey" wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On 2 Apr 2005 00:50:00 GMT, "Michael Mossey" wrote: Do you admit to this possibility? Are you at least willing to say,"I could have failed to hear a difference because I was biased?" No, that's an incredibly wrong-headed suggestion, since I was always trying really hard to hear a difference, and often did. That's part of my *design* process. Let me ask one question: did you know what equipment was being compared? Say, in an ABX test, did you know what A and B were (though obviously not X)? Yes, of course. Perhaps when you comparing things that could easily be different within the bounds of your beliefs, you were open to hearing a difference; while in comparing other things, you were not. No, because it might surprise you to know that, like all the other 'objectivists' around here, I used to be a 'true believer'. The difference is that, when faced with null results from DBTs, I didn't try to find excuses, I simply accepted that I had been wrong. Musicians, martial artists, meditators, pyschologists, and practitioners of Alexander Technique and the Feldenkrais Method commonly report that "trying really hard" interferes with performance and awareness. That is correct, and since I used to fence, teach judo, and studied psychology at Aberdeen University, I'm aware of how to relax to achieve maximum focus. I think it is plausible theory that you often didn't hear a difference because you weren't conscious of how the test conditions affected your brain's conscious construction of musical experience. Is it far-fetched to suggest that you might not be aware of how you construct a musical experience or what factors contribute to that? Yes, very far-fetched, as are all your 'theories' to date. Stewart, believe it or not, I don't claim to know what's true. If you read my very first post here, you will see that I want to do a blind test. I think blind testing is necessary. I do like analog recordings better than digital, and my life would certainly have more enjoyment in it if new analog recordings were widely available. It would be neat to demonstrate that analog was superior to digital in some dimension, and it would validate what I hear. So that's part of the reason I seem to take a "side" in the argument. Another reason I argue this "side" is that your attitude and tone toward analogphiles annoys me. I really think it makes no more sense to find analogphiles "amusing" than it does to find classical music lovers "amusing." I don't see what's funny about finding that a vinyl record does a paticularly great job of capturing a live musical experience---just imagine how powerful and moving a live performance of a great classical work is, and then imagine how wonderful it is to find that power and emotion in the reproduction. Imagine how disappointing it is to find a recording that misses that power and emotion. I don't think this topic is a funny one at all. Saying that a recording "sounds better" is one thing. Saying that you are more moved by it, or that you can hear the intentions of the musicians, is, in my opinion, a different thing. I think that needs to be acknowledged, even if the cause of it reduces to pleasant distortion. However, I really want to know the truth. You make some good arguments. I particularly agree with you that people are able to fool themselves and need to do blind experiments. But I'm a skeptic on all sides. I question the validity of sighted tests--but I also question the validity of blind tests. I question what valid conclusions can be made from null results in blind tests. The tricky part of audio testing, is, in my opinion, the fact that human consciousness is involved. Above, you say my theory is far-fetched. I don't think we're ever going to agree on this. My experience tells me that people are generally not aware of how they construct their conscious experience. Certainly consciousness is not a simple projection of all sensory information, but is filtered and constructed from internal models. I think there's plenty of science to back me up on that (eg. the gorilla in the basketball court experiment). These same people commonly report becoming aware, gradually over time, of how their perceptual habits affect their conscious experience, and they regard it as a lifetime's work. And: can you prove to me that you were really trying to hear a difference? Can you prove it in an objective way? No one can prove what they are thinking. Why would I have to? You can be sure that you were trying, but then people are sure of a lot of things that aren't true. Indeed, for instance that that there audible differences among cables. Notice that your ability to know what differences you can hear is founded on your ability to know how you construct your conscious experience and what factors affect that. Knowing that "you were really trying" is one such factor. Actually, my ability to know what differences I can hear is founded on the results of blind listening tests. But those blind listening tests involve a conscious decision and conscious experience. I'm simply saying that knowledge is built on knowledge. Your ability to interpret the blind listening tests depend on a lot of things, like knowing that the ABX box wasn't broken, knowing that you paid sufficient attention. Ultimately, theoretically, it depends on knowing how you construct your conscious experience. Maybe you feel that you know that well enough. Fine. Let's start with agreeing that knowledge is founded on knowledge. I suggest that your knowledge of these things is not as certain as you present here. As far as this "hard line" between the objectivists who use objective evidence and the subjectivists who don't---well, you are in the position of being unable to prove to me objectively that you really tried to hear a difference. There isn't such a hard line. It's a useful division which indicates a general approach to audio. If pressed, I will describe myself as a reliable and repeatable subjectivist. This is because I believe that what really matters is what can be *heard*, but under controlled conditions, so that you know you really did hear it. Don't response to this post as though it were saying "I know what's true and you don't." Oh no, I suspect that you *do* know what's true, but aren't willing to admit it! :-) See above. BTW, don't try telling people what to do on Usenet, it's not very sensible and won't work. I don't really think that you are unable to know yourself. I think it is more likely that you know yourself enough to come to some valid conclusions about audio--for yourself. And that you have a different brain than I do, one that arrives at different conclusions about audio. It's not about drawing conclusions, it's about what you can *really* hear. I have yet so see *any* evidence that we differ in this respect. I'm not sure what objection you have to the word "conclusion." Let me quote from Michael Shermer: "All facts in science are provisional and subject to challenge, and therefore skepticism is a method leading to provisional *conclusions.*" Michael Shermer, in case you don't know, is the editor of Skeptic Magazine, and I admire how he approaches skepticism. My goal here isn't to prove that I'm different than you, but to examine how knowledge is obtained, for example how your knowledge that interconnects don't matter was derived. And whether it is valid to extend that knowledge to other places, times, conditions, and people. I also think that when James Boyk says that realism in audio goes in the order "live microphone feed," "good analog tape," "good digital tape" he is also knowing himself pretty well. Doesn't make him *right*, of course......... Stewart, this statement is just about his subjective experience, or "preference" as you call it. He can't be wrong about that. Maybe he and I like the euphonic distortions, The whole point about euphonic distortions is that *everyone* likes them. Hence the name. Did I leave a 'duh' out somewhere? I don't see the point of your comment here, especially if you read my whole sentence (which you just split -- an example of reductionism  but then why do we think a live microphone feed is the most realistic source of all? Presents a thorny problem. That would be because it is the source signal for everything else, and can only be degraded. Assuming the event is correctly miked and doesn't need EQ, of course. As to the rest, were the analogue and digital feeds comp[ated under level-matched blind conditions? If not, thehn forget any 'knowledge' you may think you took away from any comparison. I don't know about Boyk, but I have not done blind comparisons between those three sources in a complete way. I agree with you that we have to be careful about what we conclude from sighted comparisons. Where we differ, is that I also think we have to be careful about what we conclude from blind comparisons. Another place we differ, is that I don't emphasize "comparison" as much as you do. This is a profound difference in our paradigms, I think. I believe that if a component sounds a certain way, or a musician sounds a certain way, then this "way" should be accessible to consciousness independently of comparison to other things. (Please don't misunderstand--I'm not claiming anything mysterious here--just the obvious, e.g. if you recognize the musician who's playing from his sound, then generally you won't need to put that sound up against another sound to make this recognition.) We differ, because I emphasize non-comparitive conscious impressions, and I don't believe in throwing them out entirely because they were non-blind. Actually I would tend to throw out sighted *comparisons*, but I put more weight on the congruence of many non-comparitive conscious impressions. Could they mislead? Certainly. But I don't therefore put absolute trust in blind comparisons--they are tricky because they involved ocnsciousness. -Mike |
|
#91
|
|||
|
|||
|
Gary Rosen wrote:
"Michael Mossey" wrote in message ... Don't response to this post as though it were saying "I know what's true and you don't." I don't really think that you are unable to know yourself. I think it is more likely that you know yourself enough to come to some valid conclusions about audio--for yourself. And that you have a different brain than I do, one that arrives at different conclusions about audio. Aren't you basically saying, then, that *all* human perceptions are ultimately subjective? And would that not then lead to the conclusion that truly objective measurements only could be made by electronic instruments that do not have feelings or biases or preconceptions? Well, I don't really know what sweeping conclusions can be made, but I do think that if we tested conscious response to sound via PET scanners, we'd be on the right track-- in other words, consciousness is measured objectively that way, although probably not with the resolution we need. I also think that when James Boyk says that realism in audio goes in the order "live microphone feed," "good analog tape," "good digital tape" he is also knowing himself pretty well. Maybe he and I like the euphonic distortions, but then why do we think a live microphone feed is the most realistic source of all? Presents a thorny problem. Unless you chose the live microphone feed in a blind test, the reason you (and Boyk) think it is most realistic may be because you already know it is live. Not necessarily such a thorny problem :^). - Gary Rosen Yes, that might be an explanation. But don't you think that cuts both ways? The reason that Stewart doesn't hear a difference between a live feed and a digital copy is because he already knows it is a digital copy? Also note that these opinions come from a congruence of non-comparitive conscious impressions, which is a different thing that comparitive impressions. -Mike |
|
#92
|
|||
|
|||
|
Richard wrote:
"Michael Mossey" wrote: Musicians, martial artists, meditators, pyschologists, and practitioners of Alexander Technique and the Feldenkrais Method commonly report that "trying really hard" interferes with performance and awareness. I think it is plausible theory that you often didn't hear a difference because you weren't conscious of how the test conditions affected your brain's conscious construction of musical experience. Is it far-fetched to suggest that you might not be aware of how you construct a musical experience or what factors contribute to that? These same people commonly report becoming aware, gradually over time, of how their perceptual habits affect their conscious experience, and they regard it as a lifetime's work. (SNIP) We see this argument so often used against any kind of comparison test and it is rather silly because it flies in the face of reason. I do think it is not only possible but also likely that "trying really hard" probably does interfere with performance for some. The real question becomes "how long is one affected." Based on personal experience, I say that performance anxiety fades rather quickly as one becomes more comfortable in their new situation and "involved" with the task at hand. If this were not so then how could any _normal_ person ever successfully perform or compete? Athletes and performers and even those interviewing for jobs are surely a bit nervous at first, but a normal healthy human will overcome this and turn this nervous energy to their advantage. It seems to me that I am stating the obvious here, but you can NOT use this argument to negate all tests otherwise no one could EVER pass any kind of test or win any competition. This is just common sense! Richard I'm not talking about performance anxiety. I think you are right that performance anxiety is not a good explanation for consistent null results with digital feeds or inconnects. "Trying really hard" (Stewart's words) tends to narrow focus. If you want to compare two paintings and you are feeling uncertain about the difference, you naturally want to get closer. But maybe the difference in those paintings can only come to consciousness through an overall impression, and the thing to do would actually be to step back. I read about an experiment in which 100-yard dash runners got faster times when they didn't "try really hard" but actually backed off the effort for the first half of the race, and saved the maximum effort for the last part. This is not about anxiety--it's about a smart way to run, which might not be obvious. I think the more obvious thing to do is run as hard as you can the whole way. But that turns out not to be the best strategy. -Mike |
|
#94
|
|||
|
|||
|
Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On 1 Apr 2005 01:13:54 GMT, "Michael Mossey" wrote: Chung wrote: Michael Mossey wrote: An even better test is to listen to a live feed, then listen to its reproduction in analog and digital. Some engineers I know in the Los Angeles area did that and said that the analog "blew away" the digital. I've done it informally by hearing James Boyk perform live in Dabney Concert Hall, then hearing the same piece recorded on LP and recorded on CD. The LP "blew away" the CD. And it does sound more accurate. Check out this article: http://www.bostonaudiosociety.org/ba...x_testing2.htm This is one of the early ABX tests establishing the transparency of digital audio. Also check out posts by the late Gabe Wiener, a well-known recording engineer, on this subject, right here on rahe. "Establishing the transperency of digital audio"? That seems like too grand and universal conclusion from the test you mentioned. He said it was *one* of the early tests which established transparency. It was a quick-switching test, and not only that, the writeup said they "quickly did 37 trials." I can't pay good attention to anything that I do quickly, 37 times. As you would doubtless suggest, others may not have this problem............ Perhaps. But I think you misunderstand what I mean by "good" attention. Paying "good" attention is a pretty deep concept. For example, I mean something like listening to whole pieces, so you get a true musical impression, and then NOT listening to the same piece over and over, so you don't go numb to the musical impression. I think that people can easily fool themselves into thinking they are paying attention to the whole of a sensory experience when they are not. My purpose here is to explore how our paradigms differ, not to assert in any rigid way that digital has artifacts. And that was just ONE part of a day's work. James Boyk told me that he did something similar with a live feed as source, and could hear the degradation of digital, but I don't have any details. If you read more of Boyk's stuff, you'll find that he says many very strange things................ :-) If we get away from a reductionist viewpoint, we also realize that a live digital feed is a different system than stored digital recordings. Why do you accuse everyone else of 'reductionism'? And in exactly what way is a stored digital recording different from a live feed? Stop making vague claims, and offer something tangible. I don't mean to say this is evidence that you are wrong about anything--my point is very simple. Playback of a stored digital signal is a different system than a live digital feed. Therefore it might behave differently. I still think that we need to search for evidence that it behaves differently. Within a model of that system there might be no way that it could behave differently. But that model is not reality. It is "reductionist" to draw conclusions about reality from the basis of a model. Not necessarily invalid, but still reductionist. At the moment I'm simply being careful about what conclusions can be drawn from a live digital feed test. So the fact that most CD's sound like degraded live feeds to me, and my hypothesis that this occurs from artifacts in the process, is still tenable. Your hypothesis is not tenable until you offer some *evidence* to support it. You have been asked several times exactly what 'digital artifacts' you are referencing, but you have never answered this simple question. -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering I don't know what digital artifacts. Could be something in a mechanism already modelled, such as jitter, or it could be something new. I could be wrong that digital has artifacts--perhaps I like analog better for its distortion. In the words of Skeptic Magazine, "Maybe yes, maybe no." -Mike |
|
#95
|
|||
|
|||
|
Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
That is simply not true. We're running around in circles, Stew. Just think back when you were a=20 kid, remember the products, remember the popularity, and you'll realize=20 that the world of stereo is not dyeing. Options are not sales. Very true, which is why we do not call sales =93options=94, and vice-vers= a.=20 Options dictate the level of market interest. I could delve into the=20 economics of this, but this is neither the time nor the place. That doesn't mean there are any sales. Would *you* buy a $10,000 amplifier without a demo? See, friend, your diluting the point. The original point was in regards=20 to stereo only stores and not places where stereo equipment can be heard. It's a very common practice for one to audition the equipment at a home=20 theater store, go online, get the best price for the equipment, and=20 order it online. To answer your odd question, I would never purchase a piece of audio=20 equipment without using it first. Actually, my point in this regard would be that good mass-market electronics now achieves what was only possible with 'high-end' gear a couple of decades ago. Hence, the current 'high-end' market is only for the acquiring of male jewellery, not superior audio performance. Yes, I'd love an Oracle CD player, but I'll lay odds that it doesn't *sound* better than my Pioneer DV-575. Right on, friend. I completely agree with you here. Never heard of 'em................. Have they made any sales? While they are not extremely popular, they are doing well. Most people=20 classify them as kit finishers, and not real producers. This leads the=20 market to segment them out of the mainstream goods arena. Their ads do=20 occasionally find their way into the pages of Stereophile and the others. If you'd care to look up at the thread title.................... Witty. The problem with this discussion, just like discerning audio=20 quality, is that we all look at something through different windows. In=20 this particular case, this discussion is starting to verve off into many=20 different avenues. I still contend and can prove that stereo sales are not slowing down.=20 These findings discount the sale of multichannel equipment. For an=20 outsider, he would ask how they discern between stereo equipment and=20 multichannel equipment, since at times, the division bell is blurred.=20 While this is a good point to determine consumer buying habits, it's=20 rather moot in regards to the popularity of stereo music. If stereo music were truly fading away into oblivion, the consumer=20 interest in the medium would be waning, Stereophile would be out of=20 business, stereo CD sales would be plummeting, etc. The reality of the=20 situation is that the interest in stereo is slightly greater to that of=20 years past. Yours truly, Michael |
|
#96
|
|||
|
|||
|
Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On 2 Apr 2005 16:06:04 GMT, "Michael Mossey" wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: disagree, including the late, great Gabe Wiener of PGM, who also made many superb recordings. For some of the best music you'll ever hear, also try the JVC XRCD range, which are all made from analog tape masters. I was reading an old thread about Gabe Wiener and you mentioned his St. John Passion recording. I found it on Amazon, and I'm interested to hear it for the sound, but I wonder about the performance. As far as Bach interpretation and my taste, Leonhardt is just right, I can't stand Harnoncourt, and Klemperer can be dramatic but not really enough genuine Baroque in him. Does this give you any reference to describe the Milnes interpretation? I like it, I find it 'authentically dated', but matters of musical taste are irrelevant to this newsgroup. I am tired of arguing "against you" and I thought we might find something to agree on. For example, we might agree that this recording has superb sound. We might both like the interpretation. I did find some clips on amazon and I didn't like the chorales very much, a bit mechanical in tempo. So I probably won't order it, because I want to focus my collecting energy on performances I enjoy. I am open to the possibility that it is a superb recording and I would really like to hear digital done by a digital advocate. By the way, have you heard any of James Boyk's piano recordings? I think they are fabulous, and I've attended a couple of the live concerts that were being recorded. I would be curious to know if you think that a guy, who in your opinion is full of nonsense on the subject of engineering, created a piano recording that sounds lifelike to you? I haven't heard any, but I accept that he is a decent pianist and an excellent recordist, so I'm happy to stipulate that he has made good recordings. This does not exclude some of his pratings on the audibility of wire being utter nonsense. Boyk consistently states over and over that tubes and analog produce a more accurate sound, one that captures the details of the sound he hears at the piano, while digital generally falls down at this task. Fine, that's his opinion, to which he's entitled. Other fine artists agree with him, and many more disagree. Your explanation, no doubt, is that he loves the euphonic effects. So do you hear these in his recordings? As noted, I have not heard his recordings. In fact, do the distortions of tape, LP, and tubes specifically sound not lifelike to you? They do not sound lifelike to me. They do of course give a sense of 'warmth' and 'air' to the recording, which is seductive, but *not* accurate. I take it that you're aware that most studios keep an analogue tape machine for doing 'pass throughs' of previously made difgital recordings, in order to *add* those characteristic artifacts. Does that sound likely to increase realism, to 'put back' something mysteriously lost by digital - or just something that sounds nice? I agree that this is good evidence that analog adds something that sounds nice and is not more accurate. I would still be interested to hear for myself a digital recording "before" and "after" the analog pass. However, we are clearly very different people since my perception of a good analog recording goes way beyond "warmth" and "air"--it is actually a more lifelike musical impression and closer to the live feed. There's really no need to choose between "analog is accurate"/"analog is euphonic". The answer might depend on the individual. I think it is reductionist to answer this question in one way that applies to all individuals. -Mike -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
|
#97
|
|||
|
|||
|
Chung wrote:
Michael Mossey wrote: I was a student at Caltech 1987 to 1991. Let me get this straight. You went to Caltech, and you believe that interconnects may sound different? I don't believe that interconnects sound different---I'm just open to it as a possibility, and I see problems in the tests that have attempted to rule out that possibility. Don't you think that if there were audible differences, they will be accompanied by easily meaasureable differences? So why not make measurements, instead of long DBT's? Do you have any theory as to why they may sound different? If we knew what to measure, yes. Anyway, don't they all measure differently? Isn't the question whether the difference is within the threshold of hearing? Just out of curiosity, what did you major in at Caltech? "Engineering and Applied Science." It gave me a good background in linear time-invariant models of systems. -Mike |
|
#98
|
|||
|
|||
|
|
|
#99
|
|||
|
|||
|
wrote:
wrote: The preference for tubes is hardly based on the idea that "older is better." There may indeed be a tiny band of people that believe this but that hardly acounts for the majority of people that prefer tube amplification. What evidence do you have that the majority prefer tube amplification? Where did I ever say that the majority of people prefer tube amplification? He "There may indeed be a tiny band of people that believe this but that hardly acounts for the majority of people that prefer tube amplification." I certainly don't, and I have good ears. I certainly do in my system and I have very good hearing. Tubes distort in rather unpleasant ways. I bit broad but if you find it unpleasant then fine. I find tubes to sound more like real music for the most part. Nope. Added colorations throughout the mid-range especially. Scott Wheeler |
|
#100
|
|||
|
|||
|
Gary Rosen wrote:
"Michael Mossey" wrote in message ... Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On 31 Mar 2005 04:12:05 GMT, "Michael Mossey" wrote: I was a student at Caltech 1987 to 1991. James Boyk introduced me to an engineer at Sheffield Lab. A group of engineers at the Sheffield Lab had, a few years prior, compared a live feed to its recording, in digital, analog tape, and direct-to-disk master. The direct-to-disk was the best reproduction of the live feed, followed by the analog tape and digital. If you want to know more, contact the folks at Sheffield Lab. Which, by the way, has the best recordings I've ever heard. And guess what, Sheffield Lab made their money by selling direct-cut vinyl. Of course *they* will say that DD is best, I think that it is convenient for you to believe that people who disagree with you have some ulterior motive. I'm sure you've done listening tests in which the result came back null. Perhaps you've compared two amplifiers or inserted a digital processor into a live feed. And very likely you reported hearing no difference. Now, if I wanted to do the same thing you are doing, I could say that you didn't hear a difference because you didn't want to hear a difference. After all, it is far more comforting to live in a world that's logical, predictable, and can be understood via reductionism. To hear a difference would threaten this world. What exactly do you mean by "reductionism"? And how is Stewart's viewpoint (which has considerably more evidence to support it than yours, as far as I can tell) more "reductionist" than yours? I don't mean to start a flame war, but it seems to me you are using this term to denigrate those who disagree with you without addressing the evidence supporting them. - Gary Rosen By reductionism I mean reducing reality to parts with easily modelled interactions. So for example, to investigate the ear/brain behavior using quick-switch and then to ignore how other contexts affect musical consciousness would be reductionist. "Hearing" becomes somewhat separated from "consciousness". Now, please note that my statement is itself reductionist! The reality of how data is collected about the ear is richer than implied in my statement. And in that richness could be found the possibilities that contradict my simple model. I.e., I could be wrong. However, quick-switch testing could also be wrong, since it has thrown out possibilities. I don't mean to denigrate people using reductionist thinking--we all have to do that. I mean to question the certainty of the conclusions we make. You could also argue that I'm attacking anything I disagree with by claiming it is uncertain, such as a criminal defense attorney would do to create a "reasonable doubt." I don't think I am, because I think that it is the fact that *consciousness* is involved in audio research that makes reductionism dangerous. (I think reductionism is a wonderful way to make a better digital network.) And because I am willing to change my mind when I eventually fail to find the evidence to support my hypothesis. When searching for evidence, I will weight particularly highly tests that try to account for the mechanism of forming conscious musical impressions. -Mike |
|
#101
|
|||
|
|||
|
"Chung" wrote in message
... Harry F Lavo wrote: "Chung" wrote in message ... Harry F Lavo wrote: "Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message The industry is firmly committed to high res as sounding better. They just don't know what its commercial future is. Hard to find a sound engineer anywhere who will support your position. Hard to find any pro gear that is not upgrading to 24/96 (in or out) or greater. Would Benchmark have built in 24/96 downconversion if it didn't count in monitoring quality? And don't tell me that it is only for mixing...that may hold for the inputs, but not for the outputs. The ordinary pro audio world is moving to 24/96 surround as a needed output, whether as straight DVD-A, or as downmixed Dolby Digital / DTS. With the stereo tracks maintained at this or a higher 24/192 rate. And a substantial portion of the classical pro audio world has moved to DSD for its superior naturalness as a mastering technology using simple micing. Given the line of reasoning you have demonstrated above, can we finally conclude that digital audio (including the redbook CD standard) sounds better than vinyl? After all, the industry has been firmly committed to digital audio since, oh, the early '80's. It's so nice to have closure... Only by your stretch of logic....... Somehow, your own logic, applied to vinyl vs digital, sounds rather illogical to you, I guess... The only thing that I've ever claimed for vinyl is that in my own informal testing among younger people raised on cd's, they come away prefering vinyl when presented with commercial material from identical masters in the two media. This done using my equipment played through my system. And I presented it as antecdotal, not 'evidence' in support of the fact that many people, audiophiles and non-audiophiles alike (when exposed to very good vinyl playback) seem to find it more compelling (descirbed as "more realistic") than CD. I've further stated that for me this hasn't been an issue since about 1990 when CD playback equipment finally got good enough to allow me to enjoy the unmistakable benefits of the silver disk because the perceived difference if any from vinyl had gotten narrow enough that convenience won out. But in close comparative listening, I still usually prefer the vinyl for sound quality alone. This as I have pointed out is also consistent with my preference for jazz, chamber, and singer-songwriters...none of which makes large dynamic demands at the frequency extremes. So where in all this do you see logical flaws? You've had closure...or at least a closed mind to vinyl...for as long as you've been here. I have some vinyl recordings that are well recorded, and I have digital recordings that are poorly recorded. What I am objecting to, if you have noticed, are pseudo-technical claims of the imaginary short-comings of digital so as to prove the superiority of vinyl. Would you care to quote me? I don't recall making those claims for a long, long time..if ever. Measured by recreating the emotional impact and sense of "realism" of the original performance, vinyl still has much to recommend it, given careful selection of the components reproducing it. You get it all wrong. The creation of emotional impact and realism is in the hands of the performers and the producers, and is certainly not better done via the LP technology. It fact, LP technology is demonstrably less accurate, by all measures of accuracy. I don't get it wrong at all. The medium that lets whatever is there in a great performance get through most akin to that same performance heard live is the superior medium, from a musical standpoint regardless of the technical merits of same. Thus I often prefer vinyl to cd in this regard, and usually prefer SACD to DVD-A, and either to CD. Based on my emperical observation that for me, these media offer more examples of this "akin to live" experience. |
|
#102
|
|||
|
|||
|
"Gary Rosen" wrote in message
... "Michael Mossey" wrote in message ... Don't response to this post as though it were saying "I know what's true and you don't." I don't really think that you are unable to know yourself. I think it is more likely that you know yourself enough to come to some valid conclusions about audio--for yourself. And that you have a different brain than I do, one that arrives at different conclusions about audio. Aren't you basically saying, then, that *all* human perceptions are ultimately subjective? And would that not then lead to the conclusion that truly objective measurements only could be made by electronic instruments that do not have feelings or biases or preconceptions? There is a whole body of market research approaches used in commercial product development and in the social sciences that properly used can help "objectify the subjective". I also think that when James Boyk says that realism in audio goes in the order "live microphone feed," "good analog tape," "good digital tape" he is also knowing himself pretty well. Maybe he and I like the euphonic distortions, but then why do we think a live microphone feed is the most realistic source of all? Presents a thorny problem. Unless you chose the live microphone feed in a blind test, the reason you (and Boyk) think it is most realistic may be because you already know it is live. Not necessarily such a thorny problem :^). Well, you'd have to assume then that A and C sound the same but that A is rated higher than B because it is live, and C is rated lower than B because it is digital. Expectation bias, could cause this, but it is a pretty big stretch if A and C truly do sound identical (not so difficult if they don't sound identical.) So a corallary might be, if they chose "A" (live) as best, then they must have heard enough difference from "C" (digital) to rank it last. The funny thing is, of those on RAP (rec.audio.professional) who have ever done this test, *most* think the live feed beats the pants off of both tape and digital. But they feel DSD beats both and is the closest they have heard to live feed (among those who have had a chance to do the comparison). And they also feel tape has a "sound" resulting from saturation and compression that is highly sought after and preferred by many engineers and pop musicians and highly musical and enjoyable. What I have just described is certainly consistent with Boyk's observations and preferences. |
|
#103
|
|||
|
|||
|
"Michael" wrote in message
... Harry F Lavo wrote: You've had closure...or at least a closed mind to vinyl...for as long as you've been here. Measured by recreating the emotional impact and sense of "realism" of the original performance, vinyl still has much to recommend it, given careful selection of the components reproducing it. Hello, Harry. The funny thing about this debate is your can replace the word "vinyl" with "CD" and it will still be applicable. Any format will sound wonderful provided the following two circumstances: it was mastered well and it is played upon competent hardware. The real question of a better format becomes one of price to performance. In terms of CD versus vinyl, CD sounds a lot better on less than vinyl on less. Yet, this, of course, is a moot point if the CD is from a terrible master, and likewise for vinyl. No argument from me, Michael. I take all that as a given. However, I've got about eight CD's and Original well-cared for vinyl of classical, jazz, and pop albums that on my system sound identical in tonal coloration and are identical in mix and listened to casually, could not be told apart. However, in careful listening the vinyl is usually preferred, tending to a slightly more dynamic and well defined bass, clearner high end (cymbals, violins) and a more defined sense of mid-range 'space': e.g. voices have more body and seem to have more space behind them. The objectivists here have convinced me that his is phasiness, and it seems to be fairly well acknowledged these days. But that still doesn't seem to convince a large number of audiophiles that for whatever reason, vinyl (on a really good system) can sound more "real" than CD. However, as I said in another post here tonight, I myself switched most of my new purchases and listening to CD in the early '90's. This occurred because the sound differences became so small between my Linn/Syrinx/Accuphase/Counterpoint SA-2 vinyl system and my Phillips 880/DTI Pro/Proceed CD system that the convenience of those silver disks won out. |
|
#104
|
|||
|
|||
|
On 3 Apr 2005 15:41:59 GMT, Michael
wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On 2 Apr 2005 15:57:53 GMT, Michael wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: Anyone who doubts the truth of this matter is directed to Ken Kessler's article on the back page of this month's Hi-Fi News, just out. Hello, Stew. And, that is your opinion of the current situation, friend. The point was that it's also Ken Kessler's, and is shared by the high-end manufacturers, which is why the brighter ones are getting into 'home theater'. Howdy, Stew. As you just said, that's not the actual case. What? Where did I say that? You claim that it's some universal truth, then you rephrase that to the only bright ones. Obviously, even you are quite unsure about your claims. No, I stated as a plain fact that high-end stereo is a shrinking market, which is *why* the brighter ones are getting out. The less bright are dying. Do you have any *evidence* in rebuttal? The bottom line is that while certain companies may be expanding their horizons, they are not ditching their current stereo stuff in leu of multichannel gear, and many new stereo-only companies are emerging. This is utter nonsense. And, according to many reports, stereo sales and media sales keep increasing at a good pace. Again, this is in leu of internet file sharing and the multichannel craze. Nope, the so-called 'high-end' 2-channel market is rapidly shrinking, as published sales figures clearly demonstrate. Do you have *anything* other than wild assertions to offer in rebuttal? -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
|
#105
|
|||
|
|||
|
"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
... On 2 Apr 2005 23:57:28 GMT, "Michael Mossey" wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: These same people commonly report becoming aware, gradually over time, of how their perceptual habits affect their conscious experience, and they regard it as a lifetime's work. And: can you prove to me that you were really trying to hear a difference? Can you prove it in an objective way? No one can prove what they are thinking. Why would I have to? After thinking about this issue for a while (was the subject really trying to hear a difference?) I've come up with a possible approach. It isn't really necessary to tell the subject the truth about what he's likely to hear. You can tell him that both signals are the same loudness, but one of them has 25% 2nd harmonic distortion. This is a difference that both objectivists and subjectivists are probably going to suspect is audible. No guarantees, but both are apt to listen carefully if both feel they have a chance of success. Another approach is to start out with 2 signals having dramatic differences easily heard. Then gradually bring them closer. The trick is to make the last comparison the real one. The others were just there to put the subject on his mettle. What do you think? Norm Strong |
|
#106
|
|||
|
|||
|
Michael Mossey wrote:
Chung wrote: Michael Mossey wrote: I was a student at Caltech 1987 to 1991. Let me get this straight. You went to Caltech, and you believe that interconnects may sound different? I don't believe that interconnects sound different---I'm just open to it as a possibility, and I see problems in the tests that have attempted to rule out that possibility. So you don't believe it, but you are open to it as a possibilty. What evidence have you encountered that leads to this openness? From reviews? BTW, you could be a very busy man, if you are open to possibilities that you don't believe in, and you want to test them. Remember the old saying: if you have too open a mind, your brain may fall out. Don't you think that if there were audible differences, they will be accompanied by easily meaasureable differences? So why not make measurements, instead of long DBT's? Do you have any theory as to why they may sound different? If we knew what to measure, yes. Anyway, don't they all measure differently? Isn't the question whether the difference is within the threshold of hearing? Well, for starters, frequency response, distortion, and noise added. We know that we can only detect about a 0.3 dB difference in level (but most likely only in a quick switching test, I might add) at 1KHz. There is really no reason why a mechanically sound cable can introduce distortion or noise, but those impairments can easily be measured down to the -100 dB level. Any reason why you think there may be impairments from cables that can be heard but not measured? If two cables measure differently, like one is 1 inch longer, you think they may sound different? Why do you think that we might not know what to measure, when it comes to cables? Just out of curiosity, what did you major in at Caltech? "Engineering and Applied Science." It gave me a good background in linear time-invariant models of systems. Well, one of my professors started a linear systems course by stating that the whole blackboard is the set of all systems. Then he placed a chalk dot on the board, and said that the dot represented the set of all linear systems. It may be worthy to note that it is almost the definition of reductionism to consider linear time-invariant systems. Not that there is anything wrong with being reductionistic. It is really unusual to hear a graduate from Caltech talk about interconnects possibly sounding different, yet have no theory for why they may sound different, or believe that they might sound different. Or hear him say that there are digital artifacts, but presents no evidence. |
|
#107
|
|||
|
|||
|
Harry F Lavo wrote:
"Chung" wrote in message ... Harry F Lavo wrote: "Chung" wrote in message ... Harry F Lavo wrote: "Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message The industry is firmly committed to high res as sounding better. They just don't know what its commercial future is. Hard to find a sound engineer anywhere who will support your position. Hard to find any pro gear that is not upgrading to 24/96 (in or out) or greater. Would Benchmark have built in 24/96 downconversion if it didn't count in monitoring quality? And don't tell me that it is only for mixing...that may hold for the inputs, but not for the outputs. The ordinary pro audio world is moving to 24/96 surround as a needed output, whether as straight DVD-A, or as downmixed Dolby Digital / DTS. With the stereo tracks maintained at this or a higher 24/192 rate. And a substantial portion of the classical pro audio world has moved to DSD for its superior naturalness as a mastering technology using simple micing. Given the line of reasoning you have demonstrated above, can we finally conclude that digital audio (including the redbook CD standard) sounds better than vinyl? After all, the industry has been firmly committed to digital audio since, oh, the early '80's. It's so nice to have closure... Only by your stretch of logic....... Somehow, your own logic, applied to vinyl vs digital, sounds rather illogical to you, I guess... The only thing that I've ever claimed for vinyl is that in my own informal testing among younger people raised on cd's, they come away prefering vinyl when presented with commercial material from identical masters in the two media. This done using my equipment played through my system. And I presented it as antecdotal, not 'evidence' in support of the fact that many people, audiophiles and non-audiophiles alike (when exposed to very good vinyl playback) seem to find it more compelling (descirbed as "more realistic") than CD. I've further stated that for me this hasn't been an issue since about 1990 when CD playback equipment finally got good enough to allow me to enjoy the unmistakable benefits of the silver disk because the perceived difference if any from vinyl had gotten narrow enough that convenience won out. But in close comparative listening, I still usually prefer the vinyl for sound quality alone. This as I have pointed out is also consistent with my preference for jazz, chamber, and singer-songwriters...none of which makes large dynamic demands at the frequency extremes. So where in all this do you see logical flaws? Well, when I presented your line of reasoning (basically you were saying that since pro-audio has gone to 24/96 that must mean hi-rez sounds better) and deduced from that line that digital audio must sound better than vinyl, since pro-audio has gone digital since 1980's, you said that it was a stretch of logic on my part. That's why I said that your own logic somehow did not sound logical *to you*, when it was used to compare vinyl vs CD or digital audio. You've had closure...or at least a closed mind to vinyl...for as long as you've been here. I have some vinyl recordings that are well recorded, and I have digital recordings that are poorly recorded. What I am objecting to, if you have noticed, are pseudo-technical claims of the imaginary short-comings of digital so as to prove the superiority of vinyl. Would you care to quote me? I don't recall making those claims for a long, long time..if ever. Well, in this instance, in this very thread, people were saying that there were digital artifacts, yet presented no evidence. Just off the top of my head, I remember you were quoting someone saying that PCM sounded bad, and IIRC, you said it was one of the best articles on PCM? Perhaps I am objecting to those views you readily accept and welcome? Here's that post of yours: http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...3?dmode=source And here is another example of you actually making claims of the imaginary short-comings of digital: http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...e?dmode=source where you claimed: "(my issues) with CD's tendency to have less depth and a 'flatter' bass and lower midrange dimensionality." "(SACD) has the absence of digital artifacts, same as vinyl and pre-recorded tape". I am sure there are a lot more examples. Also, interesting that when I said I object to something, you immediately assume that I was objecting to what you claim, as in here and now. Measured by recreating the emotional impact and sense of "realism" of the original performance, vinyl still has much to recommend it, given careful selection of the components reproducing it. You get it all wrong. The creation of emotional impact and realism is in the hands of the performers and the producers, and is certainly not better done via the LP technology. It fact, LP technology is demonstrably less accurate, by all measures of accuracy. I don't get it wrong at all. The medium that lets whatever is there in a great performance get through most akin to that same performance heard live is the superior medium, from a musical standpoint regardless of the technical merits of same. Thus I often prefer vinyl to cd in this regard, and usually prefer SACD to DVD-A, and either to CD. Based on my emperical observation that for me, these media offer more examples of this "akin to live" experience. Of course, there is the minor problem that digital redbook audio so often proves to be much more transparent (like the Lip****z test found), and vinyl is demonstrably inaccurate compared to CD. The point is that the realism and emotion should be set by the performers and the producers, and the medium has to be as faithful as possible. |
|
#108
|
|||
|
|||
|
Harry F Lavo wrote:
No argument from me, Michael. I take all that as a given. However, I've got about eight CD's and Original well-cared for vinyl of classical, jazz, and pop albums that on my system sound identical in tonal coloration and are identical in mix and listened to casually, could not be told apart. However, in careful listening the vinyl is usually preferred, tending to a slightly more dynamic and well defined bass, clearner high end (cymbals, violins) and a more defined sense of mid-range 'space': e.g. voices have more body and seem to have more space behind them. The objectivists here have convinced me that his is phasiness, and it seems to be fairly well acknowledged these days. But that still doesn't seem to convince a large number of audiophiles that for whatever reason, vinyl (on a really good system) can sound more "real" than CD. However, as I said in another post here tonight, I myself switched most of my new purchases and listening to CD in the early '90's. This occurred because the sound differences became so small between my Linn/Syrinx/Accuphase/Counterpoint SA-2 vinyl system and my Phillips 880/DTI Pro/Proceed CD system that the convenience of those silver disks won out. Hey, Harry. Could you give me a small list of Jazz auditions and state which medium that sound best on? It's an interesting sound that has made itself well known on SACD lately. Thanks, Michael |
|
#109
|
|||
|
|||
|
chung wrote:
Michael Mossey wrote: Chung wrote: Michael Mossey wrote: I was a student at Caltech 1987 to 1991. Let me get this straight. You went to Caltech, and you believe that interconnects may sound different? I don't believe that interconnects sound different---I'm just open to it as a possibility, and I see problems in the tests that have attempted to rule out that possibility. So you don't believe it, but you are open to it as a possibilty. What evidence have you encountered that leads to this openness? From reviews? Primarily from four blind trials, the very first I ever did, in which I felt sure I knew what cable I was hearing, felt that the differences were easily audible, and was right four times. That made an impression. (But winning a big prize the first time you step in a casino makes a big impression too.) On another occasion, I did eight trials and was wrong three times. BTW, you could be a very busy man, if you are open to possibilities that you don't believe in, and you want to test them. Remember the old saying: if you have too open a mind, your brain may fall out. Yeah, yeah. And if you have too closed a mind, your brain will get claustrophobic.  Don't you think that if there were audible differences, they will be accompanied by easily meaasureable differences? So why not make measurements, instead of long DBT's? Do you have any theory as to why they may sound different? If we knew what to measure, yes. Anyway, don't they all measure differently? Isn't the question whether the difference is within the threshold of hearing? Well, for starters, frequency response, distortion, and noise added. We know that we can only detect about a 0.3 dB difference in level (but most likely only in a quick switching test, I might add) at 1KHz. According to the psychoacoustics textbook I'm reading, you are right---about discrimination on test tones such as noise or pure tones. However, the books also say that based on the information that the auditory nerve can carry, the theoretical DL (discriminatory limen) could be more like 0.1 dB, it's the way the higher centers process the signal that reduces the DL. Discriminating test tones is a task very unlike listening for musical enjoyment. So I'm going to be carefully examined what conclusions can be drawn from psychoacoustical testing and whether it is valid to extrapolate them to listening to the vastly more complex musical signals. See below.. There is really no reason why a mechanically sound cable can introduce distortion or noise, but those impairments can easily be measured down to the -100 dB level. Any reason why you think there may be impairments from cables that can be heard but not measured? If two cables measure differently, like one is 1 inch longer, you think they may sound different? Why do you think that we might not know what to measure, when it comes to cables? Just out of curiosity, what did you major in at Caltech? "Engineering and Applied Science." It gave me a good background in linear time-invariant models of systems. Well, one of my professors started a linear systems course by stating that the whole blackboard is the set of all systems. Then he placed a chalk dot on the board, and said that the dot represented the set of all linear systems. It may be worthy to note that it is almost the definition of reductionism to consider linear time-invariant systems. Not that there is anything wrong with being reductionistic. Precisely, it is reductionist. Notice that the ear is not linear (taken as a whole; parts of it are). Fourier showed that a complex signal can be decomposed into sine waves. A LTI system can be modelled entirely by its frequency response. Psychoacoustical experiments are done sometimes with sine waves. There is a difficulty in extending the results to complex signals. That would be easy with a LTI system, but the ear isn't one. It is really unusual to hear a graduate from Caltech talk about interconnects possibly sounding different, yet have no theory for why they may sound different, or believe that they might sound different. Or hear him say that there are digital artifacts, but presents no evidence. You mean the indoctrination didn't stick? -Mike |
|
#110
|
|||
|
|||
|
Michael Mossey wrote:
wrote: Michael Mossey wrote: Don't get confused between subjective accuracy and objective accuracy. You're the one who's confused, or trying to confuse. There is no such thing as "subjective accuracy," as you define it. There may be a "subjective sense of similarity," but to appropriate a technical term like accuracy to elevate this concept is to muddy the waters, not clarify them. Let me just explain the danger as I see it... I'm referring to the danger of placing objective measurements above conscious experience. Rather than spend time on that, how about you consider perception of audible difference in light of this undisputable fact: The conclusions about the physical world drawn from 'conscious experience' are often inaccurate if they rely on only sense perception, belief, and memory. Optical illusions are simple examples. The 'phantom switch' -- where nothing is changed, but the listener thinks it has -- is a slightly more complex one. The fallibility of 'eyewitness testimony' is well-known to members of the scientific, legal and law enforcement communities. The whole point of audio is to duplicate a conscious experience. And some people are concerned with simply creating the most enjoyable conscious experience possible, while I'm concerned mostly with replicating the conscous experience of live music. So "accuracy" or "similarity" or whatever you want to call it--this concept should apply first to similarity of conscious experience. Accuracy of memory would be a problem here. It is certainly easier to demonstrate that two signals measure similarly than it is to demonstrate that two conscious experiences are the same. But this should not place measurements above conscious experience. Because .... (continued below) It SOUNDS more accurate; But it IS less accurate. Therefore, this seeming "accuracy" is likely some form of illusion. because it is too easy to apply the label "illusion" to conscious experiences that seem to contradict the measurements, without actually having demonstrated anything about consciousness. By this criterion, complete fantasy becomes as legitimate a 'report' of reality as a model derived from careful observation. Does that matter to you? Example: intermodulation distortion interferes with the conscious experience of music more than harmonic distortion. So an amplifier that has a tiny amount of intermodulation distortion and NO harmonic distortion, is less accurate than an amplier that has a lot of harmonic distortion and no IM distortion. The amplifier with less distortion in terms of numbers is arguably LESS accurate. This shows the danger of separating the conscious effect of distortion from the measurement of distortion. It actually simply shows the danger of misinterpreting measurements. Now, how has it been determined that IM distortion interferes with the conscious experience of music more than harmonic distortion? Or, as another possibility, a form of distortion could actually contribute to replicating a conscious experience. In that case, it simply would not be true to claim that the perceived similarity is an illusion. If a PET scan could prove the similarity of conscious experience, we would have a measureable and objective way to make more accurate recordings through the addition of distortion. As I see it, our limited ability to measure conscious experience is what prevents us from considering this possibitilty-- not that this possibility doesn't exist. As I see it, you are striving mightily to find an excuse not to believe a more straightforward explanation -- that some 'differences' are imaginary. -- -S It's not my business to do intelligent work. -- D. Rumsfeld, testifying before the House Armed Services Committee |
|
#111
|
|||
|
|||
|
Michael Mossey wrote:
Chung wrote: Michael Mossey wrote: I was a student at Caltech 1987 to 1991. Let me get this straight. You went to Caltech, and you believe that interconnects may sound different? I don't believe that interconnects sound different---I'm just open to it as a possibility, and I see problems in the tests that have attempted to rule out that possibility. You need to bring some hard experimental evidence to the table that shows these problems with the test you speak of. Addressing conceptual problems alone don't cut it. Chances are this thread will deterioriate soon and eventually be terminated, like all the others like it that have occured previously if you don't. |
|
#112
|
|||
|
|||
|
Harry F Lavo wrote:
"Gary Rosen" wrote in message ... "Michael Mossey" wrote in message ... Don't response to this post as though it were saying "I know what's true and you don't." I don't really think that you are unable to know yourself. I think it is more likely that you know yourself enough to come to some valid conclusions about audio--for yourself. And that you have a different brain than I do, one that arrives at different conclusions about audio. Aren't you basically saying, then, that *all* human perceptions are ultimately subjective? And would that not then lead to the conclusion that truly objective measurements only could be made by electronic instruments that do not have feelings or biases or preconceptions? There is a whole body of market research approaches used in commercial product development and in the social sciences that properly used can help "objectify the subjective". I also think that when James Boyk says that realism in audio goes in the order "live microphone feed," "good analog tape," "good digital tape" he is also knowing himself pretty well. Maybe he and I like the euphonic distortions, but then why do we think a live microphone feed is the most realistic source of all? Presents a thorny problem. Unless you chose the live microphone feed in a blind test, the reason you (and Boyk) think it is most realistic may be because you already know it is live. Not necessarily such a thorny problem :^). Well, you'd have to assume then that A and C sound the same but that A is rated higher than B because it is live, and C is rated lower than B because it is digital. Expectation bias, could cause this, but it is a pretty big stretch if A and C truly do sound identical (not so difficult if they don't sound identical.) So a corallary might be, if they chose "A" (live) as best, then they must have heard enough difference from "C" (digital) to rank it last. That's what's puzzling about it to me, too. I didn't do quick-switch comparison of all three sources.. I had a "convergence of non-comparitive listening impressions." In other words, on many occasions I heard the different sources and found a pattern emerging in the reactions I had. We could dismiss this experience, but consider this thought experiment: I am blindfolded and kept in a room. Once per day someone walks in the room and speaks to me. There are a total of ten people and every day one of them is chosen at random to enter the room and speak to me. I am asked to give a name to each voice. At the end of one year, I am tested to see if I can consistently name and differentiate the ten people. I'm willing to bet that I could do it, and that it would be easy. Notice that I would have no chance to put one voice up against the other in time. This says something about audio memory. I will be investigating this and looking to see if it bears any relation to the difference between non-comparitive and comparitive listening. -Mike |
|
#113
|
|||
|
|||
|
On 4 Apr 2005 23:51:31 GMT, "Michael Mossey"
wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: Playback of a stored digital signal is a different system than a live digital feed. This is a mere assertion, with no basis in fact. Therefore it might behave differently. I still think that we need to search for evidence that it behaves differently. Within a model of that system there might be no way that it could behave differently. But that model is not reality. It is "reductionist" to draw conclusions about reality from the basis of a model. Not necessarily invalid, but still reductionist. At the moment I'm simply being careful about what conclusions can be drawn from a live digital feed test. The system does not differ, whether the source material is a live feed or stored data. Hence, it does *not* behave differently. Please read up on digital audio before making such assertions. Your hypothesis is not tenable until you offer some *evidence* to support it. You have been asked several times exactly what 'digital artifacts' you are referencing, but you have never answered this simple question. I don't know what digital artifacts. Could be something in a mechanism already modelled, such as jitter, or it could be something new. I could be wrong that digital has artifacts--perhaps I like analog better for its distortion. That is a *much* more likely scenario. In the words of Skeptic Magazine, "Maybe yes, maybe no." Skeptic Magazine is not reality............ If you want a better guide to reality than Skeptic Magazine, try Occam's Razor. -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
|
#114
|
|||
|
|||
|
On 4 Apr 2005 23:53:56 GMT, "Michael Mossey"
wrote: There's really no need to choose between "analog is accurate"/"analog is euphonic". The answer might depend on the individual. I think it is reductionist to answer this question in one way that applies to all individuals. You have a love of the term 'reductionism', but you seem to use it as a convenient excuse for anything with which you disagree. The physical soundfield is reality, and it either is, or is not, an accurate representation of the soundfield at a particular listening position at the original live performance (obviously, you can't use 'accuracy' when referring to a studio recording). There *is* a need to choose between "analogue is accurate" and "analogue is euphonic", since this refers to the physical soundfield, not to an individual impression. You and I will certainly get a different impression of a musical performance, but this applies to a live performance as well as a recording. -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
|
#115
|
|||
|
|||
|
On 4 Apr 2005 23:53:01 GMT, Michael
wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: That is simply not true. We're running around in circles, Stew. Just think back when you were a kid, remember the products, remember the popularity, and you'll realize that the world of stereo is not dyeing. You make another wrong assumption. When I was a kid, there *was* no stereo...................... :-) And while you can certainly dye stero products any colour you like, their availabilty is unquestionably decreasing. Your attempt to include multi-channel witrhin the compass of 'stereo, is sheer desperation, since that is the nub of the matter. In the rarefied world of the serious audiophile, call it 'high end' if you will, two-channel is moribund. Options are not sales. Very true, which is why we do not call sales “options”, and vice-versa. Options dictate the level of market interest. I could delve into the economics of this, but this is neither the time nor the place. Indeed it's not, since sales are what matter, and you are ducking the issue by pretending otherwise. That doesn't mean there are any sales. Would *you* buy a $10,000 amplifier without a demo? See, friend, your diluting the point. The original point was in regards to stereo only stores and not places where stereo equipment can be heard. Not at all, I'm trying to drag you *back* to the point - sales of high-end 2-channel systems are decreasing. It is a dying market. It's a very common practice for one to audition the equipment at a home theater store, go online, get the best price for the equipment, and order it online. While that's certainly a standard slimeball practice, only the very dense would not realise that in short order, there will not *be* any brick and mortar stores at which to audition these items. Hey, wait a minute, another one just closed................. I still contend and can prove that stereo sales are not slowing down. So offer some proof. These findings discount the sale of multichannel equipment. For an outsider, he would ask how they discern between stereo equipment and multichannel equipment, since at times, the division bell is blurred. Well duh, multichannel has more than two channels? -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
|
#116
|
|||
|
|||
|
On 4 Apr 2005 23:58:00 GMT, "Michael Mossey"
wrote: The whole point of audio is to duplicate a conscious experience. Some would say that it is to reproduce the original sound. You are attempting to overcomplicate what it a simple goal - if difficult to realise. You accuse others of 'reductionism', I accuse you of sophistry. Example: intermodulation distortion interferes with the conscious experience of music more than harmonic distortion. So an amplifier that has a tiny amount of intermodulation distortion and NO harmonic distortion, is less accurate than an amplier that has a lot of harmonic distortion and no IM distortion. The amplifier with less distortion in terms of numbers is arguably LESS accurate. This shows the danger of separating the conscious effect of distortion from the measurement of distortion. You claim to have graduated from Caltech, majoring in Engineering, and you believe that such amplifiers are possible? Hmmmm Besides, all you argument above shows, is that THD is not the best indicator of audible distortion. We knew that already. Now, if I want to assert that digital is less accurate than analog, of course I eventually have to provide evidence that a measureable form of distortion exists. Digital has measureable distortion Does it? What distortion is that? --the question is whether it is audible. I know it's not a question for you, but it is still an open question for me. I fear that your life will be full of 'open questions' if you persist in ignoring evidence. Life is short, questions are many. -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
|
#117
|
|||
|
|||
|
chung wrote:
Michael Mossey wrote: Chung wrote: Michael Mossey wrote: I was a student at Caltech 1987 to 1991. Let me get this straight. You went to Caltech, and you believe that interconnects may sound different? I don't believe that interconnects sound different---I'm just open to it as a possibility, and I see problems in the tests that have attempted to rule out that possibility. So you don't believe it, but you are open to it as a possibilty. What evidence have you encountered that leads to this openness? From reviews? BTW, you could be a very busy man, if you are open to possibilities that you don't believe in, and you want to test them. Remember the old saying: if you have too open a mind, your brain may fall out. Don't you think that if there were audible differences, they will be accompanied by easily meaasureable differences? So why not make measurements, instead of long DBT's? Do you have any theory as to why they may sound different? If we knew what to measure, yes. Anyway, don't they all measure differently? Isn't the question whether the difference is within the threshold of hearing? Well, for starters, frequency response, distortion, and noise added. We know that we can only detect about a 0.3 dB difference in level (but most likely only in a quick switching test, I might add) at 1KHz. There is really no reason why a mechanically sound cable can introduce distortion or noise, but those impairments can easily be measured down to the -100 dB level. Any reason why you think there may be impairments from cables that can be heard but not measured? If two cables measure differently, like one is 1 inch longer, you think they may sound different? Why do you think that we might not know what to measure, when it comes to cables? I just read in Moore that it is a pretty good assumption that Weber's law holds not just for the ear as a whole, but for each "unit" (hair cell/neuron) within the ear. That's a pretty good argument that experiments to detect the DL (discriminatory limen) on pure tones will be relevant to the transfer function on audio equipment.. i.e., if a cable is flat to better than one DL then it provides no audible distortion.. at least in its transfer function. Non-linearities in the cable... you say they can be measured down to -100 dB. Note that measuring the transfer function of a LTI system completely characterizes it. So does measuring the impulse response. This is because the response to a complex signal can be summed from the components of that signal, in a linear system. However, this is not true of a non-linear system. So what would it mean to *characterize* the nonlinearity of a non-linear system? In what way could we make a few measurements and satisfy ourselves that we have knowledge of that system? Satisfy ourselves that we can predict that system's response to any signal? Want to take a shot at this question? Just out of curiosity, what did you major in at Caltech? "Engineering and Applied Science." It gave me a good background in linear time-invariant models of systems. Well, one of my professors started a linear systems course by stating that the whole blackboard is the set of all systems. Then he placed a chalk dot on the board, and said that the dot represented the set of all linear systems. It may be worthy to note that it is almost the definition of reductionism to consider linear time-invariant systems. Not that there is anything wrong with being reductionistic. It is really unusual to hear a graduate from Caltech talk about interconnects possibly sounding different, yet have no theory for why they may sound different, or believe that they might sound different. Or hear him say that there are digital artifacts, but presents no evidence. By the way, science proceeds from the hypothesis stage to the experiment stage. I'm in the hypothesis stage. Do you want to stamp out competing hypotheses before they can be tested? Isn't that unscientific and more like a turf-war? -Mike |
|
#118
|
|||
|
|||
|
"chung" wrote in message
... Harry F Lavo wrote: "Chung" wrote in message ... Harry F Lavo wrote: "Chung" wrote in message ... Harry F Lavo wrote: "Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message The industry is firmly committed to high res as sounding better. They just don't know what its commercial future is. Hard to find a sound engineer anywhere who will support your position. Hard to find any pro gear that is not upgrading to 24/96 (in or out) or greater. Would Benchmark have built in 24/96 downconversion if it didn't count in monitoring quality? And don't tell me that it is only for mixing...that may hold for the inputs, but not for the outputs. The ordinary pro audio world is moving to 24/96 surround as a needed output, whether as straight DVD-A, or as downmixed Dolby Digital / DTS. With the stereo tracks maintained at this or a higher 24/192 rate. And a substantial portion of the classical pro audio world has moved to DSD for its superior naturalness as a mastering technology using simple micing. Given the line of reasoning you have demonstrated above, can we finally conclude that digital audio (including the redbook CD standard) sounds better than vinyl? After all, the industry has been firmly committed to digital audio since, oh, the early '80's. It's so nice to have closure... Only by your stretch of logic....... Somehow, your own logic, applied to vinyl vs digital, sounds rather illogical to you, I guess... The only thing that I've ever claimed for vinyl is that in my own informal testing among younger people raised on cd's, they come away prefering vinyl when presented with commercial material from identical masters in the two media. This done using my equipment played through my system. And I presented it as antecdotal, not 'evidence' in support of the fact that many people, audiophiles and non-audiophiles alike (when exposed to very good vinyl playback) seem to find it more compelling (descirbed as "more realistic") than CD. I've further stated that for me this hasn't been an issue since about 1990 when CD playback equipment finally got good enough to allow me to enjoy the unmistakable benefits of the silver disk because the perceived difference if any from vinyl had gotten narrow enough that convenience won out. But in close comparative listening, I still usually prefer the vinyl for sound quality alone. This as I have pointed out is also consistent with my preference for jazz, chamber, and singer-songwriters...none of which makes large dynamic demands at the frequency extremes. So where in all this do you see logical flaws? Well, when I presented your line of reasoning (basically you were saying that since pro-audio has gone to 24/96 that must mean hi-rez sounds better) and deduced from that line that digital audio must sound better than vinyl, since pro-audio has gone digital since 1980's, you said that it was a stretch of logic on my part. That's why I said that your own logic somehow did not sound logical *to you*, when it was used to compare vinyl vs CD or digital audio. No, it means high-rez has gotten close and the convenience, editing, and mixing advantages (and cost) are much on digital's side. Moreover, we are talking pro input here, for a long time 24/48 and for a substantial time 24/96. Not the final consumer output of 44.1/16 CD. You've had closure...or at least a closed mind to vinyl...for as long as you've been here. I have some vinyl recordings that are well recorded, and I have digital recordings that are poorly recorded. What I am objecting to, if you have noticed, are pseudo-technical claims of the imaginary short-comings of digital so as to prove the superiority of vinyl. Would you care to quote me? I don't recall making those claims for a long, long time..if ever. Well, in this instance, in this very thread, people were saying that there were digital artifacts, yet presented no evidence. Just off the top of my head, I remember you were quoting someone saying that PCM sounded bad, and IIRC, you said it was one of the best articles on PCM? Perhaps I am objecting to those views you readily accept and welcome? What other people has said is of no relevance to what I may have said. Here's that post of yours: http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...3?dmode=source An article simply refering you folks to an article by Ed Meitner? In praise of DSD? What has that to do with my views on vinyl? And here is another example of you actually making claims of the imaginary short-comings of digital: http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...e?dmode=source where you claimed: "(my issues) with CD's tendency to have less depth and a 'flatter' bass and lower midrange dimensionality." "(SACD) has the absence of digital artifacts, same as vinyl and pre-recorded tape". I am sure there are a lot more examples. There aren't...as you must know if you reviewed the post. I was descibing specifically some of the subjective sonic problems that I and many other (and many professional recording people) recognize as problems with the CD playback standard...indeed many here in the objectivist camp acknowledge the filtering issue with regard to CD playback. I went on to discuss analog tape, DSD, and PCM, again from a listening standpoint and concluded: "I'm not sure what your point is here. My issues have always largely been with the high-end of the CD standard. And secondarily with CD's tendency to have less depth and a 'flatter' bass and lower midrange dimensionality. SACD solves these problems wonderfully. So does DVD-A. Both assuming equipment that allows the advantage to come through, of course." Where in this do you find me anti-digital or obsessively pro-vinyl? I didn't even discuss vinyl. Also, interesting that when I said I object to something, you immediately assume that I was objecting to what you claim, as in here and now. ???? I don't understand what you are saying. Measured by recreating the emotional impact and sense of "realism" of the original performance, vinyl still has much to recommend it, given careful selection of the components reproducing it. You get it all wrong. The creation of emotional impact and realism is in the hands of the performers and the producers, and is certainly not better done via the LP technology. It fact, LP technology is demonstrably less accurate, by all measures of accuracy. I don't get it wrong at all. The medium that lets whatever is there in a great performance get through most akin to that same performance heard live is the superior medium, from a musical standpoint regardless of the technical merits of same. Thus I often prefer vinyl to cd in this regard, and usually prefer SACD to DVD-A, and either to CD. Based on my emperical observation that for me, these media offer more examples of this "akin to live" experience. Of course, there is the minor problem that digital redbook audio so often proves to be much more transparent (like the Lip****z test found), and vinyl is demonstrably inaccurate compared to CD. The point is that the realism and emotion should be set by the performers and the producers, and the medium has to be as faithful as possible. As an engineer, I can understand your viewing it that way. But if the goal is to promote as close as possible the reproduction/emotional response of a live performance through a long chain of electronics and mechnical devices, then the most technically accurate in conventional measurements may not be the one that succeeds the most in "getting out of the way" to allow the performance to assert itself. As Michael points out, we aren't necessarily even yet aware that what we are measuring are the most important things, sonically. |
|
#119
|
|||
|
|||
|
"Michael Mossey" wrote in message
... Harry F Lavo wrote: "Gary Rosen" wrote in message ... "Michael Mossey" wrote in message ... Don't response to this post as though it were saying "I know what's true and you don't." I don't really think that you are unable to know yourself. I think it is more likely that you know yourself enough to come to some valid conclusions about audio--for yourself. And that you have a different brain than I do, one that arrives at different conclusions about audio. Aren't you basically saying, then, that *all* human perceptions are ultimately subjective? And would that not then lead to the conclusion that truly objective measurements only could be made by electronic instruments that do not have feelings or biases or preconceptions? There is a whole body of market research approaches used in commercial product development and in the social sciences that properly used can help "objectify the subjective". I also think that when James Boyk says that realism in audio goes in the order "live microphone feed," "good analog tape," "good digital tape" he is also knowing himself pretty well. Maybe he and I like the euphonic distortions, but then why do we think a live microphone feed is the most realistic source of all? Presents a thorny problem. Unless you chose the live microphone feed in a blind test, the reason you (and Boyk) think it is most realistic may be because you already know it is live. Not necessarily such a thorny problem :^). Well, you'd have to assume then that A and C sound the same but that A is rated higher than B because it is live, and C is rated lower than B because it is digital. Expectation bias, could cause this, but it is a pretty big stretch if A and C truly do sound identical (not so difficult if they don't sound identical.) So a corallary might be, if they chose "A" (live) as best, then they must have heard enough difference from "C" (digital) to rank it last. That's what's puzzling about it to me, too. I didn't do quick-switch comparison of all three sources.. I had a "convergence of non-comparitive listening impressions." In other words, on many occasions I heard the different sources and found a pattern emerging in the reactions I had. We could dismiss this experience, but consider this thought experiment: I am blindfolded and kept in a room. Once per day someone walks in the room and speaks to me. There are a total of ten people and every day one of them is chosen at random to enter the room and speak to me. I am asked to give a name to each voice. At the end of one year, I am tested to see if I can consistently name and differentiate the ten people. I'm willing to bet that I could do it, and that it would be easy. Notice that I would have no chance to put one voice up against the other in time. This says something about audio memory. I will be investigating this and looking to see if it bears any relation to the difference between non-comparitive and comparitive listening. You'll find the party line here is that audible memory is an extremely short term phenomenon. And you'll get some gobbledy-gook about why voices are the exception. However, the fact of the recent finding that the ear cortex itself has a "memory" for tones when a song has been memorized means that it does not take too wild a flight of fancy to suggest that people exposed to live acoustic music may very well have some inbred "memory" (I call it that as developed in the ear) for the sound of say, a live violin, or a live trumpet, experienced in enough acoustical enviroment that the ear "knows" what is characteristic of the instrument. If this should turn out to be the case, then if an audio system reproduces a violin or a trumpet, and the sound is "not quite right" it might manifest itself by slowly growing into consciousness that component "X" in the system just doesn't sound as "right" as component "Y". And all this may be taking place largely at an unconscious level, until it rises into the consciousness. A corallary: it is highly unlikely that it would manifest itself in a consciously-focused, quick-switch test. Intriguing, eh? |
|
#120
|
|||
|
|||
|
Michael Mossey wrote:
We could dismiss this experience, but consider this thought experiment: I am blindfolded and kept in a room. Once per day someone walks in the room and speaks to me. There are a total of ten people and every day one of them is chosen at random to enter the room and speak to me. I am asked to give a name to each voice. At the end of one year, I am tested to see if I can consistently name and differentiate the ten people. I'm willing to bet that I could do it, and that it would be easy. Notice that I would have no chance to put one voice up against the other in time. This says something about audio memory. I will be investigating this and looking to see if it bears any relation to the difference between non-comparitive and comparitive listening. It doesn't, because the difference between human voices is so far above threshold, and because human voices are sounds that we have learned to recognize patterns in (unlike, say, partial loudness differences). This is also why we have little trouble recognizing familiar voices over the telephone, or even cellphones. BTW, the same thing is true of music. We have learned to recognize patterns in music (and some of that recognition--though probably not much of it--may be hard-wired), but those differences are far above threshold, so the experience is of no relevance to questions of audio-level differences. bob |
| Reply |
| Thread Tools | |
| Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads
|
||||
| Thread | Forum | |||
| Swap Vinyl Save Cash! | Marketplace | |||
| Timing | High End Audio | |||
| Audio over DVD video? | High End Audio | |||
| CD verses vinyl - help clear dispute | Pro Audio | |||
| SOTA vinyl mastering | High End Audio | |||
Linear Mode
