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#1
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
Modern audio Journalism is really infuriating to me because the folks
who make up the bulk of all magazine writers reviewing in the field of audio today try to assess the performance of audio components using program material that is totally unsuited to the task at hand. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm getting damned tired of picking up a magazine like 'Stereophile', 'The Absolute Sound', or even Britain's great 'Hi-Fi News and Record Review' to read about some new piece of equipment only to encounter something like this: "...the soundstage and image specificity of these speakers was phenomenal. The kick drum playing of the band "Terd's" drummer Peter Pothead, was solidly located just behind the bass guitar and to the left of lead singer Johnny Juice." I'm sorry, folks, that's all stuff and nonsense. It doesn't matter where Peter Pohthead's kick drum was located (hopefully it shows-up where the rest of the drum set shows up, but it doesn't have to..) physically. It was likely captured by a drum kit mike setup, with one mike for the kick drum, another for the snare, still another for the tom-tom, and yet a fourth mike for the cymbals. And each one of those drum components appears in the speakers where they were electronically PLACED using pan-pots, not where they physically appeared on the recording "stage". And Johnny Juice's lead guitar? Well, he is likely holding it, but if his Marshall guitar amp is setting kinda off to the side, then that's where his guitar will SOUND like it is - assuming you were there with the band in the studio when the session was recorded. Otherwise, again, it will appear on playback wherever the recording engineers put it. Johnny's booze and dope strained gravel voice? Well that appears dead center, because again, it's where the engineer put him (it's traditional). Any attempt by a reviewer to make decisions about sound quality, imaging, even frequency response using this kind of studio music is simply an exercise in abject futility. First of all. If you don't ever listen to real, live, amplified music, and listen often, you have no idea what real instruments are SUPPOSED to sound like. People who listen to pop music almost exclusively have likely NEVER attended a classical (or even a non-amplified jazz) concert. If you don't know what real music is supposed to sound like, how can you judge what a playback system is doing to the music? You can't. I know there are people who will tell you that they can tell the difference between a Fender Stratocaster Guitar and a Gibson or a Martin electric guitar. Perhaps they can, but what about the sound imparted by the different brands and styles of amplifiers used with these guitars? Can one tell the difference after the sound had gone through a fuzz box? I don't claim to know. Here's another question that comes to mind. In studio settings many instruments such as a saxophone or a trumpet are captured using a contact microphone. These mikes pick-up the actual vibrations of the body of the instrument itself rather than the sound (I.E. differences in air pressure) heard by a regular mike sitting in front of the instrument. I can tell you from experience that an instrument captured by a contact mike sounds almost nothing like the same instrument captured by a traditional mike. And all of this manipulation is occurring before the mike signals reach the control room and go through frequency shifters, voice multipliers, sound-on-sound and sound-with-sound processors, reverb generators, compressors, limiters, and a myriad of other special effects boxes that I'm not familiar with! When recording personnel record the instruments rather than the space these instruments occupy, all bets for accuracy are off. Now I make no apologies for, nor do I try to hide, my personal disdain for what has passed for popular music over the last 50 years or so. I also realize that mass taste has changed mightily in that time and I will defend with my very being the right of each individual to listen to the music he or she LIKES. But, this has nothing, whatsoever, to do with a genre's suitability to the task at hand. In 1970, for instance, an audio publication was about how classical music was reproduced on the equipment of the day and they actually had something REAL to compare the equipment against. Pop music was almost never mentioned and jazz only rarely. Now it's completely reversed. Every review I read tells me how The Who, or Cat Stevens, or Rod Stewart' latest album (along with a myriad of more recent groups and soloists that I have never heard of at all) sounds on this piece of equipment or that (jazz is still, rarely mentioned). These kinds of comparisons are totally meaningless! If the music doesn't exist in real space, then the accuracy of the playback totally becomes a matter personal tastes and as a means of communicating opinions from one group of people to another, it's arbitrary, and clearly NOT useful. I realize that the magazines like 'Stereophile' et al have to try to cater to todays equipment buyers in order to remain "relevant" with their readers, but what is going on in audio reviewing today is akin to somebody testing an asphalt paving machine using using salt-water taffy instead of asphalt. The results obtained from such a test have absolutely no bearing on how the paving machine will perform when paving roads with hot asphalt! Likewise a speaker review (for instance) using studio recorded pop music bears little or no relation to how that speaker system might perform with REAL, live acoustical music and anybody who thinks that it does, is deluded. Frustrating! |
#2
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
On 7/30/2013 3:52 PM, Audio_Empire wrote:
snip First of all. If you don't ever listen to real, live, amplified music, I assume you meant "un-amplified"? Pop music was almost never mentioned and jazz only rarely. Now it's completely reversed. Every review I read tells me how The Who, or Cat Stevens, or Rod Stewart' latest album (along with a myriad of more recent groups and soloists that I have never heard of at all) This would appear to say volumes about your knowledge of pop music. If the music doesn't exist in real space, then the accuracy of the playback totally becomes a matter personal tastes and as a means of communicating opinions from one group of people to another, it's arbitrary, and clearly NOT useful. Personal tastes, irrespective of listening tastes, are arbitrary, and NOT useful to others relative to what they may like or find "accurate". The results obtained from such a test have absolutely no bearing on how the paving machine will perform when paving roads with hot asphalt! Likewise a speaker review (for instance) using studio recorded pop music bears little or no relation to how that speaker system might perform with REAL, live acoustical music and anybody who thinks that it does, is deluded. It bears directly on how a system will sound with the referenced system - in the opinion of the reviewer. How is that less useful than a review of how a speaker system sounds with music that the reader couldn't care less about, and won't be listening too? Frustrating! They are entertainment, IMO, and nothing more, no matter what the musical selections are. Keith |
#3
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
In article , KH
wrote: On 7/30/2013 3:52 PM, Audio_Empire wrote: snip First of all. If you don't ever listen to real, live, amplified music, I assume you meant "un-amplified"? Pop music was almost never mentioned and jazz only rarely. Now it's completely reversed. Every review I read tells me how The Who, or Cat Stevens, or Rod Stewart' latest album (along with a myriad of more recent groups and soloists that I have never heard of at all) This would appear to say volumes about your knowledge of pop music. I know enough * more than I want to. And if you are saying that I am wrong here, then I believe it says more about your knowledge of music and reproduction than it does about mine. If the music doesn't exist in real space, then the accuracy of the playback totally becomes a matter personal tastes and as a means of communicating opinions from one group of people to another, it's arbitrary, and clearly NOT useful. Personal tastes, irrespective of listening tastes, are arbitrary, and NOT useful to others relative to what they may like or find "accurate". The results obtained from such a test have absolutely no bearing on how the paving machine will perform when paving roads with hot asphalt! Likewise a speaker review (for instance) using studio recorded pop music bears little or no relation to how that speaker system might perform with REAL, live acoustical music and anybody who thinks that it does, is deluded. It bears directly on how a system will sound with the referenced system - in the opinion of the reviewer. How is that less useful than a review of how a speaker system sounds with music that the reader couldn't care less about, and won't be listening too? Because he will at least know that the reviewer is basing his opinion on the quality of reproduction of a known absolute. A string section is a string section, but an electric guitar can be made (and often is) to sound like anything the musician and engineer want it to sound like. I.E., It's not a REAL acoustic instrument that can be experienced with nothing between the player and the listener but real space. Frustrating! They are entertainment, IMO, and nothing more, no matter what the musical selections are. Again, we're not talking about the entertainment qualities of the music. That IS, and should be, a matter of personal taste. We are talking about judging the reproductive qualities of electro-mechanical devices designed to play music accurately. If one doesn't know what the music is SUPPOSED to sound like, how can one judge the accuracy of playback? We know what a violin is supposed to sound like. we know what a solo acoustic guitar is supposed to sound like, and we know what a technologically unaltered human voice sounds like. These things can be used * to a greater or lesser extent, to judge the reproductive accuracy of a playback system. Not just some some arbitrary "it sounds good", but it's ACCURACY. Wholly artificial non-acoustic studio music has none of these qualities. Anyone who says that they know what "Dark Side of the Moon" is SUPPOSED to sound like, unless they were there in the studio when the album was recorded, is either deluding himself, or lying. There is no third alternative. Now, one may LIKE what they hear when they play "Dark Side of the Moon" on a particular stereo system, but they have no way of knowing to any degree of certitude whether that pleasing playback is accurate to the original performance and that's my point. If all you are interested in is that the music is recognizable as being Pink Floyd, fine. But don't tell me that makes any piece of stereo gear accurate just because it does that. There is more to it than that and I maintain that one cannot make any determination beyond "it sounds good to me" using music that has no REAL SOUND without a studio and a cadre of engineer and producers between the performers and the listeners. --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: --- |
#4
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
On 7/31/2013 10:29 AM, Audio_Empire wrote:
In article , KH wrote: On 7/30/2013 3:52 PM, Audio_Empire wrote: snip This would appear to say volumes about your knowledge of pop music. I know enough * more than I want to. And if you are saying that I am wrong here, then I believe it says more about your knowledge of music and reproduction than it does about mine. I'm saying you clearly don't know the range of "pop" music, quite a lot of which is acoustic, because you don't care, and *you* don't listen to any, by your own admission, so you don't seem to be in a strong position to opine on it's suitability for auditioning. snip It bears directly on how a system will sound with the referenced system - in the opinion of the reviewer. How is that less useful than a review of how a speaker system sounds with music that the reader couldn't care less about, and won't be listening too? Because he will at least know that the reviewer is basing his opinion on the quality of reproduction of a known absolute. A string section is a string section, but an electric guitar can be made (and often is) to sound like anything the musician and engineer want it to sound like. And to someone who never listens to string sections, but listens to electric guitars routinely, of what value is an opinion on accuracy of "strings" reproduction? I know what your point is, but you fail to take into account that many audiophiles - including yours truly - listen to many types of music that doesn't qualify as "suitable" in your lexicon, but we nonetheless care a great deal about quality. You don't understand how that's possible; fair enough. But your opinion is no more valid than mine. I.E., It's not a REAL acoustic instrument that can be experienced with nothing between the player and the listener but real space. Frustrating! They are entertainment, IMO, and nothing more, no matter what the musical selections are. Again, we're not talking about the entertainment qualities of the music. No, I'm talking about *reviews* here, not music. You are describing reviews that have relevance to *you* as the only useful reviews. My point is that reviews are all subjective, and only useful as entertainment since there are no standards being employed. Even if "live, unamplified" is used as the "reference", there is zero evidence that I (or anyone else) would agree with any particular reviewer or review. snip I maintain that one cannot make any determination beyond "it sounds good to me" And yes, I would agree with that point. *Without* any qualifiers however. Keith |
#5
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
In article , KH
wrote: On 7/31/2013 10:29 AM, Audio_Empire wrote: In article , KH wrote: On 7/30/2013 3:52 PM, Audio_Empire wrote: snip This would appear to say volumes about your knowledge of pop music. I know enough – more than I want to. And if you are saying that I am wrong here, then I believe it says more about your knowledge of music and reproduction than it does about mine. I'm saying you clearly don't know the range of "pop" music, quite a lot of which is acoustic, because you don't care, and *you* don't listen to any, by your own admission, so you don't seem to be in a strong position to opine on it's suitability for auditioning. snip It bears directly on how a system will sound with the referenced system - in the opinion of the reviewer. How is that less useful than a review of how a speaker system sounds with music that the reader couldn't care less about, and won't be listening too? Because he will at least know that the reviewer is basing his opinion on the quality of reproduction of a known absolute. A string section is a string section, but an electric guitar can be made (and often is) to sound like anything the musician and engineer want it to sound like. And to someone who never listens to string sections, but listens to electric guitars routinely, of what value is an opinion on accuracy of "strings" reproduction? Not important. What is important is that the reviewer KNOWS what a string section sounds like and therefore he can tell how accurate the reproducing system is to that sound. Then he can tell his readers that this system is very accurate. They can then go listen to their pop/rock music knowing that it will accurately reproduce that as well. The reverse, is unfortunately not the case, and that's my point. I know what your point is, but you fail to take into account that many audiophiles - including yours truly - listen to many types of music that doesn't qualify as "suitable" in your lexicon, but we nonetheless care a great deal about quality. You don't understand how that's possible; fair enough. But your opinion is no more valid than mine. If that's what you think my point is, then you are wrong. You have NO idea what I'm getting at. I.E., It's not a REAL acoustic instrument that can be experienced with nothing between the player and the listener but real space. Frustrating! They are entertainment, IMO, and nothing more, no matter what the musical selections are. Again, we're not talking about the entertainment qualities of the music.. No, I'm talking about *reviews* here, not music. You are describing reviews that have relevance to *you* as the only useful reviews. AGAIN, YOU MISS THE POINT COMPLETELY. High-Fidelity is defined as: "The reproduction of sound with little distortion, giving a result very similar to the original." How can it do that when no one knows what the original is supposed to sound like? We all know what an acoustic guitar or a grand piano sounds like and can easily tell when we hear a system that makes it sound different from what we expect - because we all KNOW (unless we've lived in a cave somewhere) what we expect the instruments to sound like. But pop/rock is TOTALLY a studio creation. If you weren't there when the sound was "realized" how can you judge any playback system's accuracy to that sound. You can't and that's that! My point is that reviews are all subjective, and only useful as entertainment since there are no standards being employed. While that might or might not be true (depending on the reviewer) at least if they are using real unamplified music as a reference, they have a chance of getting it right. Using studio manufactured music, they don't even have a valid starting point, never mind the destination. Even if "live, unamplified" is used as the "reference", there is zero evidence that I (or anyone else) would agree with any particular reviewer or review. Again, that's grasping at straws. If a person knows what a grand piano, for instance, sounds like, then he is going to have a pretty good idea whether the grand piano he is hearing sounds like a grand piano or a kazoo. Sorry to use such a gross example, but you continue to conflate the unsuitability of pop and rock as an evaluation tool with it's legitimacy as an art form. As long as you (and others) continue to take umbrage at my disdain for the program material as music rather than focus on the fact that it's the FORM the music takes here that I'm complaining about, not its content, then you are continually going to misunderstand what I'm trying to say. snip I maintain that one cannot make any determination beyond "it sounds good to me" And yes, I would agree with that point. *Without* any qualifiers however. Then what's the use of the concept of high-fidelity? Fidelity to what? |
#6
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
On Wednesday, July 31, 2013 7:46:42 PM UTC-7, KH wrote:
On 7/31/2013 10:29 AM, Audio_Empire wrote: =20 In article , KH =20 wrote: =20 =20 On 7/30/2013 3:52 PM, Audio_Empire wrote: =20 snip =20 =20 =20 This would appear to say volumes about your knowledge of pop music. =20 =20 I know enough =AD more than I want to. And if you are saying that I am =20 wrong here, then I believe it says more about your knowledge of music =20 and reproduction than it does about mine. =20 =20 =20 I'm saying you clearly don't know the range of "pop" music, quite a lot= =20 =20 of which is acoustic, because you don't care, and *you* don't listen to= =20 =20 any, by your own admission, so you don't seem to be in a strong position= =20 =20 to opine on it's suitability for auditioning. You continue to miss the point. If a piece of pop music is acoustic, then t= here=20 I have absolutely no problem with some reviewer evaluating equipment using= =20 it. Just because I dislike pop/rock and it is no part of my musical life do= esn't=20 mean that reject it as an evaluation tool based on that dislike. My objecti= ons=20 are based solely upon the suitability (or lack thereof) of the results of t= he=20 production process for the task. You also seem to think that my criticism is predicated on the fact that I, = personally have no common ground with these reviewers and that since their results are= =20 obtained using recordings with which I am unfamiliar, I condemn them. Nothi= ng could be further from the truth. My criticisms are based upon my knowledge = of=20 recording practices and how I know that many pop and rock groups' performan= ces=20 cannot exist outside of a studio as witnessed by the undeniable fact that w= hen these=20 performers go on concert tours, THEY HAVE TO TAKE THEIR STUDIOS WITH THEM, = or their concert performances can't exist and their popular works won't sound = like their recordings of the same works. . =20 |
#7
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
On 8/1/2013 7:32 PM, Audio_Empire wrote:
On Wednesday, July 31, 2013 7:46:42 PM UTC-7, KH wrote: On 7/31/2013 10:29 AM, Audio_Empire wrote: In article , KH wrote: On 7/30/2013 3:52 PM, Audio_Empire wrote: snip This would appear to say volumes about your knowledge of pop music. I know enough * more than I want to. And if you are saying that I am wrong here, then I believe it says more about your knowledge of music and reproduction than it does about mine. I'm saying you clearly don't know the range of "pop" music, quite a lot of which is acoustic, because you don't care, and *you* don't listen to any, by your own admission, so you don't seem to be in a strong position to opine on it's suitability for auditioning. You continue to miss the point. If a piece of pop music is acoustic, then there I have absolutely no problem with some reviewer evaluating equipment using it. Just because I dislike pop/rock and it is no part of my musical life doesn't mean that reject it as an evaluation tool based on that dislike. My objections are based solely upon the suitability (or lack thereof) of the results of the production process for the task. Then you should be more clear in your denunciations of "pop" being universally unsuitable for auditioning. The fact is that there is a great deal of "pop" that is acoustic, or has an acoustic component (e.g. an orchestral backing). Yet you name a few artists - from long ago no less (albeit ones I listen to) - as though they represent the range of "pop" music. That is *my* point - you don't *know* the range of "pop" music, thus your wholesale exclusion of it is ridiculous. There is a great deal of "pop" that meets "your" criteria, as well as a great deal that doesn't, but meets the needs and desires of *other* audiophiles. Keith |
#8
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
Audio_Empire wrote:
I realize that the magazines like 'Stereophile' et al have to try to cater to todays equipment buyers in order to remain "relevant" with their readers, but what is going on in audio reviewing today is akin to somebody testing an asphalt paving machine using using salt-water taffy instead of asphalt. The results obtained from such a test have absolutely no bearing on how the paving machine will perform when paving roads with hot asphalt! Likewise a speaker review (for instance) using studio recorded pop music bears little or no relation to how that speaker system might perform with REAL, live acoustical music and anybody who thinks that it does, is deluded. So what? I've never seen any evidence that great-sounding speakers don't sound great with all kinds of music. Also, it makes sense to listen to speakers playing the kind of music you know well. Those of us who have been listening to The Dark Side Of The Moon for the last forty years continue to be delighted when a system reveals some subtle detail we hadn't heard before. That's priceless. Andrew. |
#9
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
In article ,
Andrew Haley wrote: Audio_Empire wrote: I realize that the magazines like 'Stereophile' et al have to try to cater to todays equipment buyers in order to remain "relevant" with their readers, but what is going on in audio reviewing today is akin to somebody testing an asphalt paving machine using using salt-water taffy instead of asphalt. The results obtained from such a test have absolutely no bearing on how the paving machine will perform when paving roads with hot asphalt! Likewise a speaker review (for instance) using studio recorded pop music bears little or no relation to how that speaker system might perform with REAL, live acoustical music and anybody who thinks that it does, is deluded. So what? I've never seen any evidence that great-sounding speakers don't sound great with all kinds of music. Also, it makes sense to listen to speakers playing the kind of music you know well. That's incorrect for a start. I repeat. If you don't have a good idea what real music sounds like, then you have no basis for judging whether a piece of reproducing equipment is accurate or not. Case in point. A speaker system, reviewed by a rocker several years ago was declared to have the best bass that the reviewer in question had ever heard. When I got to audition the same speaker, I found that the bass was wooly, and had a huge mid-bass peak . It might have made the kick-drum of some rock group sit up and do tricks, but it made organ music sound dreadful. Problem was, the reviewer didn't know the difference because he only auditioned the speaker with music he liked and that music was all electronic studio produced and manipulated sound. I.E. not real instruments playing in real space. Those of us who have been listening to The Dark Side Of The Moon for the last forty years continue to be delighted when a system reveals some subtle detail we hadn't heard before. That's priceless. Hopefully, you know what real music sounds like and don't judge sound quality using solely artificial musical performances such as "Dark Side of the Moon". --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: --- |
#10
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
Audio_Empire wrote:
In article , Andrew Haley wrote: Audio_Empire wrote: I realize that the magazines like 'Stereophile' et al have to try to cater to todays equipment buyers in order to remain "relevant" with their readers, but what is going on in audio reviewing today is akin to somebody testing an asphalt paving machine using using salt-water taffy instead of asphalt. The results obtained from such a test have absolutely no bearing on how the paving machine will perform when paving roads with hot asphalt! Likewise a speaker review (for instance) using studio recorded pop music bears little or no relation to how that speaker system might perform with REAL, live acoustical music and anybody who thinks that it does, is deluded. So what? I've never seen any evidence that great-sounding speakers don't sound great with all kinds of music. Also, it makes sense to listen to speakers playing the kind of music you know well. That's incorrect for a start. I repeat. If you don't have a good idea what real music sounds like, then you have no basis for judging whether a piece of reproducing equipment is accurate or not. That's your claim. You can repeat it as much as you like. Case in point. A speaker system, reviewed by a rocker several years ago was declared to have the best bass that the reviewer in question had ever heard. When I got to audition the same speaker, I found that the bass was wooly, and had a huge mid-bass peak . It might have made the kick-drum of some rock group sit up and do tricks, but it made organ music sound dreadful. Problem was, the reviewer didn't know the difference because he only auditioned the speaker with music he liked and that music was all electronic studio produced and manipulated sound. I.E. not real instruments playing in real space. Or, perhaps, he didn't know good sound. Flabby bass usually sounds bad on all music with bass. Those of us who have been listening to The Dark Side Of The Moon for the last forty years continue to be delighted when a system reveals some subtle detail we hadn't heard before. That's priceless. Hopefully, you know what real music sounds like and don't judge sound quality using solely artificial musical performances such as "Dark Side of the Moon". All music is artificial, with the possible exception of birdsong. I do know what real music sounds like and I do judge sound quality using artificial musical performances such as Dark Side of the Moon. It's an immaculate piece of work, with a great deal of attention paid to superb sound. I also listen to purely acoustic music, to the extent that recordings can be purely anything. "There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind ..... the only yardstick by which the result should be judged is simply that of how it sounds. If it sounds good it's successful; if it doesn't it has failed." Andrew. |
#11
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
In article ,
Andrew Haley wrote: Audio_Empire wrote: In article , Andrew Haley wrote: Audio_Empire wrote: I realize that the magazines like 'Stereophile' et al have to try to cater to todays equipment buyers in order to remain "relevant" with their readers, but what is going on in audio reviewing today is akin to somebody testing an asphalt paving machine using using salt-water taffy instead of asphalt. The results obtained from such a test have absolutely no bearing on how the paving machine will perform when paving roads with hot asphalt! Likewise a speaker review (for instance) using studio recorded pop music bears little or no relation to how that speaker system might perform with REAL, live acoustical music and anybody who thinks that it does, is deluded. So what? I've never seen any evidence that great-sounding speakers don't sound great with all kinds of music. Also, it makes sense to listen to speakers playing the kind of music you know well. That's incorrect for a start. I repeat. If you don't have a good idea what real music sounds like, then you have no basis for judging whether a piece of reproducing equipment is accurate or not. That's your claim. You can repeat it as much as you like. I find it remarkable that anybody would try to refute this claim, especially since it's much more than that, it's actually not only fact, but it should be self-evident fact! Case in point. A speaker system, reviewed by a rocker several years ago was declared to have the best bass that the reviewer in question had ever heard. When I got to audition the same speaker, I found that the bass was wooly, and had a huge mid-bass peak . It might have made the kick-drum of some rock group sit up and do tricks, but it made organ music sound dreadful. Problem was, the reviewer didn't know the difference because he only auditioned the speaker with music he liked and that music was all electronic studio produced and manipulated sound. I.E. not real instruments playing in real space. Or, perhaps, he didn't know good sound. Flabby bass usually sounds bad on all music with bass. I don't doubt that. Those of us who have been listening to The Dark Side Of The Moon for the last forty years continue to be delighted when a system reveals some subtle detail we hadn't heard before. That's priceless. Hopefully, you know what real music sounds like and don't judge sound quality using solely artificial musical performances such as "Dark Side of the Moon". All music is artificial, with the possible exception of birdsong. Now you're being purposely obtuse as I'm more than reasonably sure that you know exactly what I mean. I do know what real music sounds like and I do judge sound quality using artificial musical performances such as Dark Side of the Moon. It's an immaculate piece of work, with a great deal of attention paid to superb sound. I also listen to purely acoustic music, to the extent that recordings can be purely anything. How can you judge things like soundstage and imaging from such recordings that have have none? "There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind .... the only yardstick by which the result should be judged is simply that of how it sounds. If it sounds good it's successful; if it doesn't it has failed." I just don't think understand, possible on purpose. I say LISTEN to what you like, but EVALUATE for publication using the best acoustical source material you can find. If magazine reviewers would follow that simple rule of thumb, they would do their readers and the industry a great service. --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: --- |
#12
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
On 7/31/2013 5:48 PM, Audio_Empire wrote:
In article , Andrew Haley wrote: Audio_Empire wrote: In article , Andrew Haley wrote: Audio_Empire wrote: I realize that the magazines like 'Stereophile' et al have to try to cater to todays equipment buyers in order to remain "relevant" with their readers, but what is going on in audio reviewing today is akin to somebody testing an asphalt paving machine using using salt-water taffy instead of asphalt. The results obtained from such a test have absolutely no bearing on how the paving machine will perform when paving roads with hot asphalt! Likewise a speaker review (for instance) using studio recorded pop music bears little or no relation to how that speaker system might perform with REAL, live acoustical music and anybody who thinks that it does, is deluded. So what? I've never seen any evidence that great-sounding speakers don't sound great with all kinds of music. Also, it makes sense to listen to speakers playing the kind of music you know well. That's incorrect for a start. I repeat. If you don't have a good idea what real music sounds like, then you have no basis for judging whether a piece of reproducing equipment is accurate or not. That's your claim. You can repeat it as much as you like. I find it remarkable that anybody would try to refute this claim, especially since it's much more than that, it's actually not only fact, but it should be self-evident fact! Case in point. A speaker system, reviewed by a rocker several years ago was declared to have the best bass that the reviewer in question had ever heard. When I got to audition the same speaker, I found that the bass was wooly, and had a huge mid-bass peak . It might have made the kick-drum of some rock group sit up and do tricks, but it made organ music sound dreadful. Problem was, the reviewer didn't know the difference because he only auditioned the speaker with music he liked and that music was all electronic studio produced and manipulated sound. I.E. not real instruments playing in real space. Or, perhaps, he didn't know good sound. Flabby bass usually sounds bad on all music with bass. I don't doubt that. Those of us who have been listening to The Dark Side Of The Moon for the last forty years continue to be delighted when a system reveals some subtle detail we hadn't heard before. That's priceless. Hopefully, you know what real music sounds like and don't judge sound quality using solely artificial musical performances such as "Dark Side of the Moon". All music is artificial, with the possible exception of birdsong. Now you're being purposely obtuse as I'm more than reasonably sure that you know exactly what I mean. I do know what real music sounds like and I do judge sound quality using artificial musical performances such as Dark Side of the Moon. It's an immaculate piece of work, with a great deal of attention paid to superb sound. I also listen to purely acoustic music, to the extent that recordings can be purely anything. How can you judge things like soundstage and imaging from such recordings that have have none? "There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind .... the only yardstick by which the result should be judged is simply that of how it sounds. If it sounds good it's successful; if it doesn't it has failed." I just don't think understand, possible on purpose. I say LISTEN to what you like, but EVALUATE for publication using the best acoustical source material you can find. If magazine reviewers would follow that simple rule of thumb, they would do their readers and the industry a great service. --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: --- Looks to me like you are both right - or both wrong, depending. If the prospective buyer is a rockaholic, he wants speakers that do rock really well, and there is nothing wrong with reviewing the speakers with that in mind. If accurate reproduction of acoustic material (and really other music too) is the prospective buyer's goal... this stuff is so simple, guys, you must just like to argue, eh? bl |
#13
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
Audio_Empire wrote:
In article , Andrew Haley wrote: Audio_Empire wrote: In article , Andrew Haley wrote: Audio_Empire wrote: I realize that the magazines like 'Stereophile' et al have to try to cater to todays equipment buyers in order to remain "relevant" with their readers, but what is going on in audio reviewing today is akin to somebody testing an asphalt paving machine using using salt-water taffy instead of asphalt. The results obtained from such a test have absolutely no bearing on how the paving machine will perform when paving roads with hot asphalt! Likewise a speaker review (for instance) using studio recorded pop music bears little or no relation to how that speaker system might perform with REAL, live acoustical music and anybody who thinks that it does, is deluded. So what? I've never seen any evidence that great-sounding speakers don't sound great with all kinds of music. Also, it makes sense to listen to speakers playing the kind of music you know well. That's incorrect for a start. I repeat. If you don't have a good idea what real music sounds like, then you have no basis for judging whether a piece of reproducing equipment is accurate or not. That's your claim. You can repeat it as much as you like. I find it remarkable that anybody would try to refute this claim, especially since it's much more than that, it's actually not only fact, but it should be self-evident fact! I don't need to refute it because you've never provided any evidence to support it. Those of us who have been listening to The Dark Side Of The Moon for the last forty years continue to be delighted when a system reveals some subtle detail we hadn't heard before. That's priceless. Hopefully, you know what real music sounds like and don't judge sound quality using solely artificial musical performances such as "Dark Side of the Moon". All music is artificial, with the possible exception of birdsong. Now you're being purposely obtuse as I'm more than reasonably sure that you know exactly what I mean. I do know what you mean, and I believe it's fundamentally incorrect. Your notion of "natural" versus "artificial" sound is nonsense. A musical instrument is artifical, whether it is powered mechanically or electrically. They all are acoustic; they all produce sound. I do know what real music sounds like and I do judge sound quality using artificial musical performances such as Dark Side of the Moon. It's an immaculate piece of work, with a great deal of attention paid to superb sound. I also listen to purely acoustic music, to the extent that recordings can be purely anything. How can you judge things like soundstage and imaging from such recordings that have have none? If a recording has none, then you can't judge it. "There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind .... the only yardstick by which the result should be judged is simply that of how it sounds. If it sounds good it's successful; if it doesn't it has failed." I just don't think understand, possible on purpose. I say LISTEN to what you like, but EVALUATE for publication using the best acoustical source material you can find. That doesn't make sense. We're listening for pleasure, so we evaluate for pleasure. It would be unwise not to listen to recordings of purely mechanical instruments, particularly the voice, during loudspeaker evaluation. However, such recordings are not often the best tests of bass response. I've certainly heard well-regarded speakers that fail miserably when pushed hard with bass-heavy recordings. If magazine reviewers would follow that simple rule of thumb, they would do their readers and the industry a great service. There is no fundamental difference between recording the sound of a band of musicians with electrical instruments and mechanical instruments. Some engineers use spot mikes on every instrument of an orchestra, then pan-pot the result. Some engineers make the most of the room sound. But people are going to listen to the *best music*, not the *best- recorded music*. Of course. And, of course, it makes sense to evaluate loudspeakers with the recordings people will listen to. The era of hi-fi buffs listening to special "hi-fi" recordings that no-one else ever bought is over, and not before time. As I've said here before, Floyd Toole's proposal for a standardized evaluation of studio monitor loudspeakers and rooms makes sense. Once we have that, we can replicate it in the home. He also talks about the correlation between loudspeaker measurements and listener preference. He points out that much about what makes loudspeakers and rooms sound good is known, but is not much used by the industry: "... much seems to have been proved beyond reasonable doubt. Most of the evidence fits together in a logical pattern, and although not simple, it is eminently comprehensible." Andrew. |
#14
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
On Wednesday, July 31, 2013 9:52:36 AM UTC-7, Audio_Empire wrote:
In article , Andrew Haley wrote: Audio_Empire wrote: I realize that the magazines like 'Stereophile' et al have to try to cater to todays equipment buyers in order to remain "relevant" with their readers, but what is going on in audio reviewing today is akin to somebody testing an asphalt paving machine using using salt-water taffy instead of asphalt. The results obtained from such a test have absolutely no bearing on how the paving machine will perform when paving roads with hot asphalt! Likewise a speaker review (for instance) using studio recorded pop music bears little or no relation to how that speaker system might perform with REAL, live acoustical music and anybody who thinks that it does, is deluded. So what? I've never seen any evidence that great-sounding speakers don't sound great with all kinds of music. Also, it makes sense to listen to speakers playing the kind of music you know well. That's incorrect for a start. I repeat. If you don't have a good idea what real music sounds like, then you have no basis for judging whether a piece of reproducing equipment is accurate or not. This is such a surprisingly weird assertion. Had you not told us numerous times that you record live classical music I would suspect that you have never been to any sort of live classical performances at all. what exactly does "live music" sound like? Because in my experience it sounds like a lot of different things depending on the instruments, the musicians, the venue and the seat I am sitting in. You seem to be treating the sound of "live music" as this monolithic unwavering point of reference. It aint that. No way. I shudder to think someone with a subscription to the overpriced balcony seats at Davies Hall or Copley Hall would suffer the dire audio consequences of thinking that their listening experience to live music in such halls from those seats sets a standard by which playback should be measured and even worse sets a standard by which they should actually adjust their aesthetic values. The horror, the horror Case in point. A speaker system, reviewed by a rocker several years ago was declared to have the best bass that the reviewer in question had ever heard. When I got to audition the same speaker, I found that the bass was wooly, and had a huge mid-bass peak . Well did you audition it with the same ancillary equipment in the same room with the speakers in the same position? If not you can't really pass judgement on the review. It might have made the kick-drum of some rock group sit up and do tricks, but it made organ music sound dreadful. Let's be more "accurate" here. IYO it made the specific organ music you used for your audition sound horrible to you with those speakers in that room with that system. Problem was, the reviewer didn't know the difference because he only auditioned the speaker with music he liked and that music was all electronic studio produced and manipulated sound. I.E. not real instruments playing in real space. You don't know that. You don't know the reviewer's experience with other source material and live music. You don't know that. Those of us who have been listening to The Dark Side Of The Moon for the last forty years continue to be delighted when a system reveals some subtle detail we hadn't heard before. That's priceless. Hopefully, you know what real music sounds like and don't judge sound quality using solely artificial musical performances such as "Dark Side of the Moon". Dark Side of the Moon is REAL music. |
#15
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
In article ,
Scott wrote: On Wednesday, July 31, 2013 9:52:36 AM UTC-7, Audio_Empire wrote: In article , Andrew Haley wrote: Audio_Empire wrote: [ This article has been substantially cleaned up by the moderator. Please don't double-space your quotes, or anything else, and do take the time to clean up your articles before you submit them. -- dsr ] I realize that the magazines like 'Stereophile' et al have to try to cater to todays equipment buyers in order to remain "relevant" with their readers, but what is going on in audio reviewing today is akin to somebody testing an asphalt paving machine using using salt-water taffy instead of asphalt. The results obtained from such a test have absolutely no bearing on how the paving machine will perform when paving roads with hot asphalt! Likewise a speaker review (for instance) using studio recorded pop music bears little or no relation to how that speaker system might perform with REAL, live acoustical music and anybody who thinks that it does, is deluded. So what? I've never seen any evidence that great-sounding speakers don't sound great with all kinds of music. Also, it makes sense to listen to speakers playing the kind of music you know well. That's incorrect for a start. I repeat. If you don't have a good idea what real music sounds like, then you have no basis for judging whether a piece of reproducing equipment is accurate or not. This is such a surprisingly weird assertion. Had you not told us numerous times that you record live classical music I would suspect that you have never been to any sort of live classical performances at all. what exactly does "live music" sound like? Because in my experience it sounds like a lot of different things depending on the instruments, the musicians, the venue and the seat I am sitting in. You seem to be treating the sound of "live music" as this monolithic unwavering point of reference. It aint that. No way. I shudder to think someone with a subscription to the overpriced balcony seats at Davies Hall or Copley Hall would suffer the dire audio consequences of thinking that their listening experience to live music in such halls from those seats sets a standard by which playback should be measured and even worse sets a standard by which they should actually adjust their aesthetic values. The horror, the horror Can you tell the sonic difference between a real acoustical violin and one of those funny, open-framed electric violins when you hear it? well, if the answer to that question is yes (and I suspect it is), then you've answered your own question. An Amati, a Guarneri, and a Stradivarius all sound unique, but all sound like REAL violins and most people know one when they hear it. The electric violin doesn't sound like a real violin any more than a Fender Stratocaster sounds like a real Spanish acoustical guitar. Case in point. A speaker system, reviewed by a rocker several years ago was declared to have the best bass that the reviewer in question had ever heard. When I got to audition the same speaker, I found that the bass was wooly, and had a huge mid-bass peak . Well did you audition it with the same ancillary equipment in the same room with the speakers in the same position? If not you can't really pass judgement on the review. It might have made the kick-drum of some rock group sit up and do tricks, but it made organ music sound dreadful. Let's be more "accurate" here. IYO it made the specific organ music you used for your audition sound horrible to you with those speakers in that room with that system. Yet that "organ music" I used is one of the best organ recordings ever made. On a good system, it sounds very realistic. Problem was, the reviewer didn't know the difference because he only auditioned the speaker with music he liked and that music was all electronic studio produced and manipulated sound. I.E. not real instruments playing in real space. You don't know that. You don't know the reviewer's experience with other source material and live music. You don't know that. I do know what he SAID he used that gave him the "killer bass" . If he used something else, he didn't mention it. Besides, what would it matter. he declared a speaker with mediocre bass at best to have great bass. Kinda blows his credibility that he knows what good bass sounds like. Those of us who have been listening to The Dark Side Of The Moon for the last forty years continue to be delighted when a system reveals some subtle detail we hadn't heard before. That's priceless. Hopefully, you know what real music sounds like and don't judge sound quality using solely artificial musical performances such as "Dark Side of the Moon". Dark Side of the Moon is REAL music. Of course, it's real music. But it's an artificial PERFORMANCE because it does not exist outside of the studio. You are being too literal here. When I say "real music" in this context, I mean acoustical instruments captured playing in real space. You guys are really touchy about your rock-and-roll aren't you? You seem to see my attack on the use of rock music as an evaluation tool as an attack on the music itself in spite of the fact that I've said over and over that my personal disdain for the genre has nothing to do with my assessment of it as a tool for reviewers. And remember, I also include "pop" in that criticism which includes country-and-western, as well as most jazz. I like jazz and I listen to it, but I wouldn't use it solely as a review tool. I might use a specific example to test some aspects of playback, but I certainly wouldn't use it to ascertain soundstage capabilities, because almost all jazz is recorded as "three-channel mono" and as such has no real soundstage (unless you consider everything grouped into three "bunches", right, left and center as being a "soundstage" * I don't). So it's so much the genre that I object to as an evaluation tool as it is the production methodologies for studio produced music. --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: --- |
#16
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
On Friday, August 2, 2013 3:55:15 PM UTC-7, Audio_Empire wrote:
In article , Scott wrote: =20 On Wednesday, July 31, 2013 9:52:36 AM UTC-7, Audio_Empire wrote: In article , Andrew Haley wrote: Audio_Empire wrote: =20 I realize that the magazines like 'Stereophile' et al have to try= to cater to todays equipment buyers in order to remain "relevant" wi= th their readers, but what is going on in audio reviewing today is a= kin to somebody testing an asphalt paving machine using using salt-wa= ter taffy instead of asphalt. The results obtained from such a test h= ave absolutely no bearing on how the paving machine will perform when paving roads with hot asphalt! Likewise a speaker review (for instance) using studio recorded pop music bears little or no relation to how that speaker system might perform with REAL, live acoustical music and anybody who thinks that it does, is deluded. =20 So what? I've never seen any evidence that great-sounding speakers don't sound great with all kinds of music. Also, it makes sense to listen to speakers playing the kind of music you know well. =20 That's incorrect for a start. I repeat. If you don't have a good idea= =20 what real music sounds like, then you have no basis for judging wheth= er=20 a piece of reproducing equipment is accurate or not. =20 This is such a surprisingly weird assertion. Had you not told us numero= us=20 times that you record live classical music I would suspect that you hav= e=20 never been to any sort of live classical performances at all. what exac= tly=20 does "live music" sound like? Because in my experience it sounds like a= lot=20 of different things depending on the instruments, the musicians, the ve= nue=20 and the seat I am sitting in. You seem to be treating the sound of "liv= e=20 music" as this monolithic unwavering point of reference. It aint that. = No=20 way. I shudder to think someone with a subscription to the overpriced b= alcony=20 seats at Davies Hall or Copley Hall would suffer the dire audio consequ= ences=20 of thinking that their listening experience to live music in such halls= from=20 those seats sets a standard by which playback should be measured and ev= en=20 worse sets a standard by which they should actually adjust their aesthe= tic=20 values. The horror, the horror =20 Can you tell the sonic difference between a real acoustical violin and=20 one of those funny, open-framed electric violins when you hear it? I can tell the difference between a real acoustic violin and a real electri= c violin. Be it electric or acoustic they are both REAL. I reject your asse= rtion that electric instruments are not real. We are not imagining them. Th= ey are real well,=20 if the answer to that question is yes (and I suspect it is), then you've= =20 answered your own question. I didn't ask a question An Amati, a Guarneri, and a Stradivarius all=20 sound unique, but all sound like REAL violins and most people know one=20 when they hear it. The electric violin doesn't sound like a real violin= =20 any more than a Fender Stratocaster sounds like a real Spanish=20 acoustical guitar. =20 Again i reject your idea that electric instruments are not real. They are.= =20 Case in point. A=20 speaker system, reviewed by a rocker several years ago was declared t= o=20 have the best bass that the reviewer in question had ever heard. When= I=20 got to audition the same speaker, I found that the bass was wooly, an= d=20 had a huge mid-bass peak .=20 =20 Well did you audition it with the same ancillary equipment in the same = room=20 with the speakers in the same position? If not you can't really pass=20 judgement on the review. =20 It might have made the kick-drum of some rock=20 group sit up and do tricks, but it made organ music sound dreadful.=20 =20 Let's be more "accurate" here. IYO it made the specific organ music you= used=20 for your audition sound horrible to you with those speakers in that roo= m with=20 that system.=20 =20 Yet that "organ music" I used is one of the best organ recordings ever=20 made. On a good system, it sounds very realistic.=20 You singled out the speakers. Good speakers can sound bad in the wrong syst= em, or in the wrong room or simply set up poorly. Problem was, the reviewer didn't know the difference because he only= =20 auditioned the speaker with music he liked and that music was all=20 electronic studio produced and manipulated sound. I.E. not real=20 instruments playing in real space.=20 =20 You don't know that. You don't know the reviewer's experience with othe= r=20 source material and live music. You don't know that. =20 I do know what he SAID he used that gave him the "killer bass" . If he=20 used something else, he didn't mention it. Besides, what would it=20 matter. he declared a speaker with mediocre bass at best to have great=20 bass. Kinda blows his credibility that he knows what good bass sounds=20 like.=20 But, again, you don't know that the speakers didn't have great bass in his = system in the room he heard them in. Those of us who have been listening to The Dark Side Of The Moon fo= r the last forty years continue to be delighted when a system reveals some subtle detail we hadn't heard before. That's priceless. =20 Hopefully, you know what real music sounds like and don't judge sound= =20 quality using solely artificial musical performances such as "Dark Si= de=20 of the Moon". =20 Dark Side of the Moon is REAL music. =20 Of course, it's real music. But it's an artificial PERFORMANCE because=20 it does not exist outside of the studio. The same thing can be said about any classical recording that has had any e= diting. You are being too literal here.=20 Only because you are making semantic arguments. You are dismissing pop musi= c by labeling it as not real. But it is real.=20 When I say "real music" in this context, I mean acoustical instruments=20 captured playing in real space. But by using the term "real music" you are using prejudicial language that = infers there is something wrong with music played with electric instruments= .. And I am calling you on it. You guys are really touchy about your rock-and-roll aren't you? No. But I do like it. And it is real music. And it is something that I list= en to on my system. And I do care about the sound quality of it.=20 You seem=20 to see my attack on the use of rock music as an evaluation tool as an=20 attack on the music itself in spite of the fact that I've said over and= =20 over that my personal disdain for the genre has nothing to do with my=20 assessment of it as a tool for reviewers. You are mischaracterizing it and some of us are calling you on it. And you = are using that mischaracterization as your reason for dismissing it as a le= gitimate source for evaluating audio equipment. The argument simply doesn't= hold water. I really don't car whether or not you like one genre of music = or another. And remember, I also include=20 "pop" in that criticism which includes country-and-western, as well as=20 most jazz. I like jazz and I listen to it, but I wouldn't use it solely= =20 as a review tool. I might use a specific example to test some aspects of= =20 playback, but I certainly wouldn't use it to ascertain soundstage=20 capabilities, because almost all jazz is recorded as "three-channel=20 mono" and as such has no real soundstage (unless you consider everything= =20 grouped into three "bunches", right, left and center as being a=20 "soundstage" =EF=BF=BD I don't). So it's so much the genre that I object= to as=20 an evaluation tool as it is the production methodologies for studio=20 produced music. Again, it does not matter how the imaging got onto the recording. What matt= ers is how it images during playback. This phenomenon we call imaging is no= t limited to music played on acoustic instruments. |
#17
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
"Audio_Empire" wrote in message
... You guys are really touchy about your rock-and-roll aren't you? In a way that one sentence says way to much about your prejudices and width of view. It shows that you perceive rock-and-roll as not being part of your life even though its actually so pervasive that it is such a big part of your life that you apparently can't restrain yourself from knocking it and trying to separate yourself from it seemingly every change you get. You seem to see my attack on the use of rock music as an evaluation tool as an attack on the music itself in spite of the fact that I've said over and over that my personal disdain for the genre has nothing to do with my assessment of it as a tool for reviewers. Denial ain't just a river in Egypt and absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence. And remember, I also include "pop" in that criticism which includes country-and-western, as well as most jazz. More evidence of an incredibly narrow and short-sighted viewpoint. I like jazz and I listen to it, but I wouldn't use it solely as a review tool. Since so many people listen to rock, jazz, country western, and pop its hard to explain how one can review audio gear without sampling them. One could argue that these genres are actually so similar in terms of technical requirements for good reproduction that using any of them is analogous with using all of them, but that doesn't seem to be the thrust of the comments I'm responding to. |
#18
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
In article ,
Scott wrote: This is such a surprisingly weird assertion. Had you not told us numerous times that you record live classical music I would suspect that you have never been to any sort of live classical performances at all. what exactly does "live music" sound like? Because in my experience it sounds like a lot of different things depending on the instruments, the musicians, the venue and the seat I am sitting in. You seem to be treating the sound of "live music" as this monolithic unwavering point of reference. It aint that. No way. I shudder to think someone with a subscription to the overpriced balcony seats at Davies Hall or Copley Hall would suffer the dire audio consequences of thinking that their listening experience to live music in such halls from those seats sets a standard by which playback should be measured and even worse sets a standard by which they should actually adjust their aesthetic values. The horror, the horror You are both right and wrong. I stopped going to one concert series because the house decided the music needed to be electronically amplified and the instruments sounded wrong. They sounded wrong no matter where I was sitting. It is quite possible that some instruments in some halls will sound dreadful, but you will still be able to recognize them. Some recordings are so manipulated that you can't recognize the instruments. That being said, this is sometimes an improvement. There are some things you can do in post-production that are impossible in real life. If that helps, it helps, but you shouldn't think that is the sound of a real instrument in a real space as some reviewers seem to think. |
#19
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
Robert Peirce wrote:
In article , Scott wrote: This is such a surprisingly weird assertion. Had you not told us numerous times that you record live classical music I would suspect that you have never been to any sort of live classical performances at all. what exactly does "live music" sound like? Because in my experience it sounds like a lot of different things depending on the instruments, the musicians, the venue and the seat I am sitting in. You seem to be treating the sound of "live music" as this monolithic unwavering point of reference. It aint that. No way. I shudder to think someone with a subscription to the overpriced balcony seats at Davies Hall or Copley Hall would suffer the dire audio consequences of thinking that their listening experience to live music in such halls from those seats sets a standard by which playback should be measured and even worse sets a standard by which they should actually adjust their aesthetic values. The horror, the horror You are both right and wrong. I stopped going to one concert series because the house decided the music needed to be electronically amplified and the instruments sounded wrong. They sounded wrong no matter where I was sitting. It is quite possible that some instruments in some halls will sound dreadful, but you will still be able to recognize them. Some recordings are so manipulated that you can't recognize the instruments. That being said, this is sometimes an improvement. There are some things you can do in post-production that are impossible in real life. If that helps, it helps, but you shouldn't think that is the sound of a real instrument in a real space as some reviewers seem to think. And for those of us who are recording engineers and can compare what we hear when we get home to what we heard live, we know that they do not sound the same, no matter how much "accuracy" you have in your speakers, no matter how accurate your microphones, no matter what your recording technique. It is not an accuracy problem, it is an acoustical problem and there is nothing we can do about it. The recording is a new work of art, based on a live event or a manufactured event in the studio. It must be evaluated on its own. A playback system can have lifelike qualities, can communicate the major qualities of a live event within the limitations of your playback space, but cannot sound exactly the same because playback must take place on a system with different spatial qualities in a room of a different size and acoustics. The only basis we have of comparing systems and/or recordings is by way of thinking of the recording as a new performance. Then you can ask on whose equipment and in whose room it sounds more realistic, enables the suspension of disbelief better. Toward this end, what we can hear about speakers and rooms is the 4 points I quoted in a previous post. Gary Eickmeier |
#20
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
On Saturday, August 3, 2013 6:51:10 AM UTC-7, Robert Peirce wrote:
In article , Scott wrote: This is such a surprisingly weird assertion. Had you not told us numerous times that you record live classical music I would suspect that you have never been to any sort of live classical performances at all. what exactly does "live music" sound like? Because in my experience it sounds like a lot of different things depending on the instruments, the musicians, the venue and the seat I am sitting in. You seem to be treating the sound of "live music" as this monolithic unwavering point of reference. It aint that. No way. I shudder to think someone with a subscription to the overpriced balcony seats at Davies Hall or Copley Hall would suffer the dire audio consequences of thinking that their listening experience to live music in such halls from those seats sets a standard by which playback should be measured and even worse sets a standard by which they should actually adjust their aesthetic values. The horror, the horror You are both right and wrong. I stopped going to one concert series because the house decided the music needed to be electronically amplified and the instruments sounded wrong. They sounded wrong no matter where I was sitting. Ain't that the truth! I have actually walked out on concerts because they felt the need for sound reinforcement. Usually in such cases I demand a refund on my tickets. I get it too. My ploy is tell the manager that I go to live concert performances to listen to LIVE unamplified music playing in a real space, not to listen to some P.A. system. I tell them that if I wanted to listen to amplifiers and speakers, I would have stayed home where I had MUCH better speakers and amps than the P.A. junk in that theater! It always works. Bottom line is I won't put up with indoor sound reinforcement of classical or jazz performances played on acoustic instruments. It is quite possible that some instruments in some halls will sound dreadful, but you will still be able to recognize them. Some recordings are so manipulated that you can't recognize the instruments. True enough. That being said, this is sometimes an improvement. There are some things you can do in post-production that are impossible in real life. If that helps, it helps, but you shouldn't think that is the sound of a real instrument in a real space as some reviewers seem to think. Also agreed. But experienced listeners SHOULD know the difference. |
#21
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
On Tuesday, July 30, 2013 3:52:45 PM UTC-7, Audio_Empire wrote:
Modern audio Journalism is really infuriating to me because the folks who make up the bulk of all magazine writers reviewing in the field of audio today try to assess the performance of audio components using program material that is totally unsuited to the task at hand. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm getting damned tired of picking up a magazine like 'Stereophile', 'The Absolute Sound', or even Britain's great 'Hi-Fi News and Record Review' to read about some new piece of equipment only to encounter something like this: "...the soundstage and image specificity of these speakers was phenomenal. The kick drum playing of the band "Terd's" drummer Peter Pothead, was solidly located just behind the bass guitar and to the left of lead singer Johnny Juice." While I am not reading many reviews of audio equipment these days I think pretty much everything you are asserting above and in the rest of this thread is quite wrong. When we are talking about stereo playback, imaging is imaging regardless of the source material and recording techniques. If the aural illusion is that a kick drum images "solidly" just behind the aural image of the bass guitar and to the left of the singer that is a legitimate observation. And one can use that source material to compare the imaging characteristics of other systems and other components inserted into any given system. I'm sorry, folks, that's all stuff and nonsense. It doesn't matter where Peter Pohthead's kick drum was located (hopefully it shows-up where the rest of the drum set shows up, but it doesn't have to..) physically. Actually that is nonsense. It doesn't matter that it doesn't matter where the kick drum was located during the recording. What matters is how it images during playback. It was likely captured by a drum kit mike setup, with one mike for the kick drum, another for the snare, still another for the tom-tom, and yet a fourth mike for the cymbals. And each one of those drum components appears in the speakers where they were electronically PLACED using pan-pots, not where they physically appeared on the recording "stage". And Johnny Juice's lead guitar? Well, he is likely holding it, but if his Marshall guitar amp is setting kinda off to the side, then that's where his guitar will SOUND like it is - assuming you were there with the band in the studio when the session was recorded. Otherwise, again, it will appear on playback wherever the recording engineers put it. Johnny's booze and dope strained gravel voice? Well that appears dead center, because again, it's where the engineer put him (it's traditional). Any attempt by a reviewer to make decisions about sound quality, imaging, even frequency response using this kind of studio music is simply an exercise in abject futility. So what? Same can be said of any multimiked classical recording. Recording techniques vary from recording to recording. Doesn't matter. If the consumer wants the music and is interested in sound quality then how any given recording sounds in any given system IS meaningful. There is nothing "futile" about it if listeners like the music. First of all. If you don't ever listen to real, live, amplified music, and listen often, you have no idea what real instruments are SUPPOSED to sound like. 1. Electric guitars and synthesizers ARE real instruments. 2.Any instrument is SUPPOSED to sound how the maker intended them to sound. Electric instruments are no different. People who listen to pop music almost exclusively have likely NEVER attended a classical (or even a non-amplified jazz) concert. Really? How do you know that? Got any hard data to support a claim of how all those unnamed unknown human beings actually behave in the real world? If you don't know what real music is supposed to sound like, how can you judge what a playback system is doing to the music? You can't. 1. You are inventing a false objective standard "what real music is supposed to sound like" 2. You are inventing universal criteria for judging sound quality that simply isn't universal. Not everyone wants what you want. I know there are people who will tell you that they can tell the difference between a Fender Stratocaster Guitar and a Gibson or a Martin electric guitar. Perhaps they can, but what about the sound imparted by the different brands and styles of amplifiers used with these guitars? One can ask the very smae question about the sound imparted by microphones and mic techniques imparted on the sound of live acoustic instruments. That's audio. The same issues exist for classical and pop music. Can one tell the difference after the sound had gone through a fuzz box? I don't claim to know. Here's another question that comes to mind. In studio settings many instruments such as a saxophone or a trumpet are captured using a contact microphone. These mikes pick-up the actual vibrations of the body of the instrument itself rather than the sound (I.E. differences in air pressure) heard by a regular mike sitting in front of the instrument. I can tell you from experience that an instrument captured by a contact mike sounds almost nothing like the same instrument captured by a traditional mike. And all of this manipulation is occurring before the mike signals reach the control room and go through frequency shifters, voice multipliers, sound-on-sound and sound-with-sound processors, reverb generators, compressors, limiters, and a myriad of other special effects boxes that I'm not familiar with! When recording personnel record the instruments rather than the space these instruments occupy, all bets for accuracy are off. Same is true with classical music. If you think you are seeking accuracy (accuracy being an accurate recreation of the original sound field) you are really slaying windmills. Now I make no apologies for, nor do I try to hide, my personal disdain for what has passed for popular music over the last 50 years or so. OK we do agree on that point. I also realize that mass taste has changed mightily in that time and I will defend with my very being the right of each individual to listen to the music he or she LIKES. But, this has nothing, whatsoever, to do with a genre's suitability to the task at hand. In 1970, for instance, an audio publication was about how classical music was reproduced on the equipment of the day and they actually had something REAL to compare the equipment against. Really? Who, besides James Boyk was comparing their recordings to the original acoustic event? Certainly cant be done with any commercial recordings. Pop music was almost never mentioned and jazz only rarely. Now it's completely reversed. Every review I read tells me how The Who, or Cat Stevens, or Rod Stewart' latest album (along with a myriad of more recent groups and soloists that I have never heard of at all) sounds on this piece of equipment or that (jazz is still, rarely mentioned). Sounds like you are angry becuase you just can't relate to the reviewer's perspective. Oh well.... These kinds of comparisons are totally meaningless! To you. Not to people who listen to Cat Stevens, The Who and Rod Stewart. I listen to all of those artists by the way. If the music doesn't exist in real space, then the accuracy of the playback totally becomes a matter personal tastes and as a means of communicating opinions from one group of people to another, it's arbitrary, and clearly NOT useful. Once music hits the mics it no longer exists in a real space. Stereo recording and playback has never been about recreating an original acoustic event.. It has always been about creating an aural illusion. Ultimately judgement is a matter of personal taste. Yours is no exception. So if you want useful reviews, find reviewers that share your taste. I realize that the magazines like 'Stereophile' et al have to try to cater to todays equipment buyers in order to remain "relevant" with their readers, but what is going on in audio reviewing today is akin to somebody testing an asphalt paving machine using using salt-water taffy instead of asphalt. Horrible analogy. What you describe is reviewers using well known source material, that can be accessed by consumers to evaluate equipment. It works just fine with classical and pop music. The results obtained from such a test have absolutely no bearing on how the paving machine will perform when paving roads with hot asphalt! Wrong. An audio signal, be it from a classical recording or pop share the same basic elements of amplitude and time. Your analogy fails on it's face since that is not the case with it. Likewise a speaker review (for instance) using studio recorded pop music bears little or no relation to how that speaker system might perform with REAL, live acoustical music and anybody who thinks that it does, is deluded. As someone who actually readily listens to both classical and pop music on his stereo and is a very frequent attendee of live classical concerts I would assert from my experience that you are plainly wrong on this point. |
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
Pardon a couple of comments from my personal experience and viewpoint.
Concerning the statement that "Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless," I've been reading reviews for 60 years, and my question is, "When were they not generally useless?" I don't want to exaggerate, and I have treasured a small number of useful reviewers during that period; but gee, they've been rare. // As for imaging, it is a much misunderstood subject. We can't judge the imaging of a playback system or a piece of gear unless the source HAS an image; and this is very rare. Unfortunately, imaging IS important; for its evolutionary role (enabling us to locate predators or prey) precedes music's esthetic function; and we have difficulty paying attention to sound we cannot locate. (I say "we" because while this is true of me, I also observe it in others.) // On an altogether separate separate subject, I've started a blog for pianists and musicians generally, at www.JamesBoyk.com . |
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
In article ,
Oregonian Haruspex wrote: On 2013-08-06 02:39:07 +0000, said: Pardon a couple of comments from my personal experience and viewpoint. Concerning the statement that "Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless," I've been reading reviews for 60 years, and my question is, "When were they not generally useless?" I don't want to exaggerate, and I have treasured a small number of useful reviewers during that period; but gee, they've been rare. // As for imaging, it is a much misunderstood subject. We can't judge the imaging of a playback system or a piece of gear unless the source HAS an image; and this is very rare. Unfortunately, imaging IS important; for its evolutionary role (enabling us to locate predators or prey) precedes music's esthetic function; and we have difficulty paying attention to sound we cannot locate. (I say "we" because while this is true of me, I also observe it in others.) // On an altogether separate separate subject, I've started a blog for pianists and musicians generally, at www.JamesBoyk.com . I wonder the same thing myself. My first experience with audio rags came in the 1990s (pardon my young age) but the amount of mumbo jumbo in these publications strains the imagination. That's often true, but it's beside the point. Take imaging, for instance. If a reviewer talks about sound-stage and image specificity using a recording known to well embody those characteristics, such as certain Mercury Living Presence or RCA Victor Red Seals from the 1950's, or a modern Reference Recording, then even if the audio enthusiast/reader is unfamiliar with the work (or even the genre), he will likely know that these recordings are known for real stereo imaging and minimalist miking technique and if they image well using the equipment under review, then most likely, that equipment does a good job at sound stage presentation, and the reviewer gains SOME credibility that if the reader where to acquire that same recording, played thought that same equipment, he would have a similar experience - even if he doesn't generally listen to that genre of music. The recordings are a known quantity and as such are a touchstone to which anybody who has ever heard live, unamplified music played in a real space. The experience is readily transferrable. OTOH, when someone uses studio- recorded pop with it's multi-track mono, isolating gobos (or, the gods forbid) even recorded in different studios at different times, it's a crap shoot. There is so much pop recorded and so many different tastes in pop music, that once you stray from a few universally known acts (like the Who, or The Stones, etc. The chance that any reader is familiar enough with the reviewer's examples to understand what he's trying to say about the equipment is slim. --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: --- |
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
On Saturday, August 10, 2013 8:12:29 PM UTC-7, Audio_Empire wrote:
In article , Oregonian Haruspex wrote: On 2013-08-06 02:39:07 +0000, said: Pardon a couple of comments from my personal experience and viewpoint.. Concerning the statement that "Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless," I've been reading reviews for 60 years, and my question is, "When were they not generally useless?" I don't want to exaggerate, and I have treasured a small number of useful reviewers during that period; but gee, they've been rare. // As for imaging, it is a much misunderstood subject. We can't judge the imaging of a playback system or a piece of gear unless the source HAS an image; and this is very rare. Unfortunately, imaging IS important; for its evolutionary role (enabling us to locate predators or prey) precedes music's esthetic function; and we have difficulty paying attention to sound we cannot locate. (I say "we" because while this is true of me, I also observe it in others.) // On an altogether separate separate subject, I've started a blog for pianists and musicians generally, at www.JamesBoyk.com . I wonder the same thing myself. My first experience with audio rags came in the 1990s (pardon my young age) but the amount of mumbo jumbo in these publications strains the imagination. That's often true, but it's beside the point. Take imaging, for instance. If a reviewer talks about sound-stage and image specificity using a recording known to well embody those characteristics, such as certain Mercury Living Presence or RCA Victor Red Seals from the 1950's, or a modern Reference Recording, then even if the audio enthusiast/reader is unfamiliar with the work (or even the genre), he will likely know that these recordings are known for real stereo imaging and minimalist miking technique and if they image well using the equipment under review, then most likely, that equipment does a good job at sound stage presentation, and the reviewer gains SOME credibility that if the reader where to acquire that same recording, played thought that same equipment, he would have a similar experience - even if he doesn't generally listen to that genre of music. The recordings are a known quantity and as such are a touchstone to which anybody who has ever heard live, unamplified music played in a real space. The experience is readily transferrable. OTOH, when someone uses studio- recorded pop with it's multi-track mono, isolating gobos (or, the gods forbid) even recorded in different studios at different times, it's a crap shoot. There is so much pop recorded and so many different tastes in pop music, that once you stray from a few universally known acts (like the Who, or The Stones, etc. The chance that any reader is familiar enough with the reviewer's examples to understand what he's trying to say about the equipment is slim. "if the reader where to acquire that same recording, played thought that same equipment, he would have a similar experience" This is the crux of the issue *right here* This is true regardless of how are recording is made. transference of experience is not limited to minimalist recordings of acoustic instruments. If the reader were to acquire the same studio recordings of pop/rock music as the reviewer played through that same equipment, he would also have a similar experience. |
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
On Saturday, August 10, 2013 5:27:43 AM UTC-7, Oregonian Haruspex wrote:
On 2013-08-06 02:39:07 +0000, said: Pardon a couple of comments from my personal experience and viewpoint. Concerning the statement that "Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless," I've been reading reviews for 60 years, and my question is, "When were they not generally useless?" I don't want to exaggerate, and I have treasured a small number of useful reviewers during that period; but gee, they've been rare. // As for imaging, it is a much misunderstood subject. We can't judge the imaging of a playback system or a piece of gear unless the source HAS an image; and this is very rare. Unfortunately, imaging IS important; for its evolutionary role (enabling us to locate predators or prey) precedes music's esthetic function; and we have difficulty paying attention to sound we cannot locate. (I say "we" because while this is true of me, I also observe it in others.) // On an altogether separate separate subject, I've started a blog for pianists and musicians generally, at www.JamesBoyk.com . I wonder the same thing myself. My first experience with audio rags came in the 1990s (pardon my young age) but the amount of mumbo jumbo in these publications strains the imagination. Stereo imaging is another topic. For live recorded music, your stereo impression is less that of the spread of the musicians, and more the specific delay and reverberation caused by the room's shape and audio impression. Not IME. With some recordings you can get a pretty vivid 3D rendering of musicians on a stage. I think in many cases the best imaging is actually far more explicit with playback than in real life. I like this better than truly accurate imaging because in real life the imaging is augmented by visual cues. Real life imaging without the visual cues can be pretty vague and blurred. In this case a little over compensation works well to enhance an illusion of live music. For music that is recorded in the studio, generally every instrument is mic'd separately and the stereo spread is whatever the engineer(s) decide. Heck, lots of music these days is recorded over multiple sessions, with only part of the ensemble being present at any point in time! You really can';t make any meaningful generalizations. We are talking about over 60 years of recorded music. Techniques run the gamut. The best stereo recordings I have heard were recorded out of doors, with the microphones separated by a large distance, thus eliminating much of the reverb and delay except that which comes off the ground. The worst are generally those which have the mics on the same mount, but pointed in different directions. can you name titles? I can't imagine such recordings even coming close to those made by certain audiophile labels or the golden age classical recordings or some of the current crop of high quality classical recordings. |
#27
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
In article , Scott
wrote: On Saturday, August 10, 2013 5:27:43 AM UTC-7, Oregonian Haruspex wrote: On 2013-08-06 02:39:07 +0000, said: The best stereo recordings I have heard were recorded out of doors, with the microphones separated by a large distance, thus eliminating much of the reverb and delay except that which comes off the ground. The worst are generally those which have the mics on the same mount, but pointed in different directions. can you name titles? I can't imagine such recordings even coming close to those made by certain audiophile labels or the golden age classical recordings or some of the current crop of high quality classical recordings. I agree. I've made recordings out-of-doors (not my call) and mostly they were junk. Extremely dry, with absolutely no sense of space. If, like me, you agree that the best recordings are those where the instruments themselves are not miked, but rather the space they occupy is miked, then you can see that out-of-doors, you are forced to mike the instruments because obviously, one can't mike infinity (all outdoors). With no boundaries (walls, ceiling) the sound just disappears. I don't find it possible to make good STEREO recordings outside. You might be able to make good multi-channel mono recordings by close-miking everything and then mixing them together to synthesize right, left and center channels and then add some artificial reverb, but that's not really stereo (by definition and in MY personal estimation). --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: --- |
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
Audio_Empire wrote:
I agree. I've made recordings out-of-doors (not my call) and mostly they were junk. Extremely dry, with absolutely no sense of space. If, like me, you agree that the best recordings are those where the instruments themselves are not miked, but rather the space they occupy is miked, then you can see that out-of-doors, you are forced to mike the instruments because obviously, one can't mike infinity (all outdoors). With no boundaries (walls, ceiling) the sound just disappears. I don't find it possible to make good STEREO recordings outside. You might be able to make good multi-channel mono recordings by close-miking everything and then mixing them together to synthesize right, left and center channels and then add some artificial reverb, but that's not really stereo (by definition and in MY personal estimation). Well, the main difference is that with that kind of miking the final result would be to place the musicians in the playback space, usually with few depth clues. Secondarily, you don't get the full sound power output of the instruments either, because you are recording the direct output along only one axis, which makes for poorer sound quality of any instrument. Bottom line, instead of the music blowing, it would suck. Heh.... Gary Eickmeier |
#29
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
On Sunday, August 11, 2013 1:03:45 PM UTC-7, Audio_Empire wrote:
In article , Scott wrote: On Saturday, August 10, 2013 5:27:43 AM UTC-7, Oregonian Haruspex wrote: On 2013-08-06 02:39:07 +0000, said: The best stereo recordings I have heard were recorded out of doors, with the microphones separated by a large distance, thus eliminating much of the reverb and delay except that which comes off the ground. The worst are generally those which have the mics on the same mount, but pointed in different directions. can you name titles? I can't imagine such recordings even coming close to those made by certain audiophile labels or the golden age classical recordings or some of the current crop of high quality classical recordings. I agree. I've made recordings out-of-doors (not my call) and mostly they were junk. Extremely dry, with absolutely no sense of space. If, like me, you agree that the best recordings are those where the instruments themselves are not miked, but rather the space they occupy is miked, then you can see that out-of-doors, you are forced to mike the instruments because obviously, one can't mike infinity (all outdoors). With no boundaries (walls, ceiling) the sound just disappears. I don't find it possible to make good STEREO recordings outside. You might be able to make good multi-channel mono recordings by close-miking everything and then mixing them together to synthesize right, left and center channels and then add some artificial reverb, but that's not really stereo (by definition and in MY personal estimation). This is something we absolutely DO agree on. If I had to make a list of the top 50 best *sounding* recordings they would most, if not all be minimalist recordings of acoustic instruments in concert halls or some other venue with a good acoustic for music. |
#30
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
Stereo imaging is another topic. For live recorded music, your stereo im=
pression is less that of the spread of the musicians, and more the specific= delay and reverberation caused by the room's shape and audio impression. F= or music that is recorded in the studio, generally every instrument is mic'= d separately and the stereo spread is whatever the engineer(s) decide.... T= he best stereo recordings I have heard were recorded out of doors,=20 with the microphones separated by a large distance, thus eliminating much o= f the reverb and delay except that which comes off the ground. The worst ar= e generally those which have the mics on the same mount, but pointed in dif= ferent directions. I'm afraid you have all this backward (and no, it's not a subjective matter= ). A good place to start learning about the subject is the stereo miking de= mo created in the Caltech Music Lab, which has long been recognized as auth= oritative by well-known experts, and has been adopted by NPR Microphone Wor= kshops. As a service to the audio field, I've made it available on my label= at shop.PerformanceRecordings.com . -James Boyk Founder/Director, Caltech Music Lab 1979-2004 CV www.PerformanceRecordings.com/cv.html |
#31
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
On Sunday, August 18, 2013 5:53:03 AM UTC-7, wrote:
Stereo imaging is another topic. For live recorded music, your stereo impression is less that of the spread of the musicians, and more the specific delay and reverberation caused by the room's shape and audio impression. For music that is recorded in the studio, generally every instrument is mic'd separately and the stereo spread is whatever the engineer(s) decide.... The best stereo recordings I have heard were recorded out of doors, with the microphones separated by a large distance, thus eliminating much of the reverb and delay except that which comes off the ground. The worst are generally those which have the mics on the same mount, but pointed in different directions. This is counter to my experience. Frankly, recording music out-of-doors is fraught with difficulties. First of all, there is wind noise. It doesn't take much of a breeze to ruin a recording, and while wind "socks" help, they aren't 100% effective by any stretch of the imagination. Secondly, without any enclosure for the musicians, the amount of acoustical energy reaching the mikes is hugely attenuated. Thirdly, there is no reverb, so the music sounds dry and lifeless. and is definitely NOT something that I would want to listen to. Also, the idea that Blumlein-style microphone technique ("The worst are generally those which have the mics on the same mount, but pointed in different directions.") is somehow the worst type of microphone setup is as wrong as one can be. So called "purist" microphone placement (A-B, X-Y, M-S, ORTF, etc,) yields by FAR the best stereo sound stage and the best imaging (for speaker reproduction). I'm afraid you have all this backward (and no, it's not a subjective matter). That is quite correct. A good place to start learning about the subject is the stereo miking demo created in the Caltech Music Lab, which has long been recognized as authoritative by well-known experts, and has been adopted by NPR Microphone Workshops. As a service to the audio field, I've made it available on my label at shop.PerformanceRecordings.com . -James Boyk Thanks, I;ll take a look at it. Audio_Empire |
#32
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
Somewhere on teh intarwebs Audio_Empire wrote:
Modern audio Journalism is really infuriating to me because the folks who make up the bulk of all magazine writers reviewing in the field of audio today try to assess the performance of audio components using program material that is totally unsuited to the task at hand. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm getting damned tired of picking up a magazine like 'Stereophile', 'The Absolute Sound', or even Britain's great 'Hi-Fi News and Record Review' to read about some new piece of equipment only to encounter something like this: "...the soundstage and image specificity of these speakers was phenomenal. The kick drum playing of the band "Terd's" drummer Peter Pothead, was solidly located just behind the bass guitar and to the left of lead singer Johnny Juice." I'm sorry, folks, that's all stuff and nonsense. It doesn't matter where Peter Pohthead's kick drum was located (hopefully it shows-up where the rest of the drum set shows up, but it doesn't have to..) physically. It was likely captured by a drum kit mike setup, with one mike for the kick drum, another for the snare, still another for the tom-tom, and yet a fourth mike for the cymbals. And each one of those drum components appears in the speakers where they were electronically PLACED using pan-pots, not where they physically appeared on the recording "stage". And Johnny Juice's lead guitar? Well, he is likely holding it, but if his Marshall guitar amp is setting kinda off to the side, then that's where his guitar will SOUND like it is - assuming you were there with the band in the studio when the session was recorded. Otherwise, again, it will appear on playback wherever the recording engineers put it. Johnny's booze and dope strained gravel voice? Well that appears dead center, because again, it's where the engineer put him (it's traditional). Any attempt by a reviewer to make decisions about sound quality, imaging, even frequency response using this kind of studio music is simply an exercise in abject futility. First of all. If you don't ever listen to real, live, amplified music, and listen often, you have no idea what real instruments are SUPPOSED to sound like. People who listen to pop music almost exclusively have likely NEVER attended a classical (or even a non-amplified jazz) concert. If you don't know what real music is supposed to sound like, how can you judge what a playback system is doing to the music? You can't. I know there are people who will tell you that they can tell the difference between a Fender Stratocaster Guitar and a Gibson or a Martin electric guitar. Perhaps they can, but what about the sound imparted by the different brands and styles of amplifiers used with these guitars? Can one tell the difference after the sound had gone through a fuzz box? I don't claim to know. Here's another question that comes to mind. In studio settings many instruments such as a saxophone or a trumpet are captured using a contact microphone. These mikes pick-up the actual vibrations of the body of the instrument itself rather than the sound (I.E. differences in air pressure) heard by a regular mike sitting in front of the instrument. I can tell you from experience that an instrument captured by a contact mike sounds almost nothing like the same instrument captured by a traditional mike. And all of this manipulation is occurring before the mike signals reach the control room and go through frequency shifters, voice multipliers, sound-on-sound and sound-with-sound processors, reverb generators, compressors, limiters, and a myriad of other special effects boxes that I'm not familiar with! When recording personnel record the instruments rather than the space these instruments occupy, all bets for accuracy are off. Now I make no apologies for, nor do I try to hide, my personal disdain for what has passed for popular music over the last 50 years or so. I also realize that mass taste has changed mightily in that time and I will defend with my very being the right of each individual to listen to the music he or she LIKES. But, this has nothing, whatsoever, to do with a genre's suitability to the task at hand. In 1970, for instance, an audio publication was about how classical music was reproduced on the equipment of the day and they actually had something REAL to compare the equipment against. Pop music was almost never mentioned and jazz only rarely. Now it's completely reversed. Every review I read tells me how The Who, or Cat Stevens, or Rod Stewart' latest album (along with a myriad of more recent groups and soloists that I have never heard of at all) sounds on this piece of equipment or that (jazz is still, rarely mentioned). These kinds of comparisons are totally meaningless! If the music doesn't exist in real space, then the accuracy of the playback totally becomes a matter personal tastes and as a means of communicating opinions from one group of people to another, it's arbitrary, and clearly NOT useful. I realize that the magazines like 'Stereophile' et al have to try to cater to todays equipment buyers in order to remain "relevant" with their readers, but what is going on in audio reviewing today is akin to somebody testing an asphalt paving machine using using salt-water taffy instead of asphalt. The results obtained from such a test have absolutely no bearing on how the paving machine will perform when paving roads with hot asphalt! Likewise a speaker review (for instance) using studio recorded pop music bears little or no relation to how that speaker system might perform with REAL, live acoustical music and anybody who thinks that it does, is deluded. Frustrating! I'm sorry, I haven't read through the whole thread including replies yet. I don't have time right now (it's a rare dry day and my lawns are so very long) but I have something that I'd like to try to say. I understand completely your frustration - you have a way of explaining things that works well. However I'd like to posit that there *is* a modern standard of reference (if you will) and that is whatever recording the listener (and reader) is familiar with. After all, it's the reproduction of the *recording* that the reviewers are reviewing, not a group of instruments in a certain space. Please, bare with me for a few moments and allow me to present another scenario. Early electric music, when recorded was mono and simple (relatively). Then, with the advent of stereo and 'studio recording' the recording engineer was faced with the problem of making all of the seperately recorded tracks into one whole that sounds pleasing. This recording is in no way intended to be an accurate representation of the space in which the artists were playing at the time/s. Instead it has become /virtual reality/, an idealised sound - abstract. This mixing and engineering has become an art in itself - the 'staging' of the band in a created reality. That's why music sounded much better when 'artists' like Phil Spector, Alan Parsons and Butch Vig took control of the knobs. These were men of vision for their time and were able to imagine the space in which they wanted the band to be playing - then create it. It's not meant to be the reproduction of a physical reality, it's an artificial construct and, as such is reproducible - accurately or not. This artificial construct will sound very similar on high-end audio systems (although they all will colour it to some degree). It is the playback of this manipulated recording that the reviewers are reviewing, comparing it to how they've heard it on 'great' systems. It has nothing to do with how the band sounds when they're playing in a space. That's the fundamental difference between what you are familiar with and what the readership of these magazines are familiar with. In my opinion it in no way invalidates these contemporary reviews and a system that can accurately reproduce what you refer to as 'pop music' will, in all likelihood also be good at reproducing a symphony in a hall - or a string quartet in a large room. When I was more mobile (and affluent) I'd take a few 'reference CDs' with me to listen to on a system. (Rickie Lee Jones in particular, also Peter Gabriels 'So' and a few others) I know these 'recordings' (if you'll allow the use of the word - they're really constructs) so very well, having listened to them many, many times on diverse systems (yet I've never heard either performer live). I know how they /can/ image, I know the parts where Rickie very quietly 'breathes' along with the bass line - and I know that it takes a formidable speaker (as an example) to not only reproduce those two diverse sounds, one very soft, one deep and powerful, concurrently. On a mass-produced lo-fi system you could listen for decades and never hear it. On the system I'm listening to now with it's tri-amped quasi-ribbon tweeter top end, lower-midrange section and 10" deep bass drivers (it's a small room) it's unmissable. Once again, I'm not arguing with you - I agree with all that you say. I'm simply putting forward a different viewpoint based on a different musical genre and a different 'standard' and trying to do so as eloquently as you put forth your opinions. Forgive me if I fail. For a time, four years or so spanning the turn of the decade, late 1970s and early 1980s, I travelled with a band and was responsible for their live soundmixing. When the time came for them to lay down some recordings I 'consulted' with the sound engineer, giving input into the band's live sound, telling him when his mix drifted too far from how the band sounds live (so that people who were faniliar with the band live - my mix - wouldn't buy a recording and hear something completely different. Back then it was rare for a band to sound even similar live to how they sounded on their recordings. You didn't go to a concert to hear the band - you were best to do that at home on your hi-fi (if you owned one). You'd go to a concert for the experience. In fact the only band I've ever heard live after listening to their albums repeatedly that sounded almost the same was Dire Straights - that was spooky - going to a concert and hearing almost exactly what you'd hear coming from your hi-fi. Normally, then, the experiences only had a few things in common w/r/t the way they sounded. (It may be common-place now for all I know as I no longer go to concerts.) So, not being intimately familar with live, unamplified music from a location close enough to the performers (as in where a conductor might stand) where I can get a sense of the spatial diversity I'd be a poor judge of a stereo system listening to such a recording. However, give me my original copy of Rickie Lee Jones' first album and I think that I'd be able to give a fair judgement of the fidelity of the system. After all's said and done it's not generally the source material that we discuss here it's the equipment that reproduces it (and in this thread the legitimacy of magazine reviews of that equipment). Regards, -- /Shaun. "Humans will have advanced a long, long, way when religious belief has a cozy little classification in the DSM." David Melville (in r.a.s.f1) [Sent from my OrbitalT ocular implant interface.] |
#33
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
In article ,
"~misfit~" wrote: Somewhere on teh intarwebs Audio_Empire wrote: snip I realize that the magazines like 'Stereophile' et al have to try to cater to todays equipment buyers in order to remain "relevant" with their readers, but what is going on in audio reviewing today is akin to somebody testing an asphalt paving machine using using salt-water taffy instead of asphalt. The results obtained from such a test have absolutely no bearing on how the paving machine will perform when paving roads with hot asphalt! Likewise a speaker review (for instance) using studio recorded pop music bears little or no relation to how that speaker system might perform with REAL, live acoustical music and anybody who thinks that it does, is deluded. Frustrating! =20 I'm sorry, I haven't read through the whole thread including replies yet.= I=20 don't have time right now (it's a rare dry day and my lawns are so very= =20 long) but I have something that I'd like to try to say. =20 I understand completely your frustration - you have a way of explaining= =20 things that works well. =20 However I'd like to posit that there *is* a modern standard of reference = (if=20 you will) and that is whatever recording the listener (and reader) is=20 familiar with. After all, it's the reproduction of the *recording* that t= he=20 reviewers are reviewing, not a group of instruments in a certain space. How can they be familiar with a recording, if as music, it doesn't exist ou= tside of a studio? Even when these bands play concerts, they take their stu= dios with them so that their concert performances sound just like the recor= dings they made of these same songs! I'll grant that one can be so familia= r with a performance that one can anticipate each note with great accuracy,= and can tell instantly, if the performance that they are listening to at a= ny given time is NOT the performance that they are used to hearing. But I d= on't think that familiarity can help with sonic judgements. Nobody has hear= d 'The Who', for instance, without their whole studio behind them, nor have= they heard the band through other than speakers; either their own, or the = sound-reinforcement systems at a concert.=20 =20 Please, bare with me for a few moments and allow me to present another=20 scenario. Early electric music, when recorded was mono and simple=20 (relatively). Then, with the advent of stereo and 'studio recording' the= =20 recording engineer was faced with the problem of making all of the=20 seperately recorded tracks into one whole that sounds pleasing. This=20 recording is in no way intended to be an accurate representation of the= =20 space in which the artists were playing at the time/s. Instead it has bec= ome=20 /virtual reality/, an idealised sound - abstract. I understand, and I agree. I am not complaining here about the music as a l= istening experience (with all that involves), I'm criticizing the use of th= ese types of music and performances as REVIEWING TOOLS to gauge the accurac= y of audio equipment.=20 =20 This mixing and engineering has become an art in itself - the 'staging' o= f=20 the band in a created reality. That's why music sounded much better when= =20 'artists' like Phil Spector, Alan Parsons and Butch Vig took control of t= he=20 knobs. These were men of vision for their time and were able to imagine t= he=20 space in which they wanted the band to be playing - then create it. It's = not=20 meant to be the reproduction of a physical reality, it's an artificial=20 construct and, as such is reproducible - accurately or not. Again, I understand that, but it's irrelevant to my point, which is that yo= u can't use music that has no real soundstage to gauge soundstage, nor can = you use music recorded in such a way that the instruments don't sound like = that instrument would sound in an un-amplified listening situation (as in t= he case of instruments that are recorded using contact microphones). I've h= eard these arguments before, and I remain adamant that this kind of music i= s simply irrelevant to the goal of high-fidelity reproduction, and as much = as the modern audiophile community might revere it, it's wishful thinking t= o believe that any meaningful conclusions about the Fi of equipment can be = gathered by using it as a reviewing tool.=20 This artificial construct will sound very similar on high-end audio syste= ms=20 (although they all will colour it to some degree). It is the playback of= =20 this manipulated recording that the reviewers are reviewing, comparing it= to=20 how they've heard it on 'great' systems. It has nothing to do with how th= e=20 band sounds when they're playing in a space. That's the fundamental=20 difference between what you are familiar with and what the readership of= =20 these magazines are familiar with. In my opinion it in no way invalidates= =20 these contemporary reviews and a system that can accurately reproduce wha= t=20 you refer to as 'pop music' will, in all likelihood also be good at=20 reproducing a symphony in a hall - or a string quartet in a large room. I still maintain that if your final comment in the above paragraph is true,= it's happenstance, because the conclusions drawn using pop music as a sour= ce simply have no relationship to the reality of music reproduction.=20 When I was more mobile (and affluent) I'd take a few 'reference CDs' with= me=20 to listen to on a system. (Rickie Lee Jones in particular, also Peter=20 Gabriels 'So' and a few others) I know these 'recordings' (if you'll allo= w=20 the use of the word - they're really constructs) so very well, having=20 listened to them many, many times on diverse systems (yet I've never hear= d=20 either performer live). I know how they /can/ image, I know the parts whe= re=20 Rickie very quietly 'breathes' along with the bass line - and I know that= it=20 takes a formidable speaker (as an example) to not only reproduce those tw= o=20 diverse sounds, one very soft, one deep and powerful, concurrently. On a= =20 mass-produced lo-fi system you could listen for decades and never hear it= ..=20 On the system I'm listening to now with it's tri-amped quasi-ribbon tweet= er=20 top end, lower-midrange section and 10" deep bass drivers (it's a small= =20 room) it's unmissable. Perhaps so, but I don't see what that has to do with a system's performance= on live music played in a real space. What it shows is that these performa= nces sound GOOD to the listener through THAT equipment, and that's down to = individual taste, not accuracy. I.E., I know what a real bowed bass viol so= unds like and when a system's bass is accurate, that's what I hear in the l= istening room. Whatever differs from that is NOT the sound of a bass viol. = What some rock-band's bass guitar sounds like through their on-stage amplif= ier/speaker, I have no idea (and neither does any other listener). So when = the bass line comes across as being tubby or wooly with poor low frequency = transient response, what does it tell us? Is it the playback system? Is it = the bass player's on-stage amp/speaker?, is it the way the bass player has = his guitar set-up, or is it something that the producer/engineers have done= to the bass in production to "punch it up"? There's no way to know.=20 Once again, I'm not arguing with you - I agree with all that you say. I'm= =20 simply putting forward a different viewpoint based on a different musical= =20 genre and a different 'standard' and trying to do so as eloquently as you= =20 put forth your opinions. Forgive me if I fail. I understand. I just don't buy that using this music to test audio equipmen= t can give a complete or accurate picture of how a piece of equipment actua= lly sounds beyond the "It sounds good to me and my tastes" level of critici= sm.=20 =20 For a time, four years or so spanning the turn of the decade, late 1970s = and=20 early 1980s, I travelled with a band and was responsible for their live= =20 soundmixing. When the time came for them to lay down some recordings I=20 'consulted' with the sound engineer, giving input into the band's live=20 sound, telling him when his mix drifted too far from how the band sounds= =20 live (so that people who were faniliar with the band live - my mix -=20 wouldn't buy a recording and hear something completely different. That's very true. The "road" sound and the studio sound must be the same on= a band's popular works, or the fans will be disappointed with the live per= formance (and vice versa).=20 =20 Back then it was rare for a band to sound even similar live to how they= =20 sounded on their recordings. You didn't go to a concert to hear the band = -=20 you were best to do that at home on your hi-fi (if you owned one). You'd = go=20 to a concert for the experience. In fact the only band I've ever heard li= ve=20 after listening to their albums repeatedly that sounded almost the same w= as=20 Dire Straights - that was spooky - going to a concert and hearing almost= =20 exactly what you'd hear coming from your hi-fi. Normally, then, the=20 experiences only had a few things in common w/r/t the way they sounded. (= It=20 may be common-place now for all I know as I no longer go to concerts.) I think today's concert goers expect their favorite songs to sound, in-conc= ert, like they do on the band's recordings. Luckily, that goal is obtainabl= e today with modern S.R. equipment and talented mixing personnel. So, not being intimately familar with live, unamplified music from a=20 location close enough to the performers (as in where a conductor might=20 stand) where I can get a sense of the spatial diversity I'd be a poor jud= ge=20 of a stereo system listening to such a recording. However, give me my=20 original copy of Rickie Lee Jones' first album and I think that I'd be ab= le=20 to give a fair judgement of the fidelity of the system. Well, first of all, the best classical recordings are not recorded from the= conductor's point of view, but rather from the perspective of a prime seat= in the audience. The trick is to get the various instrument sounds in an o= rchestra to coalesce into the sound of a symphony orchestra, not the sound = of 80 individual instruments all playing at once - which is more or less wh= at the conductor hears. But, of course, that's what he needs to hear as opp= osed to what the concert goer needs to hear.=20 After all's said and done it's not generally the source material that we= =20 discuss here it's the equipment that reproduces it (and in this thread th= e=20 legitimacy of magazine reviews of that equipment). But without real music with which to judge said equipment, the evaluations = are meaningless because they come down to someone's personal taste rather than accuracy. IO= W, without a reference, there's no way to know where you are. I feel that is where the a= rt and science of reviewing is today. |
#34
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
On Thursday, September 26, 2013 7:30:50 PM UTC-7, Audio_Empire wrote:
In article , =20 "~misfit~" wrote: =20 =20 =20 Somewhere on teh intarwebs Audio_Empire wrote: =20 =20 =20 snip =20 =20 =20 =20 I realize that the magazines like 'Stereophile' et al have to try to =20 cater to todays equipment buyers in order to remain "relevant" with =20 their readers, but what is going on in audio reviewing today is akin =20 to somebody testing an asphalt paving machine using using salt-water =20 taffy instead of asphalt. The results obtained from such a test have =20 absolutely no bearing on how the paving machine will perform when =20 paving roads with hot asphalt! Likewise a speaker review (for =20 instance) using studio recorded pop music bears little or no relation =20 to how that speaker system might perform with REAL, live acoustical =20 music and anybody who thinks that it does, is deluded. =20 =20 Frustrating! =20 =20 =20 I'm sorry, I haven't read through the whole thread including replies ye= t. I=20 =20 don't have time right now (it's a rare dry day and my lawns are so very= =20 =20 long) but I have something that I'd like to try to say. =20 =20 =20 I understand completely your frustration - you have a way of explaining= =20 =20 things that works well. =20 =20 =20 However I'd like to posit that there *is* a modern standard of referenc= e (if=20 =20 you will) and that is whatever recording the listener (and reader) is= =20 =20 familiar with. After all, it's the reproduction of the *recording* that= the=20 =20 reviewers are reviewing, not a group of instruments in a certain space. =20 =20 =20 How can they be familiar with a recording, if as music, it doesn't exist = outside of a studio? Even when these bands play concerts, they take their s= tudios with them so that their concert performances sound just like the rec= ordings they made of these same songs! I'll grant that one can be so famil= iar with a performance that one can anticipate each note with great accurac= y, and can tell instantly, if the performance that they are listening to at= any given time is NOT the performance that they are used to hearing. But I= don't think that familiarity can help with sonic judgements. Nobody has he= ard 'The Who', for instance, without their whole studio behind them, nor ha= ve they heard the band through other than speakers; either their own, or th= e sound-reinforcement systems at a concert. One simply needs to listen to a recording often enough and on enough differ= ent playback systems to be "familiar with the recording." It's almost a tau= tological argument. And I disagree with you about it not helping with sonic= judgements. In fact I would argue that it is crucial in making sonic judge= ments that one be familiar with the recordings they use. Then one is actual= ly able to compare the playback gear and eliminate the source material as a= variable. =20 =20 =20 Please, bare with me for a few moments and allow me to present another= =20 =20 scenario. Early electric music, when recorded was mono and simple=20 =20 (relatively). Then, with the advent of stereo and 'studio recording' th= e=20 =20 recording engineer was faced with the problem of making all of the=20 =20 seperately recorded tracks into one whole that sounds pleasing. This=20 =20 recording is in no way intended to be an accurate representation of the= =20 =20 space in which the artists were playing at the time/s. Instead it has b= ecome=20 =20 /virtual reality/, an idealised sound - abstract. =20 =20 =20 I understand, and I agree. I am not complaining here about the music as a= listening experience (with all that involves), I'm criticizing the use of = these types of music and performances as REVIEWING TOOLS to gauge the accur= acy of audio equipment.=20 Who says the reviewers are gauging "accuracy?"=20 =20 =20 =20 This mixing and engineering has become an art in itself - the 'staging'= of=20 =20 the band in a created reality. That's why music sounded much better whe= n=20 =20 'artists' like Phil Spector, Alan Parsons and Butch Vig took control of= the=20 =20 knobs. These were men of vision for their time and were able to imagine= the=20 =20 space in which they wanted the band to be playing - then create it. It'= s not=20 =20 meant to be the reproduction of a physical reality, it's an artificial= =20 =20 construct and, as such is reproducible - accurately or not. =20 =20 =20 Again, I understand that, but it's irrelevant to my point, which is that = you can't use music that has no real soundstage to gauge soundstage, nor ca= n you use music recorded in such a way that the instruments don't sound lik= e that instrument would sound in an un-amplified listening situation (as in= the case of instruments that are recorded using contact microphones). I've= heard these arguments before, and I remain adamant that this kind of music= is simply irrelevant to the goal of high-fidelity reproduction, and as muc= h as the modern audiophile community might revere it, it's wishful thinking= to believe that any meaningful conclusions about the Fi of equipment can b= e gathered by using it as a reviewing tool.=20 Any stereo recording has a soundstage even if it does not originate from a = physical soundstage at a live performance. As for how instruments sound in = a live performance, well who knows? Live acoustic music can sound quite dif= ferent depending on all the variables. So there is no "sound" of live music= that we can call a reference. There are many sounds of live music and a go= od deal of it is not something I would want my playback to sound like. Mean= ing and meaningful conclusions are a personal judgement call. what may be m= eaningless to you may be quite meaningful to someone else. Someone using st= udio recordings that i am familiar with may very well have some observation= s that I would find quite meaningful.=20 =20 =20 =20 This artificial construct will sound very similar on high-end audio sys= tems=20 =20 (although they all will colour it to some degree). It is the playback o= f=20 =20 this manipulated recording that the reviewers are reviewing, comparing = it to=20 =20 how they've heard it on 'great' systems. It has nothing to do with how = the=20 =20 band sounds when they're playing in a space. That's the fundamental=20 =20 difference between what you are familiar with and what the readership o= f=20 =20 these magazines are familiar with. In my opinion it in no way invalidat= es=20 =20 these contemporary reviews and a system that can accurately reproduce w= hat=20 =20 you refer to as 'pop music' will, in all likelihood also be good at=20 =20 reproducing a symphony in a hall - or a string quartet in a large room. =20 =20 =20 I still maintain that if your final comment in the above paragraph is tru= e, it's happenstance, because the conclusions drawn using pop music as a so= urce simply have no relationship to the reality of music reproduction.=20 Sorry but playback of pop music is part of the reality of many others' want= s and needs as audiophiles even if it isn't a part of yours. So there is a = clear relationship. =20 =20 =20 When I was more mobile (and affluent) I'd take a few 'reference CDs' wi= th me=20 =20 to listen to on a system. (Rickie Lee Jones in particular, also Peter= =20 =20 Gabriels 'So' and a few others) I know these 'recordings' (if you'll al= low=20 =20 the use of the word - they're really constructs) so very well, having= =20 =20 listened to them many, many times on diverse systems (yet I've never he= ard=20 =20 either performer live). I know how they /can/ image, I know the parts w= here=20 =20 Rickie very quietly 'breathes' along with the bass line - and I know th= at it=20 =20 takes a formidable speaker (as an example) to not only reproduce those = two=20 =20 diverse sounds, one very soft, one deep and powerful, concurrently. On = a=20 =20 mass-produced lo-fi system you could listen for decades and never hear = it.=20 =20 On the system I'm listening to now with it's tri-amped quasi-ribbon twe= eter=20 =20 top end, lower-midrange section and 10" deep bass drivers (it's a small= =20 =20 room) it's unmissable. =20 =20 =20 Perhaps so, but I don't see what that has to do with a system's performan= ce on live music played in a real space. What it shows is that these perfor= mances sound GOOD to the listener through THAT equipment, and that's down t= o individual taste, not accuracy. I.E., I know what a real bowed bass viol = sounds like and when a system's bass is accurate, that's what I hear in the= listening room. Whatever differs from that is NOT the sound of a bass viol= .. What some rock-band's bass guitar sounds like through their on-stage ampl= ifier/speaker, I have no idea (and neither does any other listener). So whe= n the bass line comes across as being tubby or wooly with poor low frequenc= y transient response, what does it tell us? Is it the playback system? Is i= t the bass player's on-stage amp/speaker?, is it the way the bass player ha= s his guitar set-up, or is it something that the producer/engineers have do= ne to the bass in production to "punch it up"? There's no way to know.=20 There is more to audio and music than the recording and playback of acousti= c instruments. maybe not for you but for most other audiophiles. And the fa= ct you seem to completely ignore is there is no one sound of acoustic instr= uments.What does a bass viol sound like? Does it have one sound and only on= e sound? Are all bass viols the same? Are all musicians who play them the s= ame? Are all the halls they are played in the same? Do they sound the same = no matter where you sit? No, No, No, No. So you have the same issue with a = bass viol as you do with a rock bass. that is a fact. =20 =20 =20 Once again, I'm not arguing with you - I agree with all that you say. I= 'm=20 =20 simply putting forward a different viewpoint based on a different music= al=20 =20 genre and a different 'standard' and trying to do so as eloquently as y= ou=20 =20 put forth your opinions. Forgive me if I fail. =20 =20 =20 I understand. I just don't buy that using this music to test audio equipm= ent can give a complete or accurate picture of how a piece of equipment act= ually sounds beyond the "It sounds good to me and my tastes" level of criti= cism.=20 But "It sounds good to me" is the bottom line. everything else is academic =20 =20 =20 For a time, four years or so spanning the turn of the decade, late 1970= s and=20 =20 early 1980s, I travelled with a band and was responsible for their live= =20 =20 soundmixing. When the time came for them to lay down some recordings I= =20 =20 'consulted' with the sound engineer, giving input into the band's live= =20 =20 sound, telling him when his mix drifted too far from how the band sound= s=20 =20 live (so that people who were faniliar with the band live - my mix -=20 =20 wouldn't buy a recording and hear something completely different. =20 =20 =20 That's very true. The "road" sound and the studio sound must be the same = on a band's popular works, or the fans will be disappointed with the live p= erformance (and vice versa).=20 In reality they are generally quite different.=20 =20 =20 =20 =20 =20 Back then it was rare for a band to sound even similar live to how they= =20 =20 sounded on their recordings. You didn't go to a concert to hear the ban= d -=20 =20 you were best to do that at home on your hi-fi (if you owned one). You'= d go=20 =20 to a concert for the experience. In fact the only band I've ever heard = live=20 =20 after listening to their albums repeatedly that sounded almost the same= was=20 =20 Dire Straights - that was spooky - going to a concert and hearing almos= t=20 =20 exactly what you'd hear coming from your hi-fi. Normally, then, the=20 =20 experiences only had a few things in common w/r/t the way they sounded.= (It=20 =20 may be common-place now for all I know as I no longer go to concerts.) =20 =20 =20 I think today's concert goers expect their favorite songs to sound, in-co= ncert, like they do on the band's recordings. Luckily, that goal is obtaina= ble today with modern S.R. equipment and talented mixing personnel. You are incorrect on that on all accounts. as a concert goer I have no such= expectations and that goal clearly is not obtainable. |
#35
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
In article ,
Scott wrote: snip How can they be familiar with a recording, if as music, it doesn't exis= t=20 outside of a studio? Even when these bands play concerts, they take the= ir=20 studios with them so that their concert performances sound just like th= e=20 recordings they made of these same songs! I'll grant that one can be s= o=20 familiar with a performance that one can anticipate each note with grea= t=20 accuracy, and can tell instantly, if the performance that they are=20 listening to at any given time is NOT the performance that they are use= d to=20 hearing. But I don't think that familiarity can help with sonic judgeme= nts.=20 Nobody has heard 'The Who', for instance, without their whole studio be= hind=20 them, nor have they heard the band through other than speakers; either= =20 their own, or the sound-reinforcement systems at a concert. =20 =20 One simply needs to listen to a recording often enough and on enough=20 different playback systems to be "familiar with the recording." It's almo= st a=20 tautological argument. And I disagree with you about it not helping with= =20 sonic judgements. In fact I would argue that it is crucial in making soni= c=20 judgements that one be familiar with the recordings they use. Then one is= =20 actually able to compare the playback gear and eliminate the source mater= ial=20 as a variable. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that you can't know what any of the = instruments and voices in such a recording actually sound like because you = don't know (A) how these instruments are captured, or (B) how the recording= engineers/producers manipulate those captured instruments/voices after the= y are captured. The performance does not exist in real space. You can't kno= w what it sounds like because it doesn't sound like anything outside of the= ensemble's imagination.=20 =20 Please, bare with me for a few moments and allow me to present anothe= r=20 =20 scenario. Early electric music, when recorded was mono and simple=20 =20 (relatively). Then, with the advent of stereo and 'studio recording' = the=20 =20 recording engineer was faced with the problem of making all of the=20 =20 seperately recorded tracks into one whole that sounds pleasing. This= =20 =20 recording is in no way intended to be an accurate representation of t= he=20 =20 space in which the artists were playing at the time/s. Instead it has= =20 become=20 =20 /virtual reality/, an idealised sound - abstract. =20 =20 =20 I understand, and I agree. I am not complaining here about the music as= a=20 listening experience (with all that involves), I'm criticizing the use = of=20 these types of music and performances as REVIEWING TOOLS to gauge the= =20 accuracy of audio equipment.=20 =20 =20 Who says the reviewers are gauging "accuracy?" Well, they are SUPPOSED to be reviewing for accuracy. If not they are just = aurally masterbating and their "reviews are a waste of everybody's time.=20 This mixing and engineering has become an art in itself - the 'stagin= g'=20 of=20 =20 the band in a created reality. That's why music sounded much better w= hen=20 =20 'artists' like Phil Spector, Alan Parsons and Butch Vig took control = of=20 the=20 =20 knobs. These were men of vision for their time and were able to imagi= ne=20 the=20 =20 space in which they wanted the band to be playing - then create it. I= t's=20 not=20 =20 meant to be the reproduction of a physical reality, it's an artificia= l=20 =20 construct and, as such is reproducible - accurately or not. =20 =20 =20 Again, I understand that, but it's irrelevant to my point, which is tha= t=20 you can't use music that has no real soundstage to gauge soundstage, no= r=20 can you use music recorded in such a way that the instruments don't sou= nd=20 like that instrument would sound in an un-amplified listening situation= (as=20 in the case of instruments that are recorded using contact microphones)= ..=20 I've heard these arguments before, and I remain adamant that this kind = of=20 music is simply irrelevant to the goal of high-fidelity reproduction, a= nd=20 as much as the modern audiophile community might revere it, it's wishfu= l=20 thinking to believe that any meaningful conclusions about the Fi of=20 equipment can be gathered by using it as a reviewing tool.=20 =20 Any stereo recording has a soundstage even if it does not originate from = a=20 physical soundstage at a live performance. That's not a soundstage. That's track placement and it's wholly artificial = because it relies totally on the percentage of a given track or instrumenta= l channel that's mixed into each ultimate stereo channel. It produces instr= ument placement from right-to-left - in a straight line - between the speak= ers, but it has no image height and no depth, and is therefore two dimensio= nal. It cannot be used to determine a component's ability to resolve three-= dimensional images.=20 As for how instruments sound in a=20 live performance, well who knows? Live acoustic music can sound quite=20 different depending on all the variables. So there is no "sound" of live= =20 music that we can call a reference. There are many sounds of live music a= nd a=20 good deal of it is not something I would want my playback to sound like.= =20 Meaning and meaningful conclusions are a personal judgement call. what ma= y be=20 meaningless to you may be quite meaningful to someone else. Someone using= =20 studio recordings that i am familiar with may very well have some=20 observations that I would find quite meaningful.=20 There is no reason to continue this. We are at an impasse. I'm not going to= convince you and you are not going to convince me. That's clear.=20 |
#36
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
Somewhere on teh intarwebs Scott wrote:
On Thursday, September 26, 2013 7:30:50 PM UTC-7, Audio_Empire wrote: [snipped] I think today's concert goers expect their favorite songs to sound, in-concert, like they do on the band's recordings. Luckily, that goal is obtainable today with modern S.R. equipment and talented mixing personnel. You are incorrect on that on all accounts. as a concert goer I have no such expectations and that goal clearly is not obtainable. I thought that too until I went to a Dire Straights concert in the early 80s. I was so amazed I listened to their records a little more and then went to see them in concert the next three times they came to New Zealand. Uncanny! If not for the very slight differences I'd have thought they were lip-synching and playing unplugged guitars... I haven't been to many concerts since the 80s. Maybe five or so in the 90s and a couple in the 00s. None of those came close to what Dire Straights were doing - but that was fine with me, I considered those experiences to be abberations, not what I expected to hear in concert. -- /Shaun. "Humans will have advanced a long, long, way when religious belief has a cozy little classification in the DSM." David Melville (in r.a.s.f1) [Sent from my OrbitalT ocular implant interface.] |
#37
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Modern Reviewing Practices In Audio Rags Have Become Useless
Somewhere on teh intarwebs Audio_Empire wrote:
In article , "~misfit~" wrote: Somewhere on teh intarwebs Audio_Empire wrote: snip I realize that the magazines like 'Stereophile' et al have to try to cater to todays equipment buyers in order to remain "relevant" with their readers, but what is going on in audio reviewing today is akin to somebody testing an asphalt paving machine using using salt-water taffy instead of asphalt. The results obtained from such a test have absolutely no bearing on how the paving machine will perform when paving roads with hot asphalt! Likewise a speaker review (for instance) using studio recorded pop music bears little or no relation to how that speaker system might perform with REAL, live acoustical music and anybody who thinks that it does, is deluded. Frustrating! I'm sorry, I haven't read through the whole thread including replies yet. I don't have time right now (it's a rare dry day and my lawns are so very long) but I have something that I'd like to try to say. Having read more of the thread now I see that I wasn't the only one to raise this sort of subject. Apologies for ressurecting a thread that had already covered quite a lot of what I wanted to say. I understand completely your frustration - you have a way of explaining things that works well. However I'd like to posit that there *is* a modern standard of reference (if you will) and that is whatever recording the listener (and reader) is familiar with. After all, it's the reproduction of the *recording* that the reviewers are reviewing, not a group of instruments in a certain space. How can they be familiar with a recording, if as music, it doesn't exist outside of a studio? In the same way that I'm *intimately* familiar with Rickie Lee Jones' eponymous album. I have heard it hundreds and hundreds (and hundreds) of times over the last three and a bit decades on everything from systems that cost as much as a small house (at the time) to a portable Sony CD player - even in the form of a self-ripped 320bit mp3 on various computer-based systems and mp3 players through headphones / ear buds. It exists outside of the studio - it exists in great detail in my memory. Even when these bands play concerts, they take their studios with them so that their concert performances sound just like the recordings they made of these same songs! I'll grant that one can be so familiar with a performance that one can anticipate each note with great accuracy, and can tell instantly, if the performance that they are listening to at any given time is NOT the performance that they are used to hearing. But I don't think that familiarity can help with sonic judgements. Nobody has heard 'The Who', for instance, without their whole studio behind them, nor have they heard the band through other than speakers; either their own, or the sound-reinforcement systems at a concert. Please, bare with me for a few moments and allow me to present another scenario. Early electric music, when recorded was mono and simple (relatively). Then, with the advent of stereo and 'studio recording' the recording engineer was faced with the problem of making all of the seperately recorded tracks into one whole that sounds pleasing. This recording is in no way intended to be an accurate representation of the space in which the artists were playing at the time/s. Instead it has become /virtual reality/, an idealised sound - abstract. I understand, and I agree. I am not complaining here about the music as a listening experience (with all that involves), I'm criticizing the use of these types of music and performances as REVIEWING TOOLS to gauge the accuracy of audio equipment. I hear you and understand what you're saying. However these magazines need to stay relevant to the buying public if they want to continue to hang on to what's left of their readership. By far the largest percentage of buyers of audio equipment listen to music as I do. I'm sorry but it's a fact that if these reviewers aimed their reviews to appeal to you and your standards then they would be out of their jobs within a month. It's just a fact of life. This mixing and engineering has become an art in itself - the 'staging' of the band in a created reality. That's why music sounded much better when 'artists' like Phil Spector, Alan Parsons and Butch Vig took control of the knobs. These were men of vision for their time and were able to imagine the space in which they wanted the band to be playing - then create it. It's not meant to be the reproduction of a physical reality, it's an artificial construct and, as such is reproducible - accurately or not. Again, I understand that, but it's irrelevant to my point, which is that you can't use music that has no real soundstage to gauge soundstage, nor can you use music recorded in such a way that the instruments don't sound like that instrument would sound in an un-amplified listening situation (as in the case of instruments that are recorded using contact microphones). I've heard these arguments before, and I remain adamant that this kind of music is simply irrelevant to the goal of high-fidelity reproduction, and as much as the modern audiophile community might revere it, it's wishful thinking to believe that any meaningful conclusions about the Fi of equipment can be gathered by using it as a reviewing tool. Then do we need to euthanise the term 'high-fidelity' as it is applied to audio equipment once and for all? After all the number of people who buy audio systems using the standards that you espouse must be miniscule. No offence intended, I'm honestly curious about this and interested. As I use the term hi-fi fairly frequently I feel I should understand what it means - and if it means the same thing to everyone and, if not, what percentages use it how. This artificial construct will sound very similar on high-end audio systems (although they all will colour it to some degree). It is the playback of this manipulated recording that the reviewers are reviewing, comparing it to how they've heard it on 'great' systems. It has nothing to do with how the band sounds when they're playing in a space. That's the fundamental difference between what you are familiar with and what the readership of these magazines are familiar with. In my opinion it in no way invalidates these contemporary reviews and a system that can accurately reproduce what you refer to as 'pop music' will, in all likelihood also be good at reproducing a symphony in a hall - or a string quartet in a large room. I still maintain that if your final comment in the above paragraph is true, it's happenstance, because the conclusions drawn using pop music as a source simply have no relationship to the reality of music reproduction. I didn't mention it in my first reply but I'm having trouble with the definition of the term you're using; 'Pop music'. From reading your post it seems that you apply it to everything except non-amplified music? The Rickie Lee Jones album I've referenced several times - the album that is my own personal 'gold standard' for evaluating audio equipment (and probably my favourite album of all time) - is more jazz than anything. It was recorded in 1978 using the best jazz session musicians available at the time. The bass is mostly acoustic played by Red Callander, not a bass guitar (except for where the liner notes refer to a 'Fender bass' played by Willie Weeks - arguably the most in-demand session musician of all time) and, while there is a small amount of electric guitar and an even smaller amount of synthesizer (Randy Newman) it features a lot of saxophone (played by Tom Scott), awesome trumpet by Chuck Findlay as well as 'horns' in general. The recording also strongly features 'orchestral arrangements' by Johnny Mandel (who worked with Count Bassie, Frank Sinatra et al) and Nick DeCaro (who also plays the accordian on a track or two). Heck, it's even got a mandolin! In short it's not what I think of when the term 'pop music' is used. When I was more mobile (and affluent) I'd take a few 'reference CDs' with me to listen to on a system. (Rickie Lee Jones in particular, also Peter Gabriels 'So' and a few others) I know these 'recordings' (if you'll allow the use of the word - they're really constructs) so very well, having listened to them many, many times on diverse systems (yet I've never heard either performer live). I know how they /can/ image, I know the parts where Rickie very quietly 'breathes' along with the bass line - and I know that it takes a formidable speaker (as an example) to not only reproduce those two diverse sounds, one very soft, one deep and powerful, concurrently. On a mass-produced lo-fi system you could listen for decades and never hear it. On the system I'm listening to now with it's tri-amped quasi-ribbon tweeter top end, lower-midrange section and 10" deep bass drivers (it's a small room) it's unmissable. Perhaps so, but I don't see what that has to do with a system's performance on live music played in a real space. What it shows is that these performances sound GOOD to the listener through THAT equipment, and that's down to individual taste, not accuracy. I.E., I know what a real bowed bass viol sounds like and when a system's bass is accurate, that's what I hear in the listening room. Whatever differs from that is NOT the sound of a bass viol. What some rock-band's bass guitar sounds like through their on-stage amplifier/speaker, I have no idea (and neither does any other listener). So when the bass line comes across as being tubby or wooly with poor low frequency transient response, what does it tell us? Is it the playback system? Is it the bass player's on-stage amp/speaker?, is it the way the bass player has his guitar set-up, or is it something that the producer/engineers have done to the bass in production to "punch it up"? There's no way to know. Except in the case where you're listening to a recording as described above - pretty much the best 'pop music' ever recorded. In fact I'd humbly go to far as to say that my 30+ years of familiararity with that recording (and taking into account it's sheer quality) - not to mention my familiarity with real acoustic instruments - mean that when I listen to it on a system I *can* make informed comments on it's Fi. Once again, I'm not arguing with you - I agree with all that you say. I'm simply putting forward a different viewpoint based on a different musical genre and a different 'standard' and trying to do so as eloquently as you put forth your opinions. Forgive me if I fail. I understand. I just don't buy that using this music to test audio equipment can give a complete or accurate picture of how a piece of equipment actually sounds beyond the "It sounds good to me and my tastes" level of criticism. There were a few years in the 80s when my involvement in, and appreciation of high quality audio gear lead me to seek out highly-regarded, 'audiophile' quality recordings so that I could marvel at the quality of my stereo system, use them as a reference when I made changes to it and play them when an audiophile friend visited. However after a while I had an epiphany; In my pursuit of fidelity with my audio system I'd ended up at a place where recordings that I spent a lot of time listening to weren't actually the music that I enjoyed most - or even at all in some cases. I was listening to my *stereo* rather than music which I enjoyed, music which had lead me to my search for the best reproduction I could attain (with my budget). For a time, four years or so spanning the turn of the decade, late 1970s and early 1980s, I travelled with a band and was responsible for their live soundmixing. When the time came for them to lay down some recordings I 'consulted' with the sound engineer, giving input into the band's live sound, telling him when his mix drifted too far from how the band sounds live (so that people who were faniliar with the band live - my mix - wouldn't buy a recording and hear something completely different. That's very true. The "road" sound and the studio sound must be the same on a band's popular works, or the fans will be disappointed with the live performance (and vice versa). Yes, if not the same then at least very similar - unless a band gets to the stage where their fans don't care so much, they go to see them for the experience rather than the sound. [snipped] After all's said and done it's not generally the source material that we discuss here it's the equipment that reproduces it (and in this thread the legitimacy of magazine reviews of that equipment). But without real music with which to judge said equipment, the evaluations are meaningless because they come down to someone's personal taste rather than accuracy. IOW, without a reference, there's no way to know where you are. I feel that is where the art and science of reviewing is today. As I've said all along - I do see your point. However I feel that there's a valid facet of 'accuracy' that you might be dismissing - perhaps because of where you're coming from. My point is that this other side of reviewing *is* in fact valid - and is in fact the only side that 98% of the readers care (or even know) about. After all's said and done, if you don't cater to your readership then you won't have one for long. Regards, -- /Shaun. "Humans will have advanced a long, long, way when religious belief has a cozy little classification in the DSM." David Melville (in r.a.s.f1) [Sent from my OrbitalT ocular implant interface.] |
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