On 3 Jun 2005 00:54:02 GMT, "Harry Lavo" wrote:

"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
...
On 1 Jun 2005 00:24:30 GMT, "Harry Lavo" wrote:

I'm sorry, but one member of that "ill-informed anti-empiricist strain of
audiophilia" happens to be more up on the implications of what is being
discovered than you are. That's why my recomendations are different, and
more in line with the professional researchers in the field doing the
current cutting-edge work.

You mean Oohashi, whose work is unsupported and doesn't appear to
agree with your world view in any case, when you look at what he's
actually claiming.

I take it that by "unsupported" you mean that the experiment has not yet
been duplicated. That is so, as I have freely and frequently acknowedged.
But it is a relatively short time for such to take place, since the source
materials to do so were not available until late 2002. That doesn't demean
his work, nor the careful listening lab environment, protocols, and rating
system they used for the test. Does it now?

No, although your persistent misrepresentation of what he actually
reported certainly does demean his work.

What you are hearing here, Mark, is audio orthodoxy as it has been
practiced
over the last 20-25 years.

Indeed - and it's 'orthodox' because it's been shown to work.

Shown to work when used properly; never validated for use in open-ended
evaluation of audio components.

It's been validated by constant work to improve its sensitivity. Just
because *you* have some wild idea that you can't even be bothered to
test, doesn't mean that we should reject many decades of work by real
professionals.

However, some recent work suggests that the
ear/brain *when listening to music* in a way that is emotionally engaging
may take as much as two minutes to register, and like-wise to
"un-register"
if another stimulus does not excite the emotions as much.

And *if* so, then we just extend the ABX test, which *never* had any
requirement for short snippets, or indeed for quick switching. No
problem, and actually easier to set up, if certainly a longer-term
exercise.

Could be, but the ABX test looses most of its power when deprived of
quick-switching, since it is a comparative test.

Oh, so now you admit that quick-switching is better when doing a
comparitive test? BTW Harry, your 'monadic' test remains a comparitive
test, no matter how long the intervals.

And in practice its
practicioners tend to approximate the IEEE and CCIR guidelines of 20 sec
snippets and 1 sec switches.

That would be because these guidelines are proven to indicate maximum
sensitivity. This is the result of *real* experimentation, not
armchair quarterbacking. If you disagree with IEEE and CCIR
guidelines, then get out there and *prove* that your method has merit.

I noticed in your own recent test description that flat out testing would
require and AB completion every three minutes, and probably not even that
long allowing for time to eat, drink, and make merry. That's pretty fast
back and forth switching if you are serious about it.

We are deadly serious, that's why we *do* these comparisons. Tell us
Harry, apart from pitching up to heckle Arny at HE2005, what have
*you* actually *done* about finding the best-sounding audio gear?

This obviously
has implications for high-end audio testing, since the long term effect of
the equipment is either emotionally satisfying, or not ... a reason why
some
people regret a choice later.

Buyer's remorse is common to all areas of purchase, not just hi-fi. So
it's not a 'reason', merely a speculation on your part.

Buyer's remorse can be for a lot of reasons, some objectively legitimate as
well as some psychological. Finding that music "just doesn't satisfy" could
be either. Neither you nor I know which, for a fact, so you are equally
guilty of speculation.

I didn't speculate, you did. I simply called you on it. Nothing in
what you say can *ever* be traced to the actual physical soundfield.

These researchers used 3-4 min "whole
segments" of music and allowed more than a minute between them (and wished
they had left more). Since they are measuring the brains physiological
reaction using EEG and MIR as well as conventional audio ratings, they are
dealing with "hard," factual phenomena here. They gently suggest that
perhaps the previous research was based on false assumptions, as they can
make a statistical preference "disappear" simply by shortening the
listening
snippets to 20 secs. and the time between segments to 1 sec.

And *if* this evidence is supported by other researchers, then it's
very easy to move forward and change the standard. Unfortunately, all
the other evidence gathered over the past fifty-odd years suggests
that the smallest differences can be heard via quick-switched short
'snippets' of sound. We'll need a *lot* more evidence before Oohashi's
results can be claimed as other than speculative. Cold Fusion, anyone?

Well, the pace of brain research in the last 5-10 years outstrips the
previous forty in total. So perhaps forty years of telephone and hearing
aid research are not the best standard to use when it comes to testing how
people/their ears/brains react to music. Or at least, may not be the
standards that last or prove accurate in open-ended evaluation of audio
equipment.

Agreed, but there is only one set of results which has any suggestion
that short-switched 'snippets' are less than ideal, that is
unsupported, and it does *not* support anything which you have drawn
from it regarding your 'monadic' testing.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

"Ban" wrote in message
...
Harry Lavo wrote:

Well, the pace of brain research in the last 5-10 years outstrips the
previous forty in total. So perhaps forty years of telephone and
hearing aid research are not the best standard to use when it comes
to testing how people/their ears/brains react to music. Or at least,
may not be the standards that last or prove accurate in open-ended
evaluation of audio equipment.

You are underestimating the research, it has nothing to do with hearing
aids
or cellphones. Already the development of a MP3 codec requires extensive
research work of what is audible or not, SACD and even CD have gone to the
very edge of audibility, do you think that was done for hearing aid? Your
arguments are so thin and your logic is so polemic, at the end you havn't
understood or misrepresented your own quotes.

I am simply referring to research fields that have been used by objectivists
to point out how long audio research has been going on, on this and on other
newsgroups.

"Ban" wrote in message
...
Harry Lavo wrote:
wrote in message
...
Harry Lavo wrote:
The time frame was from Oohashi's work. But Oohashi's work is
consistent with other research of the last 5-10 years that has
identified certain aspects of music as being hard-wired into the
brain, creating a response in the thalamus that is unconscious and
activates the pleasure response. Oohashi's work seems to indicate
that if the full frequency response of an instrument is reproduced,
even if ultrasonic, the brain reacts at the primitive level. If that
response is truncated, at least as far as instruments with
ultrasonics, the brain fails to register the pleasure response. So
while ultrasonics per se may be limited to only a few instruments,
the general principle if found to hold for more instruments can be
far reaching.

There is a known effect of "pleasure", but it is *not* from ultrasonic
frequencies. The effect is also known as the "disco"-effect, when high
SPLs
(above 86db) in the bass stimulate some gland in the brain to produce a
drug-like substance. It relates to frequencies below 80Hz.
I think you mixed that up. :-))

I see your smiley, but I don't get the joke.

Joke of straight, there was nothing resembling bass in this test.

On 3 Jun 2005 20:13:47 GMT, Chung wrote:

Mark DeBellis wrote:

Point taken, but doesn't this support what I have been saying on
another thread, which is that recordings are wisely controlled to
produce coherent, satisfying musical experiences, rather than to be
thought of as having the function of being accurate copies of sonic
events? If a judicious application of EQ or compression helps me hear
the individual lines, even if that is a departure from accuracy in
some sense, why should I value accuracy more?

Mark

You value accuracy in playback equipment because you want to listen to
what the mastering engineers produced. If you have an inaccurate system,
you may not be able to listen to what was intended to sound on the
recordings.

Thanks, I appreciate the reference and found it interesting.

Concerning playback equipment, isn't the most relevant intention what
the final product, as opposed to some intermediate stage, was intended
to sound like? And then don't we have to take into account what sort
of systems were envisioned to be used for playback? I am thinking say
of some wonderful recordings of the late 1950s or early 60s when it
was expected that vinyl would be used for playback. What was intended
to sound was the sound of those recordings in vinyl. Was the process
not carefully controlled with that final product in mind? So if the
original intent is the criterion, it is the inaccurate system, not the
accurate one, that conforms to that intention. If on the other hand
one produces a CD from the master tape, one is employing it in a
technology different from what the original producer/engineer
envisioned, and that is an interventionist not purist approach. I am
not saying it is not valid, but I don't see how it can be defended by
an appeal to original intent.

Consider the old Caruso recordings: it was intended that they sound
through the horn of a Victrola (or some of them, anyway). I wonder
if *any* reproduction on modern equipment captures the original
intentions of what they should sound like.

This is like the issue of whether to play Bach on original or modern
instruments.

In any event, how do the producer and mastering engineer arrive at
their intention in the first place? How do they choose? As I
understand it there are different schools of thought on this,
different approaches. One approach would be to recreate as closely as
possible the sound heard by a listener at the live performance.
Another approach would be more interventionist: the engineer might
apply EQ in order to help the listener distinguish the instruments
and, as a result, hear and make sense of the music better. That seems
to me to have a perfectly valid artistic motivation.

Why then does it make a difference if the engineer adds EQ or the
listener does? Maybe this would be the beginning of an answer:
Compare with my "improving" a Bach prelude by changing the notes as
written. We have an independent interest in musical works, not just
in streams of sound that please us. If we take a similar attitude
toward recordings, we have an interest in what the producer/engineer
designed for us to hear. This contrasts with, say, our interest in
the products of the chef at Le Bernardin. We do have a certain
interest in appreciating what the chef designed for us, but not enough
to prevent us from adding salt. Maybe has partly to do with the
designer's intentions: the chef expects us to add salt but not
ketchup. Does it perhaps make a difference how determinate the
producer/engineer's intentions are? Maybe there are some who have a
determinate intention, *this* is how my recording should sound,
pointing to the master tape, but others take it for granted that
listeners may use tone controls. In the latter case, the original
intent does not support a purist approach to reproduction of the
master tape.

Mark


Here's what Siegfried Linkwitz said that is germane to hi-fi:

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/reproduction.htm

***
MY OBJECTIVE

Minimal alteration of the original should be the goal of sound
reproduction since anything else is a falsification. For many pieces of
recorded material it may not matter, because the performance is so
highly processed and the listener shares no common sonic reference.
Also, a listener may be so used to amplified music that the
characteristic sound of certain types of loudspeakers becomes the
reference. However, ultimately only a system with minimal distortion can
hope to achieve the reproduction of an original and, in particular, of a
familiar live sonic event such as a choral performance, a solo male
voice, or a car driving by. My motto is:

True to the Original ...
***

On 3 Jun 2005 20:17:13 GMT, Chung wrote:

Harry Lavo wrote:


As I said, many audiophiles heard in SACD what they heard, with no
explanation at the time of what it was. But they heard it.

I heard it, too. But then under controlled conditions, I did not hear
it. I think Mark would say the same thing.


If you are asking ...

This is a very interesting question. Here's what I would say:

(1) I seemed to hear a certain quality in SACD that makes it superior
to other recordings.

(2) Then when I compared SACD and CD (or 16/44.1 wav actually), I
seemed to hear distinctive characteristics to each. But I found that
when I tried to focus on these characteristics and use them as a basis
on which I could identify the sources, they seemed to attach sometimes
to one source, sometimes to the other, and in any event I could not
reliably identify the sources.

A possible argument: a characteristic I associated with SACD in (2) is
*identical* to the quality I thought I heard in SACD in (1). And this
proves that that quality is entirely the result of expectation bias.

However, I'm not sure I buy that argument, because I'm not sure that
any characteristic in (2) is identical with said quality in (1).

In other words, it is a matter of whether the "it" you say you did not
hear (or that moved from one source to another, in my case) is the
same as the "it" that you did hear. There is no question that some
sort of perceptual illusion is going on at stage (2), but I am not
sure how much can be inferred from this about stage (1).

My intuition about this is that I really am hearing something in (1)
that is a distinctive quality of SACD, and I think that the test in
(2) gets me listening in a different way so it is not testing for my
perception of that quality at all. The quality in (1) runs away when
I try to focus on "what it is like" so I can use it as a basis for
reidentification. Perhaps that is because it comes entirely from
expectation bias, but I am not sure that that is the only possible
conclusion. At any rate, I am not, I think with some justification,
satisfied with my present state of understanding of the matter.

Mark

On 3 Jun 2005 03:00:29 GMT, wrote:

Mark DeBellis wrote:

Point taken, but doesn't this support what I have been saying on
another thread, which is that recordings are wisely controlled to
produce coherent, satisfying musical experiences, rather than to be
thought of as having the function of being accurate copies of sonic
events? If a judicious application of EQ or compression helps me hear
the individual lines, even if that is a departure from accuracy in
some sense, why should I value accuracy more?

"Accuracy in some sense"? Careful with your terms here. Those of us who
"extol" the accuracy of CD--the subject of that other thread--are
referring to its relationship to the master tape (i.e., after EQ,
compression, etc. have been applied), not to the relationship between
the CD and the original performance. No one disputes the value of what
recording and mastering engineers do to "create" the sound of a
recording. (And what they do can be highly individualistic and a far
cry from what might be called "preserving the original sound.") A good
recording engineer can bring out individual voices in a performance,
for example. An accurate home audio system can reproduce that
engineer's work. That's the sense in which people on the technical side
of things usually talk about accuracy in audio.


Thanks, that's a helpful distinction, and I'm sorry if I was talking
at cross purposes with anyone. But if people on that other thread
were talking *only* about the relationship between CD/LP and master
tape, how would that respond to Jenn's basic claim, which is that
vinyl sounds more like the live thing than CD does? It sure seemed to
me like they were talking, at least much of the time, about accuracy
in the sense of fidelity to the original, live sound.

If no one disputes the value of a recording engineer's applying EQ to
"create" a certain sound, or to bring out individual voices, then if
the same sonic effect were to result at a later point in the playback
chain, perhaps through no one's conscious control but as an artifact
of the technology, why should I not value it just as much?

Mark

I listen to a lot of FM from Canada's CBC2. There are a lot of concerts
of Canadian orchestras - some live but most taped. I don't know how
much the recording engineers "tweek" these sessions but the sound
quality is uniformly excellent. It is MUCH better in fact than most
commercial CDs. I suspect that they are mostly done with very few
microphones and that the engineers don't try to equalize. I wish the
people who control the sessions for the CD labels would leave things
alone.


---MIKE---
In the White Mountains of New Hampshire
(44=B0 15' N - Elevation 1580')

Mark DeBellis wrote:
Thanks, that's a helpful distinction, and I'm sorry if I was talking
at cross purposes with anyone. But if people on that other thread
were talking *only* about the relationship between CD/LP and master
tape, how would that respond to Jenn's basic claim, which is that
vinyl sounds more like the live thing than CD does?

It responds to it by questioning its truth on technical grounds. For a
consumer recording to be accurate to the live event, there are two key
technical hurdles:

1) An engineer must make a master tape that is accurate to the live
event;

2) That master tape must be transferred to a consumer medium that is
accurate to the master tape.

Outside of the tiny vinylphile clique, no one seriously believes that
vinyl is or can be more accurate to a master tape than a CD. That
argument would be absurd on technical grounds. And if a CD is more
accurate to the master tape than vinyl is, how could vinyl be more
*accurate* to the live event?

Now, notice that I used the term "accuracy." But that's not the claim
you are attributing to Jenn. In your words, she claims that "vinyl
SOUNDS more like the live thing than CD does." How could vinyl be less
accurate to the live event and yet sound more like it? The answer to
that riddle, as you know, is euphonic distortion--there must be
something in the distortion introduced by vinyl (and there are several
likely suspects) that induces listeners to hear it as "more like live."

bob

In article , wrote:

Mark DeBellis wrote:
Thanks, that's a helpful distinction, and I'm sorry if I was talking
at cross purposes with anyone. But if people on that other thread
were talking *only* about the relationship between CD/LP and master
tape, how would that respond to Jenn's basic claim, which is that
vinyl sounds more like the live thing than CD does?

It responds to it by questioning its truth on technical grounds. For a
consumer recording to be accurate to the live event, there are two key
technical hurdles:

1) An engineer must make a master tape that is accurate to the live
event;

2) That master tape must be transferred to a consumer medium that is
accurate to the master tape.

Outside of the tiny vinylphile clique, no one seriously believes that
vinyl is or can be more accurate to a master tape than a CD. That
argument would be absurd on technical grounds. And if a CD is more
accurate to the master tape than vinyl is, how could vinyl be more
*accurate* to the live event?

Now, notice that I used the term "accuracy." But that's not the claim
you are attributing to Jenn. In your words, she claims that "vinyl
SOUNDS more like the live thing than CD does." How could vinyl be less
accurate to the live event and yet sound more like it? The answer to
that riddle, as you know, is euphonic distortion--there must be
something in the distortion introduced by vinyl (and there are several
likely suspects) that induces listeners to hear it as "more like live."

bob

1. There are, of course, other possible answers to the "riddle." One
is that there is something not currently measurable that is happening
with CDs; something that I suspect subtracts from some aspect of live
sound. Granted, this is purely an idea on my part (and expressed by
others as well), and not grounded in any kind of science that I know
about.
2. To be clear once again: If what I like in the sound of LP is a type
of distortion, I don't care. My only goal is hearing music in my home
that sounds like real music in a real space TO ME. If it is some kind
of distortion in my system or software that causes that, I couldn't care
less.

wrote:
Mark DeBellis wrote:
Thanks, that's a helpful distinction, and I'm sorry if I was talking
at cross purposes with anyone. But if people on that other thread
were talking *only* about the relationship between CD/LP and master
tape, how would that respond to Jenn's basic claim, which is that
vinyl sounds more like the live thing than CD does?

It responds to it by questioning its truth on technical grounds. For a
consumer recording to be accurate to the live event, there are two key
technical hurdles:

1) An engineer must make a master tape that is accurate to the live
event;


That is impossible. The signal on a master tape is incomparable to the
original event. It would be more reasonable to compare apples and
oranges. They are at least both fruit.




2) That master tape must be transferred to a consumer medium that is
accurate to the master tape.


Now that is doable. It is not always the best choice though. IMO.





Outside of the tiny vinylphile clique, no one seriously believes that
vinyl is or can be more accurate to a master tape than a CD.


Irrelevant to the truth. Why always play to the populous vote? Don't
you know that is the road to Brittany Spears played back on Bose
speakers with the bass and treble cranked way up? No thanks.




That
argument would be absurd on technical grounds.

Ah, the old technical grounds mo. Sorry but this is the sort of thing
that gets one the rep of being a meter reader. The technology must
serve the subjective preferences and not the other way around.



And if a CD is more
accurate to the master tape than vinyl is, how could vinyl be more
*accurate* to the live event?


Now that is an interesting question. I suspect it isn't what you meant
though. But it does go into an interesting issue. Fidelity to what? The
master tape? What on earth is fidelity to the master tape anyway?
Master tapes in and of themselves are inaudible. You can't spererate
them from a playback system. So the question is what is most accurate
to the original live event? A master tape played back through a given
reference system, An LP mastered form that tape played back through the
same reference system, a CD mastered from that tape played back through
that same reference system etc. While some may wish to believe the
answers to these questions are simple and straight forward it seems
they are not.









Now, notice that I used the term "accuracy." But that's not the claim
you are attributing to Jenn. In your words, she claims that "vinyl
SOUNDS more like the live thing than CD does."


That shows significance of the question fidelity to what?



How could vinyl be less
accurate to the live event and yet sound more like it?



Sorry but you have built your question on a false premise. I can assure
you that neither an LP or CD or master tape are any more or less
accurate to a live acoustic event because you cannot isolate them and
get a sound.




The answer to
that riddle, as you know, is euphonic distortion--there must be
something in the distortion introduced by vinyl (and there are several
likely suspects) that induces listeners to hear it as "more like live."



"More like live" is higher fidelity if *live* is the reference.




Scott Wheeler

Jenn wrote:
In article , wrote:

Now, notice that I used the term "accuracy." But that's not the claim
you are attributing to Jenn. In your words, she claims that "vinyl
SOUNDS more like the live thing than CD does." How could vinyl be less
accurate to the live event and yet sound more like it? The answer to
that riddle, as you know, is euphonic distortion--there must be
something in the distortion introduced by vinyl (and there are several
likely suspects) that induces listeners to hear it as "more like live."

bob

1. There are, of course, other possible answers to the "riddle." One
is that there is something not currently measurable that is happening
with CDs; something that I suspect subtracts from some aspect of live
sound. Granted, this is purely an idea on my part (and expressed by
others as well), and not grounded in any kind of science that I know
about.

Then perhaps I should say that euphonic distortion is the only
scientifically plausible explanation we have. "There might be something
else..." isn't an explanation. It's an admission that you (meant
generically here) don't have one. And to anticipate the objection that
scientists ought to start looking for an alternative
explanation--that's not their job. Their job is to explain the
unexplained. For this, they already have an explanation.

2. To be clear once again: If what I like in the sound of LP is a type
of distortion, I don't care. My only goal is hearing music in my home
that sounds like real music in a real space TO ME. If it is some kind
of distortion in my system or software that causes that, I couldn't care
less.

Exactly. If only everyone could leave it at that.

bob

On 3 Jun 2005 00:10:57 GMT, "Harry Lavo" wrote:

The time frame was from Oohashi's work. But Oohashi's work is consistent
with other research of the last 5-10 years that has identified certain
aspects of music as being hard-wired into the brain, creating a response in
the thalamus that is unconscious and activates the pleasure response.
Oohashi's work seems to indicate that if the full frequency response of an
instrument is reproduced, even if ultrasonic, the brain reacts at the
primitive level. If that response is truncated, at least as far as
instruments with ultrasonics, the brain fails to register the pleasure
response. So while ultrasonics per se may be limited to only a few
instruments, the general principle if found to hold for more instruments can
be far reaching.

One problem with this argument is that such "hard-wiring" cannot be
accomplished over the relatively short time-span since the invention
of most musical instruments. A learned response is possible.

Kal

Mark DeBellis wrote:
On 3 Jun 2005 20:13:47 GMT, Chung wrote:

Mark DeBellis wrote:

Point taken, but doesn't this support what I have been saying on
another thread, which is that recordings are wisely controlled to
produce coherent, satisfying musical experiences, rather than to be
thought of as having the function of being accurate copies of sonic
events? If a judicious application of EQ or compression helps me hear
the individual lines, even if that is a departure from accuracy in
some sense, why should I value accuracy more?

Mark

You value accuracy in playback equipment because you want to listen to
what the mastering engineers produced. If you have an inaccurate system,
you may not be able to listen to what was intended to sound on the
recordings.

Thanks, I appreciate the reference and found it interesting.

Concerning playback equipment, isn't the most relevant intention what
the final product, as opposed to some intermediate stage, was intended
to sound like? And then don't we have to take into account what sort
of systems were envisioned to be used for playback? I am thinking say
of some wonderful recordings of the late 1950s or early 60s when it
was expected that vinyl would be used for playback. What was intended
to sound was the sound of those recordings in vinyl. Was the process
not carefully controlled with that final product in mind? So if the
original intent is the criterion, it is the inaccurate system, not the
accurate one, that conforms to that intention. If on the other hand
one produces a CD from the master tape, one is employing it in a
technology different from what the original producer/engineer
envisioned, and that is an interventionist not purist approach. I am
not saying it is not valid, but I don't see how it can be defended by
an appeal to original intent.

Consider the old Caruso recordings: it was intended that they sound
through the horn of a Victrola (or some of them, anyway). I wonder
if *any* reproduction on modern equipment captures the original
intentions of what they should sound like.

This is like the issue of whether to play Bach on original or modern
instruments.

In any event, how do the producer and mastering engineer arrive at
their intention in the first place? How do they choose? As I
understand it there are different schools of thought on this,
different approaches. One approach would be to recreate as closely as
possible the sound heard by a listener at the live performance.
Another approach would be more interventionist: the engineer might
apply EQ in order to help the listener distinguish the instruments
and, as a result, hear and make sense of the music better. That seems
to me to have a perfectly valid artistic motivation.

Why then does it make a difference if the engineer adds EQ or the
listener does? Maybe this would be the beginning of an answer:
Compare with my "improving" a Bach prelude by changing the notes as
written. We have an independent interest in musical works, not just
in streams of sound that please us. If we take a similar attitude
toward recordings, we have an interest in what the producer/engineer
designed for us to hear. This contrasts with, say, our interest in
the products of the chef at Le Bernardin. We do have a certain
interest in appreciating what the chef designed for us, but not enough
to prevent us from adding salt. Maybe has partly to do with the
designer's intentions: the chef expects us to add salt but not
ketchup. Does it perhaps make a difference how determinate the
producer/engineer's intentions are? Maybe there are some who have a
determinate intention, *this* is how my recording should sound,
pointing to the master tape, but others take it for granted that
listeners may use tone controls. In the latter case, the original
intent does not support a purist approach to reproduction of the
master tape.

Mark


The analogy with adding salt/ketchup is an apt one. You can certainly
add salt to any given dish. But do you want to alway add salt to every
dish? Having an inaccurate system is akin to someone always adding salt
to everything you eat: it may taste better than no salt some of the
time, but you really want to have control of when to add salt.

I don't think I can explain the importance of accuracy any better than
Linkwitz. Sure, some processes are very difficult to make accurate. But
where it is straightforward to do so, why not use the most accurate
method? That is, use accurate digital audio conversion/storage, preamps,
CD/hi-rez players, power amps and cables.

Kalman Rubinson wrote:
On 3 Jun 2005 00:10:57 GMT, "Harry Lavo" wrote:

The time frame was from Oohashi's work. But Oohashi's work is consistent
with other research of the last 5-10 years that has identified certain
aspects of music as being hard-wired into the brain, creating a response in
the thalamus that is unconscious and activates the pleasure response.
Oohashi's work seems to indicate that if the full frequency response of an
instrument is reproduced, even if ultrasonic, the brain reacts at the
primitive level. If that response is truncated, at least as far as
instruments with ultrasonics, the brain fails to register the pleasure
response. So while ultrasonics per se may be limited to only a few
instruments, the general principle if found to hold for more instruments can
be far reaching.

One problem with this argument is that such "hard-wiring" cannot be
accomplished over the relatively short time-span since the invention
of most musical instruments. A learned response is possible.

Excellent point.

I would also like to point out that music is partly intuitive in ways that
have nothing to do with so-called 'hardwiring.' That is, consonance,
dissonance and rhythm are to large degree based on mathematical and physical
principles. Pythagoras showed this with tuning and while the origin of
the arrangements of strong and weak beats within different meters is difficult
to find, a simple, strong and convincing argument can be made using formal logic.

Love that Bulgarian 11/16 meter! (and the 'ruchenitsa' [7/8])

BTW, where's all that ultrasonic music to 'prove' Harry Lavo right? There
should even be notation for that if it's as important as he says. ;-)

"Kalman Rubinson" wrote in message
...
On 3 Jun 2005 00:10:57 GMT, "Harry Lavo" wrote:

The time frame was from Oohashi's work. But Oohashi's work is consistent
with other research of the last 5-10 years that has identified certain
aspects of music as being hard-wired into the brain, creating a response
in
the thalamus that is unconscious and activates the pleasure response.
Oohashi's work seems to indicate that if the full frequency response of an
instrument is reproduced, even if ultrasonic, the brain reacts at the
primitive level. If that response is truncated, at least as far as
instruments with ultrasonics, the brain fails to register the pleasure
response. So while ultrasonics per se may be limited to only a few
instruments, the general principle if found to hold for more instruments
can
be far reaching.

One problem with this argument is that such "hard-wiring" cannot be
accomplished over the relatively short time-span since the invention
of most musical instruments. A learned response is possible.


The scientists who have discovered this have also reacted with wonder...but
they don't doubt their findings. Perhaps there is something to this "music
of the spheres..." business.

In article , wrote:

Kalman Rubinson wrote:
On 3 Jun 2005 00:10:57 GMT, "Harry Lavo" wrote:

The time frame was from Oohashi's work. But Oohashi's work is consistent
with other research of the last 5-10 years that has identified certain
aspects of music as being hard-wired into the brain, creating a response in
the thalamus that is unconscious and activates the pleasure response.
Oohashi's work seems to indicate that if the full frequency response of an
instrument is reproduced, even if ultrasonic, the brain reacts at the
primitive level. If that response is truncated, at least as far as
instruments with ultrasonics, the brain fails to register the pleasure
response. So while ultrasonics per se may be limited to only a few
instruments, the general principle if found to hold for more instruments
can
be far reaching.

One problem with this argument is that such "hard-wiring" cannot be
accomplished over the relatively short time-span since the invention
of most musical instruments. A learned response is possible.

Excellent point.

I would also like to point out that music is partly intuitive in ways that
have nothing to do with so-called 'hardwiring.' That is, consonance,
dissonance and rhythm are to large degree based on mathematical and physical
principles. .....

Well, partially. Opinions differ in this area. In the matter of
consonance and dissonance (harmony), some believe our perceptions are
based on the harmonic series, and others believe that we are taught this
(for an interesting discussion, see Bernstein: The Unanswered Question.)
And, as has been mentioned here, the question of tuning systems is
always interesting.... would Gabrieli have enjoyed music performed with
the tempered scale and how we adjust overtones today? Great questions
for pondering! :-)

On 14 Jun 2005 23:44:42 GMT, "Harry Lavo" wrote:

"Kalman Rubinson" wrote in message
...
On 3 Jun 2005 00:10:57 GMT, "Harry Lavo" wrote:

The time frame was from Oohashi's work. But Oohashi's work is consistent
with other research of the last 5-10 years that has identified certain
aspects of music as being hard-wired into the brain, creating a response
in
the thalamus that is unconscious and activates the pleasure response.
Oohashi's work seems to indicate that if the full frequency response of an
instrument is reproduced, even if ultrasonic, the brain reacts at the
primitive level. If that response is truncated, at least as far as
instruments with ultrasonics, the brain fails to register the pleasure
response. So while ultrasonics per se may be limited to only a few
instruments, the general principle if found to hold for more instruments
can
be far reaching.

One problem with this argument is that such "hard-wiring" cannot be
accomplished over the relatively short time-span since the invention
of most musical instruments. A learned response is possible.


The scientists who have discovered this have also reacted with wonder...but
they don't doubt their findings.

Ha! They may not but other qualified neuroscientists are less
enthusiastic.

Perhaps there is something to this "music
of the spheres..." business.

Is that 'spheres' short for hemispheres? ;-)

Kal

On 14 Jun 2005 00:04:28 GMT, wrote:

Jenn wrote:
In article , wrote:

Now, notice that I used the term "accuracy." But that's not the claim
you are attributing to Jenn. In your words, she claims that "vinyl
SOUNDS more like the live thing than CD does." How could vinyl be less
accurate to the live event and yet sound more like it? The answer to
that riddle, as you know, is euphonic distortion--there must be
something in the distortion introduced by vinyl (and there are several
likely suspects) that induces listeners to hear it as "more like live."

bob

1. There are, of course, other possible answers to the "riddle." One
is that there is something not currently measurable that is happening
with CDs; something that I suspect subtracts from some aspect of live
sound. Granted, this is purely an idea on my part (and expressed by
others as well), and not grounded in any kind of science that I know
about.

Then perhaps I should say that euphonic distortion is the only
scientifically plausible explanation we have. "There might be something
else..." isn't an explanation. It's an admission that you (meant
generically here) don't have one. And to anticipate the objection that
scientists ought to start looking for an alternative
explanation--that's not their job. Their job is to explain the
unexplained. For this, they already have an explanation.

If the term "euphonic distortion" means "whatever it is in the
distortion introduced by vinyl that induces listeners to hear it as
more like live," then, assuming euphonic distortion exists at all, of
course vinyl can be less accurate to the event and yet sound more like
it, and what makes it sound that way is (at least in part) euphonic
distortion. But that explains nothing. It is a tautology, a
"dormitive virtue" "explanation." What would do the real explaining
is the likely suspects you mention, and I would like to hear more
about them. What interests me is the question of just what it is, in
what you call euphonic distortion, that people like. If the likely
suspects you mention are only "likely suspects," then scientists do
not already have a satisfactory explanation, just hypotheses; there is
more work to be done. And to suggest that "there might be something
else," i.e., something that people like in LP that is not in itself
distortion, is nothing but a suggestion about the range of possible
explanations and what a correct explanation *might* look like. It is
the job of scientists to find the best, or a correct, explanation.
That people like the euphonic distortion in an LP does not preclude
the possibility that there is something else, something that is not
any form of distortion, that they also like (that is particular to
LP). When I suggested this earlier the response was, IIRC, pretty
much: that's unlikely because LP is much less accurate in general than
CD. That does not strike me as a conclusive argument; it is more like
guilt by association. That LP is much less accurate in numerous ways
than CD does not imply that LP cannot get a certain dimension *right*.
If euphonic distortion is the only plausible explanation we have
merely because scientists have not ruled out, or even investigated,
other possibilities, that should not give us much confidence in the
completeness of that explanation.

Mark

On 3 Jun 2005 03:00:29 GMT, wrote:

No one disputes the value of what
recording and mastering engineers do to "create" the sound of a
recording. (And what they do can be highly individualistic and a far
cry from what might be called "preserving the original sound.") A good
recording engineer can bring out individual voices in a performance,
for example.

I guess I am confused because it seems to me that people do dispute
that. Or anyway, what they say would seem to give reason to dispute
it. Linkwitz (whom Chung cites), for example, argues for reproduction
of the original without any addition, removal, or falsification.
Doesn't Linkwitz's view entail that the engineers' activity of
"creating" a sound, not "preserving the original," typically
constitutes a "falsification"? If not, why not?

Please correct me where I go astray here, but it seems to me that lots
of people do think that accuracy is the ideal to strive for -- the
goal of audio -- all the way from the original live event (in
classical music) to playback. Have I misread everyone?

Mark

Mark DeBellis wrote:
On 3 Jun 2005 03:00:29 GMT, wrote:

No one disputes the value of what
recording and mastering engineers do to "create" the sound of a
recording. (And what they do can be highly individualistic and a far
cry from what might be called "preserving the original sound.") A good
recording engineer can bring out individual voices in a performance,
for example.

I guess I am confused because it seems to me that people do dispute
that. Or anyway, what they say would seem to give reason to dispute
it. Linkwitz (whom Chung cites), for example, argues for reproduction
of the original without any addition, removal, or falsification.
Doesn't Linkwitz's view entail that the engineers' activity of
"creating" a sound, not "preserving the original," typically
constitutes a "falsification"? If not, why not?

Please correct me where I go astray here, but it seems to me that lots
of people do think that accuracy is the ideal to strive for -- the
goal of audio -- all the way from the original live event (in
classical music) to playback. Have I misread everyone?

Yes. The technical people who talk about accuracy of reproduction are
talking about *reproduction*. They are talking about fidelity to the
original master recording. Though I don't know where you're quoting
this from, I'm pretty sure that's what Linkwitz meant.

bob

On 19 Jun 2005 16:23:55 GMT, wrote:

Mark DeBellis wrote:
On 3 Jun 2005 03:00:29 GMT, wrote:

No one disputes the value of what
recording and mastering engineers do to "create" the sound of a
recording. (And what they do can be highly individualistic and a far
cry from what might be called "preserving the original sound.") A good
recording engineer can bring out individual voices in a performance,
for example.

I guess I am confused because it seems to me that people do dispute
that. Or anyway, what they say would seem to give reason to dispute
it. Linkwitz (whom Chung cites), for example, argues for reproduction
of the original without any addition, removal, or falsification.
Doesn't Linkwitz's view entail that the engineers' activity of
"creating" a sound, not "preserving the original," typically
constitutes a "falsification"? If not, why not?

Please correct me where I go astray here, but it seems to me that lots
of people do think that accuracy is the ideal to strive for -- the
goal of audio -- all the way from the original live event (in
classical music) to playback. Have I misread everyone?

Yes. The technical people who talk about accuracy of reproduction are
talking about *reproduction*. They are talking about fidelity to the
original master recording. Though I don't know where you're quoting
this from, I'm pretty sure that's what Linkwitz meant.

OK. I thought "reproduction" could mean, among other things,
reproduction of the sound of an original live event. So if a
recording was made on a wax cylinder and it was played back, that was
still a reproduction of the original event, even though no master tape
was involved.

So what *do* people think about accuracy of reproduction in the sense
that I have been asking about, that is, accuracy to the original
event? Does anyone have a view about it? Do you think that, while
accuracy in the sense of fidelity to the original master recording is
important, it is not important whether that master recording
faithfully preserves the original event? (Would that be consistent,
even?)

Mark

Mark DeBellis wrote:
Do you think that, while
accuracy in the sense of fidelity to the original master recording is
important, it is not important whether that master recording
faithfully preserves the original event?

Depends on what the people making the recording intended. In most
cases, at least for pop music, there is no original event, so the
question is meaningless. Even on the classical side, there's often lots
of processing going on, including multiple takes spliced together to
get rid of mistakes.

The important point for high-end audio is that you have no control over
that. Some audiophiles seek out well-made recordings that offer a sense
of "real music in real space," but the extent to which that is
"captured" rather than "synthesized" probably varies.

Whereas, for the home listener, fidelity to the recording is possible,
at least up to the speaker terminals. And that's a goal some of us
think is worth achieving.

bob

wrote:
Mark DeBellis wrote:
Do you think that, while
accuracy in the sense of fidelity to the original master recording is
important, it is not important whether that master recording
faithfully preserves the original event?

Depends on what the people making the recording intended. In most
cases, at least for pop music, there is no original event, so the
question is meaningless.



There most certainly is an original event. We may not have access to it
but it certainly existed every bit as much as any live acoustic
performance.



Even on the classical side, there's often lots
of processing going on, including multiple takes spliced together to
get rid of mistakes.

The important point for high-end audio is that you have no control over
that. Some audiophiles seek out well-made recordings that offer a sense
of "real music in real space," but the extent to which that is
"captured" rather than "synthesized" probably varies.

Whereas, for the home listener, fidelity to the recording is possible,
at least up to the speaker terminals. And that's a goal some of us
think is worth achieving.



I prefer a more holistic aproach that includes the speakers and room
and considers the options we have at our disposal when it comes to the
many variations one can find of any given recording available on CD
and/or LP.
I don't worry as much about one component is doing as much as I
consider what they are all doing together.



Scott Wheeler

wrote:
Mark DeBellis wrote:
Do you think that, while
accuracy in the sense of fidelity to the original master recording is
important, it is not important whether that master recording
faithfully preserves the original event?

Depends on what the people making the recording intended. In most
cases, at least for pop music, there is no original event, so the
question is meaningless. Even on the classical side, there's often
lots of processing going on, including multiple takes spliced
together to get rid of mistakes.

The important point for high-end audio is that you have no control
over that. Some audiophiles seek out well-made recordings that offer
a sense of "real music in real space," but the extent to which that is
"captured" rather than "synthesized" probably varies.

Whereas, for the home listener, fidelity to the recording is possible,
at least up to the speaker terminals. And that's a goal some of us
think is worth achieving.

bob

That was very well coined- Most of the consumers also in a high-end group
will listen to rock/pop most of the time. This music was created in a sound
studio with the intention to create a "space" using all kinds of effect
units. When people go to concerts they will say it sounded "almost" as good
as on the record.
I know people listen to Pink Floyd, Mike Oldfield, Santana ...
Is it possible to judge the quality of a sound system by this kind of music?
Apparently there is no question of "live"-like. Never the less somehow we
still have an idea how it should sound?
--
ciao Ban
Bordighera, Italy