bob wrote:
Mark DeBellis wrote:

There we disagree. Critics have a role in shaping our tastes because
they point out things that we did not recognize as significant, but
come to recognize as being so. And they help us learn what to listen
*for*.

Well, they might help us, but we should be careful about putting too
much stock in one (or even mroe than one) critic's opinion. We should
also look carefully at the basis for that critic's opinion--Did he
actually see the movie, or did he just read a synopsis? That sounds
silly, of course, but consider an analogy: Did he listen to the
component he is reviewing in a way that will reveal the true sonic
nature of the component, independent of any bias on his part? Or did he
listen to it in a way that did not allow him (or us) to separate out
the true sonic nature of the component from his own subconscious
imaginings about it?

A worthwhile question, but I don't know if it's always crucial to be
sure about how the critic arrived at his conclusion--whether it was
free of bias or imagining. You (the reader of the critic) always say,
"Does this make sense to me?" I think we're back here to the question
of what we want to accept as a lifelike rendering of some (sonic)
original, and that's a matter of taste. I for one am initially
disposed in favor of having my taste in this influenced by someone who
has good ears for live music. I will pay more attention to the
judgment of such a person, and at least try (if possible) to figure out
what they might be hearing and how they could have come to that
conclusion. But I don't think there's any question of taking it on
faith. You might well get to a point where you give up trying to see
things the way the critic does, and maybe that would be because the
critic's judgment was based on his idiosyncratic imaginings. I just
don't know if it's necessary to determine that in advance; if the
critic can't convince you then he can't convince you, whatever the
reason.


snip

Your argument, basically, is that if "experts" supposedly qualified in
a certain way should disagree, then their supposed qualification is no
qualification at all. Obviously that's false: doctors disagree over
diagnoses;

Sure, but if doctors' diagnoses of a particular ailment were all over
the map, that would be evidence that doctors really don't know how to
diagnose this ailment, despite their many years of day-to-day
experience diagnosing ailments.

Still, the person who discovers the correct diagnosis will likely have
medical knowledge.


Do we have evidence that the music profession is converging on a
judgment that analog is more accurate to live acoustic music than
digital? No, we do not. Hence, appeals to expertise on this question
will not help us.

Depends on what we're trying to do. If we want to arrive at a simple
true statement of the form, "Necessarily, if a person is an expert of
such-and-such type, then his judgment about accuracy to live music is
reliable," then no. But we still might think that being a musician
confers *some* relevant skills and distinctive expertise. Things are
complicated, and whether those skills and expertise actually get
applied in any given situation will depend on many factors. As you
have pointed out, it's possible to get a satisfying musical experience
from all sorts of playback equipment, so maybe a lot of the time people
just aren't focused on high fidelity.


Here's a question that might shed some light: When conservatories and
university music departments have a choice between using an LP version
of a recording and a CD, which do they generally use? CD is more
convenient, but I took Music 101 back in the analog age, and the prof
managed just fine. Surely if LP really were superior in sound, you'd
see a fairly high level of LP use in music instruction and training. Do
you?

No. CD is more durable, and records in the library collection are
often in bad shape. There are many things that can go wrong with LP
such as dust, problems with playback equipment, etc. It is much easier
to find a given excerpt or passage on CD, and sometimes with LP there
is the awful thud of the needle hitting the record. Nevertheless, of
course, you have a point. If LP is superior, it isn't superior to the
point that it outweighs these other factors for that use. But still,
anecdotally: I observed a "Music 101" class some years ago where the
instructor used an LP recording of Beethoven's Eroica Variations, and
the whole experience came alive for me. There was something about the
sound of that recording, or that's what I thought at the time. FWIW.

Mark