Which is more important?
"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
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"Harry Lavo" wrote in message
"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
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"Harry Lavo" wrote in message
"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
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"Harry Lavo" wrote in message
"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
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"Harry Lavo" wrote in message
(2) Tubes were abandoned, and
then "rediscovered" by hi-fi lovers *because* they
sound better than SS to many "hi-fi" lovers. They
now account for a sizeable chunk of the "hi-fi
lovers" market.
Define sizable. As far as the mainstream audio goes,
tubes are almost entirely dead.
As far as "high-end" goes, they are very much alive and
kicking, and very much "mainstream".
That's the Harry I know and love to kick around. Keep
changing what you say Harry until like that room with a
million monkeys, you finally make sense.
What was it in my original statement about "hi-fi lovers"
that you didn't understand, Arny.
The part where you didn't make up a new term "hi fi lovers" and then
defined it and redefined it as many times as you needed to make a
dissmbling fool out of yoursef, Harry.
I specifically used that term so you wouldn't have an excuse to go off on a
tangent about "audiophools", Arny, as you are wont to do at the drop of a
hat. I was using a deliberately neutral term to describe what in the '50's
and '60's we called "high fi mavens". Hardly makes me a dissembling fool
except in your mind.
I was talking about the high-fidelity market, Arny.
Is that the same thing as what I meant in my OP by "mainstream", Harry?
No, Arny, but I clearly defined the market where tubes continue to be
"mainstream"....which when it comes to sound quality is what counts. As a
counter to your assertion that because joe sixpack no longer buys tube
equipment, that is proof that he doesn't like the sound because tubes are
less "accurate" than transistors, which is the premise you were/are
promoting. Tell me Arny, where in Best Buy would he find those tubes if he
wanted to buy tube gear? The fact that the Japanese settled on transistor
gear in the '70's doesn't say a thing about sound quality, accuracy, or
anything else. I hope you enjoy riding your horse.
If it isn't, then your comment was irrelevant to mine.
If it is, then you are guilty of introducing an unecessary confusion
factor.
Neither of the above. It was a refinement clearly stated, as an
explaination against and partial repudiation of your point. It is called
"an opposing argument" Arny. Got that?
You are they one who
only sees value in what the "masses" will accept.
Where did I say "masses"?
I didn't.
Harry, you are simply being deceptive, again.
Don't give me that debating trade horse****, Arny. From your OP:
"For the vast majority of people, there is a fairly....."
".....abandoned by the mainstream audio world."
If you are not referring to the mass market in the above, who are you
referring to?
As opposed to the mass market where convenience and
not sound quality holds sway.
Convenience in this case meaning more predictably
higher quality.
You can't prefer "more
accurate" sound quality if you don't even pay
attention to sound quality, wouldn't you agree, Arny?
A truism.
Then why does your logic fail you?
Because it doesn't.
So you are saying the mass market does pay attention to
sound quality?
Where did I say "mass market"?
I didn't.
Harry, you are simply being deceptive, again.
More debating trade horse**** to divert the reader from the weakness of your
argument, especially as you are about to contradict yourself.
(3) LP
abandoned because most people took abysmal care of
their LPs, hated the resulting noise, and abandoned
them for the "easy path" of CD. Convenience and
freedom from care, more than sound quality, Arny.
Convenience in this case also meaning more predictably
higher quality.
Right....McDonalds hamburgers, rather than a Big Boy.
Well Harry, if Big Boy's hamburgers are your reference
standard for burgers, you've already conceeded my point.
I tried to make it a reference that you as a denizen of
lower Michigan would understand, Arny.
There is obviously quite a bit you don't understand about SE Michigan that
you don't understand. One is the fact that no way is Elias Big Boy a high
quality provider of hamburgers and french fries.
I doubt you've ever been to The Palm.
Obviously Harry you either have very poor taste in burgers and beef, or
you haven't been to an Elias Bothers Big Boy recently enough to speak
intelligently about them.
Got me there, Arny. Last time was in the sixties.....but in fact at that
time, the Big Boy was a good hamburger, which McDonalds tried to copy with
its Big Mac and gave us that mediocre product "for the masses".
My point is that at the very
least the LP can deliver "Big Boy" quality whereas early
CD delivered "Big Mac" quality at best. But getting a
"Big Boy" requires more effort.
Harry, you are so confused by your own misapplied metaphors that I don't
know where to start. Suffice it to say that Elias Big Boy resturants
deliver LP quality beef, including burgers. My tastes run quite a bit
higer than that sort of crud.
Alright, so choose a better burger of your choice......then think about what
I said rather than wrapping yourself in debating trade righteousness, okay?
(4) Analog tape other than
cassettes (in other words, where *sound quality* was
king, never was part of the mainstream audio world,
Arny.)
Spoken like someone who is as ignorant of audio
production in the 50s as 60s as he is of home audio.
Arny, I lived through it.
Like so many things Harry, you got it wrong.
Analog tape was part of the high-fidelity market.
That's why I sold so many analog R-R tape machines in
the 60s at that Lafayette store. That's why GIs brought
so many R-R tape machines back from Vietnam and Germany.
That's why the local high end audio stores were so proud
of their Revox, Teac, Viking, Sony, and Tandberg
franchises.
During the fifties, open-reel tape was for the well to do
audiophile...that's where stereo got started with almost
exclusively classical content.
Yeah, all those well-to-do audiophiles with Wollensaks. LOL!
When those Wollensaks first became popular, there wasn't much else except
professional Magnecords and Ampexes. And at over a $100 in 1952 dollars
they weren't cheap (thats $400-500 today, btw). Moreover, many of those
Wollensaks were used in schools and churches for just about everything and
had little to do with sound quality, other than that they could do a sonic
document which was a novelty at the time.
Sure , by the end of the
sixties you sold lots of tape machines, but only to
people who were interested in sound quality and
home-recording...most people were not.
Again Harry, you are shifting the discussion away from my OP.
You are the one bragging about all the tape machines you single-handedly
sold at Lafayette in the sixties, Arny. I agree it is irrelevant, largely
because it is anecdotal and misleading as you use it in any case.
And as you well
know, while Lafayette did serve as a "Radio Shack" of its
day, it also served as a Hi-Fi store and many of those
people who bought tape machines from you were hi-fi
afficionados. As were those GI's who could buy machines
dirt-cheap at the overseas PX.
Nahh, most of the GIs who bought open reel tape machines were just
ordinary music lovers.
Not too far off from hi-fi afficionados, Arny. If you recall at the time
the two groups were pretty close to one and the same.
It was not part of the "mainstream"
market in the '50's and '60's.
Wrong.
Stereos were part of the "mainstream" market, Arny.
Sure they were. Of course now you are ahoist your own inability to use
relevant words. Stereo is very broad. Harry, I suspect that what you are
struggling so ineffectively to refer to is what was known in the day as
"brown goods stereos".
What proportion of stereo's had open-reel tape decks where you
lived? In Chicago and the Northeast where I hung out,
not very many.
Harry, unlike you I won't make up data and pretend that it is factual.
Did I make up data? I just gave you an anecdotal expression. Can you tell
the difference, Arny? Apparently not. You'd rather create a straw man and
duck the possibility that having forced you to think, you might see I have a
point.
Even the first five years
of high-quality cassette decks were of appeal only to
the high-fidelity market as more or less a "gimmick".
IME, there never has been and never will be a high
fidelity cassette machine. But thanks Harry for
admitting tacitly that you have tin ears.
I said "high-quality cassette decks", Arny. I did not
say they were high-fidelity.
More Harry abuse of common terms.
Ah, this time a weak little insult! Nothing to say, don't say it. Pretty
good rule to live by, Arns.
I furthermore said
"even....they were seen as gimmicks". That's a qualifier,
Arny...it certainly doesn't imply high-fidelity.
You used them in conjunctuion with the words "high fidelity". Enjoy your
little shuffle, Harry.
Repeating this lie won't wash, Arny. I already pointed out to you, as have
others, that I said nor implied any such thing. This is what earns you a
reputation as a liar.
Otherwise, if they were used at all, they were used as
dicatating machines.
In what alternative universe?
In the "mainstream" world of the mid-to-late '60's, Arny.
Again Harry, you've completely lost track of the words and obvious meaning
of my OP.
Cassettes were not part of the "mainstream" audio world of the '60's Arny.
Can I be clearer than that. I was there as a hobbiest. I was there
moonlighting selling audio equipment in salons.
Do your homework!
And cassettes were again superceded by the CD
because they were more convenient, Arny.
Convenience in this case also meaning more predictably
higher quality.
Not necessarily...just less chance of breakage and
requiring less care.
More "Harry facts".
Neither of us have "facts" Arny. But I do have observations to use as
counter-arguments to yours.
I'm talking about formats, not specific recordings.
So am I. Cassettes could be a pain in the ass, although
because of their portability and small size they came to
be the "convenient" choice.
Again Harry, you've completely lost track of the words and obvious meaning
of my OP.
Youre OP stated that analog in general was superceded by digital because it
was less accurate, and the mainstream audio market was not happy with its
sound. That is what we have been arguing about. What is not clear, and of
what have I lost track? I made cogent couter-arguments to your hypothesis.
You then countered with debating trade and counter-arguments of your own.
So here we are.
But thanks Harry for showing your disregard for sound
quality by defending the cassette format.
I'm not defending it for sound quality, quite the
opposite Arny...can't you read.
I can read, and that's one of your problems Harry. You
called cassette a high fidelity format, and thank you
for making things so clear.
First you "misread me" again, Arny, and then you take me
to task for something I never said.
Harry, I didn't make you justapose the words cassette and high fidelity
like you did.
Liar! Liar! Liar!
When you do it three times in a row, that's all that is left. You've
shown your true colors, Arny.
Slow down and try to
comprehend what I might be saying, Arny. Before you take
figurative "pen to hand".
Again Harry, you've completely lost track of the words and obvious meaning
of my OP.
Well, if you think so Arny, you've had lots of opportunity to restate it.
Why haven't you.
Most users were
perfectly happy with the sound of cassettes....and
would be today if they came in the form of
indestructable little disks.
Enjoy wearing that tinfoil hat, Harry. ;-)
You have evidence or proof otherwise, Arny?
Sure the cassette format is grotesquely incabable of anything like
facsimile reproduction, its only a little worse than the LP format.
Ah, now we see. It is your *measurements* that convince you that people
*must* find the sound bad if the measurements of what they listen to don't
seems as good to you. Right, Arns old boy.
Some research , Arny.
As I have said to you for years now, you are a true religous zealot, Arny.
But it is your belief in the sanctity of measurements that is your true
religion, whatever else you believe in. And once again, when one strips
away the pettifoggery, one sees the belief system.
It is too bad you can't distinquish between evidence and belief.
You are the
one who made the initial claim that "poor measured performance = bad
sound that almost nobody likes" but the
evidence you offered suffers under examination. Any
other evidence?
Harry, people don't like what the cassette format does to music, that's
why just about everybody abandoned it. And coincidentally or relevantly,
the cassette format measures very poorly.
So that's why it kept right on growing through the first eight years of CD's
existence? Because they "hated what it did to music?" C'mon, Arny.
I'm simply saying that cassette rose to its prominence
primarily based on its convenience, *NOT* sound quality.
You've said far more than that Harry. But thanks for
changing your story once again.
The only changes were in your mind, Arny, since you
"misread" me twice and proceeded to set up strawmen.
Harry, *you* are going to complain about making up straw men?
LOL!
Yep, LOL. But we'll let others decide at whom.
And was replaced by CD for the same reason. You are the
only one who thinks CD's represent first class sound
quality because they replaced the cassette.
I never said any such thing, but thanks Harry for
proving that you can't read with any useful degree of
accuracy.
Okay, I'll take back "first class". But would you please
explain why the remainder doesn't harken back to your
staement that I've just quoted above?
The problem Harry is that you've completely lost track of the words and
obvious meaning of my OP.
Another debating trade bob and weave! Oh, the beauty of it!
You clearly stated
in the "evidence" you provided that you believe the CD
won over LP's and tape ("analog") because it had more
accurate sound quality, and since people didn't like the
"less accurate" sound quality of analog, they flocked to
CD?
What I actually said is:
(3) LP format abandoned by the mainstream audio world.
(4) Analog tape abandoned by the mainstream audio world.
Implied,of course, is that they were abandoned in favor
of CD and digital PCM, which you have stated explicitly
elsewhere is your belief.
Not only my beliefe, but observable reality.
But implication is not
evidence....and you stated your belief as fact.
Those beliefs are factual as stated, but less factual after you twist them
Harry.
They are not facts, Arny. They are you beliefs. They are your opinions.
They have counter-arguments that are at least as plasible, if not more so.
You of all people, "mr. scientist", ought to hand your head in shame.
I'm saying
to the average consumer (your "mainstream") could care
less...they were happy with cassette sound.....
Nuts.
Hey, now there's a solid argument.
I take it you agree. :-)
but the CD
could replace *BOTH* the LP and the cassette and was
more convenient than both..both in use and in freedom
from consumer-induced screw-ups...ticks, pops,
scratches in the case of LP's and jammed tape,
distended tape, broken cassette shells, etc. in the
case of cassettes.
As usual you got it all wrong. The CD format was a
winner purely based on sound quality. I know that goes
against what they teach in your secular religion of high
end audio, but I did qualify what I said with
*mainstream*, didn't I?
I'm afraid Arny that most of us are no longer buying your
repeated assertions as "proof". Certainly I'm not.
What "us" is this Harry, you and your miltiple personalities? ;-)
No, me and many other silent and not so silent readers of this audio usenet
group.
Try as you might, Arny, you are on shaky ground trying
to ignore the convenience reasons CD's won out, and at
the same time ignoring the fundamental reason that
professionals and "hi-fiers" are searching for better
sound, because CD sound can be bettered.
If the SQ of the CD format is so easy to better Harry,
why can't you provide me with a commercial recording
that won't easily ABX as being different when
downsampled to 16/44 as opposed to say 24/96?
Another of Arny's fallbacks....dumb down your
high-quality signal using my lesser technology, and I'll
prove to you you can't hear the difference.
Thanks Harry for contradicting your previous glowing stattements about
24/96.
For example:
"No, the surround is usually 96/24 on DVD-A. This gives superior
results with analog transfers, high-res PCM recordings, and especially
pure
DSD recordings. "
"Most 24/96 DVD-A's sound quite good, primarily because they remove the
high
frequency problems inherent in the CD standard's practical
implementation."
"...the sound on the DVD-A's is really exceptional. 24/96 six channel
sound (5.1)."
"The DVD-A PCM is all 24/96. The DVD-A sounds like a "cleaner"
CD..cleaner in the sense that the treble
is smoother, their is more apparent depth, and the bass seems to be a
little
more dimensional than on CD."
Without references, I'll take your word I said those things. And your
point?
The only way to truly test is to use a top-flight system, and carefully
blind a-b test both a commercial CD and a hi-rez version of the same. There
are several disks that qualify. I've listened to them. I've reported what
I've heard. Others have done the same. Others have reached the same
conclusion I have. The hi-rez wins...with subtle yet important advantages.
Perhaps someday I'll have the time, patience, and desire to do a full blown
test, done right. But frankly I don't have the motivation since to me the
differences are sufficient to make me want to buy and listen to hi-rez
disks. Without formal testing. And I am certainly not going to accept a
dumbed down, computerized version of such a test as an acceptable trade-off.
I recently experienced another comparison when doing a test recording of two
live performers....recording at 88.2/24 and then downsampling with dither to
44.1/16. Either through my Koss Pro4a headphones, or through my main Thiel
system, the 88.2/24 played directly from the DAW was clearly superior to the
44.1/16 played the same way. It had a smooth, silky, natural sounding high
end and great depth and transparency; the 44.1 version was noticeably
"sharper" in the high frequencies and had a foreshortened depth...what I
call a "flatter" soundstage.
Finally, I also burned the 44.1/16 ISO to CD and played that from the
computer...it was slightly worse than the same ISO played off the
DAW...again in treble and in depth of soundstage.
As an experiment, I took the CD to my office computer and played it on the
quite decent (for computers) JBL speakers. It just became another
acceptable CD...the high-frequency edge and "flat" soundstage were nowhere
to be found on such a system. But easy to discern when listened to on true
high-end gear. And nowhere to be found at 88.2/24.
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