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

Mark DeBellis wrote:
Chung wrote:

Mark DeBellis wrote:

Chung wrote:

Mark DeBellis wrote:

Chung wrote:

Is it not simple logic then, when musicians' tastes and judgment grossly
vary when it comes to audio reproduction, that their judgment is in no
way superior to that of the experienced audiophile? In fact, we should
trust our own ears, and not a musician's or an experienced audiphile's,
since we know what sounds best for us. And what sounds closest to live
music to us. Simple logic, eh?

Very clever, but by the same reasoning the ability to read Russian is
not a qualification for reading War and Peace in the original, since
there is a diversity of critical opinion among such readers.


Your analogy is seriously wrong: it's nowhere close to being the same
reasoning.

You, as a non-musician/non-conductor, are absolutely qualified to judge
which one of two pieces of gear sounds closer to "that live acoustic
instrument sound". All you need is enough experience with audio
equipment and knowledge of how to make meaningful comparisons, plus some
memory of how real instruments sound like (ignoring the massive changes
to the sound in the recording/mastering processes which are much bigger
than those from competent electronics, for the sake of this discussion).
Memory of real instruments' sound can be obtained through
concert/retical attendance easily. You don't need to be a professional
musician/conductor to have a reliable memory of how instruments sound to
you.

But what justifies this claim, that I am "absolutely qualified" to do
this?


...


Why shouldn't differences in
perceptual skills be relevant?

Some skills are relevant, but they are skills that you do not have to be
musicians/conductors to acquire.


That's your assertion, but I don't see the slightest reason for drawing
the line where you do.

That's not surprising, since my reasons don't always appear to make
sense to you .

But let me repeat. In order to compare which one of two pieces of gear
really sounds more like live music to you, you need to know how to make
comparisions that are not affected by perceptual biases, or by common
mistakes like volume level not matched. Then you need your own memory of
what live music sounds to you, and that is acquired through some amount
playing or listening to live music by you.


At the end of the day, you are making a
comparsion for yourself.


And is the way instruments sound to
*me*, at this moment, necessarily the best standard?

For you yourself, at this moment, yes.


There we disagree.

No! How can that happen?

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*.

Sure, your standard may change as you get older and hopefully wiser, and
what sounded like live music 10 years ago may not be so today. You
certainly don't need a critic (I note that you refrained from using
musician/conductor) to tell you what live music sounds like.



I may be

interested in others' judgments with the purpose of helping me educate
my ears.

Sure, ask your friends who are knowledgeable in music and in audio to
help you out.


Right; but the whole concept of their "helping" me would be absurd if
what you say above were true.

I am sure you have learned how to make accurate comparisons since you
started hanging out in this newsgroup, no?

Note that you do not need to rely on others' judgment at all. But if you
really want to, then go ahead. The point is that you are perfectly
qualified to determine for yourself what sounds more like live music.
But if you absolutely want someone's opinion, you are free to, of
course. Just be aware that experts do not agree.



OTOH, if you do not read Russian, then you cannot read War and Peace in
the original. See the big difference, and therefore your faulty analogy?

It's not my fault that, if your argument were valid, then it would
equally well imply that absurd conclusion.

If you need to bring in a wrong analogy to claim that my argument is
absurd, then you simply have failed to make any valid point, other than
the fact that you have made a logic mistake.


Your argument, basically, is that if "experts" supposedly qualified in
a certain way should disagree, then their supposed qualification is no
qualification at all.

No, my point is that if Jenn and von Karajan took diametrically
positions on what sounded good or close to live music, then you should
know that there is no universal agreement there, and that you are
qualified to decide for yourself.

Their qualification for being musicians does not automatically qualify
them for deciding which piece of gear sounds more like live music to you.

It's really simple. If Jenn says recording/gear A did not sound like
live music, and von Karajian said it did, who would you trust? The
answer is you should listen for yourself and make your own decision.

Obviously that's false: doctors disagree over
diagnoses; readers disagree over critical evaluations. I was not
making an analogy, but showing the absurdity of your argument by
applying it to another instance.

But the professional musician does not have the same level of
skills/education in discriminating audio gear as a MD has in diagnosing
a medical problem. And you can do the discriminating of the audio gear
yourself, unlike in medicine where you are not qualified to do that if
you are not trained as a MD. Hence your analogy fails once more.

Hopefully by switching to doctors, you have given up your "Russian" analogy?

If you think your conclusion follows
about HvK and Jenn but not in other instances, then it relies on
further assumptions that you have not taken care to spell out.

It's realy simple, if Jenn and HvK's taste do not agree, who do your
trust. You trust your own ears!



And *I* get accused (by others) of sophistry!

And do you understand why?

I do not claim to have much understanding of their motives, and,
frankly, I'd like to keep it that way.

You don't need to understand their motives, just the basis for such
accusation: your arguments are convoluted, and you draw the wrong
conclusions.



Yes, apparently I make "something that is simple so hard to
understand."[1]

That has happened...


Mark

[1]Chung, Aug, 19, Message-ID:

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.

Of course. Has anyone said or suggested anything to the contrary?

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,

Yes it does sound silly and unscrupulous (on the part of the critic)
and irrelevant.

but consider an analogy:

Why? Unless you have examples of respected critics offering criticism
of anything without actually bothering to see or hear that which they
are reviewing....

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?

That was an amazingly irrelevant anology. When does film critic watch
a movie in a way that does not rveal the true cimematic value (your
analogy) of a movie?


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.

When you show that musician's opinions on the differences between live
music and playback are in fact all over the map your argument will have
weight.


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.

The old absence of proof is proof of absence routine. Back at you. Do
we have any evidence that musicians that play live acoustic music is
converging on an opinion that analog is less accurate than digital to
live acoustic music? No we don't.


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?

What? I thought you didn't trust musicians for this opinion. Perhaps
only when you think the opinion supports your opinion? By the way, your
point proves nothing about those peoples' opinions. Let me ask you,
what speakers and set ups are used by these conservatories and music
departments? Are they any indicator that they would be better speakers
than anything not used by conservatories and music departments at
various universities?


Or do they all use iPods now?

Wouldn't surpise me. Even more convenient than CDs. If so does that
mean Ipods have more life like sound than CDs?

I can think of one lecturer who plans to.

Do you trust his opinions on live music v. playback?

Scott

In article ,
"Harry Lavo" wrote:

snip
At the Oberlin Conservatory library, every study station is equiped with a
phonograph as well as a cd player, amplifier, and headphones.

As is true in every decent sized music library that I know of... UCLA,
USC, Berkeley, Eastman, etc.
Equal
opportunity listening. For those who don't know, the Oberlin Conservatory
of Music is the country's leading undergraduate conservatory for classical
musicians, snip

Oh oh! Better duck from the incoming flak from grads of Eastman,
Julliard, the New England Conservatory.... :-) That said, Oberlin is
certainly a fine, world-class school. I had a very good friend on the
faculty there in the 80s, Larry Rachleff.

Mark DeBellis wrote:
bob wrote:
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.

Think about what you're saying here. A critic (or some other "expert")
tells you that a certain CD player reproduces the sound of trumpets
more accurately than any other s/he has ever heard. But you cannot tell
from the review whether the critic really heard that, or was just
imagining it. Under these circumstances, do the critic's comments have
any value at all? I sure don't see any.

bob

chung wrote:
Mark DeBellis wrote:
Chung wrote:



Is it not simple logic then, when musicians' tastes and judgment grossly
vary when it comes to audio reproduction, that their judgment is in no
way superior to that of the experienced audiophile? In fact, we should
trust our own ears, and not a musician's or an experienced audiphile's,
since we know what sounds best for us. And what sounds closest to live
music to us. Simple logic, eh?

(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.

No, my point is that if Jenn and von Karajan took diametrically
positions on what sounded good or close to live music, then you should
know that there is no universal agreement there, and that you are
qualified to decide for yourself.

Their qualification for being musicians does not automatically qualify
them for deciding which piece of gear sounds more like live music to you.

It's really simple. If Jenn says recording/gear A did not sound like
live music, and von Karajian said it did, who would you trust? The
answer is you should listen for yourself and make your own decision.

Obviously that's false: doctors disagree over
diagnoses; readers disagree over critical evaluations. I was not
making an analogy, but showing the absurdity of your argument by
applying it to another instance.

But the professional musician does not have the same level of
skills/education in discriminating audio gear as a MD has in diagnosing
a medical problem. And you can do the discriminating of the audio gear
yourself, unlike in medicine where you are not qualified to do that if
you are not trained as a MD. Hence your analogy fails once more.

Now you are attempting to support your argument by appealing to the
premise that musicians, unlike doctors, are not qualified in the
relevant way. But that's supposed to be the *conclusion* of your
argument. That's called ... what is it? Oh, circular reasoning.

Hopefully by switching to doctors, you have given up your "Russian" analogy?

If you think your conclusion follows
about HvK and Jenn but not in other instances, then it relies on
further assumptions that you have not taken care to spell out.

It's realy simple, if Jenn and HvK's taste do not agree, who do your
trust. You trust your own ears!

How does it follow, as a matter of "logic," that if two experts do not
agree, then everyone is equally qualified? Yours is a form of ancient
skeptical argument that is studied in Logic Chopping 101 as the "no
more this than that" argument (with the fallacious conclusion, in this
case, that if A and B disagree, then neither is more qualified than C).
Do you think we don't have your number?

Mark

bob wrote:
Mark DeBellis wrote:
bob wrote:
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.

Think about what you're saying here. A critic (or some other "expert")
tells you that a certain CD player reproduces the sound of trumpets
more accurately than any other s/he has ever heard. But you cannot tell
from the review whether the critic really heard that, or was just
imagining it. Under these circumstances, do the critic's comments have
any value at all? I sure don't see any.

You are free to place no value in such reports, but the world of music
and recording depends on non-blind, non-time-proximate, or both,
judgments of sound. (Musicians learning their craft and making choices;
recording engineers learning their craft, etc.) If you chose to trust
only "bias-controlled" observations, you would, just for example, have
no way of knowing whether the music you like has inherent positive
values or whether you like it because of extra-musical associations.
You may in fact make such a statement and stand behind it; but you
don't seem to realize that if you acted in full consistency with this
stance you would be crippled in making choices about music.

Musicians and recording engineers would be helpless to make any
progress if they could only trust bias-controlled observations.

The fact that musicians do learn their craft, possess identifiable
skill, and there is widespread agreement on the value of music, shows
that non-blind non-time-proximate perceptions are not inherently
worthless.

Mike

chung wrote:


It's realy simple, if Jenn and HvK's taste do not agree, who do your
trust. You trust your own ears!


I support the idea of developing one's own perception. However, you are
ignoring a large practical matter. One can quickly experience hundreds
of live concerts and exposures to audio reproduction.. how does one
make sense of these things? Most people would probably say if you asked
them "Is A or B more like live music?": "I don't know." That's a good
answer, because our appreciation of music will change over time.. the
patterns we listen for will change. It is useful to have a guide.

Most musicians have teachers, for example. The musicians that say "I
just play what I like; who needs a teacher?" are usually the ones that
haven't developed the most basic skills.

What's interesting about this debate, to me, is that some experts find
analog to be more faithful to life. Since live music is not static, is
possessed of widely varying dynamic qualties, and an expert perceives
abstract patterns, the explanation advanced by the objectivists ("you
like the distortion") just doesn't make sense.

In fact, I have a feeling that this whole debate about the
qualifications of experts comes about purely because Jenn is advocating
the accuracy of analog... a threatening notion to objectivists.

Mike

bob wrote:
Mark DeBellis wrote:
bob wrote:
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.

Think about what you're saying here. A critic (or some other "expert")
tells you that a certain CD player reproduces the sound of trumpets
more accurately than any other s/he has ever heard. But you cannot tell
from the review whether the critic really heard that, or was just
imagining it. Under these circumstances, do the critic's comments have
any value at all? I sure don't see any.

I would say that if the critic was just imagining it then his/her
comments would have little or no value. And if I were to be influenced
by those comments, thinking that the critic was really detecting
something in the music, where I would say, "Wow, that makes sense to
me," I think that there'd be something wrong with that.

All I really meant to say was that it may be hard to *tell* if the
critic is detecting or imagining things, so in evaluating how useful
the critic's comments are to us, we may tend to direct our attention
elsewhere. I do think that normally it's impossible to tell simply
from a review whether the critic really heard the things he said he
heard. Whether the critic's comments have value does depend on whether
he really heard those things, but not on whether we can tell from the
review that he did.

Mark

"Jenn" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Harry Lavo" wrote:

snip
At the Oberlin Conservatory library, every study station is equiped with
a
phonograph as well as a cd player, amplifier, and headphones.

As is true in every decent sized music library that I know of... UCLA,
USC, Berkeley, Eastman, etc.
Equal
opportunity listening. For those who don't know, the Oberlin
Conservatory
of Music is the country's leading undergraduate conservatory for
classical
musicians, snip

Oh oh! Better duck from the incoming flak from grads of Eastman,
Julliard, the New England Conservatory.... :-) That said, Oberlin is
certainly a fine, world-class school. I had a very good friend on the
faculty there in the 80s, Larry Rachleff.

Yeah, I expect the flak. But fact is, Oberlin places more folks in
Julliard's advance study program than any other school, including Julliard's
own undergraduate school.

Mark DeBellis wrote:
bob wrote:
Think about what you're saying here. A critic (or some other "expert")
tells you that a certain CD player reproduces the sound of trumpets
more accurately than any other s/he has ever heard. But you cannot tell
from the review whether the critic really heard that, or was just
imagining it. Under these circumstances, do the critic's comments have
any value at all? I sure don't see any.

I would say that if the critic was just imagining it then his/her
comments would have little or no value. And if I were to be influenced
by those comments, thinking that the critic was really detecting
something in the music, where I would say, "Wow, that makes sense to
me," I think that there'd be something wrong with that.

All I really meant to say was that it may be hard to *tell* if the
critic is detecting or imagining things, so in evaluating how useful
the critic's comments are to us, we may tend to direct our attention
elsewhere. I do think that normally it's impossible to tell simply
from a review whether the critic really heard the things he said he
heard. Whether the critic's comments have value does depend on whether
he really heard those things, but not on whether we can tell from the
review that he did.

You're dodging the question: Given that you cannot tell whether the
reviewer is just imagining a difference, do his comments have any value
for you? If so, what?

bob

bob wrote:
Mark DeBellis wrote:

You're dodging the question: Given that you cannot tell whether the
reviewer is just imagining a difference, do his comments have any value
for you? If so, what?

Lets look at how courts of law look at something similar. It is a
proven fact that eye witness tesimony is unreliable much in the same
way as is sighted listening. Yet eye witness testimony is allowed in
court and can be considered a part of proof beyond a reasonable doubt
of someone's guilt in a serious crime. people are unreliable. people do
make mistakes. people are subject to biases and other factors when they
make tesimonial claims. It is good to know this about human
testimonials. But value is not a black and white issue. Does a
reviewer's testimonial have *any* value to me? Often yes, it has *some*
value. Is it ever taken as dogma? Not by me. If it is offered as such I
become even more skeptical. For me reviews never lead to anything more
than an audition. At that point any decisions are on me. I would hope
that other audiophiles regardless of their beliefs also take
responsibility for their purchasing decisions as well.

Scott

wrote in message
...

What's interesting about this debate, to me, is that some experts find
analog to be more faithful to life. Since live music is not static, is
possessed of widely varying dynamic qualties, and an expert perceives
abstract patterns, the explanation advanced by the objectivists ("you
like the distortion") just doesn't make sense.


What is it that makes "some experts find analog" (preferable) or "more
faithful to life", analog recording of the event itself or playback via a
stylus/vinyl phono system? It "just doesn't make sense" to me; (1) CD-Rs
burned from vinyl sources via my stand-alone CD-R burners sound
indistinguishable from their LP origins and (2) dozens of Telarc, Sony and
Delos classical digital LPs sound identical to their CD issues.

wrote in message
...
bob wrote:
Mark DeBellis wrote:

You're dodging the question: Given that you cannot tell whether the
reviewer is just imagining a difference, do his comments have any value
for you? If so, what?

Lets look at how courts of law look at something similar. It is a
proven fact that eye witness tesimony is unreliable much in the same
way as is sighted listening. Yet eye witness testimony is allowed in
court and can be considered a part of proof beyond a reasonable doubt
of someone's guilt in a serious crime. people are unreliable. people do
make mistakes. people are subject to biases and other factors when they
make tesimonial claims. It is good to know this about human
testimonials. But value is not a black and white issue. Does a
reviewer's testimonial have *any* value to me? Often yes, it has *some*
value. Is it ever taken as dogma? Not by me. If it is offered as such I
become even more skeptical. For me reviews never lead to anything more
than an audition. At that point any decisions are on me. I would hope
that other audiophiles regardless of their beliefs also take
responsibility for their purchasing decisions as well.

Scott

I believe most do. This is just an objectivist bogeyman....as I have said
here before, the operating assumption seems to be that audiophiles are just
sheep waiting to be herded or fleeced. Instead I see a bunch of people
generally with above average intelligence who are very much into gaining
knowledge about their hobby...first hand, second hand, and third hand. Then
sorting it out and slowly building and refining a system that meets their
needs and pleases them. Not absolute enough for the objectivists, I guess.

Norman M. Schwartz wrote:
wrote in message
...

What's interesting about this debate, to me, is that some experts find
analog to be more faithful to life. Since live music is not static, is
possessed of widely varying dynamic qualties, and an expert perceives
abstract patterns, the explanation advanced by the objectivists ("you
like the distortion") just doesn't make sense.


What is it that makes "some experts find analog" (preferable) or "more
faithful to life",

Nice of you to ask. Here are some comments from some actual experts.
http://www.recordtech.com/prodsounds.htm
"The phonograph record is a marvelous medium for storing and
reproducing sound. With frequency response from 7 Hz to 25kHz and over
75 dB dynamic range possible, it is capable of startling realism. Its
ability to convey a sense of space, that is width and depth of sound
stage, with a degree of openness and airiness, is unrivaled by anything
but the most esoteric digital systems."
http://www.musicangle.com/feat.php?id=106
"I'm keeping my records" says a well known CD reissue masterer whose
work is praised by every gushy CD reviewer. "Its a disgrace", says a
top Grammy Award winning digital engineer whose recordings have been
heard and enjoyed by most Pulse readers. "The more I work with digital,
the more I hate it" says another well known remastering engineer who
works for one of the big labels. I can't mention his name: he wants to
keep his job. "Digital sucks...a good analogue tape recorder will blow
away any digital machine", said veteran engineer Eddie Kramer (Hendrix,
Traffic etc.) in a recent Audio magazine interview. "I've yet to hear a
CD cut from the same source sound as good as the vinyl cut from the
same source" says Rhino's Bill Inglot.
http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/194/index1.html

"I have been on record, since I first heard a digital master tape, that
there is an enormous price to be paid, in musical terms, for the
noise-free performance of digital. Although digital storage is not my
cup of tea, I nevertheless have a great respect for how well a
professional digital recorder performs. I can hear obvious virtues that
could easily please some of the people all of the time.

No such respect can be engendered by the CD, however. A handful of
cheap chips and a few "inaudible" digital generations have eaten at its
heart and soul. Its performance no more resembles a professional
recorder than a production Chevrolet matches a NASCAR racer.

The CD is going to force the consumer to come to grips with the
problems of digital technology, first because the CD is the worst
presentation of that technology, and second because all the music heard
from the CD will have these digital colorations even if the master tape
was recorded in analog form. "
Doug Sax back when CDs were pretty new.

analog recording of the event itself or playback via a
stylus/vinyl phono system? It "just doesn't make sense" to me;

It didn't make sense to me either. Dosn't matter.

(1) CD-Rs
burned from vinyl sources via my stand-alone CD-R burners sound
indistinguishable from their LP origins

My experience has not been that. OTOH I have burned CDs rom LPs that
blow away the commercial CD release.

and (2) dozens of Telarc, Sony and
Delos classical digital LPs sound identical to their CD issues.

I have never experienced that either although there is a distinct
similarity in many cases. since the equipment does affect the sound it
is no really fair to make such a definitive claim unless it is limited
to your equipment.

Scott

Jenn wrote in
:

I'm actually stunned by this statement. I'm NOT saying that trumpets
sounded worse on EVERY softer presentation, or EVERY louder
presentation. However, I've consistently been told here that due to
psychoacoustical effects, non-level matched tests are illegit because
the listener will almost always prefer the louder sample. I'm simply
stating that I detect this obviously bad trumpet sound, for example,
regardless of which way the levels are. So, no; you have no evidence
for your theory.

Ya know, this is one thing that I like to point out now and then...

Regardless of the type of test, the listener should set the volume level.
I think so, anyway. This is what I do when I'm setting up a guitar amp
tone. I play it at the level I'm going to use it. Without a doubt it
sounds different at a different volume level. Whether that's my ears, or
the equipment, or whatever, it doesn't matter. Let the listener set the
level for comparisons and then note if there's an actual discrepancy.

You can talk about level matching your A/B tests, but how do you actually
level match? Suppose one system has 3 dB more signal beyond 10 kHz,
because of the speakers. How do you level match? Do you go for an
average of the program material? How are ears going to react to that?
For me, I like to adjust the equipment so that it "sounds like" the same
level. It may not be very scientific, but there's really not much of a
basis for a scientific method to do this, in my opinion.

In the end, you're probably never going to listen twice to your stereo at
the exact same level unless you just leave the volume control in the same
place all of the time. Even then, stuff heats up, gain changes ....

So level matching is important, yeah, but let's go easy on the lengthy
debate on a matter which in the end is largely subjective. :-)

--
stealthaxe

In article ,
"Norman M. Schwartz" wrote:

snip (2) dozens of Telarc, Sony and
Delos classical digital LPs sound identical to their CD issues.

Interesting. Of those three I only have recent experience with Telarc,
and then really only because the recordings that I have in both media
involve my "sensei" and I therefore collect EVERY type of release of
those recordings. Anyway, I've found that the three Telarc recordings
for which I have both the LPs and the CDs sound quite different between
the different media.

Stewart Pinkerton wrote in news:dnld3m0gt5
@news4.newsguy.com:

On 12 Dec 2005 05:02:00 GMT, wrote:

Really? Where you come from they don't let musicians listen to other
musicians?

Indeed they do, but I've certainly never seen any evidence that they
have better hearing than non-musicians, in the context of determining
how close to reality is any given sound system.

Unless, of course, that they do and you can't tell :-).

Incidentally, I don't know if it's very universal, but from my point of
view, musicians listen to each other a lot. It's not professional
courtesy, it's professional espionage. Check out the competition. I
probably listen to other bands more often than I hear my own (live I'm
speaking about). But while a lot of the crowd is drinking or talking or
dancing, I'm paying Very Close Attention. Another thing I've done is
record a performance and then later listened to that very recording on
several systems. Having actually been there adds some perspective you
won't get any other way.

--
stealthaxe

wrote in :

This is essentially the 'guitar amplifier' argument.

I haven't seen Jenn or anyone else mention guitar amplifiers. I suggest
you try harder to stay on subject.

I mentioned guitar amplifiers, though I have to say that at this point
the context is a bit lost.

What I said was that I could repeatably recreate the tone I want on a
guitar amp; not an uncomplicated thing -- yet you'd be hard pressed to do
something like that with lab equipment. Lab equipment might tell you how
far off you are, but it's not going to tell you that you need more
presence or drive or how do you get there.

The point of that interjection into the conversation was to say that you
can measure equipment to death, but it's difficult to measure a real
musical instrument because invariably a microphone or some other thing
like this gets into the equation and what we have left in the end is ears
and instruments - something musicians are intimately familiar with.

Incidentally while I can't say I've really spent a lifetime at it, I'm
trained and somewhat travelled as a recording engineer (certified by Phil
York on an MCI 500 console). For me, music has been an end-to-end
experience. Live music. Studio music. Recordings. Mixdown sessions.
Cold pizza, warm beer, and pop tarts. The annoying girlfriends of pop
musicians. An aloof furry creature only known as "studio cat". I do
have to say I feel eminently qualified to say how "live" something
sounds. Most recordings struggle to become even a control-room
experience. If I can get there, I know my system is working right
because that's what the engineer built. Live is very hard. Worth the
trouble, but very hard indeed.

--
stealthaxe

Stewart Pinkerton wrote in
:

My point was that *from that perspective*, musicians have no special
standing, indeed you could certainly argue that their notion of
correct sound balance is highly skewed by all the time they spend in
the *wrong* place.

funny that they manage to achieve this correct sound balance, even though
they're not in the "right" place.

how DO they do that?

And no, an orchestra doesn't rely on a sound engineer to balance their
sound. Neither do most jazz combos. Yet from their *wrong* place, they
can make it sound GOOD where you're sitting.

Amazing, isnt' it? It's almost like they know what they're doing.

--
stealthaxe

Jenn wrote in
:

(sorry y'all, i can't find the orig post by chung ... )

In article , Chung
wrote:

You can buy a DVM for less than $10.

I'd sure not trust a $ 10 DVM to give me readable levels on a quickly
varying signal. That's very hit-or-miss. Ears are probably better.

Now if you get a good fluke with true RMS and peak hold, that's more in the
ballpark. A scope would be good too, but best would be an integrator.

Of course.

--
stealthaxe

Jenn wrote in
:

Again.... His recordings don't sound "bad" to me if the standard is
what most people are looking for in their hi-fi systems. His
recordings sound "impressive." They have "good bass." They have good
dynamic range. They "sound good" if your standard is not the best
imitation of actual symphonic music possible (this refers to the DGG
recordings; his older EMI LPs are actually very good by this
standard.) I simply have this little personality quirk that doesn't
allow me to say that his recordings "sound good" when so often the
instruments are literally unrecognizable. Witness the "trumpet" sound
in his last Tchaikovsky 5 recording: There ARE no trumpets that sound
like that in any hall. I can't imagine ANYONE who knows what trumpets
sound like disagreeing with that statement. But what the heck...
they're loud and "impressive."

I call this the "Welch's effect". Does anyone remember the TV ads for
Welch's grape jelly? They used to say something like "We can't put the
love that your grandma put into her jelly. So we settled for a little
extra flavor".

Well, a lot of commercial producers like to "punch up" the sound a lot
when mixing down or when mastering. Sometimes they go too far.
Sometimes doing anything is too much. Often, microphones flatten out the
sound and we try to put some bump back into it. It's a rough job unless
you have a lot of time to experiment with mic placement, and often with
live jobs you really don't get the time you need, so you're forced to
compromise and try to fix it up later. It's rare that this works.

Anyway, pop music is more forgiving in this regard because a lot of the
instruments are electronic. Drums are usually extremely processed but,
as you say, "impressive".

--
stealthaxe

"Norman M. Schwartz" wrote in message
...
wrote in message
...

What's interesting about this debate, to me, is that some experts find
analog to be more faithful to life. Since live music is not static, is
possessed of widely varying dynamic qualties, and an expert perceives
abstract patterns, the explanation advanced by the objectivists ("you
like the distortion") just doesn't make sense.


What is it that makes "some experts find analog" (preferable) or "more
faithful to life", analog recording of the event itself or playback via a
stylus/vinyl phono system? It "just doesn't make sense" to me; (1) CD-Rs
burned from vinyl sources via my stand-alone CD-R burners sound
indistinguishable from their LP origins.

This is not at all surprising. It is what I would expect.

Dozens of Telarc, Sony and
Delos classical digital LPs sound identical to their CD issues.

Now this DOES surprise me. Unless the companies made their CD masters by
playing a vinyl LP and digitizing it, as mentioned in (1) above (and I can't
imagine doing it this way) or they purposely restricted the dynamic range of
the CD release to match that of the LP, they should sound quite a bit
different.

Norm Strong

In article ,
stealthaxe wrote:

Jenn wrote in
:

(sorry y'all, i can't find the orig post by chung ... )

In article , Chung
wrote:

You can buy a DVM for less than $10.

I'd sure not trust a $ 10 DVM to give me readable levels on a quickly
varying signal. That's very hit-or-miss. Ears are probably better.

$10 DVMs can and do have AC measurement features. There is no reason
why they can't be accurate enough to outdo ears, which are not very
accurate at all.

Now if you get a good fluke with true RMS and peak hold, that's more in the
ballpark. A scope would be good too, but best would be an integrator.

A scope would be overkill, and not as easy to use as a DVM. And I'm not
sure what help an integrator would be, or how it could be better than
just using the appropriate tool for measuring the magnitude of a sine
wave (a DVM).

--
Tim

"Timothy A. Seufert" wrote in
:

I'd sure not trust a $ 10 DVM to give me readable levels on a quickly
varying signal. That's very hit-or-miss. Ears are probably better.

$10 DVMs can and do have AC measurement features. There is no reason
why they can't be accurate enough to outdo ears, which are not very
accurate at all.

Please name one $ 10 DVM with true RMS true and peak hold or integration
function.

Now if you get a good fluke with true RMS and peak hold, that's more
in the ballpark. A scope would be good too, but best would be an
integrator.

A scope would be overkill, and not as easy to use as a DVM. And I'm
not sure what help an integrator would be, or how it could be better
than just using the appropriate tool for measuring the magnitude of a
sine wave (a DVM).

Then I can explain it for you. The signal on the output of a power amp
is going to change voltages much too fast for a typical $ 10 DVM to give
you any real idea what you're looking at. Even an analog meter is
probably an improvement. The point is that you're getting random samples
at random moments that are more or less noise compared to the signal
(what happens if you just took digital samples of an audio stream every
30th of a second or so and then convert back to analog? ).

The only thing that would be useful to have a plain ol DVM for is to
measure the levels of steady state signals like a test tone for example.
Trying to follow music you could easily have a 6 dB error.

The DVM I use regularly has a bar-graph "weighted average" meter below
the numeric readout. This kind of meter could be useful for level
checking, but I haven't seen that feature for 10 bucks.

--
stealthaxe

On 22 Dec 2005 16:31:16 GMT, stealthaxe
wrote:

Stewart Pinkerton wrote in
:

My point was that *from that perspective*, musicians have no special
standing, indeed you could certainly argue that their notion of
correct sound balance is highly skewed by all the time they spend in
the *wrong* place.

funny that they manage to achieve this correct sound balance, even though
they're not in the "right" place.

how DO they do that?

That's what the conductor is for..............

And no, an orchestra doesn't rely on a sound engineer to balance their
sound. Neither do most jazz combos. Yet from their *wrong* place, they
can make it sound GOOD where you're sitting.

They certainly can - but they don't always......

Amazing, isnt' it? It's almost like they know what they're doing.

Some do, some don't. Hence my comment that they are not
*intrinsically* superior to non-musicians.

--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

wrote in message
...

analog recording of the event itself or playback via a
stylus/vinyl phono system? It "just doesn't make sense" to me;

It didn't make sense to me either. Dosn't matter.

(1) CD-Rs
burned from vinyl sources via my stand-alone CD-R burners sound
indistinguishable from their LP origins

My experience has not been that. OTOH I have burned CDs rom LPs that
blow away the commercial CD release.

and (2) dozens of Telarc, Sony and
Delos classical digital LPs sound identical to their CD issues.

I have never experienced that either although there is a distinct
similarity in many cases. since the equipment does affect the sound it
is no really fair to make such a definitive claim unless it is limited
to your equipment.

It's been my hearing experience from the very outset of the availability of
the releases available in both formats, limited to my equipment, although it
evolved over the years, includes two different listening rooms, and
two different audiophiles, one of which plays a brass instrument.

"Timothy A. Seufert" wrote in message
...
In article ,
stealthaxe wrote:

Jenn wrote in
:

(sorry y'all, i can't find the orig post by chung ... )

In article , Chung
wrote:

You can buy a DVM for less than $10.

I'd sure not trust a $ 10 DVM to give me readable levels on a quickly
varying signal. That's very hit-or-miss. Ears are probably better.

$10 DVMs can and do have AC measurement features. There is no reason
why they can't be accurate enough to outdo ears, which are not very
accurate at all.

All of the $10 DVMs I've come across only have a high voltage AC range,
which is obtained by rectifying the incoming voltage and measuring the DC.
As such, it can't make decent measurements of low voltages.

Norm Strong

stealthaxe wrote:
"Timothy A. Seufert" wrote in
:


I'd sure not trust a $ 10 DVM to give me readable levels on a quickly
varying signal. That's very hit-or-miss. Ears are probably better.



$10 DVMs can and do have AC measurement features. There is no reason
why they can't be accurate enough to outdo ears, which are not very
accurate at all.


Please name one $ 10 DVM with true RMS true and peak hold or integration
function.


You missed the point entirely. When you are matching levels, you are
feeding the same test signal into the speaker terminals. All you are
trying to do is to have the readings be within 0.1 dB or so of each
other, using basically the same test stimulus. You do not need a rms
function, and you do not need very good frequency response from the DVM.

For instance, when you are to match a CD player's output level to
another, you play a test disc with sinewave tones. Let's use 1 KHz. You
use the $10 DVM to make sure that the measured levels are within 0.1 dB
(about 1%) of each other. The DVM may be off by 3 dB in terms of
*absolute* accuracy, but it does not matter because you are comparing
one reading vs. the other. All you need from it is to have enough
resolution, and be able to respond to the 1 KHz tone without too much
roll-off. You can also use 100 Hz tones when you are comparing CD players.

The rest of your post is not relevant in the context of matching levels.
We are not trying to measure exactly the absolute voltage levels at the
output terminals. We are trying to make a *relative* measurement using
the same stimulus.

stealthaxe wrote:
Stewart Pinkerton wrote in
:

My point was that *from that perspective*, musicians have no special
standing, indeed you could certainly argue that their notion of
correct sound balance is highly skewed by all the time they spend in
the *wrong* place.

funny that they manage to achieve this correct sound balance, even though
they're not in the "right" place.

how DO they do that?

And no, an orchestra doesn't rely on a sound engineer to balance their
sound. Neither do most jazz combos. Yet from their *wrong* place, they
can make it sound GOOD where you're sitting.

Amazing, isnt' it? It's almost like they know what they're doing.

--
stealthaxe

Yes.

A couple points: sounding live is about much more than having the right
tonal balance. It is about an intimate connection to the emotion and
musical expression, clarity of counterpoint or multiple voices, clarity
of orchestration and the ability to hear distinctions between
instruments of various timbre.

It is all these things that analog gets more right (to my ears).

Also, musicians may spend a lot of time behind the instrument, but..

1. They spend a lot of time listening to other musicians perform.. in
fact *thousands* of hours doing so just as part of their training.

2. Learning to play an instrument usually involves other people playing
"back at you," for example your teacher, or an ensemble you are part
of. After thousands of hours in these experiences and getting constant
verbal and musical feedback, musicians have a mental model of how their
own sound translates into sound heard by others. That's why their
ability to make things that sound good to other people isn't an
accident.

3. Many patterns of musical expression are abstract and can be
perceived from many perspectives. If a musician has an expression
articulation, for example, modulating smoothly between staccato and
legato in the course of a phrase, this will be heard clearly from many
perspectives. Getting the playback right is then about getting this
musical expression right--and it is these sorts of things where digital
falls down.

Mike

Stewart Pinkerton wrote in
:

On 22 Dec 2005 16:31:16 GMT, stealthaxe
wrote:

funny that they manage to achieve this correct sound balance, even
though they're not in the "right" place.

how DO they do that?

That's what the conductor is for..............

except when there isn't one they can still do it.

And no, an orchestra doesn't rely on a sound engineer to balance their
sound. Neither do most jazz combos. Yet from their *wrong* place,
they can make it sound GOOD where you're sitting.

They certainly can - but they don't always......

well, some don't ever do it. all professions have their good uns and bad
uns.

Amazing, isnt' it? It's almost like they know what they're doing.

Some do, some don't. Hence my comment that they are not
*intrinsically* superior to non-musicians.

I'd say that if they're _good_ at being musicians then they have a leg-up
on ordinary folks regarding things musical. obviously (for me anyway) if
they're musicians but not any good at it, this is probably not much help.

--
stealthaxe

On 24 Dec 2005 05:22:46 GMT, wrote:

"Timothy A. Seufert" wrote in message
...
In article ,
stealthaxe wrote:

Jenn wrote in
:

(sorry y'all, i can't find the orig post by chung ... )

In article , Chung
wrote:

You can buy a DVM for less than $10.

I'd sure not trust a $ 10 DVM to give me readable levels on a quickly
varying signal. That's very hit-or-miss. Ears are probably better.

$10 DVMs can and do have AC measurement features. There is no reason
why they can't be accurate enough to outdo ears, which are not very
accurate at all.

All of the $10 DVMs I've come across only have a high voltage AC range,
which is obtained by rectifying the incoming voltage and measuring the DC.
As such, it can't make decent measurements of low voltages.

It doesn't have to - level matching should be done at the speaker
terminals.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

On 23 Dec 2005 16:40:08 GMT, stealthaxe
wrote:

"Timothy A. Seufert" wrote in
:

I'd sure not trust a $ 10 DVM to give me readable levels on a quickly
varying signal. That's very hit-or-miss. Ears are probably better.

$10 DVMs can and do have AC measurement features. There is no reason
why they can't be accurate enough to outdo ears, which are not very
accurate at all.

Please name one $ 10 DVM with true RMS true and peak hold or integration
function.

He didn't say that, he said 'AC measurement features', which is all
you need for level matching, especially with a CD source.

You don't do the level matching with a music signal, you use test
tones.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

Stewart Pinkerton wrote in
:

He didn't say that, he said 'AC measurement features', which is all
you need for level matching, especially with a CD source.

ah. well, 'AC measurement features' is sufficiently vague as to be
meaningless.

i've owned a couple of $ 10 DVMs and their measurement of AC voltages is
not very accurate and extremely hard to follow the changing numbers.

You don't do the level matching with a music signal, you use test
tones.

....and there's the rub. using test tones to match levels makes the
assumption that your players are going to respond to the test tone CD in
the same way. it's true that a cheap DVM might work reasonably well with
high level steady state tones, but suppose the tones you use actually skew
the results?

I don't buy $ 10 CD players and I'm certainly not going to trust a $ 10 DVM
or VOM for that matter to make accurate measurements on which I'm going to
base a buying decision. YMMV, but I've learned this from 25 or so years of
experience messing around with just this kind of thing. (When I was a
young lad, trying to figure out why my guitar produced sound when connected
to an amplifier even though a meter wouldn't read any voltage at the
output).

--
stealthaxe

On 25 Dec 2005 16:02:39 GMT, stealthaxe
wrote:

Stewart Pinkerton wrote in
:

He didn't say that, he said 'AC measurement features', which is all
you need for level matching, especially with a CD source.

ah. well, 'AC measurement features' is sufficiently vague as to be
meaningless.

i've owned a couple of $ 10 DVMs and their measurement of AC voltages is
not very accurate and extremely hard to follow the changing numbers.

The numbers don't change on a test tone............

You don't do the level matching with a music signal, you use test
tones.

...and there's the rub. using test tones to match levels makes the
assumption that your players are going to respond to the test tone CD in
the same way.

Why wouldn't they? You're just thrashing around here, making no case
whatever.

it's true that a cheap DVM might work reasonably well with
high level steady state tones, but suppose the tones you use actually skew
the results?

Terminally unlikely, for lots of reasons.

I don't buy $ 10 CD players and I'm certainly not going to trust a $ 10 DVM
or VOM for that matter to make accurate measurements on which I'm going to
base a buying decision.

I use a Fluke 85 and a 'scope myself, but a $10 VOM is all you need
for level matching.

YMMV, but I've learned this from 25 or so years of
experience messing around with just this kind of thing. (When I was a
young lad, trying to figure out why my guitar produced sound when connected
to an amplifier even though a meter wouldn't read any voltage at the
output).

I can beat that by about 20 years. When I was a young lad, I used to
design and build boosters for guitar pickups. Fascinatingly, I ran
into one of my old schoolmates a couple of years ago, and he said he
still has that old PP3-powered unit, and it works perfectly! :-)

--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering