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#41
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Amazement
Roger Kulp wrote:
On May 16, 4:04?am, Steven Sullivan wrote: Another fact is that incredibly good audio quality -- via cheap digital technology -- is now available to far more people that in the golden age of 'audiophile' culture. Speak for yourself.My favorite era of classical recording is the mono Lp era (1948-55),with early stereo and electrical 78s tied a close second.If you have never enjoyed a good Deutsche Gramophon Furtwangler 78,or a scroll Victor Frederick Stock on a fine tube system,you are missing one of the great musical experiences of all time.There are some 78s like the Desire Defauw "Birds" I would rank as some of the greatest sounding records of all time.Lo-fi is relative,a cheap tube radio will always sound better than an iPod. To you , perhaps, but an iPod's output will likely be more accurate. In objective terms, it is indeed incredibly good, certainly compared to what was available in the 78 era. And even those 78s are likely available in digital versions nowadays. -- -S We have it in our power to begin the world over again - Thomas Paine |
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#42
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Amazement
paul_0090 wrote:
I feel strongly that the "problem" with the CDs is due to the recording engineers &/or producers. I have recorded my selected LPs onto CDs nearly 10 years ago & find that I regret throwing away some that have CDs available now as MY recorded CDs "sounded better". Much of the CDs now are cluttered for surrond sound when it isn't needed; ? If it's producing surround sound, it's not a CD...unless you are using ProLogic II or some other surround synthesis feature of your system. Then there is the boom box effect as the mid-bass is the only sound that counted/required for "truism"/hi-fi; even the some VW commercials has that with the windshield wipers moving to the heavy beat of the bass. A former co-worker was part of a rock band & had mentioned to me that they were going to get a "fuzz box" which sounded like equipment to produce distortion. With synthetic music & electronics, quality is only a matter of interpretation as can the equipment produce the synthetic sound reliably; kinda think that is part of the reason for the power shortages.... A fuzzbox is indeed a distortion box, and has a heritage going back to the late 60's at least. More than any suppsed 'midbass' effect, it's drastic reduction of dynamic range, and perhaps the age-old smiley EQ (boosted bass and treble) that are the banes of modern CD 'sound'. -- -S We have it in our power to begin the world over again - Thomas Paine |
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#44
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Amazement
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#45
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Amazement
In article ,
"Dave" wrote: What's changed? IMO, what has changed is that music is now a consumer commodity, and in the commercial arena profit rules. So quantity rather than quality is driven by the dollar. Music is sold as a 'soundtrack' for your life, rather than something you spend time, energy, and money enjoying separately as something special. There are a lot of changes in society that have made it so. When a 'newbie', who enjoys music, is exposed to high quality reproduction in an environment that supports focussed listening, they often discover something that they didn't even know was possible or existed. I facilitate this exposure as often as I can, not only to keep "hi-fi" alive, but to keep "music" alive as a significant event. Greg |
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#46
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Amazement
On 19 May 2009 16:39:28 GMT, "
wrote: On May 18, 6:50*pm, wrote: On May 18, 2:24*pm, " wrote: *I never hear any music coming from my sides or rear when seated in a hall. What are you talking about? Of course you hear sound coming from the rear and sides. What do you think happens when sound waves hitwalls? They don't just evaporate. The reason you THINK all the sound is coming from the front is because your eyes are open, and they are telling you that's where the sound is coming from. But, as usual, your eyes are deceiving you. The trick of good MC is to get thesideand rear speakers to mimic the reflections you'd hear in the hall. "A trick not at all well performed. Low level sounds (in actual performance) are heard in the side and rear channels as being so called "reflections" when in fact they couldn't have been and aren't. It appears as a phoney gimmick, or "trick"; something like playing a 2 CH recording in a car and hearing the sound coming from all the surround speakers. Then, either you have been listening to the wrong recordings or you have been listening to an improperly set up system. From where I sit in several decent halls there aren't any side/rear refections of any appreciable volume. I can't hear a soprano's low level voice from side or rear walls. Of course, you do but it is somewhat subtle. If you didn't the Met would sound just like Yankee Stadium. Kal |
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#47
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Amazement
"paul_0090" wrote in message
... On 2009-05-18, wrote: On May 18, 2:24 pm, " wrote: I never hear any music coming from my sides or rear when seated in a hall. What are you talking about? Of course you hear sound coming from the rear and sides. What do you think happens when sound waves hit walls? They don't just evaporate. The reason you THINK all the sound is coming from the front is because your eyes are open, and they are telling you that's where the sound is coming from. But, as usual, your eyes are deceiving you. The trick of good MC is to get the side and rear speakers to mimic the reflections you'd hear in the hall. bob A problem is that it takes work to mimic a hall. The current idea of "surround sound" is to imbed the listener in the orchestra/band or the environment of a movie so that "you are there". As such, the MC is now usually designed to have lots/loud sound coming out from the back/rear speakers. Audience participation? It's not even holographic sound! I don't know what you listen to, but I own about 100 surround sound disks encompassing jazz, pop, rock, and classical of all kinds....and none have that phenomenon as a general rule. One or two of the pop disks have a track or two where sound is placed in the side or rear for special effect....but it is clearly that, not an approach to the entire album. Methinks I hear a strawman rustling in the wind somewhere. |
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#48
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Amazement
Harry Lavo wrote:
Truth is, for home use four full range speakers will usually suffice for music, five if you are a purist. No sub required, and most multichannel gear lets you create a phantom center channel, so you don't even have to change your stereo setup. What really would help would be some good quality rear amplifiers from name manufacturers with built in receivers and a transmitter to accept signal at the preamp and transmit. Then setting up a room would pose little more challenge (in some ways even less) than setting up another stereo pair. But this assumes, of course, that there is a dealer network out there even remotely interested in selling a multichannel system with an emphasis on music instead of movies (two fewer speakers, less wattage, etc.). snip I wopuld bet four 'full range' loudspeakers to be far less spouse-friendly than a system with satellites and a sub that can be tucked away in a corner. And while I have no hard numbers, I would bet that multichannel home systems are more a growth industry these days than two-channel home systems, and have been for some years now. -- -S We have it in our power to begin the world over again - Thomas Paine |
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#49
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Amazement
Harry Lavo wrote:
"Roger Kulp" wrote in message ... On May 14, 10:08 pm, "Dave" wrote: [quoted text deleted -- deb] I find it odd that good quality audio equipment was found in most everyone's house when I was a kid... maybe not high-end stuff, but solid receivers and decent-sounding speakers... and people LISTENED to them. Nowadays I think the #1 requirement for people looking for an audio system is that it should be as small as possible and have a built-in iPod dock. I appreciate music more and more the longer I live and feel priveleged to be in a position to drop a little $$ on a system that can reproduce it in a way that's realistic and pleasurable. I guess I (we) are in the minority. Dave Do you belong to any classical music discussion groups ?I do.It's amazing how many people in these groups ridicule what they call "audiophools",and seriously discuss buying their music as downloads. Roger That can be interpreted several ways. To me, it reinforces the idea that people, even classical music lovers like my friend about whom I wrote to originate this thread, simply don't know that really good sound can exist in a home. There's nothing *inherently* wrong with downloaded classical music -- and it's a regrettable reflex among some 'audiophiles' to act as if there was. Downloaded classical lossy files, like any other music, can either be well-encoded or not. Lossless downloads, should, of course, be no different sonically from hard-format counterparts. The ridicule that audiophiles have brought upon themselves stems from supporting a market that straight-facedly sells them, for example, $400 USB cables, LP demagnetizers, and cable lifters, as means to 'improve' sound. -- -S We have it in our power to begin the world over again - Thomas Paine |
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#51
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Amazement
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#52
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Amazement
Dave wrote:
"Harry Lavo" wrote in message ... "Roger Kulp" wrote in message ... Do you belong to any classical music discussion groups ?I do.It's amazing how many people in these groups ridicule what they call "audiophools",and seriously discuss buying their music as downloads. Roger That can be interpreted several ways. To me, it reinforces the idea that people, even classical music lovers like my friend about whom I wrote to originate this thread, simply don't know that really good sound can exist in a home. Well, I have to say that music enjoyment is a subjective and personal experience and don't want to seem in any way disparaging of people who can truly enjoy Rachmaninoff on their clock radio. Just think how much money they don't have to spend on expensive audio gear! Different people definitely enjoy music in different ways, I enjoy the audio illusion of "being there" imparted by decent (and the word "decent" is kind of a moving target) equipment playing high-quality recordings. Clarity, timbre, attack and decay, fortunately or unfortunately I hear those qualities and I really DO NOT ENJOY lesser-quality in my livingroom. I can hear it and it bugs me. But, take my wife for example. She can't carry a tune to save her life, and couldn't tell the difference between a pair of Magnepan 3.6's and a pair of JVC bookshelf speakers. Honestly, she can't. But she loves music nonetheless in some odd way which I try not to think about too much. Why not think about it? The love of music can be clearly divorceable from the quality of recording or playback or acoustics of the live venue, or even the quality of the playing itself. These factors can all interact such that one might trump another. Millions of people fell in love with the Beatles's music based on tiny transistor radio or TV speakers and horrendously post-processed American LPs, for example. car to drive around in? Why is it more likely people will by a home theatre in a box now? An HT in a box could actually deliver them far superior audio quality today than your parent's then-pricey home stereo could back then, depending on how it's set up. Why are 128kpbs downloads good enough? Again, its' relative; they can have artifacts, but overall the quality can be vastly higher than what was available in the so called golden age you allude to. Why would people rather buy re-mastered compressed versions of CD's which were much higher quality in their original form? Because they're sold as new and improved, and in some ways they can be -- better source tapes for example -- while in other ways the 'improvement' is a psychoacoustic trick (louder=better in the short term) To a large extent these choices have already been made and it seems that as a society we have opted for quantity over quality in a great many areas of our lives. It was ALWAYS thus for audio, except perhaps in the middle CD era, after sourcing got better but before dynamic range compression became heavy-handed. -- -S We have it in our power to begin the world over again - Thomas Paine |
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#53
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Amazement
"Harry Lavo" wrote in message
... wrote in message ... On May 18, 10:40 am, paul_0090 wrote: On Sun, 17 May 2009 09:02:03 -0700, Roger Kulp wrote (in article ): Of course you do....much of the sound you hear is reflected from the sides of the hall, and some from the rear. You are just not as aware of it because an infinite number of sound sources is more "invisible" than two or three of them. But couldn't this affect by recreated in a home environment with a well treated room. If in a concert hall one is hearing reflections off the side and rear walls from the sound orignating from the stage in front than why can't this be recreated in a home listening room with the sound from the front speakers reflecting of the side and rear walls. Why is a multichannel system necessary for this? |
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#54
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Amazement
In article ,
"Dave" wrote: What's changed? IMO, what has changed is that music is now a consumer commodity, and in the commercial arena profit rules. So quantity rather than quality is driven by the dollar. Music is sold as a 'soundtrack' for your life, rather than something you spend time, energy, and money enjoying separately as something special. There are a lot of changes in society that have made it so. When a 'newbie', who enjoys music, is exposed to high quality reproduction in an environment that supports focussed listening, they often discover something that they didn't even know was possible or existed. I facilitate this exposure as often as I can, not only to keep "hi-fi" alive, but to keep "music" alive as a significant event. Greg |
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#55
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Amazement
wrote in message ...
On May 18, 6:50 pm, wrote: On May 18, 2:24 pm, " wrote: I never hear any music coming from my sides or rear when seated in a hall. What are you talking about? Of course you hear sound coming from the rear and sides. What do you think happens when sound waves hitwalls? They don't just evaporate. The reason you THINK all the sound is coming from the front is because your eyes are open, and they are telling you that's where the sound is coming from. But, as usual, your eyes are deceiving you. The trick of good MC is to get thesideand rear speakers to mimic the reflections you'd hear in the hall. "A trick not at all well performed. Low level sounds (in actual performance) are heard in the side and rear channels as being so called "reflections" when in fact they couldn't have been and aren't. It appears as a phoney gimmick, or "trick"; something like playing a 2 CH recording in a car and hearing the sound coming from all the surround speakers. From where I sit in several decent halls there aren't any side/rear refections of any appreciable volume. I can't hear a soprano's low level voice from side or rear walls. If it were the Met Opera House would have been torn down long ago. I would suggest, then, that you have the side/rear channels turned up to loud relative to the front. On classical music of most ever kind, you should only hear a "spacious ambience" from the side/rear speakers. |
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#56
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Amazement
On May 19, 7:49*pm, Kalman Rubinson wrote:
On 19 May 2009 16:39:28 GMT, " wrote: On May 18, 6:50*pm, wrote: On May 18, 2:24*pm, " wrote: *I never hear any music coming from my sides or rear when seated in a hall. What are you talking about? Of course you hear sound coming from the rear and sides. What do you think happens when sound waves hitwalls? They don't just evaporate. The reason you THINK all the sound is coming from the front is because your eyes are open, and they are telling you that's where the sound is coming from. But, as usual, your eyes are deceiving you. The trick of good MC is to get thesideand rear speakers to mimic the reflections you'd hear in the hall. "A trick not at all well performed. Low level sounds (in actual performance) are heard in the side and rear channels as being so called "reflections" when in fact they couldn't have been and aren't. It appears as a phoney gimmick, or "trick"; something like playing a 2 CH recording in a car and hearing the sound coming from all the surround speakers. Then, either you have been listening to the wrong recordings or you have been listening to an improperly set up system. If one turns off the front L & R channels in a proper set-up using the right recordings, and hears all musical passages at equal but lower volume, this is NOT what one hears in a hall. The few halls with which I'm familiar don't even have microphones placed to capture side and rear channels, at least not at any of the live performances I've attended which made their way to MC rtecordings. From where I sit in several decent halls there aren't any side/rear refections of any appreciable volume. I can't hear a soprano's low level voice from side or rear walls. Of course, you do but it is somewhat subtle. *If you didn't the Met would sound just like Yankee Stadium. It's been about 60 years since I've been to any ball game. The side and rear channel music I heard were mostly "get your cold beer here". :-) Kal- |
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#57
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Amazement
On May 17, 9:57*am, "Harry Lavo" wrote:
"Sonnova" wrote in message ... On Fri, 15 May 2009 21:55:24 -0700, wrote (in article ): On May 14, 12:07 pm, "Harry Lavo" wrote: How far we have fallen as a musically-literate society. Several people have already noted the fallacy of equating high-end reproduction with appreciation for music, but how many of us developed our love of music while listening to high-fidelity reproduction of same? (Harry, I understand, did, which would explain his perspective.) I learned the American Songbook from my mother's AM car radio and had an eclectic record collection long before I had a decently clean- sounding set of speakers. As did I. I came to classical music through the great film scores of the 1950's and 1960's. But my love of music in general started early. I still remember popular songs from the late 1940's when I was just a pre-school tyke and drove everybody around me to distraction as I latched on to some popular song and sang it morning noon and night. One thing about the iPod generation is that they listen to a LOT of music—certainly more than I ever did. Realizing that its all a matter of taste, I have to say that what they listen to is junk and its quality and musical content is even less than the stuff my generation listened to and at one time I would have said that was impossible! After all, it's more convenient and accessible than it was in our day. Granted, most of it's pop, because, well, pop is popular. But some of them will expand their horizons one day, just as some of us did. BTW, I don't know if it's still true, but in the early years of the iTunes Store, classical music had a higher market share than it did in CDs. Today's young people have, for the most part, never, ever been exposed to classical music. Most of them have no idea what it even sounds like. Schools don't even teach musical appreciation any more, and most homes are filled with the topical music that the parents' generation grew up with. A young friend stopped by my place a couple of weeks ago and I was listening to a direct-to-disc LP of the Glenn Miller band that was recorded in the 1980's. My young friend listened while the music played and asked, when it was over: "What was that?" *I said that it was Glenn Miller's band and it was a genre of music called "big band" dance music. He said that while he'd heard OF it, he had never before in his life actually heard it (he said he liked what he heard). Topical music is mostly generational and the further one gets from the generation that made a certain type of music popular, the more obscure it becomes. When the "big band" generation completely dies out, I suspect that this type of music will go with them. Same with the late-50's rock and roll and so forth. Topical music is just that: topical. When people stop listening to it, it disappears from the general consciousness. These are very good points. *It was hard for me to realize that kids today are as far removed from Elvis, Donavan, and the Beatles than I was growing up in the fifties from 1920's jazz, which I learned to appreciate at my father's knee. *My daughter loves '60's and '70's rock and pop as a result of exposure to it in my house....my 25 year old musician son complains of the local public radio jazz show playing nothing but oldies ('50's and '60's bop and modern jazz). *He asks "where is Bitche's Brew, much less anything later?". This sort of brings us to the fact that "Bitch's Brew" will soon be forty years old,and there has been nothing as revolutionary in jazz since.The Ramones and Sex Pistols,et al are getting up on thirty five years ago,the earliest rap records are now thirty years old.I like Nirvana alright,but they are sort of regurgitated MC5,and the last exciting thing to happen in music were the likes of The Mummies,and Untamed Youth.All of whom were twenty years ago,and the latter two doing early sixties music at that.We are coming up on two generations without anything new and radical happening in music.I can't imagine that happening at any time in the previous two hundred years.Not only is humanity being dumbed down,but it is stagnated and constipated creatively.Have a nice day. Roger |
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#58
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Amazement
On May 20, 7:54*am, Steven Sullivan wrote:
wrote: On May 18, 3:50?pm, wrote: On May 18, 2:24?pm, " wrote: ?I never hear any music coming from my sides or rear when seated in a hall. What are you talking about? Of course you hear sound coming from the rear and sides. He didn't say "sound" he said "music." If the sound from the front is music, then the echoes of it from the side and rear are music too. That is a weak semantical argument. Clearly the poster is simply pointing out the he can clearly hear where the musicians are located, which is not to his sides. The "music" comes from the location of the performers. While the original poster may not have expressed this as clearly as possible was it really hard to understand what he meant or was this just an opening for another silly argument about nothing or merit? |
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#59
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Amazement
"Steven Sullivan" wrote in message
... Millions of people fell in love with the Beatles's music based on tiny transistor radio or TV speakers and horrendously post-processed American LPs, for example. That is very true. As I noted everyone enjoys music in different ways. than what was available in the so called golden age you allude to. Yes, we listened on transistor (AM no less) radios. We listened on record players with ceramic cartridges. But that was the best out there at the time. If you wanted a portable radio, the transistor with the 9V battery was what was available. If you wanted a record player, that was what was available. The technology which allowed more realistic reproduction of music was evolving, and we were UPGRADING when we bought the BSR with the Shure cartridge, or when we traded in the cassette deck for a CD player. My point, which may not have been clear, is that we are now DOWNGRADING or BACKSLIDING... the technology certainly exists to do better, but WE'RE NO LONGER INTERESTED IN BUYING IT. The inherent sound quality of 128kpbs mp3's is LESS than that of the commercial CD but that's the change we're making. The sound quality of a compressed tune with 10dB of dynamic range is LESS than what we got on a crappy LP, or perhaps as bad in a different way. Back then that was the best technology could offer... now it's not. To a large extent these choices have already been made and it seems that as a society we have opted for quantity over quality in a great many areas of our lives. It was ALWAYS thus for audio, except perhaps in the middle CD era, after sourcing got better but before dynamic range compression became heavy-handed. Yes, more truth. The almighty dollar will always win, and if 95% of the music-buying population is satisfied with 128kpbs downloaded lossy files, that's what the market's going to offer. -- -S We have it in our power to begin the world over again - Thomas Paine |
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#60
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Amazement
"ftran999" wrote in message
... "Harry Lavo" wrote in message ... wrote in message ... On May 18, 10:40 am, paul_0090 wrote: On Sun, 17 May 2009 09:02:03 -0700, Roger Kulp wrote (in article ): Of course you do....much of the sound you hear is reflected from the sides of the hall, and some from the rear. You are just not as aware of it because an infinite number of sound sources is more "invisible" than two or three of them. But couldn't this affect by recreated in a home environment with a well treated room. If in a concert hall one is hearing reflections off the side and rear walls from the sound orignating from the stage in front than why can't this be recreated in a home listening room with the sound from the front speakers reflecting of the side and rear walls. Why is a multichannel system necessary for this? Because in the situation you describe, you will here the reflected sound of a small room, not the sound of an auditorium. There is a vast difference in arrival times that the ear/brain is quite sensitive to. The multichannel system masks that through volume so you hear the multidirectional cues from the recording, not so much from the room itself. |
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#61
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Amazement
On Wed, 20 May 2009 08:31:15 -0700, Greg Wormald wrote
(in article ): In article , "Dave" wrote: What's changed? IMO, what has changed is that music is now a consumer commodity, and in the commercial arena profit rules. So quantity rather than quality is driven by the dollar. Music is sold as a 'soundtrack' for your life, rather than something you spend time, energy, and money enjoying separately as something special. There are a lot of changes in society that have made it so. When a 'newbie', who enjoys music, is exposed to high quality reproduction in an environment that supports focussed listening, they often discover something that they didn't even know was possible or existed. I facilitate this exposure as often as I can, not only to keep "hi-fi" alive, but to keep "music" alive as a significant event. Greg Unfortunately, what you are saying (and you are right), is that commerce has replaced culture. Very sad. |
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#62
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Amazement
On 2009-05-20, Harry Lavo wrote:
"paul_0090" wrote in message ... On 2009-05-18, wrote: On May 18, 2:24 pm, " wrote: I never hear any music coming from my sides or rear when seated in a hall. What are you talking about? Of course you hear sound coming from the rear and sides. What do you think happens when sound waves hit walls? They don't just evaporate. The reason you THINK all the sound is coming from the front is because your eyes are open, and they are telling you that's where the sound is coming from. But, as usual, your eyes are deceiving you. The trick of good MC is to get the side and rear speakers to mimic the reflections you'd hear in the hall. bob A problem is that it takes work to mimic a hall. The current idea of "surround sound" is to imbed the listener in the orchestra/band or the environment of a movie so that "you are there". As such, the MC is now usually designed to have lots/loud sound coming out from the back/rear speakers. Audience participation? It's not even holographic sound! I don't know what you listen to, but I own about 100 surround sound disks encompassing jazz, pop, rock, and classical of all kinds....and none have that phenomenon as a general rule. One or two of the pop disks have a track or two where sound is placed in the side or rear for special effect....but it is clearly that, not an approach to the entire album. Methinks I hear a strawman rustling in the wind somewhere. Try watching "o brother where art thou" & listen to the thunder coming out at the back. Then the music at the end of "much ado about nothing". I've already mentioned "Producer's cut" of Emmy Lou Harris singing & playing the guitar where the guitar is coming out at back. You mentioned "special effect" of some tracks; surround sound is used for "special effects" & not music performed in front of the stage. It is similar to watching a play in a "theater in the round" where the audience is sometimes in parts of the play, special effect. Even a music dvd would have the gimmick of clapping from the back. When I listen to cd, my receiver is set to stereo only where the subwoofer & back speakers are disabled. Listen to the Beetovan piano concertos with stephen bishop on the ole philips cds & you will find that surround sound isn't needed as the sound if full & spacious; something was done right. |
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#63
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Amazement
"Steven Sullivan" wrote in message
... wrote: On May 18, 10:40?am, paul_0090 wrote: On Sun, 17 May 2009 09:02:03 -0700, Roger Kulp wrote (in article ): [quoted text deleted -- deb] I feel strongly that the "problem" with the CDs is due to the recording engineers &/or producers. ?I have recorded my selected LPs onto CDs nearly 10 years ago & find that I regret throwing away some that have CDs available now as MY recorded CDs "sounded better". Much of the CDs now are cluttered for surrond sound when it isn't needed; there is a "Producer's Cut" in DTS format of Emmy Lu Harris singing that of times have the guitar she played coming out of the rear speaker while the voice is in the front. ?I don't believe Harris has a doppleglanger. Also the trend is to have the listener experience the music as if s/he is sitting in the middle of the orchestra/band. Can you anyone refer me to a MC disc which *doesn't* have musical sound in its side/rear channels. I never hear any music coming from my sides or rear when seated in a hall. Classical surround discs often have nothing more than 'hall ambience' and echo audible from the rear speakers, at the listening position. Ditto jazz releases. Even some rock surround discs have relatively little surround content -- one of them is Led Zeppelin's live 'How the West Was Won' set. It's a matter of personal taste. Quadraphonic fans actually tend to complain when there isn't much happening in the surrounds. Can I either directly or indirectly blame poor Ronnie or Bill for putting musical sounds in side/rear channels of a MC disc? Of course not. You can blame the first person to recording an instrument entirely to one channel -- something that goes back to at least the Beatles. And in the 70's 4.0 channel (quadraphonic) was *all about* having things zinging at you from the left and right rear channels. Actually, that is only partly true. I do remember an CD4 disk of marches (Boston Pops if I recall correctly) that had bands marching about the room....we used it as a test disk in the Harman-Kardon listening room out in Plainview...the room the boss turned into a sales office :-(. But I still have seven SQ disks still in my collection, four pop and three classical (I sold the CD4's after my demodulater went belly up). Most of them used the rear's tastefully...ironically, the most directional is "Antiphonal Music for Four Brass Choirs" conducted by Andrew Kazdin at St. George's Church in NYC. And it really serves the music. |
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#64
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Amazement
"ScottW2" wrote in message
... On May 19, 10:06 am, "Dave" wrote: Which leads back to a question I posed initially? What's changed? The difference in quality has diminished. Back in the 6070s a simple change from a BSR record changer with ceramic cart and steel stylus to an AR with Shure cartridge and preamp offered a quantum leap in improvement. Today that AR isn't considered Hi-Fi and you have to spend thousands to get a significantly more negligible improvement. Why was music important enough in the 60's for my parents, who were by no stretch of the imagination wealthy, to spend the equivalent in today's dollars of probably $3K or $4k on a stereo with 5 hungry kids to feed and one beater car to drive around in? I think your parents weren't the norm. Everyone I knew who hadn't plunged into hi-fi before marriage and kids put that hobby on hold. Why is it more likely people will by a home theatre in a box now? Price/Performance ratio. They don't sound that bad for the money. They're simple and complete. You don't have to worry about component matching or the price creep (or should I say rush) of separates. You have to spend so much more, especially for multi-channel to get appreciably better sound (and I doubt you could ever get the improvement of the 60's with allinone record players or console that most had. Plus, HTIB is the starting point for some. That or the ipod. Many people don't feel the need for more. I can't agree with you here. The difference between the typical big box "home theatre in a box" system and my system (made up almost entirely of used components so it is still affordable, albeit not cheap) is every bit as large as the difference between a VM ("Voice of Music") consoletter and a decent component stereo system circa late '50's/early "60's. And people did buy as couples if they didn't already as student. |
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#65
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Amazement
wrote in message ...
On May 19, 7:49 pm, Kalman Rubinson wrote: On 19 May 2009 16:39:28 GMT, " wrote: On May 18, 6:50 pm, wrote: On May 18, 2:24 pm, " wrote: I never hear any music coming from my sides or rear when seated in a hall. What are you talking about? Of course you hear sound coming from the rear and sides. What do you think happens when sound waves hitwalls? They don't just evaporate. The reason you THINK all the sound is coming from the front is because your eyes are open, and they are telling you that's where the sound is coming from. But, as usual, your eyes are deceiving you. The trick of good MC is to get thesideand rear speakers to mimic the reflections you'd hear in the hall. "A trick not at all well performed. Low level sounds (in actual performance) are heard in the side and rear channels as being so called "reflections" when in fact they couldn't have been and aren't. It appears as a phoney gimmick, or "trick"; something like playing a 2 CH recording in a car and hearing the sound coming from all the surround speakers. Then, either you have been listening to the wrong recordings or you have been listening to an improperly set up system. If one turns off the front L & R channels in a proper set-up using the right recordings, and hears all musical passages at equal but lower volume, this is NOT what one hears in a hall. The few halls with which I'm familiar don't even have microphones placed to capture side and rear channels, at least not at any of the live performances I've attended which made their way to MC rtecordings. I'm sorry, but if you could "turn off" the front of the hall, you might very well hear something similar, but with more echo. In a welll recorded classical surround disk, you will get the same thing. It is only when you turn it up too loud that you hear something resembling the instruments themselves. |
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#66
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Amazement
On 20 May 2009 15:30:48 GMT, "ftran999"
wrote: "Harry Lavo" wrote in message ... wrote in message ... On May 18, 10:40 am, paul_0090 wrote: On Sun, 17 May 2009 09:02:03 -0700, Roger Kulp wrote (in article ): Of course you do....much of the sound you hear is reflected from the sides of the hall, and some from the rear. You are just not as aware of it because an infinite number of sound sources is more "invisible" than two or three of them. But couldn't this affect by recreated in a home environment with a well treated room. No. The acoustics of the listening room are entirely different and, if conflated with any ambiance on the recording, would be spurious. Why is a multichannel system necessary for this? To transmite the proper ambiance information, the sounds that make the experience of a concert at Carnegie Hall distinct from what might be the same performance at Yankee Stadium. Do you agree that those experiences would be strikingly different? Kal |
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#67
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Amazement
On 20 May 2009 15:34:20 GMT, "
wrote: On May 19, 7:49*pm, Kalman Rubinson wrote: Then, either you have been listening to the wrong recordings or you have been listening to an improperly set up system. If one turns off the front L & R channels in a proper set-up using the right recordings, and hears all musical passages at equal but lower volume, this is NOT what one hears in a hall. You cannot turn off the front channels in a concert hall performance but, if you could restrict what you are hearing to only the reflections, it would hear most of the music at lower volume with altered FR and decay. The few halls with which I'm familiar don't even have microphones placed to capture side and rear channels, at least not at any of the live performances I've attended which made their way to MC rtecordings. Unfortunate but that omission does not affect the basic principles. From where I sit in several decent halls there aren't any side/rear refections of any appreciable volume. I can't hear a soprano's low level voice from side or rear walls. Of course, you do but it is somewhat subtle. *If you didn't the Met would sound just like Yankee Stadium. It's been about 60 years since I've been to any ball game. The side and rear channel music I heard were mostly "get your cold beer here". :-) QED Kal |
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#68
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Amazement
On May 20, 8:30*am, "ftran999" wrote:
"Harry Lavo" wrote in message Of course you do....much of the sound you hear is reflected from the sides of the hall, and some from the rear. * But couldn't this affect by recreated in a home environment with a well treated room. *If in a concert hall one is hearing reflections off the side and rear walls from the sound orignating from the stage in front than why can't this be recreated in a home listening room with the sound from the front speakers reflecting of the side and rear walls. *Why is a multichannel system necessary for this? Because the reflections you hear in your home are not the same as the actual reflections in the concert hall and thus cannot be considered high fidelity. They are by definition unfaithful to the the actuality. They may sound nice if you have a really big listening room, but they are not the same at all. And what of those who must listen in small rooms? |
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#69
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Amazement
On May 20, 11:57*am, Ed Seedhouse wrote:
*And what of those who must listen in small rooms? Room treatment. |
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#70
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Amazement
"paul_0090" wrote in message
... On 2009-05-20, Harry Lavo wrote: "paul_0090" wrote in message ... On 2009-05-18, wrote: On May 18, 2:24 pm, " wrote: I never hear any music coming from my sides or rear when seated in a hall. What are you talking about? Of course you hear sound coming from the rear and sides. What do you think happens when sound waves hit walls? They don't just evaporate. The reason you THINK all the sound is coming from the front is because your eyes are open, and they are telling you that's where the sound is coming from. But, as usual, your eyes are deceiving you. The trick of good MC is to get the side and rear speakers to mimic the reflections you'd hear in the hall. bob A problem is that it takes work to mimic a hall. The current idea of "surround sound" is to imbed the listener in the orchestra/band or the environment of a movie so that "you are there". As such, the MC is now usually designed to have lots/loud sound coming out from the back/rear speakers. Audience participation? It's not even holographic sound! I don't know what you listen to, but I own about 100 surround sound disks encompassing jazz, pop, rock, and classical of all kinds....and none have that phenomenon as a general rule. One or two of the pop disks have a track or two where sound is placed in the side or rear for special effect....but it is clearly that, not an approach to the entire album. Methinks I hear a strawman rustling in the wind somewhere. Try watching "o brother where art thou" & listen to the thunder coming out at the back. Then the music at the end of "much ado about nothing". I've already mentioned "Producer's cut" of Emmy Lou Harris singing & playing the guitar where the guitar is coming out at back. You mentioned "special effect" of some tracks; surround sound is used for "special effects" & not music performed in front of the stage. It is similar to watching a play in a "theater in the round" where the audience is sometimes in parts of the play, special effect. Even a music dvd would have the gimmick of clapping from the back. When I listen to cd, my receiver is set to stereo only where the subwoofer & back speakers are disabled. Listen to the Beetovan piano concertos with stephen bishop on the ole philips cds & you will find that surround sound isn't needed as the sound if full & spacious; something was done right. Well, you cite special effects on two disks, out of how many? It sounds to me like you have a philoslphical objection to the use but ANY except the front channels for music, If that is your orientation, so be it. But in my opinion, you are being very narrow minded for apparently no reason other than that you like (are used to?) simple stereo. I can take those special effects once in a while if they are well done and enhance the music or track (as for example the thunder). For classical music, I prefer a straightforward "auditorium" approach. For jazz, I really dig a live recording where the audience sounds can be placed in surround mode. But in every case, multichannel trumps plain stereo, IMO. My analog multichannel preamp has an analog matrix mode that I use on all my stereo listening and I can compare it directly with/without a surround enhancment....and I have never found myself preferring the straight stereo mix. So we have individual preferences. But the fact that you don't like multichannel is no reason to diss it, as happened in the original post of this thread. |
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#71
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Amazement
"Sonnova" wrote in message
... As the snooty maitre d' at the restaurant says when confronted by Matthew Broderick and friends in "Ferris Beuller's Day Off": "I weep for the future." I'm quite sure I heard similar verbiage from my parents around the time Elvis came on the scene.... Time will tell whether for good or for bad, but life has changed. I notice that my children just don't have the same attention span, or perhaps they've just never learned to really relax. To go out in the backyard on a summer night and just watch the stars for an hour. Or listen to an entire symphony, start to finish, sitting in the same chair. It seems that the pace of life has increased dramatically in the last 25 years or so, information is everywhere and people are always connected, and after being "plugged in" for a long period of time it's really difficult to turn off your multi-tasking, information processing, Tweeting, texting brain. About 15 years ago I had the opportunity to sail across the Pacific Ocean on a 50' sailboat. It took the better part of a month, and I must say it was one of the most rewarding things I've ever done, mainly due to the fact that I became re-acquainted with myself. I had time to think, there were no deadlines, no TV, no radio, no news. I don't think today's generation ever gets "off the grid", or, perhaps only a select few who actively seek it. Nobody has time for introspection any more. Time is money, man. Make it happen. Video it. Put it You Tube. Share with your 1,150 Facebook "frineds". Wow, does that ever sound meaningful. I think that go go go mentality is what has been the demise of the album as we know it as far as digital music goes. Who has time to listen to 10 or 15 songs in a row? Just gimme the highlights, dude... one song, maybe two. I probably sound like I think it's a bad thing, and I do feel regret that I don't/won't/can't share some of my experiences with my kids... they just "don't get it", it makes no sense to them some things that mean a great deal to me like a great concert or a stunning sunset. But as I said, maybe it's just different and not bad at all. |
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#72
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Amazement
On May 20, 2:08*pm, paul_0090 wrote:
Try watching "o brother where art thou" & listen to the thunder coming out at the back. *Then the music at the end of "much ado about nothing". But these aren't music disks. They're movies. The intent is entirely different. For movies, the goal is to "put you in the movie"—exactly the same effect you'd hear in a theater. Hence the thunder behind you, and the sensation that you are dancing around the garden with the cast of Much Ado. Maybe that works for you, maybe it doesn't, but that's the intent. For music, the intent seems to vary, but the intent is *often* to recreate something like the original performance space, or some hypothetical but plausible performance space. bob |
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#73
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Amazement
"Sonnova" wrote in message
... On Wed, 20 May 2009 08:31:15 -0700, Greg Wormald wrote (in article ): In article , "Dave" wrote: What's changed? IMO, what has changed is that music is now a consumer commodity, and in the commercial arena profit rules. So quantity rather than quality is driven by the dollar. Music is sold as a 'soundtrack' for your life, rather than something you spend time, energy, and money enjoying separately as something special. Unfortunately, what you are saying (and you are right), is that commerce has replaced culture. Very sad. I wasn't sure I wanted to go there as it's starting to seem more like whining, or pining, but I do think it's sad that if you offer the average North American Joe two choices: 1. a high-quality item which may last for 10 years or longer for $50 and 2. a low-quality Chinese plastic import piece of crap that will be lucky to last one year for $25. the VAST majority of average (not you, not me of course) consumers will buy item #2 for $25, then buy the same item again for $25 later. They rationalize this choice in their mind as "value" not realizing that the "value" (that's "value" as in "extra value meal") they're illustrating is their personally held belief that 'more' is more important than 'good'. Walmart. Box stores. Fast food. The decline of domestic manufacturing except for those "high-end, boutique" items to be purchased by the well-to-do. The fact that Bill & Shirley Smith who work at low-paying hourly jobs and buy EVERYTHING at Walmart "because it's cheaper" are, by doing so, driving the higher paying manufacturing jobs out of the country and perpetuating the cycle. Will we end up a continent of trailer parks and McMansions surrounded by broken plastic crap manufactured by children in China before people figure out that "more" does not necessarily mean "better"? The home-theatre-in-a-box products are illustrative of this: people want the HT experience but can't afford it. So a market is built to design, manufacture and market vast quantities of el-cheapo 5 or 6 or 8-channel receivers with ultra-low spare parts runs. These units are packed into the same space (or less... smaller is good, right?) as a two-channel amp a few years before but generate much more heat. They're designed so close to the SOA of many components that it's THE NORM to see blackened PCB's beneath undersized diodes and power resistors, and it's THE NORM to read temps in excess of 100C under normal conditions. All of this guarantees a short life for the unit... off to the dump because there are either no spare replacement boards in existence or it's cheaper to go buy a new one than to buy a new DSP board or preamp board and anyways, the rest of the boards have been baking at that same temperature and are doomed as well. Quality is a key concept here. Quality of life. Quality of food. Quality of health. Quality of music reproduction (okay, it's way down the chain but it's still there). It's a touchstone, a lynch-pin, a concept that we seem to be losing sight of as we go from a bygone era of equipment designed and built with pride which still works 50 years later to equipment designed to make it just past the warranty period and is virtually unserviceable. Culture hasn't disappeared, it's just that the cost of propagating vast amounts of low-grade psuedo-culture has gotten so cheap the real gems, the stuff that would make it to the top in earlier days is often buried under a ton of crap. |
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#74
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Amazement
On May 20, 12:57*pm, "Harry Lavo" wrote:
So we have individual preferences. *But the fact that you don't like multichannel is no reason to diss it, as happened in the original post of this thread I think it is a pretty darned good reason. This is a hobby of aesthetics. If one doesn't like the aesthetic then one has a pretty good reason to diss. |
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#75
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Amazement
On Wed, 20 May 2009 11:09:08 -0700, Harry Lavo wrote
(in article ): "Steven Sullivan" wrote in message ... wrote: On May 18, 10:40?am, paul_0090 wrote: On Sun, 17 May 2009 09:02:03 -0700, Roger Kulp wrote (in article ): [quoted text deleted -- deb] I feel strongly that the "problem" with the CDs is due to the recording engineers &/or producers. ?I have recorded my selected LPs onto CDs nearly 10 years ago & find that I regret throwing away some that have CDs available now as MY recorded CDs "sounded better". Much of the CDs now are cluttered for surrond sound when it isn't needed; there is a "Producer's Cut" in DTS format of Emmy Lu Harris singing that of times have the guitar she played coming out of the rear speaker while the voice is in the front. ?I don't believe Harris has a doppleglanger. Also the trend is to have the listener experience the music as if s/he is sitting in the middle of the orchestra/band. Can you anyone refer me to a MC disc which *doesn't* have musical sound in its side/rear channels. I never hear any music coming from my sides or rear when seated in a hall. Classical surround discs often have nothing more than 'hall ambience' and echo audible from the rear speakers, at the listening position. Ditto jazz releases. Even some rock surround discs have relatively little surround content -- one of them is Led Zeppelin's live 'How the West Was Won' set. It's a matter of personal taste. Quadraphonic fans actually tend to complain when there isn't much happening in the surrounds. Can I either directly or indirectly blame poor Ronnie or Bill for putting musical sounds in side/rear channels of a MC disc? Of course not. You can blame the first person to recording an instrument entirely to one channel -- something that goes back to at least the Beatles. And in the 70's 4.0 channel (quadraphonic) was *all about* having things zinging at you from the left and right rear channels. Actually, that is only partly true. I do remember an CD4 disk of marches (Boston Pops if I recall correctly) that had bands marching about the room....we used it as a test disk in the Harman-Kardon listening room out in Plainview...the room the boss turned into a sales office :-(. But I still have seven SQ disks still in my collection, four pop and three classical (I sold the CD4's after my demodulater went belly up). Most of them used the rear's tastefully...ironically, the most directional is "Antiphonal Music for Four Brass Choirs" conducted by Andrew Kazdin at St. George's Church in NYC. And it really serves the music. I still have a couple. I also still have a working JVC demodulator (or at least it still worked several years ago). I hooked it up to my video system's surround receiver once a number of years ago just for kicks and found that ironically, modern MC cartridges work better as CD4 cartridges than the purpose-built ones in the 1970's ever did! I tried it with a Sumiko Blackbird and a Benz Glider and both produced a much stronger and more stable subcarrier than the Audio Technica cartridge with the Shibata stylus that I used back in the day! In fact, the surround sounded very good, which it never did back when... |
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#76
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Amazement
On Wed, 20 May 2009 15:13:15 -0700, Dave wrote
(in article ): "Sonnova" wrote in message ... As the snooty maitre d' at the restaurant says when confronted by Matthew Broderick and friends in "Ferris Beuller's Day Off": "I weep for the future." I'm quite sure I heard similar verbiage from my parents around the time Elvis came on the scene.... Time will tell whether for good or for bad, but life has changed. I notice that my children just don't have the same attention span, or perhaps they've just never learned to really relax. To go out in the backyard on a summer night and just watch the stars for an hour. Or listen to an entire symphony, start to finish, sitting in the same chair. It seems that the pace of life has increased dramatically in the last 25 years or so, information is everywhere and people are always connected, and after being "plugged in" for a long period of time it's really difficult to turn off your multi-tasking, information processing, Tweeting, texting brain. About 15 years ago I had the opportunity to sail across the Pacific Ocean on a 50' sailboat. It took the better part of a month, and I must say it was one of the most rewarding things I've ever done, mainly due to the fact that I became re-acquainted with myself. I had time to think, there were no deadlines, no TV, no radio, no news. I don't think today's generation ever gets "off the grid", or, perhaps only a select few who actively seek it. Nobody has time for introspection any more. Time is money, man. Make it happen. Video it. Put it You Tube. Share with your 1,150 Facebook "frineds". Wow, does that ever sound meaningful. Wow! You hit the nail on the head about modern youngsters! How I envy you getting to sail across the Pacific. That's something that I always wanted to do, but never did. I've done lots of neat things in my life, been all over the world, raced cars, flew airplanes, sailed. But I never got to sail a long distance (Miami to Nassau or Long Beach to Catalina don't count). I think that go go go mentality is what has been the demise of the album as we know it as far as digital music goes. Who has time to listen to 10 or 15 songs in a row? Just gimme the highlights, dude... one song, maybe two. I probably sound like I think it's a bad thing, and I do feel regret that I don't/won't/can't share some of my experiences with my kids... they just "don't get it", it makes no sense to them some things that mean a great deal to me like a great concert or a stunning sunset. But as I said, maybe it's just different and not bad at all. To me, it's bad. I couldn't imagine having that short of an attention span. Imagine not being able to sit still long enough to listen to Beethoven's 9th Symphony, or follow the plot line of a classic film, or enjoy a Shakespeare play. Seems like a pretty shallow life to me. But I guess the pace of today's life so fills every minute with different stimuli, that today's kids really don't have the time or the inclination to reflect on what they're missing. |
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#77
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Amazement
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#78
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Amazement
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#79
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Amazement
On 20 May 2009 18:07:28 GMT, Sonnova
wrote: Unfortunately, what you are saying (and you are right), is that commerce has replaced culture. Very sad. Come on now, it has always been thus. Even Mozart only wrote his works for money at the end of the day. --- Rob Tweed Company: M/Gateway Developments Ltd Registered in England: No 3220901 Registered Office: 58 Francis Road,Ashford, Kent TN23 7UR Web-site: http://www.mgateway.com Register now for Out of the Slipstream http://www.OutOfTheSlipstream.com July 2nd 2009, Denbies Wine Estate, Surrey, UK |
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#80
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Amazement
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