Re: How do you measure connoiseurship?

Posted by e-stat on February 22, 2001 at 19:48:21

In Reply to: Re: How do you measure connoiseurship? posted by mrbiggleswurth on February 22, 2001 at 12:15:40:

One point I was trying to make is that many coveted "reference" recordings are not very good, and in order to serve the subjective, sentimental expectations of an enthusiast using such recordings, it must sound "good" to that person.

Fair enough. I am the first to admit that the majority of recordings have significant flaws. Each to his own. I have two categories of reference recordings: one for musical content, and the other for sonic content. My favorite rendition of the Holst Planets is an old RCA Ormandy LP that has gotten quite noisy over the years. Kinda thin sounding and imaging is typical mult-mike fare. Nevertheless, I still cherish it. Two "live" sonic references are the Reference Recording of Symphonie Fantastique with Keith Johnson at the helm. Remarkable in every way. For a change of pace, I have a number of Windham Hill "new age" recordings. Many of them are gems. Liz Story's Solid Colors is a wonderful solo piano recording. Recorded direct to two track on a 30 ips Studer with no compression. Very natural and dynamic.

I truly believe that the weakest link is by far and away the loudspeaker, and my example was intended to show that highly technically flawed speakers may only sound good with technically inferior amplifiers.

I agree with the first point entirely. Transducers are far more challenging that amplification to get right. On your other point, however, I don't share that sentiment. In my office, I have a pair of inexpensive Polk RT-55 speakers. Cost $300 at Circuit City for the pair. While hardly SOTA, they are not at all boxy sounding (one of my subjective biases). The source is a tuner driving a Threshold class A amp directly. I provide this detail because it is not typical to use a $2000 amp (1981 cost) with such equipment. I believe that they are capable of even better sound given the chance. Unless you may consider the Threshold "technically inferior", I think that the Polks are thinking "wow, listen to me now with this amp!"

My experience is that what people often hear and like with any range of acoustic recordings has very little to do with sonic truth. This can be illustrated by evaluating what kind of sound quality people prefer with non-acoustic recordings...

You got me here. Hey, I represent that remark! I should have qualified my statement to that of unamplified music as I did with one of my responses to Mr. Eddy. What's the real sound of a Madonna recording? Do I want the PA sound quality experienced live? Not really. I find that I hear more "sonic truth" with my acoustically tuned system than with a bank of Crowns and Marshalls driving massive horns. I chose Madonna because I have some or her very nice 45 RPM "dance singles" with lots of low end and dynamics absent from the standard recordings fare. I find it ironic that there are no sonic equivalent CD versions of these available.

Your sentiments not withstanding, your reference to the "musical experience" clearly shows that you pursue the result that pleases you. This is far removed from being integrally related to extant technical knowledge that can be used to design highly accurate playback systems.

I am perplexed by your closing comments. Not so much the first part because I confess that what pleases me most is hearing musicians live without mikes, mixing boards, cables, amps, and speakers. I am not elitist - I enjoy DJ Rap along with Debussy. I would hope, however, that in order to "design highly accurate playback systems" that you would necessarily have to employ "real live music" as the basis for doing so.

Returning to the original question, I believe that psychological studies as to an individual's mood, etc or to the hearing acuity of the public at large are not very valuable to the design process of accurate sound systems.

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Follow Ups Full Thread

Topic - Subjective reviews and differences in hearing - any research been done? - John C. - Aussie 17:03:40 02/19/01 (23)

Re: Subjective reviews and differences in hearing - any research been done? - Kelly McDonald 08:51:09 02/20/01 (0)

So??? - tinear 00:25:15 02/20/01 (4)

Re: So??? - Rich 08:38:19 02/21/01 (0)

Re: So??? - Kelly McDonald 08:54:32 02/20/01 (2)

Wrongedy, wrong, wrong. - tinear 10:40:03 02/20/01 (1)

Re: Wrongedy, wrong, wrong. - Kelly McDonald 09:21:42 02/21/01 (0)

Re: Subjective reviews and differences in hearing - any research been done? - Ubiquitous Skittercat ;,,,~ 20:28:33 02/19/01 (0)

How do you measure connoiseurship? - e-stat 19:05:16 02/19/01 (14)

Re: How do you measure connoiseurship? - steve b 21:49:03 02/19/01 (0)

Re: How do you measure connoiseurship? - Steve Eddy 21:34:01 02/19/01 (12)

Re: How do you measure connoiseurship? - e-stat 08:19:51 02/20/01 (11)

Re: How do you measure connoiseurship? - Steve Eddy 15:21:16 02/20/01 (3)

Re: How do you measure connoiseurship? - e-stat 19:17:21 02/20/01 (2)

Re: How do you measure connoiseurship? - Steve Eddy 22:58:40 02/20/01 (1)

Re: How do you measure connoiseurship? - e-stat 20:04:49 02/21/01 (0)

Re: How do you measure connoiseurship? - mrbiggleswurth 11:37:17 02/20/01 (6)

Re: How do you measure connoiseurship? - e-stat 19:26:34 02/20/01 (5)

Re: How do you measure connoiseurship? - mrbiggleswurth 08:45:50 02/21/01 (4)

Re: How do you measure connoiseurship? - e-stat 19:32:47 02/21/01 (3)

Re: How do you measure connoiseurship? - mrbiggleswurth 12:15:40 02/22/01 (2)

Re: How do you measure connoiseurship? - e-stat 02/22/0119:48:21 02/22/01 (1)

Re: How do you measure connoiseurship? - mrbiggleswurth 16:02:16 02/23/01 (0)

Re: Subjective reviews and differences in hearing - any research been done? - Steve Eddy 18:30:50 02/19/01 (0)

Follow Ups

Re: How do you measure connoiseurship? - e-stat 02/22/0119:48:21 02/22/01 (1)

Re: How do you measure connoiseurship? - mrbiggleswurth 16:02:16 02/23/01 (0)

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