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Propeller Head Plaza Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics. |
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Propeller Head Plaza Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics. |
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In Reply to: RE: Are we discussing test equipment or audio systems? posted by Goober58 on November 24, 2012 at 21:25:16:
I think you and I are heading towards some mutual agreement in concept.Understand, my criteria is as the person responsible for creating the recordings being listened to. I was a staff engineer for Sheffield Labs (and many other recrdings over the past 30 years). I have a reference that exceeds that of the casual listener or even hardened expert audiophile. I was there. I placed mics. I built the mic preamps. I heard the actual performance. I know the rooms. In some cases, I even designed the rooms and created the acoustical environment for the recording. I know the actual imaging and placement of the instruments; I put them where they appear to be on the recording. All this on a very intimate and subtle level.
I have heard these recordings of these performances played on some very famous systems (some featured in magazines) and thought the recording sounded competely different than what I know they really sound like. (Of course being very careful not to expose what I was really thinking to the owners of these very costly and lovingly created macinations. It's like calling somebodys kid fugly!) And therein lies the problem of accuracy, for me in particular. The sound system is not making the music, the musicians made the music, I recorded it and turned it into electronic signals and these systems failed (miserably in some cases) to accurately recover the signals and covert them back into sound waves.
Herein lies the problem of perception. I say a sound system doesn't make music, it mearly is a another medium by which it travels. And that music should pass through this medium undisturbed. A sound system should be transparent. What goes in, is what should come out between all stages. Otherwise you are listening to the system itself, not the music. A person with no true reference as to what is going in, has no way to tell what is coming out is the same. But, with measurment one can test the electronics for its ability to pass signals undisturbed. This is not magic, its simple common sense. Recorded music is just signals. If a piece of gear can do its respective job (coverting digital to analog signals, routing the signals, amplifiying the signals, or transducing these electrical signals back to sound waves) without modifying the signals (whether test tones or music; a signal is a signal in electronics), what comes out will be the same as what went in, in every detail as recorded. There is no magic, no human context within this process. However, once the music is liberated from being a signal, and is no longer constrained within electronics, the music is preserved if only in reproduction of sound waves. The enjoyment is maximized and the artists endeavors can be properly interpreted and appreciated fully.
On these systems it was no longer the same music, nor the same performance. Why? Because the system doesn't make music, it coverts electronic signals into sound waves. And in these cases did so in poor fashion technically. Ironically, these systems are considered milestones in audiophile circles. To me, they are poorly over-tuned impressions of people listening to GEAR without a reference, not music. When asked about how they tuned the system I was told, "By ear ... How else does one do it? And what's better than your human hearing for decerning nuance in music". Problem is they are not tuning instruments. They are tuning electronics. They are not listening to musicians play, they are listening to an electronic recording of musicians playing. Different animal. Different reality.
In fact they are listening to the gear and its anomalies, contoured to their opinion of how music should sound, almost in contempt of the musicians and engineers who recorded the performances. The music is secondary. Inaccuracy run amok, to cater to the whims of the gearheads, so-to-speak.
Look ... what people, especially many audiophiles, do not want to beleive is their is no magic, no religion, nothing ethereal about sound systems. All that is needed to be known to reach the goals is well understood. The problem lies in the physics of building this electronics in way where it does its job perfectly. We know where to go, we have full understanding of the physics of sound, human hearing, sound waves and how they work, how to covert signals into sound waves. We know the endgame, the coaches know the plays, we just don't have talented enough players. We just don't have the materials to build "The Stuff". Components like capcaitors are not perfect, resistors and semi-conductors have compromises. Loudspeaker drivers have that nasty reality of the physical world known as mass. The stuff doesn't work perfectly. We have full knowledge, there is just no magic cure for inaccuracies in the stuff! However, when we start messing around with the ethereal, beleiving in magic bullets, and ignoring physics in some cases becuase of the lie of "we can't know all that there is to know" in some arrogant attempt to make things "more musical" we run the risk of changing the recording into something it is not. Something else. Not music, electronic noises and distortions mimicing one persons perception of music. Not what was recorded by the makers of the recording of music for sure. That includes the ludicrous attempts at making bad recordings sound better. If it was engineered badly, you can't replace what isn't there with gear ... or Mrytlewood (hehe).
Having a true musical reference can really suck sometimes! :-)
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Follow Ups
- RE: Are we discussing test equipment or audio systems? - jrlaudio 11/24/1222:32:12 11/24/12 (1)
- RE: Are we discussing test equipment or audio systems? - Goober58 09:58:05 11/25/12 (0)
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