ASR burning the wrong witches?

[dfuller]

I can't remember how many years ago it was when Amir was posting on Computer Audiophile and put up with the rabble attacks when he suggested that some of the audiophile products didn't perform as well as the faithful would have people believe. He started ASR and it grew. and now it carries some weight in the world of audio.
It got to the point where some manufactures of audio equipment improved their products mainly because of Amir's testing and the responses of those who posted on ASR stating they would no longer be buying from that manufacturer. Hubris indeed.
Essentially Amir and some of the contributors are naming and shaming the manufacturers.
It would seem that despite the negativity change can be brought about by such a method.

True one can't do much about the equipment already produced and the same is true of recordings.
There is a market for audiophile recordings and despite what some may believe the better recording can be sorted from the not so good and the truely horrendous.
A similar method to loudspeaker preference ratings is quite possible. At some point someone may even come up with a method of correlating the preferencees to some kind of measurement system.

For those who are content with the loudness wars and poor recording practices such an endevour would be of little interest.
Being an objectivist and of a more optomistic nature anything that can be done to improve recordings gets my vote and support.

Also true is the market base for such better recordings may be small but the market is there much like the better fidelity products reviewed here on ASR.

Except no, no you can't. Recording is art. Something that is "objectively perfect" will probably be boring as hell. You would not believe the amount of intentional distortion that goes on in recording, and the amount of studio trickery that goes on. Like... that beautiful dynamics you hear? Probably automated in.

 

[MattHooper]

Except no, no you can't. Recording is art. Something that is "objectively perfect" will probably be boring as hell. You would not believe the amount of intentional distortion that goes on in recording, and the amount of studio trickery that goes on. Like... that beautiful dynamics you hear? Probably automated in.

As I mentioned in another thread: some musician friends of mine, from a succesful pop group, attempted an "audiophile" type of recording - essentially vocals and instruments recorded as naturally as possible, little compression, etc. It was their most boring sounding album.

 

[i_build_stuff]

(Emphasis added.) Yet this is exactly what many hardcore audiophiles do by using tube components or S/S components produced by many makers, e.g. Pass Labs, D'Agostino. The simple fact is that very many audiophiles like their music filtered through one or several layers of 2nd/3rd order harmonic distortion.

Why? Well my hypothesis is that 2nd/3rd order HD (a) sounds pleasant in-and-of itself, (b) masks other distortions, e.g. higher order HD in the same component or anywhere in the repro chain, and (c) masks excessive treble and/or distortions on the recording itself.

Bruno Putzeys was talking about this in an interview. He was talking about how he's had a lot of diehard tube guys hear his stuff (the Hypex-based amps), love it, and make the switch immediately.

His opinion was that these guys aren't using tubes just because they like tubes, but because a lot of solid state gear is doing something they don't like, which tube gear doesn't do.

My guess is that a lot of class AB solid state stuff produces some amount of crossover distortion. That particular type of distortion can sound bad even at levels that hardly show up on your typical 5W distortion test. It's far more noticeable than odd order distortion that shows up at the peaks instead. It's also an example of a case where a device with a higher THD could sound better than a lower one - the phases of the harmonics make a difference.

With tubes, it's much easier to produce a design that has a really wide area where it operates in class-A, as they aren't subject to thermal runaway the way BJTs are.

They're also much easier to create a design from, that starts out with fairly low distortion before any feedback is applied (the downside being that they're slow and need transformers, so the total amount of feedback you can get, isn't great).

Finally, a lot of tube amps don't have that flat a frequency response. Narrowing the passband has been known forever as a way to make a lower quality signal sound more pleasant.

 

[Kvalsvoll]

https://www.biline.ca/audio_critic/critic1.htm

“What is the number one determinant of sound quality in an audio system?
The recording you are playing, without the slightest doubt. The recording microphones, acoustical conditions, and engineering decisions at the recording site introduce much greater sonic variability than any hardware component in a half decent playback system. Buy well-recorded CDs.”

By Peter Aczel

More about the loudness wars? No, not quite although one can’t help but include it in any discussion about recording quality.

I’ve read pages and pages of discussions about differences in the measurements of the electronics that operate between the source and the loudspeaker most of which are completely inaudible barring the occasional complete horror. Every now and then some brave soul arrives on ASR and gets burnt for producing a product that performs below the current high standard of the best engineered products.

The fact is in a properly set up DBT test very few of us could tell the difference between the highest and lowest tiered electronic products and without the measurements to reference I expect most of us would be delighted with their performance.

The differences in recordings is often quite apparent. Thanks to the seeming constant remastering of many of the popular recordings we are in a position to make comparisons between one recording and another of the same albums.

There are recordings those who remaster can do little about because of the condition of the original recording although I’m led to believe there is technology that make improvements to even the worst recordings.

The more recent recordings on digital equipment do not have many of the limitations of those made say in the nineteen sixties but to my ears many of these more recent recordings sound worse than those done with equipment that limited the possibilities.

What is the point of spending thousands of pounds trying to achieve maximum fidelity to the recording if the recording is terrible?

When an equipment designer/manufacturer produces a below par product ASR has no problem pointing out it’s shortcomings and in a few cases the designer/manufacturer responds by addressing the issues.

Why don’t we do something similar with recordings; a name and shame type approach given it’s the recording that matters most.

There are plenty of contributors on ASR who describe themselves as recording engineers and it seems have no problem joining in the criticisms of the equipment manufactures. Lets hear what they’ve produced and rate their level of competency.

You never know, given enough pressure we might get some recordings that warrant the level of excellence the equipment used to produce them has.

Strongly disagree.

Sound production is not sound reproduction. Production is art, there are no strict rules that needs to be followed, it is entirely up to the artists - musician, sound engineer - to make whatever they choose. Then the consumer can choose to like or dislike, but one can not state that there is something objectively wrong with a recording just because it does not meet the specific preferences of one listener. Reproduction can also be seen partially as art, but there are some specific objective measures that needs to be met, for a reproduction chain to be able to present the production so that it is possible to reproduce what is in the recording.

Generally, recordings have improved over the years. Not surprising, considering the technical improvements. And good sound now comes from a diversity of sources - music, streaming, documentaries, series, movies, youtube blogs.

What I have experienced is that improved quality of reproduction improves the experience of most recordings. Including the very early ones with very audible noise and distortion, and compression disasters with DR less than 10dB.

Today, we have so much content in high quality readily available. Today, it makes sense for every home to have a decent sound system to be able to benefit and enjoy from all this content.

 

[Zensō]

The only purpose of the OP, IMO, was to point out that he quality of the recording is the greatest contributor to sound quality. OK, and maybe that accordingly, that preoccupation with repro system performance is clouding that point.

From the OP: ”Why don’t we do something similar with recordings; a name and shame type approach given it’s the recording that matters most. There are plenty of contributors on ASR who describe themselves as recording engineers and it seems have no problem joining in the criticisms of the equipment manufactures. Lets hear what they’ve produced and rate their level of competency.”

To me, the above was the statement that tainted the thread from the start. As if some randos on a forum have the qualifications to “rate the level of competency” of professional mix engineers and producers. Who are these “judges”, what are their qualifications, and exactly how was that going to work out? Ridiculous.

 

[Timcognito]

Qobuz says they have 70 million titles (recordings), guessing, there are 5000 speaker pairs and half that many that many pre/amps marketed (not counting stuff in cars, phones and cheap electronics), identifying best recording practices is very difficult while testing gear is much easier. At best recording quality is of second importance to musical acumen and measuring recording quality is very difficult, measuring recording gear not so much. With all the hair splitting here I kind of like what this guy says.

What makes a great recording?

What matters or matters not to get great recordings? Let's find out!

www.theaudioblog.org

 

[LightninBoy]

From the OP: ”Why don’t we do something similar with recordings; a name and shame type approach given it’s the recording that matters most. There are plenty of contributors on ASR who describe themselves as recording engineers and it seems have no problem joining in the criticisms of the equipment manufactures. Lets hear what they’ve produced and rate their level of competency.”

To me, the above was the statement that tainted the thread from the start. As if some randos on a forum have the qualifications to “rate the level of competency” of professional mix engineers and producers. Who are these “judges”, what are their qualifications, and exactly how was that going to work out? Ridiculous.

Yeah, this and other examples I referred to as "aggressive language" that I think buried the merit of the idea in animosity.

With nothing but good intent, let me try to strip the OPs theme down into a linear series of questions.

1. Do some recordings today optimize for lo-fi systems at the expense of hi-fi systems?
2. Does the proliferation of these lo-fi optimized recordings risk materially decreasing the value of owning a hi-fi system?
3. Can the practices used to optimize for lo-fi systems be objectively determined and measured by investigation of the published recording?
4. Would there be value in informing consumers of lo-fi optimized recordings so they can make informed choices for the music they consume?
5. Would #4 influence producers to reduce optimizing for lo-fi systems at the expense of hi-fi systems?
6. Should ASR perform objective critiques of recordings?

My request is to answer these honestly. The questions build on each other, so a "NO" answer at any point means the following questions are moot, but feel free to expound on all. I'll go first ...

1. Do some recordings today optimize for lo-fi systems at the expense of hi-fi systems?
Yes

2. Does the proliferation of these lo-fi optimized recordings risk materially decreasing the value of owning a hi-fi system?
Yes. Probably the most subjective of all the questions as the value of the owning a hi-fi system is unique to everyone. But in the aggregate, more recordings that are made targeting hi-fi systems, the more value I get out of my system.

3. Can the practices used to optimize for lo-fi systems be objectively determined and measured by investigation of the published recording?
Yes. But I'm unsure, so could be convinced otherwise.

4. Would there be value in informing consumers of lo-fi optimized recordings so they can make informed choices for the music they consume?
Yes. Better informed consumers is always better.

5. Would #4 influence producers to reduce optimizing for lo-fi systems at the expense of Hi-FI systems?
No. Probably just not enough of an audience to make any dent. Counter argument is that it would be better than doing nothing and just letting the lo-fi optimized recordings squeeze out everything else.

6. Should ASR perform objective critiques of recordings?
No. Maybe as a sub forum if there is enough interest. But it should not take away resources from the current focus on playback hardware.

 

[MattHooper]

2. Does the proliferation of these lo-fi optimized recordings risk materially decreasing the value of owning a hi-fi system?
Yes. Probably the most subjective of all the questions as the value of the owning a hi-fi system is unique to everyone. But in the aggregate, more recordings that are made targeting hi-fi systems, the more value I get out of my system.

I can see why one would think this.

However in practice (and as you indicate this will be a personal call), I find that even lower-quality recordings benefit from my "high end" stereo set up. I was just listening to an old recording from the early 70's. It didn't have much bass, not the greatest clarity. Yet it still projected a big, satisfying soundstage and imaging, and still sounded richer and more impactful than played through my smart speaker or whatever.

My son occasionally co-opts my system to listen to his music, mostly RAP, and the really modern stuff that is no doubt compressed to hell. Yet is still sounds pretty spectacular on the system - big, deep, tight bass, clear vocals, production effects popping out all around the speakers, depth, clarity...I don't notice the lo-fi aspects as much
as I recognize how playing it on the big system seems to enrich the sound.

(Though I certainly have encountered some music that I prefer on lower tier equipment, more in how it was produced vs sound quality per se).

 

[LightninBoy]

I can see why one would think this.

However in practice (and as you indicate this will be a personal call), I find that even lower-quality recordings benefit from my "high end" stereo set up. I was just listening to an old recording from the early 70's. It didn't have much bass, not the greatest clarity. Yet it still projected a big, satisfying soundstage and imaging, and still sounded richer and more impactful than played through my smart speaker or whatever.

My son occasionally co-opts my system to listen to his music, mostly RAP, and the really modern stuff that is no doubt compressed to hell. Yet is still sounds pretty spectacular on the system - big, deep, tight bass, clear vocals, production effects popping out all around the speakers, depth, clarity...I don't notice the lo-fi aspects as much
as I recognize how playing it on the big system seems to enrich the sound.

(Though I certainly have encountered some music that I prefer on lower tier equipment, more in how it was produced vs sound quality per se).

I suspect several folks will "nope" out at question #2.

 

[Zensō]

“Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.”

—Brian Eno

 

[Inner Space]

I suspect several folks will "nope" out at question #2.

I hope so. What does it mean to optimize for a low-fi system? It means a certain amount of curtailment in terms of bandwidth and dynamics, and a fat, punchy midrange mix that makes the most of the playback system's capability. It doesn't mean making any particular element deliberately worse. The incoming stems are still delivered through mikes and preamps that cost more than your car. The good stuff is still all there. You can get immense joy and pleasure listening to such a product on a great system.

Honestly, if a listener resents not getting deep bass and stunning dynamics, he needs to check his boys-and-toys meter. And maybe check his hubris - however great he thinks his system is, he should occasionally remember there are plenty other systems out there that make it sound pretty damn low-fi in comparison.

 

[HammerSandwich]

2. Does the proliferation of these lo-fi optimized recordings risk materially decreasing the value of owning a hi-fi system?
Yes. Probably the most subjective of all the questions as the value of the owning a hi-fi system is unique to everyone. But in the aggregate, more recordings that are made targeting hi-fi systems, the more value I get out of my system.

That's like saying that CDs diminished the value of turntables. Don't like the new recordings? Stick to the gazillion vinyl titles already available.

New recordings only add to the choices available.

 

[spigot]

I prefer modern recordings and applaud the loudness wars. The higher the dynamic range the more annoying it is to listen to. Old recordings just sound so... empty. YMMV.

 

[dfuller]

2. Does the proliferation of these lo-fi optimized recordings risk materially decreasing the value of owning a hi-fi system?

Not really. Even really crappy sounding music is much more fun to listen to on speakers that don't sound like fried asshole. Nobody actually likes NS10s, for example.

6. Should ASR perform objective critiques of recordings?

Really, what would the criteria be? It's almost all artistic choice at this point, absent obvious glaring defects (and even then...), so I don't think there's a way to objectively critique recordings.

 

[Sal1950]

As I mentioned in another thread: some musician friends of mine, from a succesful pop group, attempted an "audiophile" type of recording - essentially vocals and instruments recorded as naturally as possible, little compression, etc. It was their most boring sounding album.

Completely agree, I've never heard a pop recording done with "audiophile" ideals that rocked.
There's a bunch out there done over the decades from DTD vinyl to the latest digital and they all lacked excitement for lack of a better term.
The 1980s audiophile poster child Cowboy Junkies - Trinity Session immediately comes to mind. I could fall asleep listening to it no matter how loud I play it. LOL.
And I've really never completely understood the reason for the failures. Strange

 

[Sal1950]

My son occasionally co-opts my system to listen to his music, mostly RAP, and the really modern stuff that is no doubt compressed to hell. Yet is still sounds pretty spectacular on the system - big, deep, tight bass, clear vocals, production effects popping out all around the speakers, depth, clarity..

Yep, I hate the loudness wars compression as much as anyone but I've found the constant poking at the DR number as evidence that all modern digital recordings are total junk is just complete BS.

I'd like to slap the Tears For Fears crew upside the head with a 2x4 for the DR5 of it's latest release The Tipping Point. WHY? I can understand it on Rap or Hippity Hoppity, But What about the material on Tipping Point, or it's listener base made an extremely heavy hand on the compressor warranted, I just don't get it. But OTOH, ignoring the flat dynamics it's still a great sounding album overall with all the positives you mentioned above. Thank goodness Steven Wilson came along and did a BluRay audio release with 5.1 and Atmos mixes on which he raised the DR to a DR13
GOD BLESS YOU STEVEN.

Fair warning Matt, letting you son play that horrid genre on your expensive rig just might blow a tube or stylus. Caveat emptor

 

[DanielT]

I prefer modern recordings and applaud the loudness wars. The higher the dynamic range the more annoying it is to listen to. Old recordings just sound so... empty. YMMV.

You mean it is annoying to listen to dynamics? Hard to strain your ears? Better with a smooth porridge that is just there as a smooth sound carpet?
Please note, no criticism of you. You can of course like and listen to the type of music, (recording technique, compression or not) that you want.

I'm just a little curious: Do you prefer the variant in this video that is loudness treated?

 

[Sal1950]

I prefer modern recordings and applaud the loudness wars. The higher the dynamic range the more annoying it is to listen to. Old recordings just sound so... empty. YMMV.

Someone get me a rope.

 

[bluefuzz]

The 1980s audiophile poster child Cowboy Junkies - Trinity Session immediately comes to mind. I could fall asleep listening to it no matter how loud I play it.

To each his own ...

Trinity Sessions is one of my all time favourites. I've never thought of it as any kind of audiophile statement. On the contrary its more like a back-to-basics middle finger at overblown 80's production techniques and the encroach of yuppiedom. The noise floor is louder than the music in some places. You can hear trucks going by outside ... ;-)

 

[BeerBear]

4. Would there be value in informing consumers of lo-fi optimized recordings so they can make informed choices for the music they consume?
Yes. Better informed consumers is always better.

5. Would #4 influence producers to reduce optimizing for lo-fi systems at the expense of Hi-FI systems?
No. Probably just not enough of an audience to make any dent.

I'd say the pushback on the "loudness war" productions was strong enough that it probably did make a dent. So I think there is potential value in complaining. But of course, every production is bound by various incentives and priorities... and some of those rank higher than "audiophile complaints" for sure, especially for certain products or genres.
Which gets back to the "music production is art" points ITT, which I find too simplistic. It's not just art. It's also craft, it's technique, it's business... it usually involves several people with different levels of competence, different priorities, different levels of care... all of those can have a big impact.

And thanks for actually trying to engage with OP. I find most posts ITT too dismissive and, frankly, devoid of substance.