Is the entire audio industry a fraud?

[mhardy6647]

Yup but really boring music.

Almost lengendarily so.

 

[MattHooper]

Yup but really boring music.

Almost lengendarily so.

Those poor guys. They have some of their gigs recorded by a guy who does his job a bit too well, the recording becomes famous among audiophiles, and those musicians get dumped on as the epitome of "musicians you wouldn't really want to listen to" decade after decade ever since.

 

[Axo1989]

Those poor guys. They have some of their gigs recorded by a guy who does his job a bit too well, the recording becomes famous among audiophiles, and those musicians get dumped on as the epitome of "musicians you wouldn't really want to listen to" decade after decade ever since.

I just enjoyed the first 45 seconds. Went downhill after that.

Also: surprised that some post-hardcore band hasn't come up with porn at the jazz shop but an internet search was ... un-rewarding.

 

[ahofer]

Yup but really boring music.

Casino Royale comes to mind.

 

[Holmz]

Yup but really boring music.

Yes that is a dilemma, but I have it i the stack.
I also have good music that is recorded very poorly.

So the dilemma is why can’t we get good musicians linked up with good sound recording engineers?

I guess it is budget, and something about no standards in recording?

 

[audiofooled]

Yes that is a dilemma, but I have it i the stack.
I also have good music that is recorded very poorly.

So the dilemma is why can’t we get good musicians linked up with good sound recording engineers?

I guess it is budget, and something about no standards in recording?

To me, I guess it is what it is. There are a lot of good recordings that are just boring, there are also good recordings which I like but I'm just sick and tired of, nevertheless I listen to both when I just want to "listen to my system". When I just want to enjoy the music I play whatever rocks my boat at the moment, with SQ all over the place. To be honest, nothing sounds that bad really, but neither can I help but wonder how on earth couldn't they do a bit better job... If I'm lucky I may find a remaster that sounds a bit better, but this is rarely the case.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Casino Royale comes to mind.

You mean the Burt Bacharach Casino Royale on Colgems LP as part of Harry Peason's super disc list.
Of course it was mostly for the Dusty Springfield track on it called The Look of Love.
Better Movie than LP if you ask me.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

So the dilemma is why can’t we get good musicians linked up with good sound recording engineers?

I am generally more easily bored by non-classical recordings because I am biased in favor of classical music and there is an increasing number of instances of good musicians being recorded very well.

 

[Mnyb]

Actually “ Jazz at the pawnshop “ is one of the recordings that makes me thinks it’s mostly the recording.

You can’t get that one to sound harsh on any system even if you try , other records are very finicky?

 

[atmasphere]

Unfortunately, that isn't actually the case. The dominant harmonic is, surprise surprise, the third.

The 2nd and 3rd are both innocuous to the human ear and can mask higher orders. The 3rd is dominant in our OTLs as well.

Sorry I've not been active recently to pursue this. There was an unexpected death in the family.

Feedback only increases higher order distortion if there’s not enough. Read the F-word by B Putzey. Most solid state amps have more than enough reducing all distortion to much lower levels than a SET (which I consider an effects box, a distortion generator.) Let me guess, you sell tube amps.

Actually I provided a link to Bruno's article earlier.
I'm hoping to be more active here next week.

 

[Chrispy]

An absolute stunning recording.

But boring as hell.

ps had just replied when I saw that comment....I see I'm not alone now

 

[SIY]

Sorry I've not been active recently to pursue this. There was an unexpected death in the family.

I was hoping you were business-busy. My sincerest sympathies.

 

[Blumlein 88]

The 2nd and 3rd are both innocuous to the human ear and can mask higher orders. The 3rd is dominant in our OTLs as well.

Sorry I've not been active recently to pursue this. There was an unexpected death in the family.

Actually I provided a link to Bruno's article earlier.
I'm hoping to be more active here next week.

Sorry about your circumstances. Take care of yourself and your family.

 

[atmasphere]

I have a little more time.

Something that has been bothering me about this proposed test is @SIY suggesting that I pick a distortion profile based on a certain frequency. In terms of applying this profile to a certain musical cut, this does not make sense to me, as my experience in the design world is mirrored by a comment found on the Audio Precision website, which I quoted earlier as well as the simple fact that when dealing with a variety of frequencies at once, the distortion is obviously not that of a single frequency. Bruno explained why in his article (the 'F' Word) which I linked earlier.
Put another way, we would have to have the distortion profile of not just one frequency, but a band of them and even then I don't think it would be accurate.
Since Siy seems to have one of the beasties on hand, I'm wondering if it can be included in the signal chain while driving a standard test load at a reasonable power level, with levels matched?
Three more cuts:
Algunas Bestias, Canto General (Atma-Sphere recording)
Dias Irae from the Verdi Requiem, RCA Soria series recording
'Special Cases' Massive Attack

 

[SIY]

I have a little more time.

Something that has been bothering me about this proposed test is @SIY suggesting that I pick a distortion profile based on a certain frequency. In terms of applying this profile to a certain musical cut, this does not make sense to me, as my experience in the design world is mirrored by a comment found on the Audio Precision website, which I quoted earlier as well as the simple fact that when dealing with a variety of frequencies at once, the distortion is obviously not that of a single frequency. Bruno explained why in his article (the 'F' Word) which I linked earlier.
Put another way, we would have to have the distortion profile of not just one frequency, but a band of them and even then I don't think it would be accurate.
Since Siy seems to have one of the beasties on hand, I'm wondering if it can be included in the signal chain while driving a standard test load at a reasonable power level, with levels matched?
Three more cuts:
Algunas Bestias, Canto General (Atma-Sphere recording)
Dias Irae from the Verdi Requiem, RCA Soria series recording
'Special Cases' Massive Attack

Welcome back, so sorry about the family difficulty.

I think I must be unclear about the distortion. Pick your worst case, the one that would be the most audible- let's say, the distortion spectrum at 5kHz at 1W (just example numbers, choose what you like). Let's further say (again, just example numbers, I'd plug in the experimental ones) that at that frequency and power level, distortion was 0.005% second, 0.01% third, 0.008% fifth, 0.001% sixth, and higher order buried in the noise (you can convert these to dB if you like, same diff). So, putting aside that 4th and higher are ultrasonic (and frankly, at my age so is the third!), I would set the distortion profile across the entire audio band to this worst case- we already know things are much more benign at 50Hz from Stereophile's measurement, so lets really layer it on and make the distortion worse right where you'd hear it.

Bypass testing is great in a supervised test, but too easy to cheat in a remote ABX of files.

Would you be able to provide a file for the Atma-Sphere recording? The one I have access to is the Stockholm Symphony playing in Munich, which I'm guessing isn't yours.

 

[atmasphere]

Thanks.

I might misunderstand here but in a musical cut, there are harmonics created all over the place. If I pick a particular profile, we only see those harmonics, which will be orders of magnitude less than what the amp actually produces. Or am I misunderstanding how this software works??

 

[Blumlein 88]

Thanks.

I might misunderstand here but in a musical cut, there are harmonics created all over the place. If I pick a particular profile, we only see those harmonics, which will be orders of magnitude less than what the amp actually produces. Or am I misunderstanding how this software works??

You misunderstand the software.

 

[atmasphere]

So you're saying it can duplicate all the harmonics that the amp might make from a musical cut, not just the harmonics of fundamental tones but also harmonics of harmonics of fundamental tones, based on a single sample at a certain frequency, such as 50Hz??

We know that distortion rises with frequency in this amplifier. I have to imagine the software doesn't know that. So how is that dealt with?

 

[egellings]

^Remonds me^ of the ten martinis.

That's tee many martoonies!

 

[TonyJZX]

I think this industry can largely sometimes be driven by personalities. We gravitate towards Andrew Jones and those who we define as 'trustworthy' but also there's a lot of hubris in that companies like Mark Levinson, Jeff Rowland, D'Agostino exist. The other end there's Danny Ritchie.

I am almost always a bit bemused when I watch Paul McGowan:

I think PS Audio is a company of some repute for good or bad here. At the same time I expect companies want to push commonly held beliefs if it suits their product line.