AudioStudies
Addicted to Fun and Learning
- Joined
- May 3, 2020
- Messages
- 718
- Likes
- 401
A lot has been said on this subject. I hope that an objective person would realize the difficulty in attaining the goal of the "original artist intent" for any given piece of music. The original artist may not get what was intended for any number of reasons, to include an inept recording engineer, equipment malfunctions, other members of the band not performing well, limitations of microphones, room acoustic problems of the venue, etc. Therefore the best playback system in the world may not reproduce the original artist intent for the music. That is not to say the accurate reproduction of whatever appears on the media (CD for example) should not be someone's goal; yet I sense a belief system in the audio circles that this implies hearing the music as the original artists intended. That may or may not be the case.
With respect to some audio components, DACs for example, the subjective crowd has gone bonkers. Spending thousands, if not over ten thousand, on a device that by 2020 standards has relatively simple tasks. Convert the signal from digital to analog and then output a clean signal. This can be done very well inexpensively. Delta-Sigma DACs were shown to be effective many years ago, and continue to improve. As do the op amps for the DAC output stage. No one in 2020 needs a R2R DAC, and a well-designed one with an audio jewelry look may be justified by the wealthy, it is doubtful that such a DAC could be distinguished from a modestly priced Delta-Sigma DAC in a blind listening test. I am completely in the objective camp when it comes to DACs.
I know many people on ASR would consider anybody that prefers a tube preamp, a subjective person, going down the wrong path. Fair enough, but I think I am an objective person, yet I still prefer tube preamps and will present my reasons. I don't dispute that use of tube preamps is a coloration, for lack of a better word. Nevertheless, for me it is a beautiful one that (to my tastes) makes the music seem more pleasant. So, OK, OK, many of you out there are going to say, I should be striving for accurate reproduction of the CD first, and subsequent to that use methodologies to color the sound to my liking. Although I am fine with others taking that approach, I don't think it can work well for me for objective reasons:
1. The first reason is that I already own several tube preamps, so I already have the gear to accomplish the coloration to my liking. It would involve a bit of a financial hit to sell all these tube preamps, and then purchase solid-state gear.
2. The second reason, is that I don't know how to go about achieving the same type of coloration in other ways. I know, I know, many of you may respond, well there is this way, and also that way . . . fair enough but I don't want to use computer software. My audio systems (and I have several) for the most part are non-computer based. That is I have music (all 16 bit, 44.1 kHz) in wav files that I have copied to thumb drives and SD cards, and then I have components that can play these media without a computer being incorporated into the audio system (for most of my systems). I suppose there may be some gear that I can buy from the pro audio market that may be able to accomplish this coloration, but I don't want to go through the learning curve on that stuff, and I have my doubts that this approach would be anywhere near as effective as the high end preamps that I currently own.
3. The third reason, has to do with the point I made at the very start of this post, that is, the original artist intent is often lost anyway by the time it reaches my wav files. In addition to the aforementioned reasons, I don't know of any original artist who knows about the room acoustics in my listening room. I will likely move forward with room correction incorporated into components (non-computer) in some of my systems, and that may overcome my last point. But I think my overall point here, is that this original artist intent thing is a bit over-rated. I think too much focus on it can lead to situations wherein people jump through hoop after hoop, thinking they are achieving it, when in many cases they are not. And that hoop jumping may cause unpleasant sounds.
So, call me a pure subjective person if you like. But consider my stance on DACs (totally objective); and at least if you don't agree with my reasons for preferring tube preamps, know that I did some objective thinking to arrive at that preference.
With respect to some audio components, DACs for example, the subjective crowd has gone bonkers. Spending thousands, if not over ten thousand, on a device that by 2020 standards has relatively simple tasks. Convert the signal from digital to analog and then output a clean signal. This can be done very well inexpensively. Delta-Sigma DACs were shown to be effective many years ago, and continue to improve. As do the op amps for the DAC output stage. No one in 2020 needs a R2R DAC, and a well-designed one with an audio jewelry look may be justified by the wealthy, it is doubtful that such a DAC could be distinguished from a modestly priced Delta-Sigma DAC in a blind listening test. I am completely in the objective camp when it comes to DACs.
I know many people on ASR would consider anybody that prefers a tube preamp, a subjective person, going down the wrong path. Fair enough, but I think I am an objective person, yet I still prefer tube preamps and will present my reasons. I don't dispute that use of tube preamps is a coloration, for lack of a better word. Nevertheless, for me it is a beautiful one that (to my tastes) makes the music seem more pleasant. So, OK, OK, many of you out there are going to say, I should be striving for accurate reproduction of the CD first, and subsequent to that use methodologies to color the sound to my liking. Although I am fine with others taking that approach, I don't think it can work well for me for objective reasons:
1. The first reason is that I already own several tube preamps, so I already have the gear to accomplish the coloration to my liking. It would involve a bit of a financial hit to sell all these tube preamps, and then purchase solid-state gear.
2. The second reason, is that I don't know how to go about achieving the same type of coloration in other ways. I know, I know, many of you may respond, well there is this way, and also that way . . . fair enough but I don't want to use computer software. My audio systems (and I have several) for the most part are non-computer based. That is I have music (all 16 bit, 44.1 kHz) in wav files that I have copied to thumb drives and SD cards, and then I have components that can play these media without a computer being incorporated into the audio system (for most of my systems). I suppose there may be some gear that I can buy from the pro audio market that may be able to accomplish this coloration, but I don't want to go through the learning curve on that stuff, and I have my doubts that this approach would be anywhere near as effective as the high end preamps that I currently own.
3. The third reason, has to do with the point I made at the very start of this post, that is, the original artist intent is often lost anyway by the time it reaches my wav files. In addition to the aforementioned reasons, I don't know of any original artist who knows about the room acoustics in my listening room. I will likely move forward with room correction incorporated into components (non-computer) in some of my systems, and that may overcome my last point. But I think my overall point here, is that this original artist intent thing is a bit over-rated. I think too much focus on it can lead to situations wherein people jump through hoop after hoop, thinking they are achieving it, when in many cases they are not. And that hoop jumping may cause unpleasant sounds.
So, call me a pure subjective person if you like. But consider my stance on DACs (totally objective); and at least if you don't agree with my reasons for preferring tube preamps, know that I did some objective thinking to arrive at that preference.
