Can You Trust Your Ears? By Tom Nousaine

[Analog Scott]

I don't believe you quite understand my "transparency" standard - this is not having a sense of such; this is where it is literally impossible to discern that the speakers in the room are the source of the sound field ... as in: you are blindfolded, you can walk around in the room freely but not come into contact with anything; and you will receive a sizable monetary reward if you can correctly identify, point to the location of the speakers - but you will leave empty handed.

You are right. I don't understand that. walking around the room blind folded?

 

[Thomas savage]

You are right. I don't understand that. walking around the room blind folded?

Fas42’s wife is very ....., understanding.

Don’t try this at home, best case scenario you will end up stubbing your toe.

 

[svart-hvitt]

We don't know artists intentions because the chain is broken. They listen to a different audio system than what we have at home. Until such time that we both comply with some standard or ability to replicate what they heard, we obviously can't be in sync there. Again, this is point of consensus here.

Ultimately they committed certain bits to disc and blessed that for release. They can be competent or incompetent in doing so. We vote with our pocketbook when it comes to buying that content.

These are all problems for people creating music. It has nothing to do with us as audiophiles other than having a hobby that has a broken end to end architecture. So you can't say this is a myth.

The myth is someone producing music thinking that is what we hear when we play it. If they believe that, then sure, we can ridicule them. None of this is cause for going after playback consumers.

We can act «as if» CD release or master file were artist’s intention (to paraphrase Friedman).

 

[watchnerd]

You are right. I don't understand that. walking around the room blind folded?

Fas42’s wife is very ....., understanding.

Blind testing aid?

 

[Thomas savage]

Blind testing aid?

That’s his explanation...

 

[Jakob1863]

<snip>
Deliberately diverting from a linear reproduction system is not hifi, its a contradiction in terms. What Analoguescott is arguing for is low fidelity.

Doesn´t it depend on the definition of the term "high fidelity"?
You asserted that most would agree that it is bound to something that "producers/sound engineers" hear and that a ?totally? linear reproduction system would fullfill the best approximation to that imagined "what they heard" situation.
Which raises the question if really "most" agree (is there a survey available about that?) and if the totally linear system would in reality be the best approximation as we usually don´t know about the environment where the "what they heard" took place.

Wrt to the first point i cited a statement from Wolfgang Hoeg which seems - at least to me - to define the term "high fidelity" in a different way.
Wrt the second point i mentioned the variations found to exist between various recording/broadcasting facilities. The aformentioned Wolfgang Hoeg tried to explain the what the EBU considers to be important in the subjective assessment of audio quality:

W.Hoeg, L.Christensen, R.Walker, Subjective assessment of audio quality – the means and methods within the EBU
https://tech.ebu.ch/docs/techreview/trev_274-hoeg.pdf

where the authors mentioned the measurement of the "in room response" at different broadcasting studios and showed the results (fig. 4 in the pdf).

A much more comprehensive study was done a couple of years later:
A. V. Mäkivirta, Chr. Anet, A Survey Study Of In-Situ Stereo And Multi-Channel Monitoring Conditions
https://www.genelec.com/sites/default/files/media/About Us/Academic_Papers/2001_makivirta_anet.pdf

where the authors gathered the "in room response" of 372 loudspeakers in 164 professional monitoring rooms around the world, all equipped with the same factory calibrated loudspeaker system and measurement gear.

Even under these conditions the differences are quite pronounced therefore i wrote that "in a statistically sense" the "totally linear" approach might be correct in the long run, but might be not for specific recordings.

If we additionally take into account that there are a lot more loudspeakers used in montioring rooms and that there exist already tenthousands of records produced under quite different conditions in the past we imo have to conclude that we don´t know much about the conditions where the best "high fidelity" is delivered.

And we know from some studies (that i´ve cited already in the past iirc) that the same raw material mixed/produced by the same people (or different people) und various conditions apparently led to different results.

 

[RayDunzl]

this is where it is literally impossible to discern that the speakers in the room are the source of the sound field

I get that at the grocery store.

 

[tomelex]

How does all this play out if a speaker company determines its design choices based on listening tests, so preference of a number of folks determines ‘fidelity ‘?

If 100 people prefer a track that’s been rolled off a little rather than ‘raw’ .., it’s the rolled off example ‘better’?

I’m not sure listening can ever determine fidelity, preference is not Fidelity.

What do we call ‘High Fidelity ‘? What does it really mean?

I think we have to be careful with the word fidelity. If they do not replicate the signal fed into the speaker terminals, as no one does, then the truth is we have all lost fidelity. These speaker designers are looking for something to make their "sound", some I guess attempt for the best fidelity they can get to the original signal (and that's all the common distortions and phase and amplitude as well) while others might make the bass louder so when you play their speakers at a lower level, you hear more of that bass, which in that sense that might be a good thing until you crank up the volume (that's another can of worms about what loudness we want to playback at).

---Fidelity does not have anything to do with our ears, its strictly a scientific measurement process and it means fidelity to the input signal. The input signal could be pretty nasty, but we could have near perfect fidelity to it.

 

[NorthSky]

I can feel the love in the air, falling from the sky, @ night.

 

[fas42]

You are right. I don't understand that. walking around the room blind folded?

For those people who are obsessed with the power of visual cues, just to emphasise the point. IOW, do whatever you need to do to make certain that only your sense of hearing is aiding you in the exercise. If one has happened to experienced a system that works this well this will seem quite irrelevant - the difference in presentation is dramatic, and one discovers all sorts of quite remarkable aspects to the illusion.

 

[fas42]

If we additionally take into account that there are a lot more loudspeakers used in montioring rooms and that there exist already tenthousands of records produced under quite different conditions in the past we imo have to conclude that we don´t know much about the conditions where the best "high fidelity" is delivered.

And we know from some studies (that i´ve cited already in the past iirc) that the same raw material mixed/produced by the same people (or different people) und various conditions apparently led to different results.

IME, on the replay side, there is always a consistent behaviour of convergence - I start with a raw system, and it sounds pretty terrible, to my ears, on most recordings - but some albums come across quite well ... the terminology used elsewhere, is that these are "good recordings!" . I steadily sort it out, and lo and behold the playback starts to sound more and more like the previous setup, after that one had been "fixed"! It never gets to be 100% identical, but it's close enough to not worry me ... now, the interesting thing was that the prior rig in raw form was also quite unpleasant on the majority of recordings - but, a different set from those that suited the next experiment - the set of "good recordings!" was different, back then .

I have heard some of my CDs on so-so systems get the tonality of a specific track to sound better than I have ever heard on my own gear - this is one of the rare times when the quality of the speaker in itself shows through, and the advantage of getting the best there is a plus. Unfortunately, on everything else that particular system falls well short, and hence is not interesting as a goal.

 

[March Audio]

That's a pretty important qualifier ya left out there

I could have been more specific, yes, but the context was forums anc the typical level of discussion found elsewhere. Also if you had knowledge of the Toole research you would not conclude it was purely a subjective exercise.

 

[March Audio]

I can't speak for all audiophiles. But the post I was responding to asserted that "Which is precisely why in this forum we don't rely on subjective opinion to assess equipment." I merely pointed out the often referenced research by Toole/Olive has largely been subjective opinion research on the sound quality of loud speakers and headphones. Maybe he was mixing up a lack of bias controls with subjective evaluation.

I wasnt mixing up anything. See above.

 

[March Audio]

Doesn´t it depend on the definition of the term "high fidelity"?
You asserted that most would agree that it is bound to something that "producers/sound engineers" hear and that a ?totally? linear reproduction system would fullfill the best approximation to that imagined "what they heard" situation.
Which raises the question if really "most" agree (is there a survey available about that?) and if the totally linear system would in reality be the best approximation as we usually don´t know about the environment where the "what they heard" took place.

Wrt to the first point i cited a statement from Wolfgang Hoeg which seems - at least to me - to define the term "high fidelity" in a different way.
Wrt the second point i mentioned the variations found to exist between various recording/broadcasting facilities. The aformentioned Wolfgang Hoeg tried to explain the what the EBU considers to be important in the subjective assessment of audio quality:

W.Hoeg, L.Christensen, R.Walker, Subjective assessment of audio quality – the means and methods within the EBU
https://tech.ebu.ch/docs/techreview/trev_274-hoeg.pdf

where the authors mentioned the measurement of the "in room response" at different broadcasting studios and showed the results (fig. 4 in the pdf).

A much more comprehensive study was done a couple of years later:
A. V. Mäkivirta, Chr. Anet, A Survey Study Of In-Situ Stereo And Multi-Channel Monitoring Conditions
https://www.genelec.com/sites/default/files/media/About Us/Academic_Papers/2001_makivirta_anet.pdf

where the authors gathered the "in room response" of 372 loudspeakers in 164 professional monitoring rooms around the world, all equipped with the same factory calibrated loudspeaker system and measurement gear.

Even under these conditions the differences are quite pronounced therefore i wrote that "in a statistically sense" the "totally linear" approach might be correct in the long run, but might be not for specific recordings.

If we additionally take into account that there are a lot more loudspeakers used in montioring rooms and that there exist already tenthousands of records produced under quite different conditions in the past we imo have to conclude that we don´t know much about the conditions where the best "high fidelity" is delivered.

And we know from some studies (that i´ve cited already in the past iirc) that the same raw material mixed/produced by the same people (or different people) und various conditions apparently led to different results.

No one is arguing the variabilities of the recording part of the process. One of my criticisms is the lack of conformance to a standard for monitoring in studios. However, randomly adding further distortions at replay does nothing to improve the situation, it exacerbates it. Whatever flavour you choose to add for one recording will be wrong for another.

Not to mention the Toole research shows that people still prefer playback neutral systems regardless of recording. Im not sure as to why this is contentious for some.

 

[Analog Scott]

I wasnt mixing up anything. See above.

Yes I saw your edit fixing the missing qualifier. I can only go by what you say when you say it. I'm not psychic and I try avoiding assumptions about what one means and focus on what one actually says

 

[Analog Scott]

No one is arguing the variabilities of the recording part of the process. One of my criticisms is the lack of conformance to a standard for monitoring in studios. However, randomly adding further distortions at relkay does nothing to improve the situation, it exacerbates it. Whatever flavour you choose to add for one recording will be wrong for another.

Not to mention the Toole research shows that people still prefer playback neutral systems regardless of recording. Im not sure as to why this is contentious for some.

You keep saying this but offer no proof in support. I asked once if the Toole/Olive research included the sort of colorations one can find in euphonically colored components such as dynamic expasion, compression, cross talk, various types of noise and if so at what varying levels?

 

[Analog Scott]

For those people who are obsessed with the power of visual cues, just to emphasise the point. IOW, do whatever you need to do to make certain that only your sense of hearing is aiding you in the exercise. If one has happened to experienced a system that works this well this will seem quite irrelevant - the difference in presentation is dramatic, and one discovers all sorts of quite remarkable aspects to the illusion.

Still not sure what you are talking about. I have heard any number of systems with certain source material image quite convincingly. But none of them hold up once you leave the listening position and walk around the room. Certainly the size of the sweet spot varies with room reflections and radiation patterns of the speakers. But all systems that image have a sweet spot. The imaging does not hold up throughout the entire room

 

[Analog Scott]

We don't know artists intentions because the chain is broken. They listen to a different audio system than what we have at home. Until such time that we both comply with some standard or ability to replicate what they heard, we obviously can't be in sync there. Again, this is point of consensus here.

Ultimately they committed certain bits to disc and blessed that for release. They can be competent or incompetent in doing so. We vote with our pocketbook when it comes to buying that content.

These are all problems for people creating music. It has nothing to do with us as audiophiles other than having a hobby that has a broken end to end architecture. So you can't say this is a myth.

The myth is someone producing music thinking that is what we hear when we play it. If they believe that, then sure, we can ridicule them. None of this is cause for going after playback consumers.

A few points.
1. The ship has already sailed for the body of recorded music that most audiophiles and music lovers are interested. Even if there were some standard implimented there is no going back in time for all the recordings that have already happened. Audio will always have that issue.
2. This is about audio, there is never a consensus.
3. I don't see how these are all problems for people creating music and has nothing to do with audiophiles. I think it has a lot to do with audiophiles and is very much our problem. And I think there are numerous ways audiophiles can do something about these problems.
4. What real value does ridicule have in audio?

 

[Wombat]

Still not sure what you are talking about. I have heard any number of systems with certain source material image quite convincingly. But none of them hold up once you leave the listening position and walk around the room. Certainly the size of the sweet spot varies with room reflections and radiation patterns of the speakers. But all systems that image have a sweet spot. The imaging does not hold up throughout the entire room

Imaging? Compared to what? How can one rely on the issued recording to be accurate in this matter? Then there is the very different listening environment and playback factors.

Yes, I hear spatial effects on my system but cannot reliably reference them back to the performance because I wasn't there and am not aware the affect of the audio capture and processing that follows.

I think there is much imagining' going on with perception of imaging on recording playback.

 

[Analog Scott]

Imaging? Compared to what? How can one rely on the issued recording to be accurate in this matter? Then there is the very different listening environment and playback factors.

Yes, I hear spatial effects on my system but cannot reliably reference them back to the performance because I wasn't there and am not aware the affect of the audio capture and processing that follows.

I think there is much imagining' going on with perception of imaging on recording playback.

Imaging doesn't have to be compared to anything. If I hear a vocalist dead center and the voice sounds 15 or so feet away. That is a center image with a depth of 15 or so feet. A nice aural illusion for vocals placement. If I am listening to an orchestral recording and I hear the first strings to the left strung out between the near center to just past the left speaker and they sound 20-30 feet away best estimate and the woodwinds are spread across the center behind the strings best estimate and the rest of the orchestra audibly sounds in their places, that is imaging. What do I need to compare it to? It is what it is and if it makes for a convincing aural illusion and I like it case closed. Great imaging. Period. Who the **** cares if it is "accurate?" I got some news for ya. "Accurate" imaging of an orchestra aint what audiophiles want. It sure isn't what I want. "Accurate" imaging of an orchestra in a concert hall won't create an aural illusion of realism. Yeah, that's right. Real imaging by sound alone in most concert halls would not pass any audiophile test and won't sound realistic in the home without the visual cues of a concert. We hear what we see and in a concert we see the orchestra. If you think you are hearing precise imaging of an orchestra at a concert hall you are either falling for the illusion that your eyes play upon your ears or you are in a truly dry aweful concert hall. The reverb that is built into concert halls smears the crap out of aural image specificity. The sound of an orchestra is being splashed all over the hall by design. Concert hall acoustics are designed to maximise projection, reverb and clarity. clarity and reverb are a balancing act because they are at odds with each other. Although thanks to modern science and CADs and modelling, acousticians have been able to design concert halls that hit the measured ideal target ranges for both attributes. But you know what acoustical design of concert halls never is concerned with? Imaging.