Can You Trust Your Ears? By Tom Nousaine

[Analog Scott]

With a linear system a wonderful recording sounds wonderful, a less wonderful less wonderful, adding distortion adds that distortion to everything good and bad, it really is akin to wearing rose coloured spectacles all the time.
But if you like it .
Keith

does this apply to cross talk, dynamic compression and dynamic expansion? I have asked about these distortions a number of times and it seems like no one wants to touch the question.

 

[watchnerd]

A philisophial question for you. If for a given recording that is harsh would you prefer for that recording in particular fidelity to that harsh sound or a version that sounds better but is less accurate?

What am I doing? Mixing or listening for pleasure?

If mixing, I want to hear it accurately. Then I'll adjust the mix so that it doesn't sound harsh any longer.

If I'm listening for pleasure, I still want my system to start in an accurate, albeit harsh, state and then I'll apply EQ on playback to make it listenable, if I can.

 

[Analog Scott]

I have one at home and have used it, yes.

Thanks. This seems like something worth taking home and auditioning.

 

[Analog Scott]

What am I doing? Mixing or listening for pleasure?

Listening.

If mixing, I want to hear it accurately. Then I'll adjust the mix so that it doesn't sound harsh any longer.

If I'm listening for pleasure, I still want my system to start in an accurate, albeit harsh, state and then I'll apply EQ on playback to make it listenable, if I can.

Makes perfect sense. I tend to seek out variations on masterings on various media when possible. Two different ways of finding a less accurate but more pleasing sound quality.

 

[watchnerd]

does this apply to cross talk, dynamic compression and dynamic expansion? I have asked about these distortions a number of times and it seems like no one wants to touch the question.

I don't think any objective audio enthusiast who knows anything about how recordings are made would object to dynamic compression / expansion, given how pervasively they're used in the production chain and how hard it would be to listen to music at home / in the car / from your phone without it. Although it can be overused (see loudness wars).

However, I personally want that applied in "software" (recording or playback EQ), not imposed by the hardware, because if it's imposed by the hardware I can't turn it off.

And, yes, I've had tube preamps and had fun tube rolling until I realized it was a path to bankruptcy and insanity.

 

[watchnerd]

Makes perfect sense. I tend to seek out variations on masterings on various media when possible. Two different ways of finding a less accurate but more pleasing sound quality.

Sure, that's another way to do it. I have several recordings that I prefer on vinyl to digital due to differences in mastering and playback.

 

[Sal1950]

For all but a very limited amount of specialist-purist recordings, all the rest are studio creations. The "reproduction" of which is much more about trying to recreate with maximum fidelity what the engineer intended as he sat in front of 2 speakers or inside a multichannel studio. What the soundstage presents to the listener is all about what he intended, whether that means how he laid out a symphony orchestra mix to sound like a 10 row center seat, a head in the open window of the concert hall, or a Steve Wilson Jethro Tull MCH remaster.
If you build your rig to taste you have no hope of fidelity to that event.

 

[Purité Audio]

does this apply to cross talk, dynamic compression and dynamic expansion? I have asked about these distortions a number of times and it seems like no one wants to touch the question.

Cross talk do you mean comb filtering between speaker drivers or the comb filtering between two loudspeakers?
Dynamic compression as applied to records to limit dynamic range?
Or distortion in the loudspeaker driver itself?
Dynamic expansion is not a term I am familiar with.
Keith

 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

1. It's not a question of liking or disliking the word "reproduction." That word has a specific meaning and it does not represent what stereo recording and playback actually is doing or designed to do. That's a simple fact not a matter of what I like or dislike. This is not a matter of degree of exactness one gets in their home audio. This is a fundamental difference that can lead to very different approaches to recording and playback. Stereo recording is designed to create an aural illusion not designed to literally reproduce an original event. and it is inherently incaple of doing it with absolute accuracy. I don't think this is a trivial point. This doesn't even get into another issue which is the actual desirablity of absolute accuracy of an aural illusion of the original event from a designated listening position.

2. Whether or not my observations are profound is neither here nor there. I think it is pretty clear that many audiophiles don't fully grasp the fact that stereo recording and playback is not designed to be a literal reproduction of an original acoustic event and this fundamental misunderstanding is often used as the foundation for belief systems about audio and certain beliefs about "fidelity."

It seems that merely pointing these things out really bothers a lot of folks around here.

No, being on a crusade to point out what everyone in your audience in this thread already knows doesn't bother us. It just diminshes the importance and credibility of what you have to say on this or any other topic.

 

[watchnerd]

For all but a very limited amount of specialist-purist recordings, all the rest are studio creations. The "reproduction" of which is much more about trying to recreate with maximum fidelity what the engineer intended as he sat in front of 2 speakers or inside a multichannel studio. What the soundstage presents to the listener is all about what he intended, whether that means how he laid out a symphony orchestra mix to sound like a 10 row center seat, a head in the open window of the concert hall, or a Steve Wilson Jethro Tull MCH remaster.
If you build your rig to taste you have no hope of fidelity to that event.

I agree with all that.

But....I certainly have a different room and probably am using different monitors than the mixing/mastering engineers used, so I don't feel bad about using EQ to try to get closer to flat (below Schroeder).

There is also the problem that some recordings that I like for musical content are absolute shit on the production engineering side. I used to be a purist and just say, "Well, it's a ****** recording of music that I like" and try to soldier through it, but I realized there were too many recordings where I like the music I didn't listen to because they sound like ass. So I don't feel bad about EQing those, either. In fact, I have an EQ present for un-remastered, early 1980s pop/rock music that I use for things like early albums by The Clash, Ramones, Police, etc.

 

[tomelex]

1. I don't care if someone else thinks it's hig fidelity or not.
2. I'm not so worried about a recording sounding "live" or not.
3. I'm quite certain that no system "reproduces" that live event because that isn't what stereo recording and playback does or is designed to do.
4. I am just as certain that if any recording and playback system were capable of creating an aural illusion that was absolutely accurate to what one would have heard from a particular seat at a live event that it would not always even be a good thing much less ideal.
5. "Addition" to or "subtraction" from the end result is still a matter of personal preference. One may very well prefer the most "accurate" system but it is still preference

One question I just gotta ask all the folks that are absolutely convinced that any and all distortions of the signal that comes off the master tape will lead to subjectively inferior sound based on the research by Toole and Olive what about cross talk? Added cross talk is a distortion is it not? Is that also always a bad thing in any form after the signal leaves the tape and begins it's journey to our ears? How about compression or dynamic expansion? These are distortions. Are they always bad once the signal starts it's way from the source recording?

Hi ,

So, most of us on this site are not against personal preferences, nor do we have any illusion that stereo can replicate the live event. Speaking for myself, the only reference is the recording itself, whatever levels of distortion, cross talk, etc are on the media, LP or digital, we want to replicate, that's Hi-Fidelity, fidelity to the recording. The issue of course with audio is there is no standard at the recording studio. Whatever speakers, amps, processors, and room and the mix and master engineers idea of what they want you to hear, well that is what is on the recording to the best of their gears ability to record.

So, we can choose to capture all they decided was best for us on our own different gear as closely as possible or we can choose/.adjust our gear to sound good to us, to filter everything through our color of lens.

Perfection in Hi-fidelity recording retrieval would be you reconstructing the studio where they mix and mastered the recording and then your playback system being exactly the same as thiers, that is you take their recording and feed it into their electronics which you by default have replicated, and you sit in the same spot and listen through the same ear/brain interface as the mix/master engineer. Now, no ones ears are the same, so that's where this thing falls apart, we cant replicate the studio in our home, we cant replicate their ear/brain interface, so we each make a personal choice on how we are going to handle that signal coming off the LP or the digital file. Speaking for myself, one schooled in the audio electrical arts, I know that thorough measurments can tell me how close my system is to replicating the signal from the LP or digital file, as IMO in the end, either I try to replicate it (Hi-Fideltiy) with my own gear, or the other option, which I think you are advocating, is to make it sound good.

So, for many of us here, we look to proper suite of measurments to better replicate the LP or digital signal, at that point, we know where we are at, and can either try for more perfect hardware/transducer replication, or add in some tone controls or room correction or whatever, knowing though, why we are doing what we are doing, and this seperates many of us from the crowds of component of the month audiophiles who are following like lemmings the preachings of folks who talk about the absolute sound and all that rubbish.

Everything that is not replicated the same as what is on the recording is distortion. Phase, noise, crosstalk, FR, you name it. Hi-Fidelity in the true meaning of the word, if that is your goal, is simply to replicate everything off of the recording with no distortions added. It is not possible unless you listen at the studio where they made the recording and have the same ear/brain interface. However, the closer you come to replicating the recording, the closer you come to the meaning of the words Hi-Fidelity.

If you play a pure sinewave tone from a test record of say 1Khz, and from say a digital file, you will in many cases prefer the sound of the one from the LP, because it adds distortions that sound better to you. Now, listen to the song from the LP and the same from digital, if the rest of your system is Hi-Fidelity, you will hear more of these differences, and can then choose the recording that you like the best, or the storage medium you like the best, and get all that your choice has to give input into your ears, without added distortions of your playback system. Its kind of that simple I think.

True Hi-Fidelity has nothing to do with the actual live event, it has everything to do with replicating the recording exactly at the input to your ears. Our systems extract info from the recording medium and play it back, either as close to exact or as far away as we choose.

There are two information channels on a stereo recording, one left channel and one right, the goal of Hi-fidelity is for the waveform that is the left channel on the recording is outputted from the left speaker with no change except for perhaps amplitude and the same for the right channel from the recording and the right speaker.

I stand by my tag line below.

 

[watchnerd]

Dynamic expansion is not a term I am familiar with.
Keith

http://www.mediacollege.com/audio/processing/expansion/

Also, the legendary:

http://www.aphex.com/products/exciter

 

[Cosmik]

I don't buy into this idea that "reproduction" is a difficult concept. Just as with a video monitor, there is no pretence that it's going to truly replicate some actual event. Nor is there any hard and fast rule about the exact environment in which the replay will take place. All I am saying is that I don't want the screen obscured with coloured glass or a partially translucent filter. I don't want it letterboxed or distorted into some peculiar aspect ratio. I don't want the screen to be only 2" across, or 200" if I am viewing it from 6 feet away. I don't want the monitor set up with a strange colour balance, brightness that varies with image content, or weird sharpening algorithm. In other words, I want it neutral so I can fully appreciate the content.

 

[tomelex]

1. It's not a question of liking or disliking the word "reproduction." That word has a specific meaning and it does not represent what stereo recording and playback actually is doing or designed to do. That's a simple fact not a matter of what I like or dislike. This is not a matter of degree of exactness one gets in their home audio. This is a fundamental difference that can lead to very different approaches to recording and playback. Stereo recording is designed to create an aural illusion not designed to literally reproduce an original event. and it is inherently incaple of doing it with absolute accuracy. I don't think this is a trivial point. This doesn't even get into another issue which is the actual desirablity of absolute accuracy of an aural illusion of the original event from a designated listening position.

2. Whether or not my observations are profound is neither here nor there. I think it is pretty clear that many audiophiles don't fully grasp the fact that stereo recording and playback is not designed to be a literal reproduction of an original acoustic event and this fundamental misunderstanding is often used as the foundation for belief systems about audio and certain beliefs about "fidelity."

It seems that merely pointing these things out really bothers a lot of folks around here.

No, people around here already know that, your relatively new here. Many of us left other forums because we knew that and this site allows us to talk about science, not preferences, I am afraid your indirectness in many of your earlier posts, and not just you but the manner we have to communicate back and forth over points without being in real time, has just reiterated a bunch of known stuff here in a different way, i don't think you are fundamentally different than the rest of us here, just that maybe you did not know what we already knew. I responded to an earlier post of yours but would not have done so if I would have seen some of your later ones. This is always the problem with these forums, long delays and different folks trying to interpret what is said without real time face to face discussions where we could come to an agreement fast. oh well.

 

[Sal1950]

I agree with all that.

But....I certainly have a different room and probably am using different monitors than the mixing/mastering engineers used, so I don't feel bad about using EQ to try to get closer to flat (below Schroeder).

There is also the problem that some recordings that I like for musical content are absolute shit on the production engineering side. I used to be a purist and just say, "Well, it's a ****** recording of music that I like" and try to soldier through it, but I realized there were too many recordings where I like the music I didn't listen to because they sound like ass. So I don't feel bad about EQing those, either. In fact, I have an EQ present for un-remastered, early 1980s pop/rock music that I use for things like early albums by The Clash, Ramones, Police, etc.

Sure, nothing at all wrong with any of that, I do the some of the same myself.
Where things run afoul is when the audiophile builds a system with a particular sound built into the rig with no way to turn off when not needed.

 

[Analog Scott]

Cross talk do you mean comb filtering between speaker drivers or the comb filtering between two loudspeakers?

reduction of channel separation by any means.

Dynamic compression as applied to records to limit dynamic range?
Or distortion in the loudspeaker driver itself?

any sort of dynamic compression either applied at any stage in the chain or via distortion.

Dynamic expansion is not a term I am familiar with.
Keith

The opposite of dynamic compression

 

[Analog Scott]

For all but a very limited amount of specialist-purist recordings, all the rest are studio creations. The "reproduction" of which is much more about trying to recreate with maximum fidelity what the engineer intended as he sat in front of 2 speakers or inside a multichannel studio. What the soundstage presents to the listener is all about what he intended, whether that means how he laid out a symphony orchestra mix to sound like a 10 row center seat, a head in the open window of the concert hall, or a Steve Wilson Jethro Tull MCH remaster.
If you build your rig to taste you have no hope of fidelity to that event.

There is no hope for fidelity to "that event" with the vast majority of recordings regardless of whether I build a system to my taste or build one with measured accuracy as the only goal. And I am not convinced that "fidelity to that event" is always the best goal for me. YMMV. It makes me wonder if ther is some degree of a sense of security in the idea of a systemic approach to audio that looks for definitive answers despite the utter mess of variation that the body of recordings actually represent.

 

[Analog Scott]

No, people around here already know that, your relatively new here. Many of us left other forums because we knew that and this site allows us to talk about science, not preferences, I am afraid your indirectness in many of your earlier posts, and not just you but the manner we have to communicate back and forth over points without being in real time, has just reiterated a bunch of known stuff here in a different way, i don't think you are fundamentally different than the rest of us here, just that maybe you did not know what we already knew. I responded to an earlier post of yours but would not have done so if I would have seen some of your later ones. This is always the problem with these forums, long delays and different folks trying to interpret what is said without real time face to face discussions where we could come to an agreement fast. oh well.

And yet there are a few who seem to want to argue against these things that "people around here already know." That makes discussions a little difficult. One person says it's wrong another says everybody around here already knows this.

 

[svart-hvitt]

I guess it's time for some humor.

The Audio Critic, number 18, 1992

 

[Sal1950]

The Audio Critic, number 18, 1992

Anyone know how Peter is doing? He's 92-93 now and haven't heard anything since his Goodbye post dated midsummer 2015.

"The gullibility of audiophiles is what astonishes me the most, even after all these years. How is it possible, how did it ever happen, that they trust fairy-tale purveyors and mystic gurus more than reliable sources of scientific information?"