JeremyFife
Major Contributor
Hi All,
I'm new here - so let me know if this is wildly off topic or has already been dealt with.
This site is messing with my head (re-educating me) about equipment; gone are my dreams of beautiful class-A valve monoblocks costing more than my car and instead I'm thinking about teeny little 'clean' boxes - it's exciting stuff.
Getting to the point: a huge part of the fun of choosing music is in researching and finding "good" recordings. For Jazz, Classical and live music in general (Folk too I guess) this is partly about the performance itself and partly about how well it was recorded. There is also a huge amount of material, and mystique, about the mastering / re-mastering and, for vinyl, individual pressings.
However interesting this research is ... it's hardly "scientific": it's all based on opinion and consensus from a self-selecting bunch of music fans (including me).
If I'm going to choose my playback equipment based on objective measurement, is it in any way possible to apply objective criteria to the music that I choose to play on it?
Ironically, there is much more information on music recorded on vinyl i.e. bigger sample size, so I have a better chance of identifying listener bias and general BS. The Classical world especially is good for discussion and comparison of individual recordings. This is still subjective though.
In the area where there could be more objectivity - downloaded or streamed digital files in various resolutions - is it possible to have meaningful measurements or objective metrics? Is this even a thing?
Curious
I'm new here - so let me know if this is wildly off topic or has already been dealt with.
This site is messing with my head (re-educating me) about equipment; gone are my dreams of beautiful class-A valve monoblocks costing more than my car and instead I'm thinking about teeny little 'clean' boxes - it's exciting stuff.
Getting to the point: a huge part of the fun of choosing music is in researching and finding "good" recordings. For Jazz, Classical and live music in general (Folk too I guess) this is partly about the performance itself and partly about how well it was recorded. There is also a huge amount of material, and mystique, about the mastering / re-mastering and, for vinyl, individual pressings.
However interesting this research is ... it's hardly "scientific": it's all based on opinion and consensus from a self-selecting bunch of music fans (including me).
If I'm going to choose my playback equipment based on objective measurement, is it in any way possible to apply objective criteria to the music that I choose to play on it?
Ironically, there is much more information on music recorded on vinyl i.e. bigger sample size, so I have a better chance of identifying listener bias and general BS. The Classical world especially is good for discussion and comparison of individual recordings. This is still subjective though.
In the area where there could be more objectivity - downloaded or streamed digital files in various resolutions - is it possible to have meaningful measurements or objective metrics? Is this even a thing?
Curious