Bruno Putzeys ‘Life on the edge’

[Sokel]

The genre bias was pretty obvious.

Seems such a waste to me applying that wave-forming speaker tech to primitive pre-industrial music, where we assemble large numbers of performers banging on stretched skins with sticks, blowing through tubes and plucking/rubbing tensioned strings at one end of a large hall, instead of creating music by feeding electrons though finely filagreed silicon structures as god intended.

Let's not include mothers to this.





(classical is the mother)

 

[Axo1989]

Let's not include mothers to this.





(classical is the mother)

Ahh, so my joke was like saying “your mother wears army boots”?

 

[Ktacos]

Far too much to read there, but useful reference to GaN and NAD M33 interesting.

For me, what really matters is the sound an amp delivers and the pleasure this sound offers. Early Class D was pretty dire (I had Tripath in 2 earlier amps), but modern ones (largely thanks to Bruno) are such that there is now no valid reason for spending lots more on other technologies. I am very pleased with my Class D amps (NAD M33 and Atma-Sphere monos) and the former was bought after extensive tests at home with numerous other ss amps of all flavours, some far more costly.

The great thing is that Class D is continuing to improve and reduces in price - which other technology in audio is doing that?

If you read the article you wouldn't have made this post.

 

[Fidji]

The genre bias was pretty obvious.

Seems such a waste to me applying that wave-forming speaker tech to primitive pre-industrial music, where we assemble large numbers of performers banging on stretched skins with sticks, blowing through tubes and plucking/rubbing tensioned strings at one end of a large hall, instead of creating music by feeding electrons though finely filagreed silicon structures as god intended.

yep, but this is just temporary stage, until we get to real thing.

“Axo, your todays playlist is ready, based on your latest comments on forums and your whatsapp communication history with contacts “sweetie” and “secret sweetie”, our “Lloyd Weber AI” has composed 37 min (based on Waze traffic) of music in the style of K Minogue and Five Fingers Death Punch. Lyrics are themed around "focus on what is necessary" , based on your meeting schedule”

 

[Sokel]

Ahh, so my joke was like saying “your mother wears army boots”?

Even worst,out of fashion army boots!

 

[Fidji]

I think we may be misunderstanding each other slightly. I am not trying to push Five Finger Death Punch as high art. They are more like the Nickelback of metal. I intentionally picked something very commercial, but I guess that backfired a bit.

I am also not trying to say that low dynamic range is a GOOD thing. I was merely disputing the fact that all low dynamic range tracks (or "poor" tracks in general) sounded worse on good gear, as I still do not think that is the case. I also do not think that medium to low dynamic range automatically translates to poor sound quality. It can be a clipped mess, or it can just be a result of the production and genre, without necessarily having bad sound quality as such.

I always learn it the hard way - that stating something general on internet forums, that is more and overarching idea, than anything else just invites unnecessary discourse. E.g. instead of "DR4" [my shortcut to describe music with poor quality] I should have stated something like "Music with poor sound quality, more often than not caused by excessive dynamic compression, that is becoming standard in today's music production" Probably I will need to talk to my lawyer and our investors relationship guys to prepare something like "Safe Harbor Statement for Audio Related topics", that I will add to my signature

With this I apologize, for taking this thread into the weeds and initial very entertaining and educative thoughts from Bruno got completely forgotten. But not all the hope is lost - e.g taking you as example - art of civilized discussion and factual argumentation is not dead.

Maybe some parting thoughts:
- while there is no direct causality between dynamic range and sound quality, there is very strong correlation between those two. Also works the other way round, poorly mixed track with e.g too pronounced percussions will have high DR but will be annoying to listen to.
- While I do challenge myself mentally, and try to avoid analogies in argumentation [as I think it is more valuable to be able to develop structured argument without resorting to analogies], I will use one now - and I will take example of photo/video - while poorly taken photo/video [from technical standpoint - blurriness, oversaturation, wrong exposure, wrong lightning etc] will be absolutely OK to be consumed on the phone, 150in screen with 8K projector, professionally calibrated will expose all the flaws. And not only that - small imperfections on the skin, pieces of food on the shirt etc. On the other hand, beautifully shot movie e.g Dune will be loosing most of the visual impact on 65 inch TV. You know what they say - 4K and big screen has killed all the joy from watching the porn.
- I somehow still believe, that "better" as in "more truthful to the source" will make bad quality music sound "worse".

 

[sigbergaudio]

I always learn it the hard way - that stating something general on internet forums, that is more and overarching idea, than anything else just invites unnecessary discourse. E.g. instead of "DR4" [my shortcut to describe music with poor quality] have stated something like "Music with poor sound quality, more often than not caused by excessive dynamic compression, that is becoming standard in today's music production" Probably I will need to talk to my lawyer and our investors relationship guys to prepare something like "Safe Harbor Statement for Audio Related topics", that I will add to my signature

With this I apologize, for taking this thread into the weeds and initial very entertaining and educative thoughts from Bruno got completely forgotten. But not all the hope is lost - e.g taking you as example - art of civilized discussion and factual argumentation is not dead.

Maybe some parting thoughts:
- while there is no direct causality between dynamic range and sound quality, there is very strong correlation between those two. Also works the other way round, poorly mixed track with e.g too pronounced percussions will have high DR but will be annoying to listen to.
- While I do challenge myself mentally, and try to avoid analogies in argumentation [as I think it is more valuable to be able to develop structured argument without resorting to analogies], I will use one now - and I will take example of photo/video - while poorly taken photo/video [from technical standpoint - blurriness, oversaturation, wrong exposure, wrong lightning etc] will be absolutely OK to be consumed on the phone, 150in screen with 8K projector, professionally calibrated will expose all the flaws. And not only that - small imperfections on the skin, pieces of food on the shirt etc. On the other hand, beautifully shot movie e.g Dune will be loosing most of the visual impact on 65 inch TV. You know what they say - 4K and big screen has killed all the joy from watching the porn.
- I somehow still believe, that "better" as in "more truthful to the source" will make bad quality music sound "worse".

I agree that the difference between poor and good recordings will be larger on a better system. So do the poor recordings sound worse or the good recordings better? In some sense perhaps both.

But it should not be harder / more difficult / more painful to listen to poor recordings on a good system. People (or reviewers) talk about "revealing" systems that make "poor" tracks sound harsh or make them unlistenable. That is typically not because the system is so good, but because it has problems with the frequency response and/or elevated highs or lack dynamic capacity.

 

[Fidji]

That is typically not because the system is so good, but because it has problems with the frequency response and/or elevated highs or lack dynamic capacity.

Yes here I agree - I have one of the presets called “Ageing Audiophile” with elevated treble, bit bloated mid bass etc, for occasional visits of Golden Ears. They love it.
There is only one off-limit thing - Nils Lofgren and ‘Keith dont go”, usual playlist of regurgitated audiophile cliches is their usual request.

BTW - I observe this accentuated treble becoming more common in speakers contruction, and it really annoys me, as when you combine it with uncontrolled sybilances it is. really really bad.

 

[Hear Here]

If you read the article you wouldn't have made this post.

?? Please elaborate. Did I say anything inaccurate, contradictory or even controversial? Sorry if so, Thanks

 

[krabapple]

While I would say that Charli was interesting well before the current wave of popular recognition or cultural anything, that is really tangential. The point of posting that track was to demonstrate what DR2 signifies (or doesn't).

Yeah, it perplexes me that she's being treated as a 'new thing'. Has everyone forgotten 'I Love It'?

That DR2 track of hers you posted sounds like ass on my cheap work headphones. A case of 'Everything louder than everything else'.
But I don't doubt that on my home system it could sound 'bangin', as that kids say.

DR (at least as measured by the usual tools) is a crude measure of 'how good it will sound'.

 

[Axo1989]

Yeah, it perplexes me that she's being treated as a 'new thing'. Has everyone forgotten 'I Love It'?

Surely not, but, short memories !! Or maybe, they don't care?

*a lyric reference, for the forgetful

 

[Axo1989]

yep, but this is just temporary stage, until we get to real thing.

“Axo, your todays playlist is ready, based on your latest comments on forums and your whatsapp communication history with contacts “sweetie” and “secret sweetie”, our “Lloyd Weber AI” has composed 37 min (based on Waze traffic) of music in the style of K Minogue and Five Fingers Death Punch. Lyrics are themed around "focus on what is necessary" , based on your meeting schedule”

I get your idea, but those weren't my posts (nor really congruent with the intention of the people who did post them I reckon) so we'll need to send Lloyd back for more training.

Tangentially again, interesting how our imaginations create different responses to words, depending on our reference points/perspectives/experiences. Contrasting historical music artefacts and cultural practice (eg you invoking Bach as "perfect") to electronic, I wasn't thinking at all of a kitsch mashup or probabilistic regeneration of pop inputs by (so-called) AI, but rather actual electronic music (eg by Ryoji Ikeda):

Incidentally, it's fun that we can experience that piece more as continuum/environment and less as classical narrative arc (which I find somewhat melodramatic/manipulative). Additional fun as counterpoint to anti-measurement trolls who declare "nobody listens to sine waves".

 

[krabapple]

Surely not, but, short memories !! Or maybe, they don't care?

*a lyric reference, for the forgetful

 

[masterhw]

Finally got around to reading the original article.
Bruno's conclusions are sensible and I see them as directly relevant to the home theatre space (if not moreso). As others have touched on, among young people (of which I am) the line is blurred between home theatre and dedicated audio. With limited space and budget, the two share enough in common that most prefer to address both with a common setup.
Quoting Bruno:

Consequently, the most common question I get from Hi-Fi companies is: “How do I differentiate my amplifier from that of a competitor who’s also using your module?”
...
It’s not the fact that high-end amplification has become a commodity that should force manufacturers to rethink their strategy. It’s the survival of Hi-Fi itself that they need to secure. Class D isn’t the revolution, and neither will it trigger one. Class D is there to help the revolution along.

High performance amplification was always an engineering problem (which audio companies seem to minimize being in the business of to the greatest extent they can get away with). Its 'solution', be it with Hypex/Purifi or TPA325x family depending on your threshold, means commodification. Similar things have happened with DACs, increasingly in signal processing, and also in every other industry built on hard engineering problems.
I would be worried for AV Receiver manufacturers.
I think the only thing really keeping AVRs relevant is the ability to decode Dolby/DTS streams satisfactorily, but this is an uneasy monopoly. Sources (like the Apple TV 4K or game consoles) can license this and output dumb LPCM. A software update to allow an enthusiast to tinker more with these surround settings would mean all there is left to do are things now affordable - DSP and quality DAC/amplification (excluding transducers). A setup with a miniDSP Flex HT and decent TPA325x-based amps can embarrass AVRs multiples of the price.

I can't shake the sense that the audio pipeline up to the point it hits a transducer has been affordably 'solved' to say, 16-bits of resolution. So where is the revolution?
If I were WiiM, D&M, miniDSP, or a myriad of other companies I would be moving heaven and earth to bring to market a neatly integrated box that delivers a true ~96dB SINAD to a comparable number of channels (and wattages) to today's AVRs. When you shift multichannel decoding to the source, it would seem like every responsibility of this device has been cheaply solved already.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Finally got around to reading the original article.
Bruno's conclusions are sensible and I see them as directly relevant to the home theatre space (if not moreso). As others have touched on, among young people (of which I am) the line is blurred between home theatre and dedicated audio. With limited space and budget, the two share enough in common that most prefer to address both with a common setup.
Quoting Bruno:

High performance amplification was always an engineering problem (which audio companies seem to minimize being in the business of to the greatest extent they can get away with). Its 'solution', be it with Hypex/Purifi or TPA325x family depending on your threshold, means commodification. Similar things have happened with DACs, increasingly in signal processing, and also in every other industry built on hard engineering problems.
I would be worried for AV Receiver manufacturers.
I think the only thing really keeping AVRs relevant is the ability to decode Dolby/DTS streams satisfactorily, but this is an uneasy monopoly. Sources (like the Apple TV 4K or game consoles) can license this and output dumb LPCM. A software update to allow an enthusiast to tinker more with these surround settings would mean all there is left to do are things now affordable - DSP and quality DAC/amplification (excluding transducers). A setup with a miniDSP Flex HT and decent TPA325x-based amps can embarrass AVRs multiples of the price.

I can't shake the sense that the audio pipeline up to the point it hits a transducer has been affordably 'solved' to say, 16-bits of resolution. So where is the revolution?
If I were WiiM, D&M, miniDSP, or a myriad of other companies I would be moving heaven and earth to bring to market a neatly integrated box that delivers a true ~96dB SINAD to a comparable number of channels (and wattages) to today's AVRs. When you shift multichannel decoding to the source, it would seem like every responsibility of this device has been cheaply solved already.

I agree largely. Companies don't want to shift the decoding to the source. It amazes me that pre/pros from Marantz which have the same decoding as a receiver dumps the amps, adds XLRs in place of RCA's and then bumps the price by 3x or 4x. Seems to me you could do a basic MCH Dolby pre/pro for $300-500 with nothing left on the table. Other than some juicy profits. I don't know the slope of demand for these devices, but it seems you'd sale enough more at $500 vs $2k and up to make more money with the lesser device.

 

[Sal1950]

Seems to me you could do a basic MCH Dolby pre/pro for $300-500 with nothing left on the table. Other than some juicy profits. I don't know the slope of demand for these devices, but it seems you'd sale enough more at $500 vs $2k and up to make more money with the lesser device.

From your lips to Gods ear.
OTOH we do have a couple from Tonewinner / Emotiva in the $1500 range.
I have no idea what the costs for all the codec licensing are but even $1500 would be very acceptable to me.
Now if only we could get one for those $ that measured well!
The closest we seem to get is the $4k Monoprice HTP-1