Bruno Putzeys ‘Life on the edge’

[Bjorn]

And for most of today;s Top40 Airpods are just about adequate to,match the content with the gear..

Hey, the good news is that you have yet to experience a great setup!

 

[sigbergaudio]

Maybe they should be 5DR death punch.

I like the band and music btw.

We can start a band. Dynamic Range Against The Machine

 

[DSJR]

I can’t see how a transparent system can improve poor recordings?
Keith

It can do though in my experience, as a less good system can add to the mess in a bad recording. Maybe not here, but do you remember the other sites full of audiophiles who can only bear to play a handful of immaculate audiophile recordings to show their 'audio shrines' off, as these are the only ones to sound any good at all?

 

[GXAlan]

And on Apple Music. An A-B comparison is eye opening and slays a lot of myths about lossless.

I don’t even remember the last time I turned my disk spinner on.

For what it’s worth, watching Andor or Star Trek Strange New Worlds on UHD disc is a great experience. Both audio and video wise relative to streaming. The video in motion is the same but there is a noticeable increase in detail for static shots. For audio, I was surprised. It’s clearly a different mix — more bass.

But for music, I agree. Atmos mixes are superb and whatever is lost in the resolution of lossy compression is a small trade off for the Atmos enhancement.

 

[jhaider]

yes, for sonically simple music, like rock/pop I can agree, that there is not much difference, if any. Comfort is more important than potentially minuscule differences.

On complex symphonic recordings 8x compression vs BluRay Audio is clearly audible. Similar to Netflix vs Kaleidascape

Clearly you’ve never done the comparison carefully. Or you think the Karajan Beethoven cycle is pop/rock? Seriously, try it with someone else doing the switching. It may make you, as I have, keep the disks in their boxes.

I don’t know or care about the video comparison. Not my interest.

 

[kharan]

But isn't that exactly proving what @Bjorn was talking about? 'stats tend to have some very specific frequency response quirks that make them more revealing than something tuned strictly neutral by defeating auditory masking. This is similar to how some people with very specific forms of hearing loss (who have lost entire bands) are always able to tell lossy audio codecs apart even at high bitrates, just because that breaks the assumptions about masking that the codecs' psymodel is making.

This is interesting, do you have the source?

Also, imagine that it's terrible speakers with a roller coaster like frequency response that allowed audiophiles to discern between compressed and uncompressed.

 

[Multicore]

It’ll be interesting to see how the speaker I just sent Amir measures.

Wotzat?

 

[AnalogSteph]

This is interesting, do you have the source?

Sorry, I have never been very good at keeping track of those, or else I would have stayed in academia. Our pal Google thankfully turned out to be somewhat helpful:

Do people with hearing loss (age or noise) hear artefacts in lossy codecs more?

This might seem counter-intuitive, but my casual observation is that when I work (on film sound) with people who have some degree of hearing loss, they are generally more likely show dissatisfaction when hearing AAC, MP3, EAC3 etc than I or my peers are. Not sure about other codecs. This sort...

www.audiosciencereview.com

This is probably correct. In 2000 the German computer magazine c't performed an extensive listening test between uncompressed audio and MP3 audio in varying bit rates. With bit rates at 256 kBs and higher no one could hear any differences between MP3 and WAV, not even trained mixing and mastering professionals. The only exception was a young student who could also differ between WAV and 320 kBs MP3. He confessed to suffer from a hearing defect, and the conclusion was that he couldn't hear some masking signals so the loss of the signals masked by the masking signal in the MP3 audio became apparent.

If it's from that, no wonder my memory is fuzzy, it would have been discussed 15+ years ago.

 

[Fidji]

Clearly you’ve never done the comparison carefully. Or you think the Karajan Beethoven cycle is pop/rock? Seriously, try it with someone else doing the switching. It may make you, as I have, keep the disks in their boxes.

I don’t know or care about the video comparison. Not my interest.

By coincidence, I have done my comparison specifically on Karajan's Deutsche Gramofon Atmos re-issue. Carefully.

While some things are easy to test and re-produce e.g. you swap 2 DAC's randomly as a source to a the same preamp, in other cases it might be more tricky. Our setups are probably very very different in every parameter, starting from channel count, processor, amplifiers, DRC system applied, room acoustics&size, different sources [disc player vs Apple TV] that it makes it impossible to make any definitive statements.

So both can be true - in your setup there might be no audible difference, in my setup differences can be audible. And I would leave it at that. You enjoy your streaming, I will keep ordering my discs and we both will be enjoying magnificent beauty of music we love.

And then I will go to listen to Berliner Philharmoniker live [as I do several times per year] and will realize, how different the "real thing" is from even the best recording.

 

[MKR]

There is some minimum threshold where excess of compression and very low DR will make record sound bad. While I get, that nobody who enjoys deathcore music needs high DR, also nobody would pick said deathcore as sonic reference. If you know any records with DR4, that you consider sonically excellent, please point me to them. Nothing beyond DR7 sounds really good in my opinion.

And it can be lot of fun to blast such music through bluetooth boombox, but it will be unbearable in good setup.

There is also another layer - if you are used to average setup, you do not have mental reference of “how good can sound be” as there is not SUCH difference between Taylor Swift and Mass in B Minor, as you are limited by limits of your gear. On some absolute scale Swift will be at 15 and Bach at 25 (assuming 25 is upper limit of your system capabilities). Then you move to really great system in excellent acoustic conditions - Swift will be 20, so yes better, but Bach will be 100. Because the content will be limiting factor, not the gear now. So Swift will sound much worse relatively to well recorded music.

And most of the content will be much more audible on better gear. And for most of today;s Top40 Airpods are just about adequate to,match the content with the gear..

 

[jhaider]

Our setups are probably very very different in every parameter, starting from channel count,

The comparison between Atmos mixes is only meaningful if done on a 7.x.4 channel system IMO, because those are the active channels. I presume that’s what you’re using. I am.

processor, amplifiers, DRC system applied, room acoustics&size,

I get that you’re trying to make the snob argument, but…just stop. It’s just dumb.

different sources [disc player vs Apple TV] that it makes it impossible to make any definitive statements.

Um, by definition doing this comparison requires two sources: a relatively recent model AppleTV, and a disk spinner. And any non-idiot knows that brands of disk spinners (so long as they pass on the correct format) are irrelevant.

So both can be true - in your setup there might be no audible difference, in my setup differences can be audible. And I would leave it at that.

You’ve said nothing about the bias controls in place before the listening that led to these grand pronouncements, so nobody is inclined to think they mean anything.

You enjoy your streaming, I will keep ordering my discs and we both will be enjoying magnificent beauty of music we love.

Funny thing: I keep ordering the disks! I just in practice never use them. I guess it’s in fear that streaming isn’t “forever.” Either are disks, of course, but maybe there’s an internet outage someday.

And then I will go to listen to Berliner Philharmoniker live [as I do several times per year] and will realize, how different the "real thing" is from even the best recording.

Well call me jealous on that. Love that hall! One of my most memorable concerts ever was seeing Vladimir Ashkenazy lead the DSO through Shostakovich 5 from the front row of the upper deck of the Philharmonie facing the conductor. Orchestra Hall here in Chicago doesn’t have that kind of seating. But it’s a fantastic ensemble and a great place to enjoy music.

But that goes back to the larger point: knowing the enormous chasm between the real thing and canned just makes bleating about alleged differences between two different cans all the more asinine, no?

 

[Hear Here]

I definitely think that bad recordings sound worse on a very revealing system.

And that's why recording studios use very revealing speakers. The job of the sound engineer is to do his best to improve the original live recording material before sending off the masters to streaming and pressing houses. These speakers, to quote one engineer, is to make music sound bad where it needs improvement. And this is why studio speakers are not ideal in our domestic listening rooms. We want music to sound good, even perhaps with music that wasn't particularly well engineered.

 

[Chr1]

Indeed. And this is why I like to use two different approaches in my main stereo system. Stereo subs and either Neumann KH310s or Tannoy V12s. Plus MathAudio RoomEQ. The Tannoys use valve amplification. So either very transparent via the Neumanns, or slightly coloured with the Tannoys + VTL amp.
Amongst other things, I like a fair bit of badly recorded rock and new wave which can sound poor on the more revealing KH310s. Whereas, I find the Tannoys + valves can help to enhance the sound quality of these bad recordings, where basic EQing isn't always enough. (Setup with simple switching between the two systems.)
Admittedly, not so hifi but more pleasing to the ear in this particular case. YMMV.

 

[sigbergaudio]

And that's why recording studios use very revealing speakers. The job of the sound engineer is to do his best to improve the original live recording material before sending off the masters to streaming and pressing houses. These speakers, to quote one engineer, is to make music sound bad where it needs improvement. And this is why studio speakers are not ideal in our domestic listening rooms. We want music to sound good, even perhaps with music that wasn't particularly well engineered.

You can't really find a consensus on this. Some argue they use imprecise or "poor" speakers on purpose (like the Yamaha NS-10), others would argue they should be perfectly flat (even in-room). Others think the studio sound should mimic what people actually listen to at home. And many have both "good" and "bad" speakers in the studio to be able to test with both.

Personally I don't think a recording studio / control room should have "revealing" speakers (whatever that means), they should have speakers that provide an accurate in-room reproduction of what is recorded. If they do, they will be able to determine if the recorded tracks and/or mixing decisions sound good or not.

I also don't think we necessarily need to color the sound a lot for it to sound right. I think we somehow along the way ended up mistaking thin/cold/lean to mean neutral. It's not neutral, it's thin/cold/lean. Real instruments have plenty of low end / upper bass / lower mid energy, so your system should present that. That's not warm/colored, it's accurate.

 

[Multicore]

It can do though in my experience, as a less good system can add to the mess in a bad recording. Maybe not here, but do you remember the other sites full of audiophiles who can only bear to play a handful of immaculate audiophile recordings to show their 'audio shrines' off, as these are the only ones to sound any good at all?

Not adding to the misery is not the same as improving.

 

[Purité Audio]

And that's why recording studios use very revealing speakers. The job of the sound engineer is to do his best to improve the original live recording material before sending off the masters to streaming and pressing houses. These speakers, to quote one engineer, is to make music sound bad where it needs improvement. And this is why studio speakers are not ideal in our domestic listening rooms. We want music to sound good, even perhaps with music that wasn't particularly well engineered.

‘Very revealing’ I hear it a lot never quite sure what it means, I have heard it used by listeners who use SETs and extremely coloured loudspeakers, probably the least revealing combination possible.
Transducers should just be transparent, they don’t know what they are playing , where or for whom.
Keith

 

[Hear Here]

Personally I don't think a recording studio / control room should have "revealing" speakers (whatever that means), they should have speakers that provide an accurate in-room reproduction of what is recorded. If they do, they will be able to determine if the recorded tracks and/or mixing decisions sound good or not.

I think the recording engineer does need revealing speakers, such that any imperfections are shouted at him, rather than glossed over. By contrast, if I'm listening to a poorly engineered recording at home, I don't want any imperfections to be shouted at me. Ideally, all recordings listened to in the home should sound great and this sometimes isn't possible if you have studio monitors in your own home. I did for a while but soon realised their shortcomings in the domestic environment so sold them on after just a year.

 

[Purité Audio]

No speaker can improve a poor recording without the same veneer being applied to a good recording.
Keith

 

[sigbergaudio]

I think the recording engineer does need revealing speakers, such that any imperfections are shouted at him, rather than glossed over. By contrast, if I'm listening to a poorly engineered recording at home, I don't want any imperfections to be shouted at me. Ideally, all recordings listened to in the home should sound great and this isn't possible if you have studio monitors in your own home. I did for a while but soon realised their shortcomings in the domestic environment so sold them on after just a year.

So what is a revealing speaker, technically? How should a speaker be designed to shout imperfections (which may occur anywhere in the frequency range)? Genuine question.

What I am suggesting is that if your studio monitors made too many of your recordings not sound great, maybe they weren't that great studio monitors either. We seem to be back at the argument that great ("revealing") speakers make poor recordings sound even worse. Which still isn't true.

 

[tmtomh]

‘Very revealing’ I hear it a lot never quite sure what it means, I have heard it used by listeners who use SETs and extremely coloured loudspeakers, probably the least revealing combination possible.
Transducers should just be transparent, they don’t know what they are playing , where or for whom.
Keith

I know there might not be a ton of value in trying to decode what "revealing" might mean in terms of objective performance characteristics, but with that said, my sense is that it can refer to two very different things.

1. One is exactly what you say - a sense of "realism" or "detail" that might come from ambience cues created or increased by relatively high low-order harmonic distortion.

2. Another is a sense of "presence" or "clarity" that might come from highly linear electronics paired with speakers that are somewhat elevated in one or more frequency bands in the 1-5kHz range where our hearing is most sensitive, and/or slightly higher where the elevation might impart a sense of enhanced reverb tails, room ambience, or similar.

As always, it's a question whether these listening impressions are even real in the sense that they would survive a proper double-blind test. But when it comes to effects imparted by nonlinearities in speakers, I would imagine it often is a measurable phenomenon.