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Can anyone explain the vinyl renaissance?

After I've done my measurements, I sit back and listen. I'm not interested in doing contolled experiments on human behavoir. I'm no expert. And I don't really care. As biased as I probably am, I enjoy listening to music, I know what makes me feel good and I know what doesn't. Sure, there are numerous factors that I am completely unaware of. This fact does not invalidate my experience. I will leave the controlled experiments to the experts.

That certainly fine.

But you’ll find that people in this forum want accurate information about audio gear, and so they’ll what more rigorous information, especially when it comes to dubious claims about music sources or audio gear.
 
I am the most technically minded person I know. I enjoy this site because it provides an alternative to the more qualitative reviews.
That is great, so am I. But non of those technical qualifications mean a damn for audio, if they don't follow through to understanding how your own (and the rest of humanities) auditory system (all our senses in fact) function.

In particular,

I can't help but be aware of what my ears say to me. Yes, this is a conundrum. I will say flatly that great specs do not necessarily create the best sound. Great specs are a guide to good audio. I do not think that the human race has designed a test for audio equipment that captures the ear, mind and emotion that occurs when listening to music. Not yet.
suggests that you have totally failed to apply your scientific and engineering capabilities to properly understanding stuff outside your fairly narrow range of technical excellence - in this case human perceptive capabilities. No matter how technically capable you are, it can't make you magically immune to all the perceptive biases that the rest of humanity are subject to, nor can it make your ears magically more sensitive than everyone else's

If you are not comparing gear with properly controlled listening (properly blinded and level matched as a minimum), then you are
1 - not following well established scientific principles to get valid human perceptive data.
2 - more importantly, unable to determine if anything you think you are hearing actually exists in the soundwaves reaching your ears, or are created in the wetware between them.

I suggest you do some reading in these two threads. In amongst the nonsense there are also many nuggets of valid audio science. With your background, you should be able to tell the difference. The former is also the proper location for this type of discussion. The mods will probably move us there anyway.


 
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After I've done my measurements, I sit back and listen. I'm not interested in doing contolled experiments on human behavoir. I'm no expert. And I don't really care. As biased as I probably am, I enjoy listening to music, I know what makes me feel good and I know what doesn't. Sure, there are numerous factors that I am completely unaware of. This fact does not invalidate my experience. I will leave the controlled experiments to the experts.
Sure, but you made an attribution error. You thought that the reason your listening didn't correlate with the measurements was because the things you heard must be in the sound waves, and measurement wasn't picking them up, so the science of measurement is not good enough yet to correlate with what we can hear in the sound waves, ie, "I will say flatly that great specs do not necessarily create the best sound....I do not think that the human race has designed a test for audio equipment that captures the ear, mind and emotion that occurs when listening to music. Not yet."

Whereas reality appears to be that current test equipment can capture absolutely everything that is in the sound waves that the human ear can discern, and to which the mind and emotion can respond. And then some more.

The real reason, for your uncontrolled (sighted) listening leading to perceptions not found in the measurements, is that you are, as do all humans, responding to non-sonic factors in your experience, and (mis)attributing these to the sound waves. They are not where you think they are: they do not exist in the sound waves. They exist in your reactions to a multitude of non-sonic stimuli, aka cognitive biases and distortions. For example you might be biased in favour of (or against) heavier gear, bigger gear, certain brands, just to give the slightest inkling of the vast panoply of non-sonic triggers that you will mis-attribute to the sound waves.

cheers
 
After I've done my measurements, I sit back and listen. I'm not interested in doing contolled experiments on human behavoir. I'm no expert. And I don't really care. As biased as I probably am, I enjoy listening to music, I know what makes me feel good and I know what doesn't. Sure, there are numerous factors that I am completely unaware of. This fact does not invalidate my experience. I will leave the controlled experiments to the experts.
Then you need to stop making flat statements like:


I do not think that the human race has designed a test for audio equipment that captures the ear, mind and emotion that occurs when listening to music. Not yet.

Everything that is audible is measurable. Our measurement gear is way more sensitive, and with much higher bandwidth than our ears. Absolutely we can test audio equipment to levels far lower than our hearing can detect, and hence can know if there is any audible difference between them.

What our brains do with that audible difference is another matter - but that is also testable with properly controlled listening tests. As is our genuine ability to tell if there is a difference or not.
 
The first CDs created were done very poorly, no bass and screechy highs.
This is wrong. Sorry.

Some of us "lived through it"also , but in professional music recording studios before and after the release of CDs. Popular domestic LP playback sounded very different to analogue or digital masters. Even the first CDs sounded like original master tape. LP sounded "nice" but totally unlike the sound in a studio.

CDs can store "bass" flat down to DC! Nothing on an LP below 30Hz is of much value and below 20Hz it's a very loud thrashing maelstrom of noise and resonance which inter-modulates sound in the audio band. Do NOT trust an LP to tell you anything accurate about bass. Fortunately most common rock and classical music outside of organ and electronica does not need accurate, high quality reproduction below 50Hz.and, handily, our brains add back in any missing fundamentals!
 
Another inner track especially for @Robin L


Not easy these things...
 
The first CDs created were done very poorly, no bass and screechy highs. I know, I lived through it. This skill has improved.
I remember first hearing CDs around 1985, working at Tower Records. I didn't hear screech and a lack of bass, though CDs sounded wrong to me for different reasons. My first experiences with a CD player of my own were with the cheaper players available in the late 1980s. What I was hearing at the time was a lack of detail. In the 1990s, when I began recording classical musicians my impression was entirely different. Even though I was using a consumer DAT recorder I couldn't help but notice that the digital recording sounded exactly like the microphone feed from my little Mackie mixer, warts and all. Initially I thought digital recordings lacked resolution. But after some recording, I realized my turntable was exaggerating the high frequencies, giving the impression that digital recordings lacked detail.

Now, some 30 years after my experiences recording acoustic ensembles large and small, I've got better playback gear. I'm getting better sound than I ever got from LPs. Though I've got nearly 1600 CDs most of what I've been hearing in the last two weeks is from the Tidal streaming service. The sound quality depends on the quality of the original recording, but the best recordings still sound better than any of my LPs ever did. I do think such things as anti-aliasing filters have improved and that recording engineers have changed the way they do things. But some of the best sounding recordings I've heard are early digital recordings.
 
Meaning it's only there 50% of the time and only when you look for it?

Or that both possibilities (appreciating humour or not) exist simultaneously, but make of it what you will. :D
 
The first CDs created were done very poorly, no bass and screechy highs. I know, I lived through it.
Any specific examples? Yours is an often made claim. Usually no specifics are provided to support generalisations about early cds. You see, I lived through it too and my experience certainly was different.
 
And I can't help but be aware of what my ears say to me. Yes, this is a conundrum. I will say flatly that great specs do not necessarily create the best sound. Great specs are a guide to good audio.

This is not a conundrum. Specifications tell you how accurately a piece of equipment reproduces its input at its output. That's it. They do not tell you whether or not you will like the results. That happens between your ears.
 
That is great, so am I. But non of those technical qualifications mean a damn for audio, if they don't follow through to understanding how your own (and the rest of humanities) auditory system (all our senses in fact) function.

In particular,


suggests that you have totally failed to apply your scientific and engineering capabilities to properly understanding stuff outside your fairly narrow range of technical excellence - in this case human perceptive capabilities. No matter how technically capable you are, it can't make you magically immune to all the perceptive biases that the rest of humanity are subject to, nor can it make your ears magically more sensitive than everyone else's

If you are not comparing gear with properly controlled listening (properly blinded and level matched as a minimum), then you are
1 - not following well established scientific principles to get valid human perceptive data.
2 - more importantly, unable to determine if anything you think you are hearing actually exists in the soundwaves reaching your ears, or are created in the wetware between them.

I suggest you do some reading in these two threads. In amongst the nonsense there are also many nuggets of valid audio science. With your background, you should be able to tell the difference. The former is also the proper location for this type of discussion. The mods will probably move us there anyway.


Thank you for your criticism.
I am clearly biased. But it is the method I've chosen and one that I will stick with. I will never have the knowledge, experience and education needed to do what you've outlined above. I am comfortable with my methods. I understand my limitations.
 
Sure, but you made an attribution error. You thought that the reason your listening didn't correlate with the measurements was because the things you heard must be in the sound waves, and measurement wasn't picking them up, so the science of measurement is not good enough yet to correlate with what we can hear in the sound waves, ie, "I will say flatly that great specs do not necessarily create the best sound....I do not think that the human race has designed a test for audio equipment that captures the ear, mind and emotion that occurs when listening to music. Not yet."

Whereas reality appears to be that current test equipment can capture absolutely everything that is in the sound waves that the human ear can discern, and to which the mind and emotion can respond. And then some more.

The real reason, for your uncontrolled (sighted) listening leading to perceptions not found in the measurements, is that you are, as do all humans, responding to non-sonic factors in your experience, and (mis)attributing these to the sound waves. They are not where you think they are: they do not exist in the sound waves. They exist in your reactions to a multitude of non-sonic stimuli, aka cognitive biases and distortions. For example you might be biased in favour of (or against) heavier gear, bigger gear, certain brands, just to give the slightest inkling of the vast panoply of non-sonic triggers that you will mis-attribute to the sound waves.

cheers
Actually I was confirming that there is no means to capture emotional responses to music. There is no way to control all the factors.
Perhaps I did not make my thoughts clear.
 
That certainly fine.

But you’ll find that people in this forum want accurate information about audio gear, and so they’ll what more rigorous information, especially when it comes to dubious claims about music sources or audio gear.
Yes, that is the unique value of ASR. But, as you probably know, it is not an oracle.

For example: I was interested in obtaining a tube power amplifier. I checked out all the vendors. Then I looked on ASR for measurements on product(s) made by these vendors. PrimaLuma is one example. I stopped looking at their products based on the measurements that AMIR and others have made on their products. But there are other products that measure identically (or lower than the hearing threshold). Choosing between these products moves into a realm where measurements don't help.

I highly value ASR but it does not provide all the data I need to choose between components.

I want accurate info also because the rest is often all hype or bs.
 
Any specific examples? Yours is an often made claim. Usually no specifics are provided to support generalisations about early cds. You see, I lived through it too and my experience certainly was different.
I was there, as many of you lot were ;)

I remember a recording by Pinnock/Academy of Ancient Music -


Spunding screechy and hardly 'musical,' we used this disc to show how 'bad' CD was at the time. An early Polydor CD issue of Oxygene sounded 'dirty' to me and the first issue of 'Houses of The Holy' very hissy. My CD issue of Brothers in Arms has channels reversed over the original UK vinyl copy I have.

Fast forward less than ten years. The UK systems we then had lacked the projected upper mids and the bass of these systems was fleshed out a little more subjectively, more like the better 70s systems I remember when measurements mattered.

The Pinnock Vivaldi disc (same one) sounds a bit bright (original instruments) but now easy to listen to, the screech having gone. A second copy of Oxygene (Disque Dreyfus issue) sounds so much better/clearer, Jimmy Page had obviously used lower generation tapes for HOTH as the hiss has all but disappeared but no idea of Bros in Arms as it had been played to death on dems by this time :D

People's preference for 'a nice tone' still rules in some quarters. I was told tonight of a chap who is sending back his newly bought Fosi mono's because he prefers the 'sound' from an Arcam A80 , which I personally find soft and slightly 'bland' in presentation into the speakers I've used it with.... All measurable I'm certain, but my personal experience has been we so often blame the system component that's behaving perfectly :D
 
:rolleyes:
Since I assume you respect 'audio science', can you agree flatly that sighted listening is not the way to nail down the best reason why you think this?
I have no means to nail down the best reason, bor do I have the interest.I am not attempting to convince the world, I am certainly not running for public office. I was sharing an anecdote. My intent was to indicate that even a completely uninterested person could have a thoughtful impact. One that came without provocation. That's all.
I am quite surprised at the responses I've gotten. I think that sometimes one is far too critical of others thoughts and, gasp, feelings..
 
This is wrong. Sorry.

Some of us "lived through it"also , but in professional music recording studios before and after the release of CDs. Popular domestic LP playback sounded very different to analogue or digital masters. Even the first CDs sounded like original master tape. LP sounded "nice" but totally unlike the sound in a studio.

CDs can store "bass" flat down to DC! Nothing on an LP below 30Hz is of much value and below 20Hz it's a very loud thrashing maelstrom of noise and resonance which inter-modulates sound in the audio band. Do NOT trust an LP to tell you anything accurate about bass. Fortunately most common rock and classical music outside of organ and electronica does not need accurate, high quality reproduction below 50Hz.and, handily, our brains add back in any missing fundamentals!
From person to person, there will be different responses to a stimulus. I admit my statment was a bit forceful, Mea Culpa.

Mastering techs were learrning a new medium. I do not fault the medium. I've made that clear in my previous posts. CDs and digital files are bit perfect and make wonderfully accurate copies. I sometimes digitize LPs. The digital sounds exactly like the source LP.
In my opinion, whether it is an LP or a tape or a CD or a digital file, recording and mastering previously recorded music is far more important than the medium itself. I have crummy mastered LPs also. And I have great sounding CDs.
In my opinion, a lot of the music I listen to sounds blah. Some sound really great, even on that acknowledgedly crummy LP medium.
 
Mastering techs were learrning a new medium
You would think so, but professional digital mastering predated CD by many years. The guys knew what they were doing.
In my opinion, a lot of the music I listen to sounds blah
Mastering engineers have to produce a COMMERCIALLY SALEABLE product which is listenable in the average environment. This means at one extreme, mild gain-riding, through to compressors and limiters at the other extreme. A few of us here have genuinely very quiet rooms. But, the average listener is in a cafe, a workshop, in the car. A dynamic range above 30dB would make some passages unintelligible or simply not there.
 
You would think so, but professional digital mastering predated CD by many years. The guys knew what they were doing.

Mastering engineers have to produce a COMMERCIALLY SALEABLE product which is listenable in the average environment. This means at one extreme, mild gain-riding, through to compressors and limiters at the other extreme. A few of us here have genuinely very quiet rooms. But, the average listener is in a cafe, a workshop, in the car. A dynamic range above 30dB would make some passages unintelligible or simply not there.
. . . ahhh . . .

At one extreme is no compression, no gain-riding, nada. I've got a few of those recordings in my collection. If it's Pop music, it's going to be compressed one way or another. But early Telarcs, early Bis recordings and some more recent recordings from the same (including some from other labels, like Decca) have, if anything, too wide a dynamic range. A good example are the SACDs of Osmo Vanska/Minnesota Orchestra's Beethoven Symphony cycle. Part of the problem with that recording is that Vanska deliberately gets the quietest passages too low in volume to hear in most domestic environments. There's plenty of classical recordings of chamber music and instruments such as the harpsichord that don't require any compression.
 
You would think so, but professional digital mastering predated CD by many years. The guys knew what they were doing.

Mastering engineers have to produce a COMMERCIALLY SALEABLE product which is listenable in the average environment. This means at one extreme, mild gain-riding, through to compressors and limiters at the other extreme. A few of us here have genuinely very quiet rooms. But, the average listener is in a cafe, a workshop, in the car. A dynamic range above 30dB would make some passages unintelligible or simply not there.
If it doesn't look like an FM signal after exiting the the noise limiter, it doesn't go to market.
 
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