Wow, so I guess the fundamentals of audibility, as established by even older (long-dead) doyens of psychoacoustics, have neither currency nor relevance today? So little relevance as to be laughable, “Haha”? Once you’re elderly, your life’s work is junk, and dismissed with a hand-wave, and despite the fact that Toole would be well versed in current audio science and not refer to obsolete findings in his recent comments that I quoted, his views are still laughable and borderline quaint “memorabilia”??
Toole’s tags on ASR as Audio Luminary, and Technical Expert, should have an asterisk for “too old to take seriously”?
Your disrespectfulness is despicable. Your denialistic mindset is transparent.
I think it's quite obvious Axos was not dissing Toole's body of work (obvious from plenty of what Axos has written on this forum, and in this thread). That's the most hysterical and least charitable take. But it looks like we won't get a clarification for now.
In any case, everything Toole writes is not Holy Writ on every subject. It doesn't settle issues "just because Toole had something to say about it."
So again to take your example:
Floyd Toole:
"Anyone promoting LPs does not understand, or won't admit, that the signal that is extracted from an LP cannot be the same as the master recording. Cannot = can not!
As I pointed out before, that part of the quote is a red herring. It might be relevant as a jibe at those who promote the b.s. about records being technically superior "analog produces the whole waveform, unlike digital, don't you know!" But it's not relevant to all of us who enjoy records, who have readily admitted digital is the technically superior medium. So that can be dismissed if you want to actually address OUR arguments.
So, such people are content not to hear the art as it was created. This is provable fact, not my opinion.
Surely you'd recognize that there is a whole lot of contentious stuff packed in to such a statement? In the context of the arguments given for vinyl (by people who don't deny digital is technically superior), Toole's statement really is closer to "opinion" than "fact." Because his opinion mushes in various issues that are debatable, and under debate, not mere "fact."
Is it really true that people who listen to records are "
content not to hear the art as it was created?" What does that even MEAN? First: does this mean that in the many decades before CDs, when records predominated, nobody cared to hear"art as it was created?" Again, what would that MEAN? People were of course perusing "hi-fi" long before CDs came on the scene. So of course many cared. And what does "the art as it was created" mean exactly? We usually can't recreate the speakers and mixing rooms of much of recorded music. So why is someone playing a digital file on their modern system so sure he is hearing the "art as it was created?" You mean the signal on the recording? Well, if it sounds different in your set up than it did in the mixing room "when it was created" why do YOU get to define what the sound of the art was "when created?" Circle of confusion, remember? This is people throwing bricks in glass houses stuff. Who gets to say "I am the one who CARES about The Art As It Was Created?"
Let's put a finer point on it. Take a digital duplicate of a modern master of a song. Duplicate it. Now A is an exact copy, but in B...add one single, subtle "tick" just before the track begins, or maybe in a quiet part, like a vinyl artifact. Now, imagine someone declares "If you listen to B, then you can't really care about The Art As It Was Created. If you REALLY want to hear the art of the recording, you MUST choose A."
Wha? I hope you could agree this is dogmatic to the extreme. What constitutes the "art" in the musical recording? Surely it is the music itself, the melody, rhythm, arrangement, and the selection of specific instruments, the specific performance characteristics, the vocals, all the production mixing choices for micing, reverbs, effects etc. That's an ENORMOUS amount of sonic information that comprises the "musical art." So what proportion of the actual musical information would you be hearing, relative to a teeny fleeting "tick?" Obviously, the sonic information describing the musical and recording artistry utterly overwhelms a little "tick" proportionately. So it would be just silly to cite that artifact as a barrier to hearing "The Art As It Was Created." That's missing the forest for the ticks, to say the least. And it just opens up the purity-testing dogma that few can pass. If daring to listen to vinyl means you don't care about the artistic creation, then doesn't ANY and ALL deviations from Pure Accuracy say the same thing? If someone buy's for instance one of Revel's excellent measuring speakers that are not full range, does this mean that person "doesn't really care about art as it was created?" Do only people with full range, perfectly neutral systems get that badge of honour? This gets ridiculous and petty pretty fast.
And so what really matters is the degree to which vinyl compromises or artifacts are a barrier to "hearing the art of the musical recording." And this can happen to a greater or lesser degree. Very often, I find, a minimal to insignificant degree. By far the vast amount of sonic information on most records I own, comparing to digital, is the Musically, Artistically Relevant information cited above, vastly swamping most of the vinyl artifacts. This is even obvious in the samples Levimax posted. I can hear a bit of difference between them but dogmatic statements that in one case "you don't care about the music that the artist created?" Get outta here!
My brother, an indie musician, comes to listen to the vinyl copy of his album at my place. Is he up in arms that we aren't hearing "the music as he created it?" Of course not. He has a different sounding room and speakers than mine. But all the details he sweated over come through gloriously on the LP through my system, and he's thrilled!
So, I'm sorry but if Floyd is simply citing digital's superiority in accuracy, sure. But there is too much philosophical OPINION shoved in to his statement:
such people are content not to hear the art as it was created - to settle the type of disagreements we are actually discussing. That's not some objective "fact."
LPs are interesting as historical memorabilia, as are old cars, replicas of old cars, etc., which is absolutely fine - I would love to have an old Chevy to cruise around in on a sunny Sunday morning, but I have zero interest in LPs for enjoying music. "
Which is just Floyd's opinion on whether he likes to listen to records or not. To take it as anything more, as if settling the dispute here, would be a fallacious version of an Appeal To Authority. (There are valid appeals to authority, but this would not be one of them for the reasons cited).
app.box.com
