Have you achieve a listening system that reach that mix engineer, master engineer or producer intended production quality?

[Geert]

I once mixed an album where the client kept on insisting to lower the vocals. I knew they were wrong, but what could I do? At the end of the session their keyboard player joined us. He brought a record he recently discovered, and he wanted us to have a listen. Everyone's response was, "whooow these vocals sound amazing". So I went back to the mix we were working on, increased the level of the vocals to where I thought they needed to be, and everyone was happy... Just an example of what you need to deal with as an engineer.

 

[Snarfie]

IMO the problem in discussing what master engineer or producer intended is that you need to know or have an average view how their gear an especially their acoustics is based on.
What we do know is that the financial build up of a quality studio is around 30% gear an 70% acoustic treatment. This is mostly done to get a quality sound that is tend to a more ore less stable, transparent possible a more flat frequency response compared with our listening rooms who are far of quality studio control rooms.

So i tend to get my gear an room acousticly as flat as possible, an from there on i adjust my precieved sound if necessary with a custom target curve. It means regarding the choice of my gear that is has to be flat an regarding SPL it must to tend to be uncompromised an as distortion free as possible . The same for my room acoustics where i need room correction software. It is not feasible to get my room correction flat ( far field listening) with bass trapes, absorption panels etc etc.

Than it is vital that especially my far field setup/speakers has to be placed correctly for the most transparent sound it can produce. That means preferable the speakers has to be phase coherent/time alignt from a design point of view like Vandersteen, Thiel etc. ore has to be corrected by room correction software or both.

Regarding the (flat) uncompromised gear it is in my experience depended from the size of your room. As an example my room is 7 x 4 meters an 2.5 meters high (so 70 cubic meters) but it is located in a attic with as saddle roof which almost half-ed ( i have a dormer) the cubic meters to 53 cubic meters which is positive (compared to 70 cubic feet) for the SPL that has to be produced without any compromise by my gear specific my amplifier a NAD C370 which has no problems to reproduce the desired sound without a noticeable distortion for 53 cubic meters.

My current setup qualifies for that an I'm happy with the results. It does not means everything sound great but recordings that are based on above let say a flat neutral setup sounds really amazing the bad recordings could sound really unforgiving to horrible. An consequence is that i tend to listen to good recordings an skip less/bad recordings in that case a personal drawn target curve could help a bit.

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

I'll see if I can better explain why this doesn't matter.

So, the premise of this thread is that we can't get to what the artist and engineers "intended" for us to hear in their recording without knowing what they made the recording on in terms of gear (as well as what sort of EQ and room setup they may have had). I mean let's say for example that the recording was made in a studio that happened to have a sound system featuring (for some reason) a 10db shelf above 5khz! (I'm using a somewhat ludicrous example for the sake of argument). Presumably the engineer - if he doesn't have concrete ear drums - would then end up pulling the sliders down on the higher frequency stuff to compensate for the ear searing sound system which would lead to a recording that those of us with "normal" sounding systems would find to sound dull and lifeless. Hence, the circle of confusion.

So what are we to do? Should we go around from shop to shop auditioning equipment with that one recording in hand until we happen upon a setup that has a 10db treble shelf? To make that bad recording sound right? Do a lot of recordings share that peculiarity? Does it make sense to use one bad recording...or even a few...or a dozen bad recordings to assemble a rig? If we're putting a system together to listen to musical recordings of all kinds, does it make any sense to use a selection of our favorite recordings (a handful out of thousands and thousands?) to choose the equipment? Or should we try and find some other...more objective way to go?

The reality is that most recordings sound pretty good. Engineers and studios presumably get to make a lot of recordings by being fairly good at making recordings that sound good to a lot of people. Engineers are humans who have ears that work just like those of audiophiles and other human beings. Also, they probably listen to their recordings on a variety of equipment rather than just one potentially flawed setup. [which is why many systems put together by audiophiles in the classic audiophile way - auditioning gear using favorite test recordings - actually end up sounding pretty damn good anyway...because most stuff sounds good and we all have mostly similar ears and like similar tonality.] I'd rather have a system that I know is broadcasting most recordings accurately rather than one that is making my handful of (possibly bad) audition favorites sound great and doing who-knows-what to all the rest.

Once I have a system that I know is getting the recording out into the air of my room in an accurate and un-adjusted manner (aka no 10db treble shelf hard-wired into it) then, if a particular recording doesn't sound right maybe I can fiddle with the tone controls or EQ a bit to try and make it better. Although, I rarely find that works very well. Usually, adjusting one thing to try and fix a poor sounding recording just creates other issues elsewhere. I also very rarely feel the need because most recordings are pretty good and sound just fine on my system.

 

[Robin L]

. . . I mean let's say for example that the recording was made in a studio that happened to have a sound system featuring (for some reason) a 10db shelf above 5khz! (I'm using a somewhat ludicrous example for the sake of argument). . .

[ . . . ahem : Fleetwood Mac, "Rumours", cough . . .]

 

[abdo123]

Do you have a reference to that?

It's the only way i can explain why it sounds so bad, or perhaps Adele is deaf. but i wouldn't bet on the later.

 

[ADU]

I'll see if I can better explain why this doesn't matter...

Fwiw, I agree with most of what yer sayin here, Sgt. Ear Ache. I think it is possible for reasonable people to disagree on what constitutes a neutral, accurate, or transparent sound though.

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

Fwiw, I agree with most of what yer sayin here, Sgt. Ear Ache. I think it is possible for reasonable people to disagree on what constitutes a neutral, accurate, or transparent sound though.

Hmmm...how so? I mean if - in a measurable sense - what goes into your system is X, and what comes out the other end is also X...you have a system that isn't altering X and therefore is neutral no?

 

[Geert]

It's the only way i can explain why it sounds so bad, or perhaps Adele is deaf. but i wouldn't bet on the later.

So that headphone thing was only an assumption, which less informed people will accept as a fact.

I already gave examples of other reasons, but in the end we don't know. What I do know is, if Adele or the record label wasn't happy with the mastering it would get redone, if needed by another mastering studio. I've seen it happen on multiple occasions, even by much smaller artists. So deaf or not, someone in Adele's team is not paying attention.

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

Having said what I did above, it's important to note that this is never a perfect process. I mean we can get pretty close to perfect up to a point, but as soon as the signal hits the speakers and our room? Chaos! lol...but it can be controlled chaos. We can still choose speakers that have good measured performance and we can use some basic measuring and EQ to try and control the room as well. It's never 100%. But it also doesn't have to be. Close is good enough. Our hearing is a biological system and it's evolved a certain amount of adaptability. It's why we can work in loud noisy environments. It's why we can train ourselves to hear certain specific artifacts. It also possibly explains certain audiophile phenomena (Burn-in? Vinyl? And of course the 800lb gorilla - cognitive bias.) Conversely, it's also the reason that having some sort of objective criteria that doesn't rely on our hearing is a good idea. We've probably all known someone who had trained themselves to prefer an "odd" tonality. I knew a guy back in the 80s who - by gradually turning the treble up over a period of years - had trained himself to prefer an incredibly obnoxious high frequency tonality. I remember he had one of those Sears Kenwood rack systems (the $1499.00 one lol) and the sliders on the 12 band EQ were a perfect straight line slope starting with the bottom (bass) end at -12 and upwards to the top end at +12. It sounded gawd-awful! But he loved it.

 

[Ricardus]

A lot of time, mixing are done by switching between headphone and studio monitor, that including me. I heard people can mix entirely in headphone but I have come across one personally. I have done that being pressed for time.

This is baffling to me. I have never, and I mean never seen an engineer in a large studio use headphones. Ever. The only time I've seen anyone in the control room listen in headphones is to check a cue mix for someone in the tracking room.

 

[kongwee]

This is baffling to me. I have never, and I mean never seen an engineer in a large studio use headphones. Ever. The only time I've seen anyone in the control room listen in headphones is to check a cue mix for someone in the tracking room.

Well, producer could have paid for few mixes. Just my speculate as I never have the chance to be that level of producer. Whether the mix is from headphone or speaker no idea.

 

[MattHooper]

Re the OP's question:

I dunno. Can't say for sure given the massive number of variables (circle of confusion).

On the other hand, I have had numerous musician friends bring their music to listen to on my system and they are extremely happy with what they hear. They find that the system is very revealing of the work they did, in a very pleasing way. Some have even brought different masters they are trying to decide between and we go through the merits of each.

As to "what was intended," the overriding intention of musical artists is that you listen to and enjoy their music. The End. When my musician friends (selling/streaming their music etc) get enthusiastic feedback on their tracks, they give heartfelt thanks for their music having been enjoyed by that listener. They don't stop and ask what type of system they used. Nor does almost any other musical artist. The essentials of what makes one song and performance loved or unique translate through countless different audio systems, from old bedroom one box record players and transistor radios in the 60's to laptops, ear buds, car stereos and Revel Salons in 2022.

I'm as nuts as anyone here for how good audio equipment can elevate the sound quality, but in terms of "artist intent" and some purity goal of "Hearing precisely what the artist intended" I think many mountains are made from molehills.

 

[ADU]

I'm as nuts as anyone here for how good audio equipment can elevate the sound quality, but in terms of "artist intent" and some purity goal of "Hearing precisely what the artist intended" I think many mountains are made from molehills.

Can sound quality be defined objectively apart from accurately reproducing what the author intended? And if so, what basis would you use for that?

 

[ADU]

This is baffling to me. I have never, and I mean never seen an engineer in a large studio use headphones. Ever. The only time I've seen anyone in the control room listen in headphones is to check a cue mix for someone in the tracking room.

If a large segment of your intended audience listens primarily on headphones (which is certainly the case with some kinds of music these days), then wouldn't it make some sense to at least check the sound on a couple of the more popular and widely used head or earphones?

 

[ADU]

Hmmm...how so? I mean if - in a measurable sense - what goes into your system is X, and what comes out the other end is also X...you have a system that isn't altering X and therefore is neutral no?

I think you already stole my answer on this one. But even if we could precisely define X at the input, and could ensure absolute fidelity between there and the output, I think it would still be a challenge to precisely define what a neutral or accurate sound is for many of the reasons you raise above. The chief obstacle to that imo would not be the room or listener's hearing (though those could also be important factors). It would be the design, dispersion, extension, and possibly some other acoustic properties of the loudspeaker itself, since these things can all vary by a certain amount even on different speakers with a relatively flat direct/on-axis response.

 

[MattHooper]

Can sound quality be defined objectively apart from accurately reproducing what the author intended? And if so, what basis would you use for that?

It's an inherently bedeviling subject because whatever arbitrary objective goal we define - which can be useful - the ultimate goal is subjective impressions.

I think a concept like "Accuracy" or "High Fidelity" can be useful, for instance the goal of reproducing the sonic information contained in the source information (e.g. digital file or whatever) and doing so with as little added distortion as possible - can clearly be very useful. It gives some hope to leaving the subjective morass and allowing objective verification (measurements etc).

On the other hand it seems problematic to meld "Accuracy" with "Sound Quality" because I think the basic notion of "sound quality" springs from subjective impressions and assessment. I think there is a sort of base-level identification of "sound quality" to some degree. ONE such identifier can be "sonic realism." So for instance you play a well recorded saxophone or vocal track through a crappy little blue tooth speaker, and then through a high end system using Revel Salon speakers, which reproduces more of the scale, power, clarity, dynamics and timbral complexity of the real thing, and most people are going to select the Revel system as displaying "higher sound quality." I've yet to play my system, for instance, for non-audiophile guests who weren't immediately impressed by the "higher level of sound quality" than they were used to hearing. (And it's usually accompanied by the guests noting a level of "realism" in the sound they hadn't encountered - "like I'm right there in the studio hearing the person perform!").

"Accuracy" doesn't seem to map directly on to this subjective goal. If you take truly terrible, muffled, thin, scratchy old recordings and play them back through the most "accurate" system in the world...it will still impress the listener as being "poor sound quality." That is after all why we can use accurate systems to talk about what mastering jobs or albums or whatever are poorer or better than others.

The accuracy of a system can of course help elevate sound quality - but ONLY insofar as the source itself has High Sound Quality to begin with - "sound quality" as we subjectively rate such things.

So, as I've said, defining certain goals that are more amenable to objective verification is almost always going to be useful. Hence the usefulness of a certain basic idea of "accuracy" generally used by Amirm and others on this forum.

But anyone paying attention will, I think, notice that "accuracy" in of itself isn't the same as "sound quality" and sound quality is really our overriding goal. Accuracy can be a means to that end...but not always.

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

But anyone paying attention will, I think, notice that "accuracy" in of itself isn't the same as "sound quality" and sound quality is really our overriding goal. Accuracy can be a means to that end...but not always.

Would you say that inaccuracy is any closer to the same as sound quality? I don't think any of us are suggesting that accuracy = sound quality. Certainly not in the sense that accuracy makes poor recordings sound great. I think we're saying that accuracy allows you to access the best you can get out of a recording. The sound quality is baked into the recording. All you can do is try to get the most out of that.

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

I think you already stole my answer on this one. But even if we could precisely define X at the input, and could ensure absolute fidelity between there and the output, I think it would still be a challenge to precisely define what a neutral or accurate sound is for many of the reasons you raise above. The chief obstacle to that imo would not be the room or listener's hearing (though those could also be important factors). It would be the design, dispersion, extension, and possibly some other acoustic properties of the loudspeaker itself, since these things can all vary by a certain amount even on different speakers with a relatively flat direct/on-axis response.

But nothing I said related to the "definition" of neutrality. I was describing the difficulty of actually getting there. But as I said, it doesn't have to be perfect. It's more of a guiding principle. Ultimately, the goal is to not have a system that adds it's own special sauce to the equation. Of course, anyone who wants to add that special sauce is completely entitled to do so...that's totally up to the individual. But I don't see how one could make any sort of argument that that is getting them closer to the mythical intent of the artist.

 

[MattHooper]

Would you say that inaccuracy is any closer to the same as sound quality? I don't think any of us are suggesting that accuracy = sound quality.

I was trying to answer ADU's specific question.

And I know you are right that most understand the difference. On the other hand, there actually does occur a sort of conflation or at least a level of losing-sight-of-the-forest-for-the-trees attitude I've occaisionally seen here. That comes with pronouncements like "This forum is about Hi Fidelity! If that isn't your goal, what are you doing here?" As I've said, I view that as a misunderstanding of the type I just tried to untangle in my reply to ADU. The only reason anyone cares about hi fidelity in the sense of accuracy has to do with the underlying goal of caring about sound quality. We want to enjoy the sound from our systems - many, rightly, care about accuracy because it can lead to excellent sound.

Certainly not in the sense that accuracy makes poor recordings sound great. I think we're saying that accuracy allows you to access the best you can get out of a recording. The sound quality is baked into the recording. All you can do is try to get the most out of that.

That's what I'm getting at.

*(with the only quibble being that generally speaking, while a best case scenario would be Super High Recording Quality reproduced accurately, in reality recordings are prone to colorations of various sorts, and hence an individual may find some overall coloration added to the sound to be to his liking. It might be a tube amp for one person, another may have an EQ setting he prefers overall, another person may prefer the sound of stereo processed to his surround sound system, etc. In fact I have no doubt that when I watch lots of youtube music videos in my home theater room that the stereo version is more accurate, but I often much prefer them processed in to surround sound).

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

I was trying to answer ADU's specific question.

And I know you are right that most understand the difference. On the other hand, there actually does occur a sort of conflation or at least a level of losing-sight-of-the-forest-for-the-trees attitude I've occaisionally seen here. That comes with pronouncements like "This forum is about Hi Fidelity! If that isn't your goal, what are you doing here?" As I've said, I view that as a misunderstanding of the type I just tried to untangle in my reply to ADU. The only reason anyone cares about hi fidelity in the sense of accuracy has to do with the underlying goal of caring about sound quality. We want to enjoy the sound from our systems - many, rightly, care about accuracy because it can lead to excellent sound.



That's what I'm getting at.

*(with the only quibble being that generally speaking, while a best case scenario would be Super High Recording Quality reproduced accurately, in reality recordings are prone to colorations of various sorts, and hence an individual may find some overall coloration added to the sound to be to his liking. It might be a tube amp for one person, another may have an EQ setting he prefers overall, another person may prefer the sound of stereo processed to his surround sound system, etc. In fact I have no doubt that when I watch lots of youtube music videos in my home theater room that the stereo version is more accurate, but I often much prefer them processed in to surround sound).

well of course. People like all kinds of different sounds and distortions. The problem is, those distortions are often presented in the audiophile world as being warmer, more musical...in fact more real. In other words, those things are presented as though they are revealing the true musicality of the recording. In a way, those distortions and preferences are sometimes presented as though they are actually the more accurate representation of the recording.