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Master Thread: Are measurements Everything or Nothing?

Gonna break my rule. One post only. No follow ups. Actually I am only writing this for third party readers to see what's really going on.

O general reader, let's look at the full paragraph from which the above in bold was cherry-picked:

If a "target' curve has been achieved, and the sound quality is not satisfactory, the suggestion is often to go into the menu, find the manual adjustment routine, and play around with the shape of the curve until you or your customer like the sound. This is not a calibration. This is a subjective exercise in manipulating an elaborate tone control. Once set it is fixed, and in it will be reflected timbral features of the music being listened to at the time. In other words, the circle of confusion is now included in the system setup. By all means do it, but do not think that the exercise has been a "calibration". Old fashioned bass & treble tone controls and modern "tilt" controls are the answer and they can be changed at will to compensate for personal taste and excesses or deficiencies in recordings. Sadly, many "high end" products do not have tone controls - dumb. It is assumed that recordings are universally "perfect" - wrong!

Read the first line above (and further back as needed). This is describing the situation where the consumer has blundered, and used his Auto Room Correction in his AVR to do full-range correction, and made things worse. Specifically, "the sound quality is not satisfactory". So you don't like the sound (because you have stuffed up), so Toole says don't try to fix it by 'playing around with the shape of the target in-room curve' when listening to a recording, because then that one recording will be built into your fixed deep-menu settings, and you will now have recording-dependent satisfactoriness all the time. So a tone control would be your best option here, having stuffed up, because you are going to have to do it all the time if you use a music recording then try to 'do something about it'.

But when someone is setting up their system the right way, he says this: "Tone controls are still a requirement to compensate for occasional excesses and failings of recordings." That's it. Do things right, and you would then use a tone control for that purpose.

You can see now who has been twisting things.


Again with the errors of omission. Again, here is the whole paragraph:

Setting up a system according to personal preferences in spectral balance includes the circle of confusion and therefore generalization to all programs is not possible. Depending on the shortcomings in your loudspeakers and room results can vary. Better to have easily accessible tone controls that can be instantly adapted to your personal preference - for any program.

The first sentence is actually saying it isn't possible to use personal preferences in spectral balance to set up your system after Auto Room Correction (again...), because the result will be stuffed up by other variables and too inconsistent.

Read the whole link to AVS where the quote was taken: Toole was responding to someone who literally said, "I don't mind having to rely on personal preference when it comes to adjusting the frequency response post auto room correction". And he (Toole) wasn't happy with that idea. He wanted to say something very specific and conditional: IF you are going to misuse auto room correction, and then tweak the mess to taste afterwards with EQ... then of the two options for doing the tweaking, either in the room correction software or with a much-more-accessible tone control, then he would suggest the tone control as the least-worst of those two, because you are going to be doing it all the time...for all recordings (ie "for any program"). In other words, this is Toole describing exactly the same situation as we found in the first quote that I dealt with above, again misrepresented with the same missing context.

And the last sentence, where Matt thinks he has a 'gotcha' and highlights "for ANY program"... that's just Toole reintroducing the variable of recording quality... exactly what I always say Toole advocates in the use of tone controls. So even the 'gotcha' is a misrepresentation. Is it deliberate? Who knows: maybe it's just miscomprehension.


I hope the reader can see what is happening. I repeatedly try to include the context and conditions, for example saying the research does indeed suggest we tweak for personal preference... in the level of the bass output. But Matt is more into misrepresenting anyone anywhere: a most recent example in the page above this one, when antcollinet said that some of us might be using a tone control "adjusting the tone of particular recordings that may have been recorded bright or dull." (in other words, specifically for bad recordings), Matt twisted it into "In other words adjusting to personal taste." (oh, suddenly it's not about bad recordings any more? Suddenly it is not about correcting something like a bright or dull recording, but 'to taste'? Deliberate misrepresentation). IMHO it is just not a good look.

I am not going to play into that way of 'discussing' things. I am just going to correct it. Once. Job done. (You can see why I have a policy, hey! What a mess.)
I used the early Tact room correction system. I became fairly good at adjusting it for friends to their liking. It took a bit of time and knowledge to use it effectively. That system had 9 possible presets. You loaded a calibration curve, and could adjust it for speaker size and other things. I put #1 to be the calibration. I then had a variety of other tweaked curves for various type recordings. I knew these people and would use a some of their favorite music to set these. So it was something like preset tone controls for them to choose from. It worked out pretty well usually.
 
In sound reproduction, distortion refers to any change in the original audio signal that causes the output to differ from the input.
That can of course be extended "from the output" to "at the listening position"


In which case DSP/room correction can be considered to be a reduction in distortion or an increase in fidelity - even if on the output of the amp, it might be worsened.

Tone controls can be similarly viewed - if in fact that are improving an unbalanced room response.


Both of these though can also be used to change the spectral balance "to taste" - for example with DSP by choice of target curve, or with tone controls by "cranking the bass"

Non linear distortion though can only ever be a reduction in fidelity, no matter how you view it - both on the output of the device, and at the listening position.
 
If the sighted impressions concur with the measurements?
What if not..?
This does happen at least sometimes, as Matt has pointed out.
I haven’t said otherwise, I just point out that you don’t have to settle for sometimes if you have reliable measurements at hand.
 
I remember he informally estimated that his listening impressions were accurate around 80% of the time .
Bingo. Here you have the crux of the issue IMO.

If you are listening at home for your own pleasure makeing adjustments to suit your preference. Adjusting recordings because they sound "thin" or whatever. Sticking in whatever gear you like with whatever level of distortion. Then anything goes. Fill yer boots. (But please (everyone) take note of measurements that tell you where there is no difference to be had, and stop putting in expensive gear that brings nothing to the table.)

The problem comes when people take this sighted listening and try to inform others about the characteristics of the gear. Especially as done often on other forums, and frequently here when newbies who have wandered off their usual estates come in.

As you have pointed out - even with speakers, which are known to have gross departures from accuracy - and with an experienced reviewer well used to alighing his impressions with measurements - he gets his sighted listening wrong 20% of the time. The other 80% of the time - were he not to back them up with measurements there would be no way of knowing if the assessment is accurate or not.

Sighted listening therefore - while perfectly valid for getting your home system working the way you like it - has absolutely no value in informing anyone else how they will experience any particular piece of gear.
 
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What if not..?

I haven’t said otherwise, I just point out that you don’t have to settle for sometimes if you have reliable measurements at hand.
I totally agree. Like with Stereophile or HFN, I go right to the measurements. The subjective review I'll either skip entirely, skim read, or read in full depending on the writer.

If we have no measurements to go on, the writer's previous form can be used to gauge the usefulness of the subjective review.

Regardless of good measurements or the review I only give my own verdict after living with the speaker for a while. No substitute for that, which is why I think a lot of this argument is moot.
 
I can't recall the last time I used a tone control to correct a bright or dull recording. I'm inclined to think such things don't actually exist. But if they do, is that not inherently the art? And by correcting it, is that not just correcting the art to our personal taste?

If you would have a vintage car rebuild by a resto-mod shop and it ends up with dull spots in the paint job, would you consider that to be part of the art? I guess you would call it amateur work instead.
 
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If you would have a vintage car rebuild by a resto-mod shop and it ends up with dull spots in the paint job, would you consider that to be part of the art? I guess you would call it amateur work instead.
Repainting a car isn't creating art.

A dull spot in the paint would be a mistake. Like a tape drop out on a recording.

A dull or bright balance across an entire recording is an artistic choice. Should such a thing actually exist.
 
I can't recall the last time I used a tone control to correct a bright or dull recording.

I'm inclined to think such things don't actually exist. But if they do, is that not inherently the art? And by correcting it, is that not just correcting the art to our personal taste?

I get why Toole says don't try to fix it by messing with your DRC settings every time you play a recording since that's impractical. But really, there are no rules here.

I don't have tone control knobs, so don't use them either, but do use system-wide EQ to optimise the signal in the listening area vs the influence of the room, and address some nonlinearities in the loudspeakers. Which as @antcollinet says is more an attempt to improve reproduction within the constraints of the amp-speaker-room system than anything else. But I also "correct" to the B&K 1974 curve, which may or may not represent fidelity depending how you approach that issue, and which has an element of personal taste.

... The problem comes when people take this sighted listening and try to inform others about the characteristics of the gear. Especially as done often on other forums, and frequently here when newbies who have wandered off their usual estates come in.

As you have pointed out - even with speakers, which are known to have gross departures from accuracy - and with an experienced reviewer well used to alighing his impressions with measurements - he gets his sighted listening wrong 20% of the time. The other 80% of the time - were he not to back them up with measurements there would be no way of knowing if the assessment is accurate or not.

Sighted listening therefore - while perfectly valid for getting your home system working the way you like it - has absolutely no value in informing anyone else how they will experience any particular piece of gear.

We appear to have invented the 80/20 rule. While I generally agree, I think "absolutely no value" is overstated. Using previous form is a sensible approach when dealing with observations by others.
 
Repainting a car isn't creating art.

It can be art when it's a custom build (that's what I meant by resto-mod shop).

A dull or bright balance across an entire recording is an artistic choice.

So when it comes to tonality in mixing and mastering there's zero chance of a fuck-up or a wrong assessment, and no notion of quality of work? Really? Also when it prevents most people from enjoying the music?
 
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If you are adding distortion to every song how is that adjusting for individual records.
You like adding distortion that’s fine I don’t.
Keith

Yes, you do like adding distortion to everything you listen to; you choose to do it with your favorite loudspeakers in a similar way as a tube amplifier might add distortion to everything.




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There is also an official third mix, the "In-Side Mix", in Atmos. Gabriel describes it as “doing a wonderful job generating these much more three-dimensional mixes”.

Each mix is the sole creation of one mixer: Mark Stent for Bright-Side, Chad Blake for Dark-Side, and Hans-Martin Buff for In-Side.
As I suggested a while ago, Atmos is becoming the new excuse alongside vinyl for serving up garbage stereo for the majority. And for the record, I've heard the Bright Side mix of several tracks on a semi-decent car stereo system - a supposed target for these flat mixes - and it was every bit as bad.

There's a lot I don't understand with this particular release. Were the two stereo mixes forced flat by the named engineers, or did that happen after? It seems that they did it, because the stereo mixes on the Blu-Ray are at a lower level yet still as squashed. Is this a policy to drive people to Atmos? Stuff like this is more likely to drive younger listeners just getting that first phone and earbuds away from music rather than into it. Indeed, there are amateur concert YouTube videos of some of the songs which despite obvious limitations and crowd noise, seem more listenable.

I also wondered if this has something to do with big companies and studios that can do Atmos, trying to hurt stereo because they would be the big winners from a switch to surround. Again, the coming VR/AR revolution will use spatial audio. I presume the rest of the recorded music industry will have to go there as a result. It will push the price of entry up, if nothing else.
 
Is this a policy to drive people to Atmos?

There's good money to be made in remastering popular albums in Atmos and selling the same old wine in a new bottle. A colleague of mine has build a second studio control room for it and it's a success .
 
There's good money to be made in remastering popular albums in Atmos and selling the same old wine in a new bottle. A colleague of mine has build a second studio control room for it and it's a success .
Done well, it should be more than the same old wine in a new bottle. Maybe better plating of a meal would be a closer analogy?
 
Done well, it should be more than the same old wine in a new bottle. Maybe better plating of a meal would be a closer analogy?

Sure, assuming customers can install a decent Atmos setup at home. I have the impression that it's mostly about Atmos headphones and soundbars. Not sure if old skool audiophiles believe that's the way forward. Time will tell.
 
Sure, assuming customers can install a decent Atmos setup at home. I have the impression that it's mostly about Atmos headphones and soundbars. Not sure if old skool audiophiles believe that's the way forward. Time will tell.
It's going to be about Atmos headphones for me soon. My partner has poor hearing and problems with conventional surround sound, so I doubt Atmos will help her and with other problems installing it in our living room, I won't be going there in the near future, so I will be trying headphones as partial solution.

The point is that over 90% of people who are going to listen to an album in the near future will be doing it in stereo of some kind. Driving them away with poor mixes isn't going to help support recorded music.
 
Sure, assuming customers can install a decent Atmos setup at home. I have the impression that it's mostly about Atmos headphones and soundbars. Not sure if old skool audiophiles believe that's the way forward. Time will tell.
I’m an “old skool” audiophile and there’s no way I’d spend more money on all those extra speakers and different equipment for a “superior” way to listen to music. It makes more sense for a theater set up, and those who have that can enjoy those mixes.

I guess I’m easily satisfied, I still use a 1080p tv and projector, and phantom surround from my stereo speakers. There’s lot’s more money to be made pushing technology that forces you to buy more stuff.
 
The point is that over 90% of people who are going to listen to an album in the near future will be doing it in stereo of some kind. Driving them away with poor mixes isn't going to help support recorded music.

Indeed. But with each new technology there's an initial peak of inflated expectations where certain people become a bit to enthusiastic. Lets see what happens when they get more insights into mainstream adoption.
 
Your “problem” is, I think, that you mostly reason from your own vast professional knowledge and experience. This gives you some unique perspectives and in certain cases improved sighted reliability that you simply cannot copy over to everyone else. Sure, other people may be similar, but it’s clearly not a default for humankind. Most of us here reason more from this average default position, while you say: hang on, some people can actually do this in a fairly reliable manner! Yes, they can! Good for them! But how do we know who is reliable, who is not? Where does this reliability break down? How do we find out?

When any person (not just a reviewer as it can as likely be you) describes the sound characteristics of a loudspeaker in detail that translates well to my experience with that same loudspeaker, I will put some trust in you the next time you describe the sound characteristics of another loudspeaker even if I have never listened to it myself.

My level of trust in you will of course rise every time you describe the sound of other loudspeakers which also translates well to my experience with that same loudspeaker, and every time this happens, I know you are a fairly reliable source for me.
I’m sure you have friends you can trust when it comes to their description of how something sounds, that’s pretty much the same thing as getting to “know” a reviewer’s taste and description of the sound characteristics of different loudspeakers and how they compare to other loudspeakers.

I choose ‘loudspeakers’ in the above example, but the same trust can be for someone describing the sound of audio tracks and different tonality between different masters, or anything else when it comes to how things sounds.
 
I haven’t read a subjective review in what fifteen years, they are completely without merit.
Keith
 
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