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New Yorker piece on audiophiles

Robin L

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Lucy Van Pelt offered the same criticism decades ago.

View attachment 126351




. . . and here it is!

beethoven.jpg
 

jsrtheta

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I suspect he's unaware, though that doesn't mean I don't think he's BSing himself and others about what he hears. Clearly, the author had MF looking over his shoulder, and I suspect he hoped for approval at some level.

It's possible that he's in the pocket of those companies whose products he placed. I think that happens when audio is written about in the popular press a lot more often than regular readers realize, though I don't think it would be much of a surprise to most here. But I would have expected this sort of article more in a magazine like the Robb Report than in the New Yorker, which has an editorial stance but still purports to be more independent from such influences.

But I do not equate being able to string together expressive sentences with great intelligence, any more than musicians who can make musical statements at a profound level are always sensible about topics expressed in words. It usually does mean wide reading (which is how writers fill their heads with good examples) but probably not at a deeply technical level.

Normally, when writing about audiophiles, an author would find examples of audiophiles of various persuasions whose experiences he would recount. That way, he's the fly on the wall and can maintain more journalistic independence. If the article is about boutique products, then he would talk about those who make such products and their backgrounds, or their business strategies, or whatever. If the article is about great debates in the audio world, he would be expected to provide quotes from competing experts.

But I think the article is only about being one of the cool kids based on how much money is spent, and that's why I think it belongs in a class-aspirational lifestyle mag like the Robb Report, rather than a magazine like the New Yorker that claims more elevated standards.

It's the same in the wristwatch community. Few of the usual authors really understand how watches work or how they are made (or their history beyond the often-manufactured histories on brand web pages), and are left only with their own opinions colored as they are by their own context. There seems to be a cadre of authors who peddle their writing to a range of magazines, but they are obviously free-lance writers who noted a market for that topic and stepped in to fill it. Lots of amateur bloggers in that world, too. At least a watch is clearly a man-jewelry accessory, so brand and aesthetics are the primary attributes and nobody with a modicum of intelligence is confused by that.

There are so many directions this article could have gone that would be more interesting than what he wrote.

Of course, the editors don't always agree with a technically accurate approach--they may be all wrong, too. Consider the challenges John Atkinson has faced all these years in trying to keep Stereophile a magazine of depth, when his corporate overlords have continually tried to change it to a broad and shallow approach. We may disagree with the way Stereophile reviews describe their impressions, but their reviews are backed up by data (and when they aren't, the mismatch between measurements and those stated impressions is noted). I know all about non-technical editors who make decisions based on their own mythology. I once wrote articles for Triathlete magazine on bicycle technology, but that came to an end after I said something the editor disagreed with, and a change in ownership had removed my chief patron on the masthead.

Rick "who has had a taste of both sides of this issue" Denney

Yeah, I don't agree with some that he's an especially good writer. I found this smug and incurious, while being credulous in the extreme. Or, in other words, typical of the average TAS prat.

This is not someone looking to learn about what makes for good audio. This is an insufferable prig looking for new chums and validation.

There's been remarks here about how this was written in 2018, as if there has been some paradigm shift since then. There hasn't been. Does anyone doubt that he would have written the same things had it been just last week? Peter Aczel had nimrods like this nailed back in the early '90s, if not before. And there is nothing here that Fremer didn't ejaculate in his analog wet dreams since, oh, forever.

In fact, Fremer has always been a petty, vile person, and the fact that his smarm worked on Denby here says all you need to know about the both of them. Fortunately, audio is a lot more fun and enjoyable than either of these toffee-nosed twits will ever understand.
 

rdenney

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Either you go with the darkroom workflow or you do digital. Scanning film negs is a pointless halfway house.

How do you propose to make large-format photographs, then?

Until there is a workable 4x5 digital back that 1. Exists, and 2. I can afford it, halfway is as close as I can get.

Rick “who has all the darkroom parts from his decades of darkroom use, but gets results closer to his visualization with scanning” Denney
 
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HiFidFan

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Speaking of audiophile writing, I was just reading a speaker review and came across this paragraph:

"They are one of the most involving loudspeakers on the market and music comes across with feeling and great emotional connection. That is probably the most important aspect of their design. That level of emotional connection with the music."

Sounds like Andrew Robinson
 

TulseLuper

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How do you propose to make large-format photographs, then?

Until there is a workable 4x5 digital back that 1. Exists, and 2. I can afford it, halfway is as close as I can get.

Rick “who has all the darkroom parts from his decades of darkroom use, but gets results closer to his visualization with scanning” Denney

I just made a 40x70 inch print from a 6x7cm Fuji Velvia slide and a serious drum scan. I know of no better way to get what I'm looking for much of the time. However, for every large print like that I've spent dozens of hours flatbed wet scanning roll after roll for the images to end up buried on a hard drive.

Tulse "tragically attached to my Mamiya 7ii" Luper
 

rdenney

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I just made a 40x70 inch print from a 6x7cm Fuji Velvia slide and a serious drum scan. I know of no better way to get what I'm looking for much of the time. However, for every large print like that I've spent dozens of hours flatbed wet scanning roll after roll for the images to end up buried on a hard drive.

Tulse "tragically attached to my Mamiya 7ii" Luper

That’s the same as me with my Pentax 67. I use a Nikon film scanner, and get about as good results as possible without drum-scanning. It gives me about 90 megapixels, and is good enough for 12x enlargements. I can’t do any better than 4x with a flatbed, but my usual print size is 16x20 and 4x is enough with 4x5 film.

Wet scanning is about contrast (and avoidance of Newton rings), and so if I’m going for a Velvia/Cibachrome look, it won’t be enough. I do get very good results, however, with monochrome prints.

But I don’t use large format to make large prints so much as for the exceptional image control, particularly the attitude of the focus plane.

For this photo, the Sinar was pointed straight down, shifted, with swings and tilts to run the focus plane as much as possible down the stair treads. At 16x20, even scanned using an Epson flatbed, one has the impression a microscope would reveal cell structure. The negative was Fuji 160C color negative film, which isn’t saturated, and I converted it to monochrome. A print has an aged sepia look, but with something more. No darkroom process could have pulled this off without a LOT of work and intermediate steps.

stairs_lores_bw.jpg


I just don’t think I could have managed the focal plane effectively with my Pentax 645Z.

The flatbed isn’t good enough to make a 16x20 print from 6x7 film.

I once had a project to make a photo of a very old and unrestored stained-glass window with enough resolution to print it at 1.5 times life size on clear film. (The print would have been about 5x8 feet, for a church that had relocated but couldn’t bring the old window with them.) I didn’t think a single sheet of 4x5 would do without drum scanning, and the budget didn’t permit it. So, I made three 6x12 strips of the old window, covering the top, middle, and bottom, using Ektar. My Nikon scanner only goes to 6x9, so I used the strip holder and scanned each end of the 6x12 frame. That gave me six overlapping scans. After merging them using Photomerge, I have an image of something like 350 megapixels.

Getting a perfect merge was easy just by using the geared rise and fall of the rear standard of my Sinar P.

The image looked real even from minimum viewing distance when printed on paper. The project was abandoned in the end—the church raised money quickly enough to fund a real stained-glass window with no need for an interim.

film_composite_downsampled.JPG


Rick “could have used a scanning back for the window, but at MUCH higher cost” Denney
 
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TulseLuper

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V800 wet scans take care of my personal needs up to 13x19 which is the best I can do at home. I had an Opticfilm 120 for a bit - got better resolution, but it was such a disaster to use I donated it. Every time I get a drum scan, though, I'm blown away by the quality in every respect, and I consider it near mandatory for any print that leaves my house. There's a lab near me that allows DIY access to their drum scanners and charges just $15/drum. Pretty sweet deal, although I prefer having the technician do it anyway.

I don’t use large format to make large prints so much as for the exceptional image control, particularly the attitude of the focus plane.

Indeed, and I use the Mamiya 7 largely for ergonomic reasons, and because I love how the wide angles work. But the resolution over my digital bodies has cemented it's place in my toolkit.

Nice photos @rdenney
 

mocenigo

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Here's a hint of bias: "(not cut off, as it is in most digital recordings)" when describing recorded piano decay.

More that is unsubstantiated: "Years ago, many refused to believe in the LP, but, really, anyone with a decent setup could have proved this to you: a well-recorded LP was warmer, more natural, more musical than a compact disk." Followed by the assertion that the solution to the CD "problem" was DSD, SACD, etc.--basically higher resolution digital.

"anyone" Yet Herbert von Karajan predicted nobody would ever listen to analog recordings again because digital (and here we are talking about early CD prototypes, with crappy 12 or 14 bit ADCs and DACs) was so obviously superior to his ears – and he set immediately to re-record as much music he could digitally...
 

mocenigo

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Here's a hint of bias: "(not cut off, as it is in most digital recordings)" when describing recorded piano decay.

Beloved example. In my opinion this is more due to the presence of noise. With a higher noise - which may include environmental - floor (for instance, also digital but in a live recording) the decay of the piano harmonics sort of disappears under the noise, and one does not easily hear when this happens. Whereas if the background is totally black (HA!) one can determine when it falls under one's own audibility threshold.
 
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